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Studies show that we have over fifty thousand thoughts per day. Think of all the things you say to yourself that you’d rather not or that you try to overcome or defeat.
In simple terms, the language you use to describe your circumstances determines how you see, experience, and participate in them and dramatically affects how you deal with your life and confront problems both big and small.
Negative self-talk can not only put us in a bad mood, it can leave us feeling helpless. It can make small problems seem bigger—and even create problems where none existed before.
Here’s the breaking news: your self-talk is fucking you over and in ways you can’t even begin to imagine.
The more you tell yourself how hard something is, the harder it will actually seem.
How willing are you to consider that your life is the way it is, not because of the weight of your circumstances or situation, but rather the weight of self-talk that pulls you down? That what you think you can and cannot do is influenced much more directly by some subconscious response than by the reality of life itself?!
One of the beautiful things about really taking a hard look at your life and goals is that doing so forces you to reevaluate the path that leads to them. Is exercising thirty minutes a day really as impossible as your mind has built it up to be? Sure, you’re going to get a little sweaty and tired but you can throw on your favorite music to help the time go by faster. And, even though it might start out painfully, you’ll eventually get used to that and grow stronger.
The truth of it is, you are winning at the life you have.
But just like a captain facing a major squall, you can’t just let yourself be tossed about. You have to step up and steer your life back in the direction you want it to go.
Face your problems as they come, one by one; give them the attention they need and move on. Bundling them all together into a morass of confusion and letting them overwhelm you just won’t help.
Our minds naturally play tricks on us, twisting and distorting our thoughts in ways that are not always rational. Even though we’d like to think we’re always logical, we’re not. We’re at the mercy of cognitive biases, emotions, and misconceptions and most of it is completely unseen by us.
We want to be driven. We think a more productive mood will chauffeur us through life, a confident mood will make things easier or more doable. But if you want to get to where you’re going, you’ll have to take the wheel.
These goals ARE possible. However, don’t be fooled by the self-help bullshit that tells you “You deserve it!” Because you don’t. No one does. That conversation will leave you waiting and wanting and eventually a complete victim to your own life. Sometimes you just have to grind it out, stake your claim, and hustle for what you want. You will need to quite literally make it happen.
Anyone who’s ever gone to the gym knows that the results aren’t immediate. You don’t spend thirty minutes on the treadmill and look like a new person. But that doesn’t mean what you’re doing isn’t working. You’re making progress. With each exercise, each step, each movement, each action, you get a little better, a little closer.
Take a moment to examine that situation, and you’ll soon realize that your anger was a product of expectations. The gap between how it is and how it should have been. You harbor an unspoken expectation that people in your life will be agreeable, you expect them to tell the truth and follow through on any agreements you have with them. Expect, expect, expect. And when they don’t match those expectations? Oh boy!
Many of us expect our partners to be a certain way consistently, or to anticipate our needs and know exactly what we’re feeling, as if by magic. But your partner, like you, is an imperfect human with his or her own set of complicated emotions and thoughts. So it’s appropriate that they may sometimes be distracted or get short with you after a bad day. We often expect other people to treat us exactly as we treat them. If we do them a favor, we expect to get the same favor back in return. It becomes an unspoken “debt” of sorts.
You won’t believe how much your interactions with other people will improve the moment you let go of expecting, the instant you learn to accept things as they happen.
Don’t expect victory or defeat. Plan for victory, learn from defeat. The expectation of people loving you or respecting you is a pointless exercise, too. Be free to love them the way they are and be loved the way that they love you. Free yourself from the burden and melodrama of expectation; let the chips fall where they may.
If you want your life to be different, you have to make it happen.
You can’t sit around waiting for the right mood to strike or for life to play out the way you want it to. Nor can you rely on positive thinking alone to transform things for the better. You have to go out and do.
Take a long, hard look at your life. Be honest with yourself, identify the behaviors that are holding you back. You need to use every waking hour of your life to further your cause, no excuses. You’re not any different or any worse off than anyone else. You’re not a fucking special case who needs different rules than everyone else.
