Just another excuse

We often think to ourselves: “I am not as good, as that other person, because I don’t really like the thing I need to do, to achieve my goal.” or “I am just not as talented.” We allow those excuses to hold us back. And while I do think that everyone has at least one passion, and I also think that we all should pursue that passion, there is one thing, we tend to overlook. Even with talent and passion no road is going to be entirely easy. We always try to make ourselves believe that for people other than us, achieving greatness is so easy and effortless. That is probably because they make it look easy and effortless, as well as the fact that in this social media world we only share our personal highlights, rather than the tough journey. But really the truth is: When we want to excel at anything. And even if we only want to be good at it, we will need to put a lot of hard work into it.

Talent may have an impact on how big or small the hurdles are and passion impacts, how easily we can overcome those, but there always comes a point, where things turn hard. Even if you are a talented runner and you love running, after a few kilometers, you will start to feel tired, you will feel like giving up. That is normal. And it applies to anything. No good habit will always be easy to execute. Regardless of whether we study or work or are in training, there will come a point, where it feels hard and we will have to make the choice of either pushing through or give up. But when we make that choice, we can not let our current levels of passion and talent decide for us. Because when things get hard, our passion often drops.

We should always remember that anyone who achieved anything did so by working hard. Yes, the result can be incredibly inspiring, when we see it on social media. But we need to realize that we can do it as well, we don’t have to be on the side-lines. We put ourselves there, by making excuses for not going out and working on getting, what we really want.

This especially applies to our own happiness. We see countless happy people online. And we get jealous, because they are so happy and we even struggle with getting out of bed in the morning. But how did these people become happy? Well first of all: they might not be, since social media only contains this perfectly curated picture of them. But if they truly are happy, then it is because they put in the work. Because they payed attention and figured out, what activities make them happy. The figured out, what the version of themselves they would like to be and figured out what habits will help them get there.

But they did not stop there. Once they knew all the steps they need to take, they started taking control of their life. Their time, their bodies and their minds as well as their priorities and their physical world. By adjusting their surroundings, their mindsets and the way they spend their time. In short they curated both their physical and mental world to be closer to the ideal that they are trying to achieve.

Anyone who has ever tried to implement a new habit knows how tough this is. We all have asked ourselves who we are and struggled to find an answer. That is what I mean, when I say that being happy requires a lot of work, just like anything else that is above average. We find out who we are by raising our awareness. For how we feel. But it does not stop there, since we can control who we are by setting priorities and habits. But of course, these things have to be implemented and adjusted. Which takes time. A lot of time. And it takes a lot of self-compassion. Because we are not going to get it right right away. Maybe that is the toughest part of them all.

There are two key take-aways: Respect and honor those who made it, because no one is born great and it took them a lot of work to get there. As well as: We can all make it, we just have to put in the work. Let’s stop making excuses. Let’s stop comparing ourselves. Let’s start being inspired by the success of others and start changing the way how we behave (and think) such that we become a little more successful ourselves, today.

The Formula to Changing Mindsets

I promised to do a post on how to improve one’s mindset, with the goal to have a mindset, that allows us to improve ourselves, out of a habit. And for that to happen, we first need to do the most difficult shift: We need leave our passive mindset behind and start forming an active one.

Let me first clarify one thing: A mindset can actively be changed, but it is like changing a habit. Changing the way you think, requires time and patience and a lot of work. But the nice thing is, that the moment we take action, we do something, that is not typical to our current mindset, so we already took the first step to an active mindset.

Goals

To avoid, changing our mindset into something that is not better than what we are entertaining now, it is advisable to first define a goal. Often that is something that emerged from our dreams and is some sort of a soft version of them. It is something that makes us truly happy. Our goal is (usually) basically happiness. If we don’t know what that is, it helps, to make a list. Not only a list of things that we do enjoy, but maybe also of the things, that we do like. For me one of the most striking ways to know that I truly enjoy doing something, is when I do not feel the need to check my phone. These things will definitely end up on the list of things that I do enjoy.

The Plan

We cannot achieve our goals from one day to another. That is, why up until now, our goals were merely dreams rather than something we could take action on. In order to achieve our goals we need to divide it into smaller goals. And maybe we need to have different smaller goals in different aspects of our lives.

We need to add dates to these smaller goals and then, we need to figure out, what steps we can take today, to achieve those goals. We need at least weekly when not daily goals, little steps we take towards our big goal, in order to be able to move forward. A goal that is only set for a month is too big for us to oversee. We don’t know where to start, which is, why we need to break it down.

We need to implement some sort of accountability system. That can be a to do list, a project list with dates, a habit tracker, you name it. But the important thing is, that it makes sure, that we do take action and start achieving our goals. We are way more likely to fail, if we do not write it down and are not accountable.

But with accountability comes the instance that we do achieve our weekly goals. It is important, that we acknowledge those small victories, because without them we would never reach the final goal. Yes, our success is, the sum of a million little, daily actions that got us one step closer to were we wanted to be, but that is exactly, why we need to celebrate those little things. They are the stepping stones. They are the foundation to who we want to become.

The Mindset itself

The mindset is the set of attitudes. Therefore, in this step we have a look at our intentions. It is about who we want to be on less obvious level. It is about taking control of our mind. Do we want to hate the world and everything and everyone in it? Or do we choose to give people the benefit of the doubt. Do we choose to complain about, or do we choose to fix the things that bother us? What kind of aura do we want to have? Do we want to be the person that doesn’t really care about politics, or do we have a refined opinion on it? How do we choose to treat others? How do we choose to treat ourselves?

There are big trendy attitudes like minimalism and the “cool ones”, who just do not care about anyone and anything. But we don’t need to adapt to one of those. We can create our own mindset according to the person we strive to be. Finding who we want to be is a very personal things, but usually our goals give us a good starting point, to think about who we want to be, but sometimes we also need to adjust our goals to our intentions. It is a back and forth, a journey to find balance between our intentions and our actions.

Implementing a new mindset is however tricky. It starts with awareness. We need to keep questioning, whether what we are doing matches our intentions. The next thing is to adjust the space around us. It is to take care of the exterior. That includes the space we live in, but also our desk at work, our cars, our appearance. All those things reflect back onto us and help us to become the person we want to be. A certain space reinforces certain thought patterns and the thought patterns are exactly what we want to take care of.

Then we also need to implement habits, that reinforce our mindset. We want to respect ourselves? How about we start respecting our time and stop doing things, that don’t bring us closer to our goal or that we don’t really enjoy. We could also take care of our health and start going for a run once a week. Or focus more on nutrition. Maybe we want to respect our hobbies. Maybe we want to give more importance to other people than to ourselves, so we could spend more quality time with friends and family. Maybe we want to lead a productive life, so we focus on working productively without distractions for an hour straight, every day.

The last step is to find out, why we want to become that person. Why we have chosen this particular mindset. And to envision the person we want to become. And set up reminders of that throughout our space. Find inspiration. On YouTube, Pinterest, or wherever you find your inspiration. But do not scroll mindlessly. Go on a quest for inspiration and don’t just consume, but try to bring that inspiration into your life, by putting up notes or pictures on your mirror, at your desk, your screen safer, you phone background. Because you can have chosen to become a certain person all you want, we are humans and we do have emotions. That inspiration and the why are what makes our emotions cooperate. It is what helps us not just make the decision, but enables us, to follow through. It will be what makes sure, tough times are not the usual state.

Remember that this is a journey. Our mindset does not change within a week. And maybe it turns out, that we found a mindset and tried to implement it, but it didn’t suit us. Then we have to reassess and adapt. And try again. And that is okay. We do not need to have it all figured out instantly. It will happen. But it will take some time. It has to grow first.

The vision of who we shall be

I got lucky enough to know that my fear had a deadline. To know that at some point I would have an answer. And I got lucky enough to get the answer I had been hoping for and not the answer I had been so afraid of.

But now what? When we are lucky enough to get the chance to leave our fear behind. What do we do next? When our entire life had been evolving around that fear. (It does not have to be fear. It can really be anything you have been evolving around and now stopped.) How can we move on?

I think there are two crucial parts: One is looking back and figuring out what went wrong. And what went well. This is important, but I think it is quite self-explanatory. It allows us to deal with the emotions and not bury them inside us. But we do not want to live in the past. We shall not be devoured by regret. (In fact this could be the topic for a whole separate blog post.)

The other part is looking into the future. And sometimes, when we have been so caught up in something we need to actively create a vision of ourselves. But why would that be helpful? A vision allows us to measure our actions by. If something makes us more like the person we are in that vision, it is a productive action. But why do we need that?

Because we need a direction. Until this point we have been evolving around whatever it is we are leaving behind. Now it is time to evolve around something positive. Around the person we want to be. In my vision I never say: “I am not a self-harmer.” I say things like: “I am a strong, independent woman.” Such a positive vision, a vision of what we want to be rather than what we do not want to be, is very powerful, because it motivates us to go on. And it gives us somewhere to go. Somewhere we want to go. And every time we are able to take a step towards our vision, we will be able to love ourselves a bit more. Because we did something that made us better.

In the self-harm and self-hate context this is so important. Because we tend to be trapped in all that negativity. And I know I could not even have written this post last week. I think us hating ourselves… as sad as it is: It is part of who we are. And yes, we do have to fight it. But we cannot fight negativity with more negativity. We cannot fight the fact that we hate ourselves, by hating that we hate. That’s… recursive. So instead we need to find something about us, that we can love. And that is why we need a vision: because we want to be like the vision. And every time we get a little closer to who we want to be, we are allowed to be proud of ourselves. Love ourselves a bit more. Trust ourselves a bit more. Experience that we are actually not as much of a failure as we always like to make ourselves believe. And that I call taking control of our lives. Actively fueling our self-confidence instead of letting negativity destroy us.

But how can we create a vision? What inspires such a vision? There are many sources for that: People we admire. Ideologies. Quotes. And more mundane: Books, movies, series, music, pictures. I usually work with 4 categories:

Me and university
Me and my hobbies
Me and myself
Me and others

In each of these categories I determine what is important to me. I write it down and that is how my vision is born. Then I take one or two points in each category and figure out a way to actively improve that point. I make a plan. And most importantly: I try to ask myself on a regular basis: “Is this how the person in my vision would act?” or “Is this bringing me closer to the person I want to be?”. This is not entirely about accounting for the progress we make in becoming the vision, it is mostly about remembering that positive vision. Getting into the mindset of that vision. Because we can so easily forget, what we want to fight for. So reminding ourselves of it is always a good idea.