Wednesday, 8 July 2020

The Horror of the Human Condition


 
We go through the twists and turns of life knowing we can do more, be more, have more and yet we’re disappointed in ourselves, because we haven’t reached our full potential. We know we can be more than we are, but we procrastinate. We don’t do as we ought. We don’t manage our time, our money, or our relationships well.

We berate ourselves, for falling short of what we think we could be. We feel shame and guilt and this causes stress and anxiety. We know we should eat healthy and exercise and yet we don’t do it. We don’t like the way we look and we berate ourselves all the more.  

We don’t like the way we behave either. We can be mean, condescending, and downright brutal at times and we don’t like ourselves for behaving this way.

We also don’t need to stay this way.

We don’t need to change everything today. We just need to take one small step of action.

Changing one thing today, will make us better than we were yesterday and it will give us hope for a better tomorrow. Hope is fundamental to enjoying life. A hopeless life puts us in a downward spiral and that’s no way to live life. To have a joyous life, we need to give ourselves something to hope in and hope for. 

We can start with having less cigarettes (drop one or two today and next week try for more) or eating an apple instead of having that biscuit. Perhaps alcohol or drugs are the issue. Do what it takes, to make one small step today. Is it a phone call, a doctor’s appointment you need? Can you throw out all sugars from your home? Remember; one small step today.

We can start with walking, instead of sitting on the lounge doing nothing, even if all we start with is 5 minutes. We can build from there. And that may be only one small action today, but let’s say we take another action tomorrow and another one and another.

In a year, or two years, or three years, you’re going to be in a much better place and feel better about yourself, but only if you take action and what better time than today? It all starts with you and it starts with one small action.

Don’t try to lose 25 kilos, when that’s never worked for you before. Try to lose 1 kilo and then another and then another. Small actions every day.

And sure, you may not be where you want to be next week, or even in 6 months but you’ll be so much better off than where you are right now, if you take action and keep at it.

You don’t have to change everything today, there just has to be some action. Without action, nothing changes. Even a small action is better than no action.

If you get to a point where you have improved 50% on where you are now, how much better will you feel about yourself?

We all want to manage the world and half of us can’t even manage our own home.

Start with looking after yourself. Start to mend relationships. Start taking care of your finances. Eat healthy, get exercise, tidy your house and move on from there.

Because you can’t change the world until you can change yourself and until you can change yourself, no-one’s going to take you seriously anyway. No one’s going believe in you, if you want to change the world and can’t manage your own depraved behaviour. 

And maybe you don’t want to change the world. You might just want a better life for yourself. It still takes action on your part. So take yourself seriously!

Start with you, then your family, then your home, and then your finances and then you can tackle community. Because you will want to help others, once you’ve seen the positive results you get.

Don’t try to do it all at once, just start with one small step, one step at a time. Change something every day, until it becomes the new normal for you.

Also, stretch yourself past your limits. We feel fear and get stuck in fear. And if we don’t move out of fear, nothing changes and we spiral downhill. One small change is all you need to start with.

So set your goals, but before you set your goals, determine your values. If your values don’t line up with your goals, you will have greater difficulty manifesting those goals. 

If you think you have to work hard to earn money, then you’ll self-sabotage any idea you come up with, for ‘easy’ money. Your values have to line up with your goals. It is possible to work towards your goals and succeed, but you won’t have to work as hard, if your goals line up with your values. 

A core value to you might be that successful people are stingy people and although that’s not necessarily correct, that’s just the way you’ve seen it happen. 

You don’t want to be seen as stingy, so unconsciously (this is not something you’re particularly conscious of doing) you’ll do something to hamper your success (and it could be anything which hampers you), because subconsciously you don’t want to be seen as stingy. You might wonder why it works this way and I can’t tell you this. All I know is; it happens.

Do you know why people don’t make new year’s resolutions? It’s because they’ve never followed through and achieved any new year resolution they’ve made. When you make a resolution and don’t follow through with it, you weaken your muscle memory for next time and eventually you come to the conclusion; “I don’t bother making resolutions. They never work anyway,” and so you don’t try.  

Don’t wait though, for new year. Don’t even wait for Monday. Start today. Start while you have a little motivation happening and go for it. 

So, it’s simple; determine your core values, set your goals, make an action plan, start small and go for it.  

No comments:

Post a Comment