Get rid of the negativity in your
life. Put family
and friends which bring too much negativity toward you on freeze for now. Don't
start any trouble with them, but be less reliant on them. Also, cut back on
negativity yourself! Whenever you think something negative, say to yourself,
"That's negative and unnecessary." Keep saying that to yourself until
your brain stops completely.
Cut back on unnecessary activities
to free up time.
Any activity that does not produce a tangible result or lead you to success you
can put on freeze. For example, cutting back on a movie or going on the
computer to go on aim half as often would suffice. But be careful about
choosing which things in your life are important to you and which are not. To
avoid common errors, first make a list of things (on paper!) that you normally
do on a daily and/or weekly basis and put how much time you spend on each
activity. Then, take the items on that list and lightly cross off the things
that are useless in your life and you spend too much time on. For example, if
you watch TV for 5 hours a day, you're definitely wasting some time in your
life. If it has something to do with another person, specifically family, do
not cross it off as doing this could affect the other person badly. Next, look
at all of the things you crossed off and then at the things you still have on
your other list. Does this seem reasonable? Could you live without the things
you crossed out? Our main goal is to get you to stop spending too much time on
useless things.
Create a weekly goal list using
three colors.
·
A
black priority would be something that has to be done at a certain date and
time, without any exceptions.
·
A
red priority would be something that has to be done by the end of the day.
·
An
orange priority would be something that has to be done within less than
one-seven hours. Don't look past 7 days until the priorities are met.
Buy a few hundred index cards, or
2-3 packs. Keep at
least a half of a pack with you at all times. They are valuable in social
events and allow you to capture ideas onto paper, so you will never forget
anything. Knowing that all of your problems are in your pocket will take away
stress because you can stop thinking about them and start thinking about other
important things.
Organize most of your computer files
into 5-15 folders to make sure you have your digital priorities straight. Example folders: Work, School,
Research/Reading, Personal Writings, Weekly Goals, Music, Photos, Reminders. Also
important to get your mailbox in order there are a lot of unnecessary items in
your inbox
Write down 10 strengths you have and
how you can use them to your advantage. Write down 10 weaknesses you have and how you
can improve them. Try to improve yourself a little bit everyday but at the same
time keep this quote in mind: "Complete perfection is bliss, but when
perfection is met with humanity, it's useless." Never use the word
"perfect." Use "improved" instead. The process of
improvement is slow, but if you try to improve yourself everyday, in 6 months,
the next list you write will be very different.
Build self-esteem. Don't compare yourself to other
people and do not limit yourself to the standards of the consensus. To a
certain extent, forget judgmental strangers and give yourself enough room to
grow.
Real Self Confidence and Esteem is based in emotion, not a self-image
to build self-confidence and overcome low self-esteem is to change how we feel
emotionally about ourselves. To change our emotion requires changing two
different core beliefs about self-image. The first core belief is obvious. It
is the belief that we are not good enough. It may have a more specific
association to how we look, how smart we are, money, or lack of confidence
sexually. The second core belief to change is the image of success that we feel
we should be. Changing this belief is contrary to logic, but is a must if we
are to overcome insecurity and raise our self-esteem.
False Self Image of Perfection Cause of Low Self Esteem and Lack of
Confidence
When your mind has an image of success that you "should be" it
associates happy emotions with that picture. I call that the image of
perfection in our mind. The mind does a comparison between the image of
perfection and how you see your self-image currently. The comparison results in
judgment and self-rejection for not meeting the image of perfection. The self-rejection
results in feeling unworthy and of low self esteem
While
the image of perfection appears to be a way for us to feel good about
ourselves, it is actually causing us to reject ourselves which creates feelings
of "not being good enough." If you were to dissolve the belief that
you should fit into the image of perfection you would eliminate the self-rejection
and feelings of unworthiness that result.
Finding
and breaking my own “I’m not good enough story.”
Feelings of confidence and security mean no self-rejection.
The approach of dissolving our image of perfection sounds contrary to our sense
of logic about building confidence and esteem. This is because we have the
belief that achieving the image of perfection will result in positive happy
emotions and feeling confident with our success. Our mind has actually been programmed
to have these emotional associations. We desire to feel these feelings and
chase the image of perfection we have attached to them.
What
we may not be aware of is that achieving our image of success doesn’t
effectively change our emotional state. It doesn't do anything to permanently
change the way the voice in our head speaks to us or what we believe about
ourselves. Many times people have achieved their goals only to find themselves
still unfulfilled. Your emotional state may briefly change in the euphoria if
the immediate success. But the core belief of not being good enough and your
long term habit of self-rejection in the mind hasn’t been altered. The critical
voice in our head is more likely to put a higher goal in front of us to
achieve. It’s okay to have high goals, but you don’t have to make your love and
self-acceptance dependent on them.
Change What You Believe and You Change How You Feel Emotionally
The second belief to dissolve is that we are inadequate and somehow not good
enough. These are the beliefs that create emotions of insecurity and fear. The
emotions are not the problem they are just the resulting symptom of negative
core beliefs. The "not good enough" image is a construct of our
imagination. It is a belief about ourselves created by the mind concluding that
we are "not good enough to meet the image of perfection." A step to
changing this belief is to recognize that we the one observing the
"self" image. We cannot be the “self” image we are looking at. We are
the one doing the looking. This means the “self-image we create is really a
“non self” image. With awareness we can decide to believe in the “non self”
image or not believe in the “non self” image. Having this awareness helps shift
our point of view and is a beginning step that will help us change a belief.
Changing
the “not good enough” image is much easier once you have broken your belief in
the image of perfection. Without the image of perfection you no longer have the
comparison reinforcing the unworthy "self” image.
Make physical changes
to remind yourself that you are a new person. A haircut and new clothing would suffice.
Also, cleanse yourself spiritually and mentally to begin a lasting new
lifestyle. Meditation is a good way to do this.
Breaking down The Elements: Setting Your Head Right
There
are some general points to consider to set your expectations of change
correctly.
1.
I
can get better at this.
2.
The
journey, not the destination.
3.
Don’t
pretend you have a different life.
4.
Start now.
5.
Expect disruption.
6.
Expect failure.
7.
Remove guilt.
8.
Be patient.
9.
Live through the seasons.
10.
You are Superman/ woman.
I can get better at this.
This
is the fundamental belief you need to start changing. It’s not the same as
thinking – “I can change” – which might actually work against you. It’s the
mindset that whatever you’re going for, the goal is progress, not perfection.
The journey, not the destination.
When
people think about change, they think about intervention.
You’ll
eat less, lose 15 kilos, then that’s the end of it.
But
it doesn’t happen like that, because change is a constant process. You’re
always going to be changing something. And when you get done with changing one
thing, there’s going to be something else that emerges, some other change that
you’ll need to work on. Expecting this up front saves a lot of disappointment
down the track.
Don’t pretend you have a different
life.
This
ties in to the earlier point – whatever you’re struggling with today – making a
decision to change it doesn’t remove any of the elements in your life that make
that thing a struggle today. You are always going to revert to the mean when it
comes to motivation or optimism and you can’t expect that to change.
Picture
yourself making changes in the course of normal life, not in some idealized
world in which you have more time, energy and motivation. That place doesn’t
exist.
As
I would say: “Your future self doesn’t exist. As long as there is no future
you. All that exists is a series of present selves, all shirking responsibility
and assuming versions of themselves that don’t exist will solve their problems.
“Start now.
Equally,
the best time to start the process was yesterday. The next best time is now. It
won’t be easier after your vacation, or when you move to the new house, or when
you get the new job… it will be just as hard and you will have less time to
make the change.
So
start now, no matter how inconvenient the circumstances might be.
Expect disruption.
Every
month, you should expect that 1 in every 4 days will be impacted by sickness,
injury, travel for work, personal travel, or an intervening event like a
hangover, a soccer championship, a wedding or a hen’s night.
The
most under-rated change skill you can develop is the ability to plan in and
around those constraints.
Expect failure.
You
have to be ready to fail multiple times as you try to make something stick.
Failing isn’t a sign to stop; it’s a sign to try again. This time with more
information about what works and what doesn’t.
That’s
not how it works when it comes to change. In changing, you will encounter so
much ‘do not’ that the only thing that matters is ‘try’.
Remove guilt.
Remove
the guilt from change. If you fail, start again. Guilt and shame are HUGE
wastes of energy. Remove all your negative emotions around change, forget all
past failures and just try again. Every other approach is inefficient.
Be
patient.
You
will grossly overestimate your ability to change. Really. You want to
underestimate and then over deliver. Not the reverse.
That’s
a really good proxy for how most change happens. It takes much longer than we
want to admit.
Live through the seasons.
Your
changes will come in seasons. It’s rare they’ll last for more than 3 months
without starting to feel stale… So you’ll want to keep this in mind you’re not
changing forever, just for a short time and then you will get focused on something
else.
Note,
this isn’t the case for the ones that are fully breaking down and who are too
stubborn to change they will fall back into bad habits and old addictions like
smoking and drinking.
\You are Superman or woman.
You
are Superman. You have endless lives. You get reborn every time you decide to
try again. So don’t be afraid to try and fail.
The Old Sailor,
