Sometimes the person who annoys you the most is, unfortunately, you.
It can be for a lot of reasons:
You stayed up too late
You didn’t finish what you started,
Or didn’t start what you wanted to.
You were short with a loved one.
Or grumpy when you didn’t want to be.
You spent time ruminating over something you were determined to let go.
You ate the chocolate after swearing off sugar,
Or watched Netflix instead of exercising.
You didn’t speak up for yourself or say what you actually wanted.
You get the idea.
There is something you want to do, or someone you want to be, and you fall short.
And in enters the aggravation, discouragement, stories of self-sabotage and inadequacy.
It’s annoying, right?
We blame it on a lot of things:
Work was exhausting.
You just need a break.
It’s too much to ask.
You aren’t strong enough, or determined enough, or energized enough.
Basically anything on the too much or not enough spectrum.
Maybe you can relate.
The biggest problem with this is that annoyance and feelings of inadequacy don’t promote forward movement but rather keep us stuck, repeating behaviors that we had decided we didn’t want.
WHY DO WE DO THESE THINGS?
And maybe more importantly,
HOW DO WE STOP?
How do we take different actions and get different results than we are getting now?
Believe it or not, it starts in the aftermath.
Sometime in the next few days you are going to run into a situation like this, a situation that results in you feeling disappointed in yourself. No, I’m not a psychic or wishing bad juju on you, it’s part of the human experience.
It happens to everyone, no one is immune.
And in that moment, when you start to say, “I can’t believe that I _______” I want you to stop.
Stop for a minute. Pause. Don’t complete the sentence about disbelief in yourself.
Stop and just say, “how human of me.”
Not how stupid, or weak, or shallow of me. Nope, in the aftermath of a disappointment I want you to try and acknowledge your humanity.
No one is perfect all the time. No one achieves goals without some hiccups along the way.
And yet somehow anything less than perfection is unacceptable. If we don’t acknowledge our humanity, our imperfect humanity (same as everyone else) then the negative thoughts keep us from coming up with a loving plan for ourselves, a plan that allows for some imperfection.
The magic lies in not beating ourselves up.
And the secret to not beating ourselves up lies in the one sentence, “how human of me”.
Don’t believe me? Try it.
See if it’s more motivating to tell yourself “I never follow through” or “how human of me”. Only one of those sentences will spark problem solving and creativity.
It’s why I can love my job AND not want to go to work on Monday morning. It doesn’t mean anything has gone wrong. It doesn’t mean that I’m not evolved enough or that I am working in the wrong field.
It just means the human part of me would like to stay in bed and read while drinking coffee. In the moment, that sounds better than going to work.
It’s normal.
It’s ok.
Obviously we all get up and go to work (most of the time). We are able to tap into that higher level thinking of what we want in the future more than what we want in the moment. We want the things that working gives to us, both the tangibles and the intangibles.
We want the paycheck; we want to be able to provide for our needs. But we also want the satisfaction of doing important work, we want to make a difference.
And we expect ourselves to keep going, even if there are times we don’t feel like it.
So let’s keep going WITHOUT beating ourselves up
Let’s expect that we are going to pursue things in our lives imperfectly, sometimes opting for a delay in the results for a break in the moment.
How human of us.
Is beating yourself up second nature to you? It can be default programming and can feel hopeless. I can help you get out of that cycle, reach out to schedule a consultation.