Tell those people you love, that you love them.
You’ll never know how much they need to hear it.
After all, tomorrow is never promised.
Tag: mindset
Building Up, Not Down
It’s come to my alarming attention, that a lot of the time when seeing other people’s successes, I’m often wanting to see them fail rather than celebrate their success. I blame this largely down to being involved in sports from a very early age. Sport fosters and builds a competitive spirit that can lead to a toxic mindset of needing to see other’s lose, in order to allow us to win. Be it that last second free-throw or watching others struggle in general; the mindset is that you want your opponents to falter for your own gain.
But what happens when that mindset infiltrates normal life?
Well, we still need to be somewhat competitive in life to be ‘successful’. Job interviews require you ‘winning’ against others and that will require, in some part, your competition failing in comparison to yourself. It involves you highlighting your strengths, which becomes a highlighting of these weaknesses in others.
But there isn’t always a need for this competition, whereby you are directly competing with others.
Be it cars, houses or holidays, society has drilled into us the need to compete. Social media ‘likes’ effectively force competition and that’s a large reason as to why I no longer use Facebook. A quick aside, this decision was reaffirmed recently when dining out. A couple on the table next to me sat without conversation for 10 minutes, instead dedicating their focus solely to their phones. Their dinner was served and they instinctively asked the waitress to take a photo of them with their meal. Big smiles, etc. and the photo was taken. They ate their meal in silence and then left. But I suppose it got them the likes they craved on their relevant social media platforms. Behind that snapshot always lies a different picture.
So why do we seek to build down, rather than up? A lot of it is to do with us looking for validation by comparing ourselves to what others have. We do not seek to enjoy the now, instead looking constantly for what we can have next. We judge our own possessions and achievements by who else has them, or can have them.
Instead of judging our own worth by comparing to others, consider how our own worth makes us feel. There is no greater feeling in life to be contented with life. Seek contention in what we have, rather than what we think we need to make us happier.
When it’s hard to let go…
Every experience in life leaves behind its own memory, mark or scar. To what extent we allow those to define us and to influence our next experiences are largely our own choice. But what happens when this becomes more difficult to control?
Relationships are most commonly things that leave behind indelible marks. Having had long-term relationships in the past, certain experiences from them stick with me more significantly than anything else in life. Yes they’ve shaped my views on relationships and what a healthy one looks like, and yes they’ve resulted in better situations. But, they also leaving their calling cards of things that went wrong and these things are exactly what needs to be let go of in order to avoid the same mistakes being made again. If only it were that easy…
We look into things, scrutinising interactions to find what we want to find, rather than what is actually there. We want to find the things that we have experienced before, because this is what we are comfortable with. We always look for reasoning in everything and if that can be sought from previous failed relationships, then so-be-it. Looking for what has occurred before – that which was unhealthy within a relationship – can prove toxic for new relationships. Looking for those signs of failing relationships, within a currently positive one, can throw the balance of things all off. It can bring out insecurities about the current situation and reveal old wounds to new people; people who trust you and don’t want to be judged based on the mistakes of those from the past.
It’s the letting go that is tough. The moving on and moving forwards. The platitude that we tell ourselves that what doesn’t kill us will make us stronger, certainly sounds plausible. But these battle scars are still there, whether on show or not.
The conclusion we have to make is to allow those scars to help us win the war, not the battle.
What even is it to be ‘mindful’?
A little while back I was offered the chance to try a subscription to the app Headspace on the recommendation of a friend. The pretence was for it to assist with a busy working life and give the opportunity to clear space within the mind.
With some reluctance, I tried it…and really liked it – well, on the occasions I didn’t fall asleep whilst meditating!
The premise is simple. Control the breathing and think about things, without actively forcing yourself to think about them; as odd as that may sound. I completed the courses linked to appreciation, self-confidence (recent dreams seem to indicate a lack of this) and understanding about emotions, all of which were interesting and engaging. From there I’ve looked to further the philosophical side of thinking about the bigger picture and turned to podcasts.
One that I’ve become a big fan of is the Joe Rogan Experience. Rogan is someone I have been aware of from his involvement with UFC, but I’ve got to say that I’ve found his podcasts fascinating. Often he’ll explore, with the help of a wide range of guests, the idea of being mindful. One of the big messages I’ve taken away recently from his session with Russell Brand, is that ‘this is only a temporary thing’. This being life. And he talks about the need to ‘eek out as much goodness as possible from it whilst we’re able to’.
In a society now where we’ve become obsessed with ‘what next?’ we’re forever forgetting the need to appreciate what is happening now. Right now. None of us knows how much time we have left, or how much time we have left in the current state. We don’t know what the day could bring, or even what that phone call could bring. Rather than worrying about how things could turn out in the future, we need to focus on how things could turn out in the now.
Embrace the day and eek out all the goodness that you can from it.
Why Can’t It Be Finished?
Ever since I can remember, having things come to an end was something to be avoided. You’d never take the last of the milk, the cereal or the bread growing up. It was always to be seen as a selfless act to allow others to have that final piece or portion. But now other things bring trouble with the idea of nearing completion.
A common concern at the moment is with books or television shows. That final chapter, series or episode comes with a foreboding feel of absolute completion. That the time, effort and emotional attachment that came with the build-up to the completion, was seeming to be leading to a void being created.
Take Ricky Gervais’ new Netflix series After Life a genius mix of heartbreaking drama and genuine laugh out loud moments. Having ploughed through the first five episodes of the series yesterday morning, there is just one remaining. But it’s not been watched yet. Watching it would create a void, with the necessity of it being filled with the start of a new series to draw the mind into. There is a desire to find out how things fare for the characters, but the finality of not having further episodes to gain insight about them from provides a barrier. Being well aware that they are only characters in a fictional show makes this conundrum seem even stranger.
The same concerns come with books. Having invested time into 300 page novels, that final 20 page chapter indicates that the previous 280 have built to this climactic resolution. But doesn’t it also feel that those other 280 pages will be wasted when the final page is completed? Of course, everything builds to the end of the book and of course you are aware that the book has to finish at some point. But the finality of it provides the issue.
Finding something you enjoy, like or love, means that it’s something you want to continue with, but the ending of specific things that you enjoy, like or love may not necessarily be within your control. Yes you can read or watch other things, but finding the thing that you want to be engaging with provides the challenge. If we knew we had more to enjoy following the completion of another book or series then that void could be avoided. But what if those tailored recommendations are not accurate? What if you find that you take on board other people’s views relating to what to read or watch next, but then find that that time is wasted?
Time is a precious commodity after all, so is it sometimes better to avoiding the ending of things, by not starting them at all?
Why not be positive?
Having sat, awkwardly, around a table last New Year’s Eve being questioned about what the new year will bring and what fraught resolution I would come up, I vowed this year to be prepared.
This year the decision was made to attempt to introduce a more positive state of mind going forwards.
Sure it’s a platitude that is trotted out regularly, but it’s also one that has provided a great deal of thought for me recently to consider what the benefits could be. See, having always been a pessimist, and not ashamed to admit it, it had become a label that had become synonymous with my name. A big decision was mooted at work and I indicated that I was receptive to whatever choice would be made by the collective. “Of course, nothing bothers you does it?” It was a statement that resonated with me. Often it’s tough to allow others to gauge a reaction from me, either positive or negative, because of the facade that I mentioned in previous posts. An unwillingness to show emotion, means an inability to allow others to see they’re harming you. That too needs some working.
Though it’s also something that has cost me in encounters. People perceive a lack of happiness because of an inability to express emotions and this, to an extent, comes from the pessimist thought that ‘at some point, things will go wrong.’ So 2019 will be the year of change with a mindset.
It begins when we wake up in the morning, clinging onto the covers to bemoan the start of a new day; but that day is filled with purpose. We have responsibilities, tasks, interactions to make across that day and all of these come from ideas of trust that others place within us. These are things we should feel positively about, rather than complaining about the alarm clock raising us from our slumber.
We look in the mirror, taking ample time to attempt to find the things that are wrong with us. We don’t look for the positives, we’re trying to identify the negative changes in our appearances – forgetting that we are blessed with the power of sight to be able to see these images. We may become more wrinkled, but that too should be appreciated for the experiences that we have undergone. Not all changes as we age should be seen as the negative process of aging.
Having coached youth sport, a key idea I have attempted to impart upon those working with me is that ‘you learn more from failure, than you do from success’, but at a certain point we lose this idea in life. We no longer seek to identify learning opportunities in life and at work, instead identifying them as weaknesses and things that could lead to further problems. Working through these concerns give us greater experience going forwards, meaning that we become a knowledgeable member of the team for others to come to for assistance when they too first encounter a similar problem.
So that awkward resolution point, a forced opportunity to attempt to make a change, has led to positivity. Rather than presuming or identifying the worst in all that I do, instead opportunities are taken to appreciate the positives. After all, life is what you make it and it can become as positive or negative as your mindset allows it to be.
What Next? 