More on this book
Community
Kindle Notes & Highlights
I still gave in to immediate gratification rather than focusing on lasting happiness.
The payoff is so much bigger than immediate gratification!
“The punishment of every disordered mind is its own disorder.”
if you don’t have your shit together, it’s that very lack of togetherness that becomes your sentence to pain and suffering.
To be asleep in your day-to-day means to be living it without awareness. To let your bullshit take the lead. And living this way has its consequences.
when you have to sit with the consequences of your actions, and you really don’t want to live with them, you almost have no choice but to gain a new perspective and become a different person.
All these events—these bottoms—I don’t believe they’re random accidents. I believe they’re chapters building up to something much greater. Pieces in a lesson plan of higher design, marking the beginning of your next semester of life.
Flatlining, whether you want to take that literally or metaphorically, might be just what we all need to snap out of the trance of our own bullshit and wake the fuck up.
these monsters cannot eat when you’re living right. Why? Because they have no food. Their food is your attention. Their food is your trust. Their food is your unthinking obedience.
But no matter what form your Control Monster ends up taking, they all serve the exact same purpose: to manage anxiety, and make sure you’re safe and successful.
Control is having power over a situation, yourself, or others, and being able to influence what goes down.
If we call someone a controlling person, that usually means they’re somebody who never wants to let go of the wheel. They always want to be the driver. The one who determines the direction.
When you can’t release control, you’re uptight and tense. You might never ask for help or you refuse it when it comes, because you don’t want someone else coming in and messing things up.
In the sneaky version of this monster, one of its key methods of control is avoidance. If certain situations or people make you feel anxious, you’ll steer clear of them. And for a lot of people, one of the biggest causes of anxiety we avoid is conflict.
Let’s take failure as an example. Nobody wants to feel like a failure or have a plan they care about go wrong. And if the Control Monster sees failure as a potential outcome at the end of the road, it can try to avoid that outcome by jumping into action nonstop.
If you don’t believe that you could succeed or handle any outcome short of success, you might pursue another, safer road.
you can’t fail if you never try in the first place.
Any form of control is really just protection. And you get protective because you’re afraid. And you’re afraid because you don’t trust. Let me say it again: Any form of control, at the end of the day, is really just protection. And you get protective because you’re afraid of something bad happening. And the reason you’re afraid of something bad happening again is because you don’t trust yourself or others to handle a situation.
Because in the past, when somebody else was supposed to be in control, a situation likely turned out bad for you.
Not having any control over my life as a child has lead me to be controlling as an adult. Being fearful if things going wrong.
It comes along and thinks that if it can control everything from now on, then you’ll be safe.
This is where my anxiety was birth. When I think about the things I’m anxious about, I try to avoid them by all means possible to prevent the fear that comes along with it…. Example - riding in an elevator.
In the face of scary situations, your brain wants to choose either fight or flight. And way back when, the Control Monster chose whichever option felt the smartest at the time.
when you stop trusting other people, and start thinking your way is the only way, you may start acting like you’re the smartest person in the universe.
every time your stubborn, self-centered ass says, I don’t need help, I’ll do it myself or No, let’s do it my way, the Control Monster grows.
On the other hand, when you use avoidance as protection, you’re strapping huge limitations on yourself and what’s possible in your life.
There’s so much you never take a chance on, because it involves even the smallest amount of risk. Your dreams might sit on the shelf, collecting dust. You miss out on so many amazing things you could have done and people you could have met. You miss out on the exhilarating adventure that is life, because you were busy clinging to safety and certainty.
Before you know it, you’re burned out, and you’re surrounded by unfinished piles of half-assed results.
You need to arrive at the point where you stop and think, God, I’m so lonely. I’m so unhappy. I never saw how I’ve spent so much time avoiding people, and not chasing the goals I’m afraid to fail at, and not speaking up for myself. It’s made me feel safe in the short term, but I think I’m actually worse off for it. I’ve been the biggest thing holding myself back. And the pain of your avoidance finally outweighs the payoff of comfort, and you’re pushed to make a change.
Just because people aren’t like you doesn’t mean they’re not capable.
when you’re so worried about people doing it wrong, you never give them a chance to do it right. This monster doesn’t allow you to empower others because it’s too busy trying to control them.
When you try something new, and start stepping into your fears a little bit, suddenly the playing field of life becomes ten times bigger. You’re exposed to so many more opportunities. By taking a chance on losing, you also get the opportunity to win. And most of the time, you probably will. After all, success is in getting it done, not in what other people think. That’s something that, once the monster leaves, you learn you can’t control.
It’s only when we trust each other, rely on each other, and give each other our best instead of saving it for ourselves
that we can experience the full banquet of life. We might even experience heaven on earth.
The first thing to understand if you want to be free is that letting go is the only way.
What we see in both these cases is a simple formula: I feel anxiety. I try to manage someone else to alleviate my anxiety.
Stress is a limiter. The less we feel, the more we can take on.
So, the first step in training the Control Monster is letting go and giving chances—both to yourself and others.
So the second step to take if you want to train the monster is to give it something better to do. Let’s...
This highlight has been truncated due to consecutive passage length restrictions.
when you apply control to yourself, that requires a lot of surrender and acceptance.
Every priority requires self-control. It’s useful anytime you want to change a habit. Whether that’s taking bolder risks, having hard conversations, getting off alcohol or nicotine or fast food, or getting into the gym at dawn every single morning. None of that is going to happen by itself.
Paired with awareness, self-control allows you to correct yourself and improve.
Self-awareness plus self-control equals the best possible life you could ever hope for.
The more you chase comfort, the more unhappy you become. Because happiness isn’t about being comfortable; it’s about growing and improving. And by nature, growing is not comfortable.
I believe that walking your path to happiness involves a healthy dose of fighting spirit.
Remember, happiness isn’t some finish line way off in the distance. It’s something you can experience with every step along the way and every play you make.
It’s easy to be happy when things are going your way. But true success is still being happy when they’re not, knowing that eventually, you will prevail, because you’re the one writing the rules of this game.
