Fear of change
We as people are often afraid of success — for the exact same reason we can become afraid of failure — change threatens who we are and what we know now, basically what we have become used to.
We have to learn to embrace change if we want to grow change is inevitable. Sometimes it helps to look at change from a different perspective. We often tell ourselves a story about change and how difficult it can be. While yes change can be difficult it helps to see how that difficulty has helped shape the person you are. It helps to look at the difficulty and realize without that difficulty you would not know what you know now.
How do you define change? Could you change the definition you have of change to see change in a whole new light? Many times adjusting our definitions can make a difference in how we feel about things.
Inflexible view of yourself
Until we are willing to openly question who we are and what we want, we cannot make the decisions and adopt the behaviors we need to improve our lives. We have to be willing to see our flaws, our skills, etc. We have to be willing to see who we really are.
Being real about who we really are can be difficult to say the least but it can be so freeing. Knowing ourselves and becoming more flexible on our view in the long run will help us. I used to have a very inflexible view of myself. When someone would bring up something they saw I would make excuses as to why I was the way I was instead of taking what the person told me and looking at it objectively. I was stuck in a self-defeating pattern which just increased my struggles. I was reactive and impulsive in my judgements until I decided that taking a step away from present-focused was a better approach. I moved towards a intention-based, more mindful type of living.
In the beginning this seemed like an impossibility but as I practiced the skill it got easier. It is still a struggle somedays but a struggle well worth the effort. Do you react impulsively? Could it be that you have an inflexible view of yourself?
Expecting motivation to strike
Motivation doesn’t just show up. You create motivation by taking action. Action creates motivation, motivation doesn’t just come from nowhere we create it!
I would listen to so many people that would tell me just sit with your thoughts, just think about what you want and it will come, etc. What they forgot to add is if you just think and meditate all day on something you never have that forward motion that you have to have to accomplish something. Don’t get me wrong meditation can be good for dealing with certain things but when it comes to creating a life for yourself action is what is required.
Most people know of Thomas Edison because he invented the lightbulb. Well I can say with the utmost confidence Edison didn’t just sit around meditating on what he lightbulb would look like, how it would make people feel, and how it would work. He took action which keep him motivated to fail making that lightbulb at least a 1,000 times. If he wasn’t motivated to continue the forward motion of inventing this lightbulb we wouldn’t know him for inventing it. With any success there will most likely be many failures.
Are you unmotivated? Have you tried just moving towards what you want to do? Can you take just one step that would put you closer to your goal then one more then one more…? Maybe your unmotivated because it’s not something you really want to do….
Excessive positive self-talk
Some positive self-talk is useful and good, but too much can paralyze you. To much can simply raise your expectations to unrealistic levels. Being realistic is really where you want to be. All things are a balance, their are always going to be positives and negatives. Being overly positive and refusing to look at what’s not going well has a destructive downside that leads to avoiding the truth.
If what you say to yourself is always negative then you might want to try and implement some positive self-talk into your mental diet. Being overly negative has it’s destructive downside as well. But, not everything is roses all the time. Not every part of anyone is 100% positive. We must learn that there are negatives and that is okay. We must learn to accept there are 2 sides to every coin.
Put another way Electrical polarity is a term used throughout industries that involve electricity. It is known that there are two types of poles. These poles are known as positive (+) and negative (−). This represents the electric potential at the ends of a circuit. A battery has a positive terminal (+ pole) and a negative terminal (− pole). Interconnection of electrical devices nearly always require correct polarity to be maintained. Our mind is the battery that runs everything. If we have an overwhelming amount of + or — our minds are not being maintained as well as they could be.
You don’t want to always be doom and gloom but on the other hand you don’t want to always be roses. Because let’s be real for a moment not everything is either extreme. Life is full of ups and downs. We all have our positives and negatives. It’s okay balance in everything is a good thing.
Do you find yourself seeing, feeling, or hearing the negative in everything? Do you find yourself seeing, feeling, or hearing the positive in everything? Can you make room to see both, feel both, hear both? Sometimes seeing things for what they are makes us a more rounded person. Try it sometime.
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