The Challenge of Change
Remember that moment when you had your heart set towards something and then the unexpected happened?
Perhaps it was that expense that suddenly emerged out of nowhere.
Or maybe it was a business partner that decided to opt out of your new entrepreneurial endeavor.
Either way, there's one thing that we can all relate to when it comes to this experience and that's the unpleasant, often painful, emotions associated with it.
So what do we do? How do we cope? Or better yet, how do we overcome these emotions in order to reorient ourselves properly?
The key to change is acceptance and adaptability. Without the willingness to accept reality for what it is we will continue to suffer unnecessarily. Does this mean we approve of what happened? Not at all, but we must be willing to realize this is the reality of the situation. What's done is done.
The Pareto principle, also known as the 80/20 rule is a great principle to go by when it comes to this. Take 20% of your time acknowledging the issuing at hand, determining what there is to learn from the situation, and then immediately reorient 80% of your time to focusing on the solution.
Every time you find your mind ruminating on the thoughts of what had happened, immediately start considering the solution and focusing on the progress that's been made. Will this make you feel better immediately? It can, but it's likely you'll find yourself slowly, but surely finding yourself moving towards a place of progress and growth. In time, just like with any challenge we face, it will see it's way far behind you, and you'll be all the better for it.
Consider a tree that gets struck by lightening. Part of the tree is damaged, maybe some large branches are completely severed from the trunk. The tree doesn't concern itself with the pain it's experienced from the unexpected, but rather immediately begins the process of repair and growth. It reorients itself towards the Sun.
We have some major advantages over plants in this regard, but the idea is the same. You're hit from the unexpected. We can learn from the occurrence to see how we can prevent it from happening again, mitigate the damages, and grow from the experience. Then we reorient ourselves towards the goal.
If you're struggling with reorienting yourself, then it's time to get the clarity you need to move forward again. Reach out to me at iamchrisgoode@gmail.com and we can discuss how to take the next steps to move from stuck, stressed, or overwhelmed into the clarity and confidence you need to perform at your best so you can get the results you want out of business and life.
Overcoming the Undermining Caused by People Pleasing
We can often look to others to affirm our value as a person and give us a sense of worth in our community. While there is an importance in recognizing how you're contributing to society, it's also crucial to make sure this is an outflow of who you are as opposed to an inflow of consuming validation. When our focus is on receiving what others can give us we may inadvertently be undermining our capacity to give to ourselves effectively diminishing our self-trust and self confidence in meeting our own needs.
In simple terms, an unhealthy desire to seek the acceptance of others is most certainly a sign we don't accept ourselves. This may be destroying our self-belief as we betray our own values, ideals, and needs in order to fulfill the desires of others. Now there's a fine line between healthy self-love and self-absorption which leads to narcissim. One is focused on loving one's self to the benefit of others and self, where as the other is loving one's self to the benefit of self and the detriment of others.
When we're struggling with people pleasing, the first thing we can do to empower ourselves is by determining what we truly value. For me, my top five values are integrity, wisdom, love, freedom, and growth. When I'm not honest with others, overextending myself to meet their needs to my own detriment, I'm effectively betraying myself and causing myself much unneccessary suffering.
As people we love to be aligned, in congruence with our words, thoughts, actions, emotions, and beliefs. When these don't match up, we find ourselves in a state of cognitive dissonance, and we're not aligned. For someone such as myself where integrity is a high value, this is particularly poignant. Understanding what's truly important to you from your values, goals, and relationships will make things more clear when it comes to telling people yes or no.
A good rule of thumb is unless it's an emphatic "YES!", then it's clearly a no. This is a discipline and it'll take time for those of us who struggle with people pleasing, but bear in mind, self-discipline is in effect self-love. We are sacrificing the present self for the future ideal. It's no different then having a child and making decisions with regard to their wellbeing for the future.
Some relationships don't serve the direction of your life. Some people you'll say "no" to will not respect the boundary that you're putting in place. By being prepared for this by having the expectation ahead of time will make it much easier as you let go of the people who aren't building you up to move towards people who do. Just remember, as you do this, become what it is that you seek in life. If you wish to have people who respect your decisions, be willing to respect the boundaries of others.
True Control
Adversity and obstacles all present themselves in a seemingly innumerable amount of ways. The order of your life can become completely unsettled by the chaos that erupts from nowhere at any moment. Whether this is a relationship that's been torn by infidelity, a collision between vehicles, or illness that arises. We are subject to the pressure that challenges present to us when they occur and it's how we choose to respond in the midst of these difficulties that will either refine us for our betterment or damage us for our detriment. The difference lies in the choice we make and how we respond.
First, we don't have control over the large majority of our life. We may possess the illusion of control, but we don't have control. Whether it's our reputation, health, finances, relationships, or any number of other things, while we may influence these, we are not the final authority on determining the outcome. What we do possess is the power to choose how to respond to any given event. I'm not denying the tears or the pain, but I'm offering you a better way of responding as opposed to reacting.
There are two things you ultimately control, how you choose to respond and the meaning you give something. Everything else is out of your hands. As I said, you may influence things, but ultimately you don't have the final authority on the outcome of things. Recognize this and you possess true strength and real power. You free yourself from trying to pull every lever and control every outcome. It's from this place that your mind becomes truly adaptable to any given situation, becoming empowered by the reality of any moment rather than disempowered.
The Mindset to Change Everything
We have the capacity to be so much greater than what we are, but this isn't a reason to diminish who we are right now. I believe it's a moral imperative to actuate our potential, but why? Well let's flip that question on itself. Why not? Unless we've reached a point of hopelessness and despair, believing the future to be bleak (and if you do believe this then read till the end), then we are likely aiming to make things better than what they are. It's a naturally intuitive aspect of being human. Even as a child without much conscious agency you were growing from nature, acquiring new skills, talents, and traits to ideally operate and function in the world as optimally as possible.
Your life has a seemingly limitless potential to it, but you must be the one to take action to bring this about. You can become what you choose to be. We can get trapped into the unhelpful perspective of looking to the world demanding something from it without first becoming the very thing we wish to see. You want more love in the world? Become and embody the very thing you seek. You want more peace? Become and embody the very thing you seek. You want more joy and laughter? Become and embody the very thing you seek. This is the possibility of more love, peace, joy, laughter, and any other beautiful quality you can imagine, and these are awaiting to be activated within the core of being so that you might bring them about in a world that desperately needs them.
Let's focus on what we can control and that's how we choose. Let's choose to be and let's choose to act in a way that influences and inspires change. If you believe the future is bleak, then start becoming someone who makes the future look bright. If you believe your fundamentally broken then do what's necessary to become whole (the only thing that stands in the way is your willingness to find the answers and if you believe you're still broken you need to keep looking). If you believe this world is a bad place, then become the person that makes it good. It starts with you and it starts with me.
Tragedy Can Be the Seed of Triumph
Have you ever endured something so difficult that during that time you couldn't imagine finding yourself on the other side? More than likely, yes, because most, if not all of us in some measure have faced tragedy that was daunting to say the least. However, over time there's going to likely be two responses to this adversity that we've been faced with and that's either post-traumatic stress or post-traumatic growth.
Fear is our response to the unknown, it's a sensor, and our relationship to this sensor will dictate absolutely everything about our lives if we don't respond to it in a productive and healthy way. I like using the analogy of lifting weights because it's something that has always been a huge part of my life and I think most people can visualize what I'm about to describe. When you go to the gym, you don't want lift too much weight too fast, this could damage the muscle to the point of exhaustion and injure your ability to make progression.
Now we know with lifting through the process of linear progression you can overload the muscle just enough to get an adaptive response which will produce muscle growth, strength, and improved body composition. This is no different than your psyche, confidence, and fear. The actions of confidence come before the feelings of confidence, which means you have to get in the gym of life and lift, pushing through the discomfort, before you can truly enjoy the results of a good physique or psyche.
When we are confronted with something that stresses our being too much, it damages us, but also if we experience no stressors at all we don't grow. When I refer to stressors here, it's no different than saying fear or uncertainty. The only difference here is we are talking about the realm of the mind as opposed to the physical realm of the body, but they cross paths and most certainly interact. An unhealthy body will absolutely contribute to an unhealthy mind and eventually an unhealthy mind will contribute to an unhealthy body.
Your mind and body grow from becoming more competent to the stressors of life by taking uncertainty and converting into certainty, taking the unknown and making it the known, taking what's in the dark and shining a light on it so that it can be seen. When tragedy strikes, we are being confronted with something that is enormously challenging and perhaps even overwhelming. This can be damaging to the psyche and takes time to recover from. It’s in the process of recovery though that we can choose whether we live in a state of perpetual fear that’s stored in our body and psyche or if we experience perpetual growth.
This is why tragedy can be the seed to triumph. It’s in the process of recovering from adversity and healing from the pain that we can grow just like a broken bone, stronger than ever before. You just need to make sure you set the bone right before it heals. Isn’t that what tragedy does? It hits us to the core and snaps a part of us, awakening us to a new way of viewing the world, reality, and human nature. It’s in that changing of our perception that our being can go from one degree of greatness to another – if we choose to do just that. That’s what it comes down to, do we choose the seed of triumph to grow from tragedy or allow the tragedy to perpetuate its own cycle of misery? At any moment we can change the outcome by one decision, choose wisely.
Intentionality Creates Freedom
Have you ever woken up to that feeling of slight panic as the day before you has yet to begin, but you dread what's to come next? I certainly have and if you're someone who's experiencing that, I can absolutely empathize with you. It's awful when you look at your life and see something that you either allowed to be created by the hands, opinions, and beliefs of others or that by simple inaction grew into something you find displeasure in, perhaps even hatred.
I want to take a moment to encourage you though as you read this. Self-awareness is the first key to personal freedom. It's only in recognizing something about ourselves that isn't optimal in life that we can take action or have the self-discipline to correct it and adapt so that we can free ourselves from our unneccessary sufferings.
Perhaps it was the people-pleasing that worked so well as a child to get people to like you, but now that you've quieted your voice so much for the sake of making others happy, you've in turn become something that's not aligned with who you truly are. That cognitive dissonance or being inconsistent in your being is a source of tremendous internal suffering. When we live in alignment with our values and beliefs we feel consistent and therefore true to our nature and being, but to do the opposite makes us feel broken and saps us of all self-confidence.
Allow me to elaborate a bit further on this point with an analogy. Think of your life as a garden and you happen to be the gardener. The one thing you absolutely control is the meaning you give anything and your ability to choose. When we don't act intentionally, the garden becomes overtaken with all manner of unpleasantries, whereas if we tend to greenery with intentionality, we have the opportunity to create something beautiful and meaningful.
Now you may be thinking in your mind that this doesn't look good. Maybe your garden is a very rough looking place. Here's the great thing though, you don't need to get caught up in the macro of your desired outcome and goal. When we see something that we want to endeavor on and accomplish we may have this propensity to see a goal like climbing Mt. Everest. Then comes the overthinking because we are afraid and maybe with the right strategy we can do it, but the thinking leads to more thinking and nothing gets done, which makes us despair and diminishes our confidence further.
When you have a life that's in turmoil, you don't look at the peak of the mountain, you look at your feet and figure out what's the smallest actionable step you can take towards accomplishing your desired outcome. Maybe it's the pile of important papers stacked up on your desk that you haven't been taking care of. What if you just worked on few? It's small enough that it's not overwhelming, but it's big enough so that if you were to do this consistently over the course of days or months eventually you'd see the end. That's what you need to do!
If your garden is overtaken with weeds, you need pull one weed at a time. If being unintentional can cause disaster, imagine what your life would be like if you were more intentional with your health, your food choices, your social life, the friends you hang out with, the activities you engage in, the things you listen to, and anything else that has a meaningful impact on your wellbeing. You can turn what you feel to be tragedy into triumph. You can take the steps. Focus on the progress and only take note of what's not working so you can error correct and adapt.
I'll leave you with this, if you're in this place of profound struggle, I'd encourage in the morning to write in a journal at least 5 things that you're grateful for (be specific). This will train your mind to begin looking for things that you have rather than what you lack, giving you a sense of contentment as your progressing in life. It will also give you a much more positive outlook on life cause it can always be worse, but now you have the opportunity to make it better.
The last thing is to write in your journal at night and this will be particularly helpful for those of us who are deeply self-critical. I want you to write at least 5 things that you're proud of that you did today. It can be as simple as "I'm proud I brushed my teeth in the morning", and real talk, for those who struggle with depression, even a task like that can seem daunting. This will train your mind to recognize progress and to train your mind from being in a fixed mindset to a growth mindset. Actions triumph everything. It doesn't need to be perfect, you just need to put in the effort and actually try. With time and experience you will grow wiser and become better.
Self-Love Is a Moral Imperative
One of my favorite quotes is from Grant Cardone and it goes like this: "success is your duty, obligation, and responsibility." Have you ever considered self-improvement a moral imperative? What I mean is that have you ever considered loving yourself, actuating your seemingly limitless potential, and allowing that to positively impact those around you an ethical matter? Jesus Christ wisely said, "love others as you... love yourself." That's the golden rule and often we consider the loving others part without the implication of loving self.
We have no idea how great we can become. We have no idea that in our pain may be the cure, not just for ourselves, but for others as well. It's through that process of refinement that we may inevitably be able serve others in a way which we couldn't have in our previous state of being. As we develop virtue and work diligently to become our best selves, climbing from one level of success to another, we are able to help far more than before we began. Does this diminish what we did before we evolved? Of course not, but if it's in our capacity and ability to help others and serve more then why wouldn't we?
When you see that the degree to which you master yourself is directly linked to your capacity to love others then you will see that self-development and success aren't just internet self-help tropes, but a moral and ethical imperative, a necessity. If there was some cure that could rid people of disease and the government was hiding it, we'd cry in outrage. What you need to realize is that within you is the cure for something, it's a treasure deep within, and there's only one way to find out what that is, which means digging deep to untap your potential. Your life matters, probably far more than what you realize.
Your New Beginning
Have you ever had an occurrence in your life that was so intense, earth-shaking, and perhaps seeming even cataclysmic? Well that was at the beginning of 2018. The foundation of my worldview, beliefs, and sense of self came undone. I realized that my current model of the world didn't suffice. I recognized that the way in which I was operating and being was not helpful in allowing me to proceed forward towards my desired outcome. I know knew that I had to change the way I see everything.
I'll definitely share with you all in the future what occurred, but for now I want to discuss this topic specifically. What do we do when we have a revolutionary experience in our life that causes our worldview, the map and subjective interface by which we navigate life, to come undone? This can leave you feeling deep melancholy, despair, depression, and of course pervasive anxiety. Well if you're feeling overwhelmed by life because what you thought you knew to be true came face to face with a reality that was in stark contrast to the way things really are then you're in good hands.
The first thing I would encourage you to do is recognize where you are. You have to be honest with yourself. You have to see how you came to be in this place. This isn't about crucifying yourself over past decisions or to condemn yourself for falling short of your ideal. This is about seeing where you erred and begin the process of error correcting. You can think of an event like this as a higher truth or in some ways, a sort of internal gravity, aligning our perception to reality as it is and not as we think it is or should be. It may be deeply painful because our expectations were shattered, but the process of healing will bring something forth so much more meaningful and resilient than what was there before.
The second thing that I would recommend is deciding where you want to go. You have to have something worthy of aiming for. If you don't have a compelling future then you have nothing that pulls you towards it. You won't be spurred to act without this. Perhaps it's just being better than what you were yesterday. That's not too difficult. Everyday just focusing on improving a certain aspect of your being so that you function more productively, efficiently, and gain mastery over your life while reestablishing order. Maybe you want to be really good at a particular thing. You may not even be passionate about that initially, but as you get better that labor turns into a passion and that passion is generated through the process of mastery.
The third thing is recognizing that remaining where you are without changing will only continue the pain. Doing nothing will not only cause you to remain in the aftermath of this event, but over the course of time atrophy will only cause more disorder and chaos in your life. To do nothing is to incapacitate yourself, to prevent yourself from actuating your potential and you have no idea how great you could become. It's to stifle your ability to love others while simultaneously preventing yourself from loving those around you in a greater degree as you reestablish order in your life. This also needs to take into account that by doing nothing others have to pick up where you aren't willing to - you're better than that, because your capable of being better than you already are.
I know this is difficult. I know the pain seems unbearable. I realize that the depression may be choking off motivation. I see that the sadness may bring rains that seem like they'll never dissipate. It's hard, but it's worth it. I promise you that if you put forth the effort things will get better. You may have to change your strategy, you may have to change the way your perceive things, but it starts with these and it continues with action. Action turns a disaster into a paradise, but you need to be willing to take those steps. The steps laid forth here are about using pain to push away from something and using pleasure to pull us towards something. Leverage these for your benefit and watch your life transform. As Lao Tzu wisely said thousands of years ago, "new beginnings are often disguised as painful endings." This is your new beginning.
Redirecting Our Focus
How often have you caught yourself ruminating over something that only made you feel down?
How often has your focus been on something you can't control?
How often has your attention been towards seeing the limitations and only the negative aspect of a given situation or person?
We all struggle with this at times in our lives and if we aren't careful we're consumed by them and ultimately miss opportunities to overcome or gain momentum in a particular area of our life.
There's a phrase I love that goes like this: "where the focus goes, the energy flows". When you put your attention on something your energy is feeding that specific thing. Think about it, you have a job, you put your focus on the task at hand, and your energy sees it to completion. A problem we often run into however is that we place our attention on things we cannot change or control and when you couple this with a focus that is undisciplined or lackluster then it's a recipe for running in circles.
This is where people often underestimate the power of something like meditation. We think of it as some spiritual activity, but rarely consider it to be an exercise in focus. Sure there are different forms of meditation, but when you focus on the breath as your thoughts bubble up you are training your focus. Maybe you go on a rabbit chase for a moment, thinking about things you need to get done, but then when you return to the breath you are training your attention.
The better you get at focusing the easier it is to let negative thoughts drift away like clouds overhead. It also allows you to conserve energy for more meaningful matters. Think about how exhausting it is to study all day and now consider how much energy you may be potentially wasting by being taken away with negative thoughts or other matters that you simply cannot control or change in the present moment. The only thing that really matters is the present moment, giving your fullest attention to the task at hand to see it to completion.
What do you do to help with increasing your focus and attention? I use an app called Headspace which has proven to be invaluable for my daily meditation practice. I'd love to hear some alternative ways to exercising this incredibly powerful skill. Let me know in the comments below!
What Now, Why Later
Have you ever been stuck in a rut?
Like most of us, I certainly have. The difficult part of that is being in the endless cycle "Why did that happen to me?" While I certainly believe in the value of recognizing the root of specific behaviors, habits, thought patterns, etc. We must be wary of getting caught into a negative feedback loop of eternal investigation.
Let's say you go through something traumatic, catastrophic, or just simply difficult. Regardless of whether or not it's your fault, the first thing that must be acknowledged is your ability to change the situation your in, specifically what you can control. Accept responsibility over your current behavior, and focus on what can be done to steer yourself in the right direction, back towards your North Star, your ideal.
It's by asking what that we break ourselves of the why. It's the what that promotes thought changing behavior which will guide us towards the position of strength, where as why is like looking at the rubble and wondering how you got there, but no action is being taken to fix it. As I said, there's value in that, but this should be superseded by what we need to do in order to recover. As you strengthen your position, you'll be able to see more clearly since the emotional weight of the situation is no longer as heavy on you as it was.
Try: What will make me feel better?
Instead of: Why do I feel like crap all the time?
Try: What can I do today in order reduce anxiety?
Instead of: Why am I so anxious?
Try: What can I do so that I can lose weight?
Instead of: Why am I so overweight?
What makes us focus on the positive, the change which we can create, as opposed to the negative where we may be lacking. The answer to the why is usually implicit in the what. As you do what needs to be done to get better you'll realize why you were holding yourself back, or how you got into that position to begin with. So what are you going to do today?
With An End In Mind
What's your aim?
Where are you trying to go with your life?
Do you know the reason why you're trying to head in that direction?
Are there alternative paths to arrive there?
These are the questions we should ask ourselves when contemplating our future and what it is that we desire out of life. We head in the direction of our focus. However, often times we may be so fixated upon arriving at a specific destination, we fail to look around and look deeper. What I mean by this is that we may lack the insightfulness and self-awareness to recognize there may be alternative paths to arrive at the end we have in mind. Another thing to consider is that the destination may be one of many that could fulfill the longing we have inside of reaching that place.
What exactly does this all mean? Your skills, talents, and attributes that you acquire from any given situation in life can extend across innumerable fields. Perhaps you want to become a teacher, but that doesn't necessarily mean you have to teach in a school. Also, have you thought about the reason why you want to teach? Maybe the reason behind that is that you find a sense of fulfillment by helping others to improve their quality of life through education. Well there's many forms of education, you could be a personal trainer, teaching others how to take care of their body, or a life coach, helping others to accomplish a sense of self-actualization through teaching self-awareness.
The purpose of this is that I'd like you to consider your life and what you're pursuing from more angles than just one. Think about why you're doing what you're doing, and the end goal you have in mind. Are there other ways to accomplish this? Maybe you could get a certification, or start your own business as opposed to being hired by someone else's. What are you trying to fulfill by accomplishing this, and are there other ways to fulfill this need in your life? Don't just have a hyper focus, calculate your steps, consider the most effective route for your life. There's many ways to reach the vision you have for yourself, and the path there isn't the same for everyone. Be willing to adapt, change routes, and even consider if your destination could have other fulfilling options.
The Ideal Self: A Way or Destination?
Imagine yourself for a moment looking at your future self, your perfect ideal. Now consider how that makes you feel realizing where you're currently at. Likely, it doesn't feel very good, and reasonably so, we fall ever so short of such a figure. Our problem lies in the fact that we choose to see this ideal as a destination rather than a direction or way. We choose to see this ideal as a point of arrival compared to the compass which guides our feet ever so closer to the place we desire to be.
What if we changed the way we viewed our future self? What if we saw the ideal self as the road or pathway under our feet guiding us along in a specific direction towards perpetual growth and progress? You see, our perspective and viewpoint of this will either propel us or inhibit us in life. What if when comparing yourself to anything, instead you viewed who you were in hindsight, and took note of the progress made in all aspects of life, both the tangible and intangible?
When we choose to compare ourselves to who we were as opposed to who we want to become, we can be encouraged and empowered, especially with regard to moving forward towards a desired outcome. When you see the ideal self as a path, a way, a road, or a direction, then you can learn to enjoy the journey as opposed to finding it to be drudgery and filled with self-loathing because you never reach the destination of perfection.
So if you're pressing towards becoming something better than what you were in the past, then you're already there. Just keep moving forward, your feet are on the way, your mind is already in the ideal state, moving from one degree of growth and victory to another. Now trust the process, have confidence in the path, and love the way. Over time you'll take a moment to look back again and see just how far you've come.