Symbosity

Category: Mindset Mastery

Learn how to look at your life in a way which instils positivity and encourages your growth. By making the mental adjustments taught in this section, you’re on your way to create a robust mental ecosystem which enhances your life experience.

  • Self-Accountability: The Higher Road To Self-Empowerment

    I was a victim. The universe seemed to have a personal vendetta against me, people discarded me. I lived like this for years, playing the victim card and wallowing in my misery because a part of me wanted to feel defeated. It wanted recognition. I wanted people to feel sorry for me and hand life to me on a platter, without needing to lift a finger, just feeling sorry for myself.

    But that never happened. Nobody came to my rescue. Nobody seemed to care. Thank god nobody did, because otherwise, I wouldn’t have taken the long road out of the victim mentality by taking self-accountability, and taking my life into my own hands.

    This was the best decision I ever made because my life began transforming in beautiful ways. It doesn’t matter how hard I had it, feeling sorry for myself only made it worse.

    This might not be the message you want to hear. After all, the victim mentality can be a particularly tricky trap to find yourself in, but you need to understand that nothing will change unless you take responsibility for it. If you feel defeated in your life situation, hoping for someone to come to the rescue, you must come to the rescue. The only way to do this is via self-accountability.

    Self-accountability is the practice of taking responsibility for your actions, decisions, and their outcomes. It means to be critically honest with yourself and consistently evaluate what’s going wrong in your life, and how you can fix it. By holding yourself accountable for your life situation, you can finally begin crawling out of this miserable trap that so many of us find ourselves in.

    In this article, you will learn the importance of self-accountability, and how to feel responsible for your circumstances so that you take action to improve your life situation. Feeling accountable for your life is an essential part of anyone who wants to achieve happiness. You simply won’t while you feel at the mercy of the world.

    The importance of self-accountability

    Men having a conversation

    Self-accountability is a staple for personal development. When you hold yourself accountable, you actively reflect on your life and assess your situation which leads to recognizing areas for improvement and taking steps to address them. By being responsible for your actions and their consequences, you become more disciplined, focused, and capable of achieving what you want to do.

    If something goes wrong in your life, instead of pointing the finger, you’ll look at why this happened to you. You will learn from your mistakes and take steps to ensure it doesn’t happen again. During the multiple times I’ve been robbed in my life, at first I played the blame game. I blamed the people who robbed me. I blamed the universe. I deferred responsibility, and you know what this led to? A whole lot more pain.

    By the 3rd time I was robbed, I instantly brought it back to myself. Sure, it sucked, losing your phone in a violent robbery is never fun, but I took responsibility for the situation and wondered how I went wrong. What actions and decisions led to these circumstances, and how could I be smarter about it in the future?

    I learned my lesson, and quickly healed from the incident, rather than marinating in my pain and feeling sorry for myself. This was a much better course of action, but it did require me to put my ego aside and step up.

    But it’s not just learning how to manage ourselves in the physical. Self-accountability also plays a big role in personal development and spiritual growth. Let’s have a peep at some of the ways that self-accountability can aid your personal growth and development:

    • Building Resilience: Feeling accountable for everything you do builds resistance. You will always strive to fix your mistakes and find better ways of doing things. Likewise, you will see through a lens where everything you do is within your control, one way or another, which keeps you moving forward.

    • Sustaining Growth: Self-accountability is important for personal growth. We grow much more slowly when we refuse to acknowledge our failures and setbacks, or what we’re doing wrong. By taking accountability for your life and everything you do within it, you put yourself on a fast track for growth.

    • Enhanced Self-Esteem: You start building your confidence when you feel accountable for what you do. You will realize that you are more competent than you give yourself credit for, as opposed to playing the victim and believing everything is outside of your control.

    • Better Relationships: Self-accountability leads to maturity. If you hurt your partner and brush it off, it’s going to create issues down the track. When you can acknowledge when you’ve made mistakes or screwed up in your relationships, and make up for it, your relationships become much healthier and happier.

    • Increased Productivity: When you feel accountable for your work, you are likely to be more productive. You will continuously look for opportunities for improvement, and this can keep your eyes on the prize without getting discouraged or losing interest.

    Regarding spiritual growth, self-accountability encourages introspection and honesty which allows you to align your actions with your values and beliefs. This alignment facilitates a deeper connection with your inner self and helps you move forward. When you take responsibility for your spiritual journey, you become more aware of your thoughts and behaviors, leading to greater self-integration.

    Someone who struggles with addiction might take ownership of their recovery process by seeking help and making the necessary lifestyle changes. Their accountability not only helps them overcome their addiction but also strengthens their character.

    Likewise, anyone who is creating a business needs to take accountability. They can’t just look at their statistics, blame the external world, and quit. Well… they can, and many people do, but they’re not the people who create successful businesses. Rather, someone who does take self-accountability will evaluate their mistakes and make strategic adjustments.

    By feeling accountable for your life, you set the stage for growth. This is what it’s about, but if you prefer to point the finger because life isn’t going the way you want, then be my guest. Let’s see where it gets you.

    How to develop self-accountability

    Growth mindset

    If you’re stuck in the victim mindset where everything happens to you, it’s in your best interest to take responsibility for it. It can be a long road until you genuinely feel accountable for your experiences, that’s why you need to take one step at a time to develop with frame of viewing your life, and everything you do in it.

    You may struggle to take self-accountability because you fear the consequences of stepping up to the failures that happen in your life. Let’s face it, it’s easy to point the finger, that’s why so many people do it. Nobody wants to feel like they’re messing up, especially if that mistake has repercussions. This is where honor plays a critical role, by being integral to yourself and accepting that sometimes we need to take it on the chin, for our own good. Likewise, some people may be overwhelmed by the situation or not know how to apologize, so they don’t.

    People may also avoid accountability because of their egos. They want to assume that they are always right and that the fault is always someone else’s. In this sense, the ego can be an obstacle, and people with big egos tend to shy away from self-accountability. Ever met someone like this? It’s a real nuisance and they never learn.

    Just to be clear, taking accountability for your work, actions, and life in general is not the same as blaming yourself. Self-blame comes from a disempowered place and can be quite negative. Self-blame is a similar energy to feeling victimized (you can victimize yourself), while self-accountability is empowering. You’re taking responsibility for the results of your actions for the sake of improving yourself.

    Therefore, the energy is different. One is low-vibrational, the other is high-vibrational.

    There are some key ingredients in self-accountability:

    1. Self-awareness: You need to understand your thoughts, emotions, behaviors, and decisions. Without an awareness of why you’re doing what you do, you’re bound to continue making the same mistakes.

    2. Self-responsibility: To feel self-accountable, you need to take full responsibility for everything that happens in your life. If you don’t feel responsible for what happens, you’re not going to pick up the pieces, adjust, and improve.

    3. Motivation: You need to feel some sort of motivation to take action and put in the work to improve. You can spiral into blame and resentment very quickly if you don’t work up the motivation to improve.

    4. Honesty: You need to be very honest with yourself because honesty creates transparency. This transparency illuminates what you need to do moving forward. If you aren’t completely honest with your mistakes and setbacks, then you are likely to defer blame and end up doing nothing about it.

    Practical tips to develop self-accountability

    • Set clear goals: Part of being self-accountable is knowing what you’re working towards. If you don’t know what you’re moving towards, how will you know where to improve, and when you went wrong? Therefore, set clear goals, whether they are financial, personal, or spiritual, so you can monitor your progress.

    • Reflect, often: Self-reflection is important because this is when you will gain insights and a deeper understanding of what happened, and why it happened. If you don’t reflect, you’re missing out on crucial information you could use to better yourself.

    • Take small steps: Be consistent with your efforts and take small steps daily towards the things you want to achieve. If you’re not making progress, you’re never going to get where you want to go.

    • Learn to stand up for yourself: One behavioral change you can make is to start standing up for yourself more. After recognizing this feeling, think about what actions need to be taken to empower yourself. What could you do that would make you feel like you’re being treated with respect? Do you need to say something, assert your boundaries, or leave the situation?

    • Stop exaggerating: This is a big one. When we feel like victims, we tend to exaggerate our situations to earn sympathy votes. Be mindful if you tend to stir up little things into big issues. Not everything needs to be an issue, and you need to recognize when you’re turning something into a problem when it wouldn’t be for other people.

    • Take responsibility for your downfalls: It’s important to take responsibility for your mistakes. As long as you keep pointing the finger at other people, or for your misfortune, you’re not going to take back your power. You need to own your mistakes, and when you do the world will no longer be to blame. Your life will be in your hands, as with your failures and successes.

    • Reinforce the idea that you’re not a victim: How are you going to feel powerful in yourself when you believe that other people are responsible for what happens to you? As someone who wants to be empowered, you are responsible for everything that happens to you, even if it wasn’t your fault. Therefore, reinforce this idea so you don’t slip into old patterns.

    • Start being grateful for what goes right: One of the best ways to develop self-accountability is to work on your gratitude. A sense of gratitude for your life will compete against the ‘poor you’ mentality because it’s training you to be grateful for your experiences. 

  • How To Overcome The Poverty Mindset

    Have you ever thought that the scarcity you experience in life, whether it’s physical, emotional, mental, or spiritual, actually stems from the mind? We are only as rich as our minds allow us to be. If you’re trying to attract abundance into your life, but you have a poor mind, it’s never going to happen.

    This is why we need to address the poverty mindset.

    The poverty mindset is a harmful perception of life that paints the world in a frame where there’s never enough to go around. It’s a view of scarcity and a belief that we must struggle to have our fair share.

    The poverty mindset perpetuates feelings of need and further brings you away from being content with what you have. It’s a low vibrational energy that attracts more of the same (struggle) and repels abundance.

    What’s worse is that while you harbor a poverty mindset, chances are you’re not going to make anything of your life. You bow out of the race before it has even begun, and wonder why you’ve gotten nowhere.

    Here we’re going to dissect this degrading mentality so that you can better understand it, get rid of it, and build up better mindsets that lead you to abundance.

    Poverty mindset diagram representing the downward spiral to scarcity

    A poverty mindset is often formed during youth from the belief that money is scarce, regardless of how much you have. Maybe you never got what you wanted as a kid, or perhaps you were regularly told how expensive everything is, or that money doesn’t grow on trees.

    So you grow up drilling in the belief that money is disproportionately precious, a finite resource, and this warps your perception of abundance. As you get older, you unconsciously reinforce this belief until you get caught in a self-perpetuating cycle where you never have enough to be happy.

    This creates a low vibrational energy, which manifests low vibrational experience. But we’re only looking at the material aspect. Abundance is more than your material condition, it’s a high vibrational state of consciousness expressed through your beliefs, attitudes, and feelings.

    The years I spent living in Vietnam were a real eye-opener. Especially when riding through the Northern Mountains and passing through tiny villages, I met a lot of people who had so little, but their cups were so full.

    Many of the residents lived in small adobe huts or run-down concrete shelters. Mostly, they were farmers who didn’t have a whole lot to show for their lives, at least not from a materialistic perspective.

    What struck me was their friendliness. The villager’s kindness and generosity were unmatched. While passing through, many would invite me into their homes, share food with me, offer a place to sleep, and give me all the happy water I could handle.

    They laughed, sang, and just seemed genuinely happy about the little things in life, such as seeing a foreigner well out of his natural habitat.

    These people are not poor. They are some of the richest people I’ve ever met. They are abundant, perhaps not materially, but emotionally.

    This shifted something in me. I’ve spent most of my life feeling inadequate. I’ve always been on a goose chase, chasing things because I believed that wealth was the key to abundance and that abundance was the path to happiness.

    Since then, I’ve questioned my perspective on abundance which has made some pretty dramatic shifts in my life.

    What is the poverty mindset?

    Poverty mindset

    The poverty mindset is a limiting belief system where you feel like you’re lacking, despite how much you have. It’s a frame of scarcity: The idea that there is a finite amount of resources that you can have and that you’re fundamentally separated from them.

    People who see through a lens of poverty tend to experience life in a way where their success comes at someone else’s failure. And that your failure is due to someone else’s success. It’s the classic ‘there’s not enough pie for all’ scenario.

    Just to be clear, having a poverty mindset doesn’t necessarily relate to your financial position. It’s a perception of life where there isn’t enough to go around. When you break this limiting belief system, your life becomes more fruitful. This is when you feel more wholesome, and it also sets a better mental infrastructure to attract more material abundance into your life.

    Seeing life in a frame of scarcity is a limitation as you see all the red flags but none of the green. It’s a pessimistic way of thinking that manifests a negative life experience through emotions such as jealousy, guilt, worry, stress, shame, hopelessness, self-victimization, and self-pity.

    When in this state, you’re likely to miss opportunities or to push them away, either consciously or unconsciously. Instead of seeing the world as your oyster, you can never get ahead because you hold yourself back.

    This causes stagnation and acts as a major barrier to growing into your best self and manifesting your dreams. Not to mention, the poverty mindset is just a generally disempowering state of mind that pushes away abundance.

    Characteristics of a poverty mindset

    lens of poverty and misfortune

    Now that you have a conceptual framework of what the poverty mindset is, how do you know if you have it? What are some symptoms of the poverty mindset, and how will this inadvertently affect your life?

    Here are some common traits and characteristics of people who have a poverty mindset.

    1. You compare yourself to others

    Rather than focusing on your own journey, you tend to notice what other people have which makes you feel like you’re lacking because you don’t have those things.

    2. You have a fear complex

    You tend to worry about what could happen, and you concern yourself too much with hypotheticals rather than actual outcomes.

    3. You focus on what you need

    Instead of focusing on what you have and how fulfilled you are to have those things, you’re always looking at what you don’t currently have, which creates a constant sense of desperation.

    4. You are strife with jealousy

    Instead of celebrating other people’s success, you get jealous or even resentful when people achieve something that you don’t have.

    5. You make up stories about your failures

    You tend to create stories about why you’re disadvantaged or why you can’t succeed in life. For other people who become successful, there will always be an outstanding reason why they’re successful.

    6. You are worried about your achievements

    Your hyper-focus on achieving things takes you away from what you already have. This leads to competition and the mentality that there is not enough to go around.

    7. You are a victim

    You believe that you’re a victim of the world. Life is unfair, and you’ve just gotten the bottom half of it. Since you’re a victim, you dedicate yourself to being a bystander in your life.

    8. You tend to overvalue material things

    You likely believe that having things is the epitome of success. So you place a lot more value on external things rather than intrinsic qualities such as gratitude and family.

    9. You focus on the risk

    You have an aversion towards taking action because you always think about the risk, and what could happen if things don’t work out.

    10. You tend to chase pleasure

    Rather than focusing on more wholesome, substantial states of consciousness, you’re concerned with momentary pleasures by getting the next shiny thing.

    11. You think wealth will solve your problems

    Part of a poverty mindset is believing that wealth is the key to all the good things in life. If you have more wealth, you’re successful.

    12. You believe that resources are scarce

    You believe that everything is finite, and that other people gaining something takes away from you, or your opportunities. This drives you to be more careful, and potentially competitive because you feel that you need to fight for equality.

    What is an example of the poverty mindset?

    First off, you need to change the way you see things if you actually want to experience abundance. As long as you’re caught in a frame of scarcity, you’re not going to attract abundance into your life.

    Below are some examples of perceiving a situation through a frame of abundance vs a frame of scarcity. Use this table to reflect on your own life experience, and look at where you need to make some adjustments.

    Situation Abundance mindset Poverty mindset
    You broke up with your partner You know that more amazing people will come into your life which opens up exciting new opportunities to find someone who you more deeply align with. You desperately hold onto something that has moved on, believing that you’ll never find anyone else like the person you were with.
    You were let go from your job You gained valuable experience which will help you find an even better job in the future. While you may be upset, you are looking forward to the new opportunities that this opens up in your life. You start worrying about not having a job, or not being worthy of a job. This leads to anxiety and stress as the future looks uncertain.
    You got some valuable information You want to share it with others and get their perspectives. If it helps them succeed, vicariously, you feel good. You want to keep it to yourself and avoid sharing it with other people. You had to find out yourself, why can’t they?
    Analysis of your living condition The location is very central and in a great part of town. The house is cozy. You have everything you need to live a comfortable life. The house is too small, old and noisy. You’re not in your ideal home by a long shot, and you won’t be fulfilled until you get it.
    Working on an avocation You have a vision of what you can achieve if you put in the work. You realize that there is no reason why you can’t succeed, so you continuously work towards your dreams You believe there is way too much competition, and that only people who are extremely talented can make it. As a result you’re likely to give up, or never take it seriously in the first place.
         

    How to break free from the poverty mindset

    Money is an advantage, it’s not a game changer.

    If you have a lot of disposable income, you can live a nice cushy life, but that’s not going to make you any happier. It’s important to value things that truly matter for your growth, well-being, and wholeness.

    Never forget that happiness is an internal condition. If you’re trying to buy happiness, you’re barking up the wrong tree. So please, do the inner work. Go inside, not outside, and you’re going to make your life a much better place to live.

    Life isn’t a get-rich-quick scheme. You need to work for it. And it’s the work that you put into your life that makes it worth it.

    So instead of chasing money, focus on the process that is used to make money. As an example, if you’re a content creator or aspiring to be one, actually enjoy making content rather than trying to become successful through it.

    This applies to anything you do. Do it because you genuinely care about it. If you fill your cup with more things in life that nourish you, it’s going to benefit you in more ways than one.

    Sometimes you have to stretch yourself a little as abundance is a bit of an oxymoron. You get more by giving more.

    Chances are, you rarely give. If you see a homeless person, do you give them a bit of cash, or tell yourself that you can’t afford it, even if it’s just a dollar? Do you give your time and energy without expecting a reward? What about donating to causes that you care about?

    Here’s the thing. You need to give to get. You need to break the cycle of poverty by taking the first step. Remember, the universe matches your vibration, not the other way around. So if you adopt the feeling of generosity and giving, you’re going to receive more in the form of positive emotions, feelings, outlooks, opportunities, people, and things.

    Ultimately, you need to work on the poverty mindset in small doses regularly, because whatever you enforce into your reality becomes your reality.

  • Are You Victimizing Yourself? Here’s What to Do About It

    Are You Victimizing Yourself? Here’s What to Do About It

    Do you feel as if your failures are due to other people holding you back? You think it’s unfair because other people are always sabotaging your happiness, and there’s not a damn thing you can do about it.

    Many of us have been there.

    Sometimes life isn’t fair, and it sucks. But sometimes you have to admit, that it’s not about other people at all, nor is it because you’re just unlucky. You feel deflated because you’re not taking accountability for what happens in your life.

    There’s a fine line between being a victim and believing you’re a victim. When you make out every situation like you’re an innocent bystander rather than the creator, and facilitator of your reality, you will never have any power. You will always be a pushover.

    If you want to take your power back, it starts by taking responsibility for your life experience.

    So we’re going to look into this devious mentality to look at the core roots of your pain, and what you can do about it.

    Why the victim mentality needs to go

    Victim mentality

    The victim mentality is a disempowering mindset where you consistently see yourself as a victim of your circumstances. Because of this outlook, you always feel unfairly treated by others, when this isn’t necessarily the case.

    People who have a victim mentality tend to blame external factors for their issues. They shy away from responsibility under the guise that it’s never their fault. No matter what the problem is, it’s someone else’s fault, therefore, someone else must fix it.

    Because people with a victim mentality are always pointing the finger, they tend to believe that they have no control over their lives, and their life is the consequence of other people’s actions.

    This is the last thing you want to believe if you want to live your best life, because you need to take your life into your own hands. We are all creators, and the experience we have in life is a direct result of what sort of lives we have created for ourselves.

    The victim mentality leads to disempowerment

    For most of my life, I’ve been a victim. It’s not because people necessarily gave me a hard time, it’s because I always deferred blame instead of working on myself.

    After all, I was miserable. I had some disadvantages growing up, but the problem was not the disadvantages themselves (after all we all have them). I had a problem because I let these disadvantages define me, and blamed everything on them, whether they were related or not.

    I was depressed, lonely, and generally a miserable kid growing up. I didn’t know how to be happy, so the best thing I could do was defer blame. It’s much easier to not feel responsible for your failures.

    So I blamed the world because I was born into the life I was. I blamed my teachers for not teaching me well. I blamed my parents for not doing a better job at raising me. It was always someone else’s fault which trapped me in this miserable cycle where I wouldn’t change because I never took accountability which creates the right conditions for change to occur.

    It wasn’t until I had some major experiences that rattled my life, that I realized my downfall. It wasn’t other people, it was me. After traveling the world for many years and delving deeper into my self-growth journey, that’s when my life took a 180.

    Personal accountability is crucial for the personal development process. If you don’t acknowledge that you have a problem, then they’re never going to change your life. This is why the victim mentality is so dangerous because it strips you of accountability which hinders your personal growth.

    The root cause of the victim mentality

    The victim mentality is a disempowered state where you believe that you have no power over what happens in your life. Due to a lack of self-accountability, people with the victim mentality feel like they’re always the victim of their circumstances when this is far from the truth.

    Even though sometimes you will genuinely be a victim, it’s not good to get caught in the mindset that you’re always a victim, for everything. It’s a bit of a stretch.

    The victim mentality is a coping mechanism. People who have this mentality often form it through trauma that hasn’t yet been healed. This trauma manifests into self-worthiness issues

    Why you need self-empowerment

    self empowerment

    The term victim has become so overused nowadays that many people use it colloquially. There are times when it’s okay to feel victimized because sometimes we are victims.

    This feeling helps us know when we’ve been treated poorly, allows us to recognize injustice, and tells us when to stand up for ourselves. But you shouldn’t let this feeling take control of your life, because it degrades your quality of life and makes you generally unhappier.

    Self-victimization is when you hold onto the idea that you’re always a victim. It’s a low vibrational outlet that resonates with things like scarcity and misery. When you believe that you are a victim, you can bet that you’re going to attract more shit into your life due to your beliefs, your resulting poor conduct with the world around you, and the negative energetic outlet this feeling produces.

    The victimhood mentality is the belief system that you’re not in control of your life, and that you are constantly taken advantage of, in one way or another. When you have this mentality, you are never enough.

    It can hinder personal growth and resilience, as it involves a tendency to dwell on negative experiences rather than actively seeking solutions or taking ownership of one’s actions.

    The victim mentality is a limiting belief system

    The victim mentality is a limiting belief system because it prevents you from taking control of your life.

    If you’re a bartender, you will feel shame because you’re not working a respected job. Once you get a corporate job, you won’t be satisfied because you’re just a worker bee. Even if you climb the ranks, there will always be a better company or a better career field where you’re sure you will feel more secure in yourself. But that sense of security never comes, as long as you remain in this harmful mentality.

    That’s why you need to work on this mentality and cultivate an outlook where you feel empowered, able, and limitless. When you develop a stronger, better outlook, you will find that you attract fewer negative situations, and the quality of your life improves dramatically.

    Victimhood is a low-vibration

    Being in a victim state is a low vibrational outlet that attracts more things into your life that resonate at the same frequency. This means that the energy of victimhood is on the same vibration as feelings such as guilt, shame, and resentment.

    This means that having a victim mentality can be a painful trap. Because you feel like a victim, you attract more situations into your life where you are the victim. Because of these situations, you feel like more of a victim, and around you go.

    This is why it’s crucial to work on this mentality so that you empower yourself to create a better life experience for yourself. When you’re in a high vibrational state, feelings like love, gratitude, and compassion will replace victimhood.

    Victims don’t learn from their lessons

    People who have a victim mentality don’t learn from their lessons. They’re eager to defer blame to other people instead of looking at what they did to create the situation (or the circumstances for the situation to occur).

    This means that someone with a victim mentality won’t reflect. Since it’s always someone else’s fault, and that’s out of their control, they’ll believe that there was nothing they could do, learn from, or improve upon. After all, they’re just the innocent victim, they deserve nothing but compassion and justice.

    Common signs of the victim mentality

    desperate 5011953 1280

    Here are some common signs of people with a victimhood mentality. Scrutinize the list below and identify whether any of the following behaviors, actions, or thought patterns are familiar to you.

    If you read through the list and recognize some of these behaviors in yourself, this could indicate that you suffer from the victimhood mentality. Self-awareness is crucial if you want to curb this harmful mentality and replace it with better ones.

    • Overdramatization of normal events and situations
    • Refuse to take accountability for any failure or wrongdoing
    • The belief that everything is out of their control
    • Tendency to swap between blame or self-pity, without taking accountability
    • They play the martyr (volunteer to suffer when it’s unnecessary)
    • They feel sorry for themselves
    • Constantly seek sympathy and understanding
    • Self-absorption, and the inability to see other people’s problems
    • You avoid working on your difficulties or looking for a solution
    • Oversensitivity (always look for a reason to be offended)
    • Makes others out to be the perpetrator in any situation
    • Feeling like they’re constantly being taken advantage of
    • General feelings of disempowerment

    Practical steps for self empowerment

    Ego bigger than oneself

    Self-empowerment is the antidote to victimhood, but how do you empower yourself when trapped in this state?

    Self-accountability is the road to self-empowerment. Feeling accountable for your own life and the events within is a big step in the right direction.

    It’s easy to point the finger, but that doesn’t get you anywhere, does it? That’s why I’ve compiled a list of different actions you can take to help you break free from the victim mentality.

    The more aware you become when you’re slipping into the victim mentality, the more you can reinforce healthier actions and behaviors to take your power back.

    Think critically about the situation

    If you have the victim mentality, you’re probably going to spin everything in a way that puts you down. If you get into an argument, you might think that you’re being treated unfairly, while there could be a good reason for it.

    Likewise, if you’re left out of something, you might think that it’s because nobody likes you, whereas it could be for a genuine reason. This can be tricky because someone with the victimhood mentality will justify these feelings of being mistreated, and may think that it’s their fault.

    That’s why it’s important to think critically. Try to discern whether something is a real issue where action needs to be taken, or whether you’re distorting the situation to suit your narrative.

    Identify why you’re playing the victim

    What are you really looking for? Chances are you want compassion and understanding which is completely reasonable. Life has been difficult for you, but nobody seems to acknowledge just how hard you have it.

    And let me be honest with you. Maybe they should. Maybe the world would be a little kinder if we actually saw what other people were going through and took the incentive to truly acknowledge them. But you know what?

    It’s probably not going to happen.

    Most people are so caught up in their own worlds that they don’t open their eyes to others. But you can’t expect them to see what you’re going through, because let’s be honest here, you probably don’t truly see their struggles either.

    So instead of making this a game of finding a way to feel acknowledged and heard for the wrongdoings that have been done to you, realize that you’re probably not going to get it. Seeking sympathy is probably just going to make you more resentful, so you need to do the healing yourself and move on.

    Life isn’t fair, don’t take it personally

    There are two types of people. People who blame others when things aren’t fair, and those who get on with it.

    The fact is life is not fair.

    Things are going to happen to you that are out of your control, and sometimes life will suck. But what good does it do playing the victim? Who benefits from blaming, and hoping the situation would be different?

    The sooner you accept this truth, the better off you’ll be. Life isn’t fair. If you want to take the road less traveled here, you need to acknowledge that you might just be unlucky. If you’re blaming others, it’s not going to lead to anything good. It’s your karma that causes those uncontrollable circumstances. So accept it and move on.

    Take responsibility for everything

    If you want to empower yourself by getting out of the victim mentality, you need to start taking responsibility for everything.

    This means that you need to even take responsibility for things that aren’t your fault, objectively, because they’re affecting your life and you’re allowing yourself to be affected.

    Shifting blame to responsibility is one thing that will actually make a major difference in your life. When you feel responsible for everything that happens, then you can start making better decisions that lead you down a better road. To learn how to see your life in a way that promotes self-responsibility, read the article below.

    Reframe the narrative

    To actually break out of the victim mentality, you need to take accountability for everything that happens in your life. You see that people are caught in their programs, so instead of taking things personally, you realize that it’s from their narrative and not yours.

    When you’re unfairly treated or hurt, you go inward instead of reacting. You observe and think about what action comes from your highest self, rather than acting from emotion and impulse.

    Ultimately you have a mentality that what happens is supposed to happen. If you were robbed, it was part of your life story. If you end up in a narcissistic relationship, you realize that you made a mistake by trusting the wrong person.

    Therefore, being empowered means that you learn from your lessons. If something goes wrong, you think about how it could be avoided next time. If you are taken advantage of, you think about why that happened, and what you could do to make sure it doesn’t happen again.

    Stand up for yourself

    One behavioral change you can make is to start standing up for yourself. The more you assert your own needs and wants, the less people will take advantage of you.

    Every time you feel like you’re being taken advantage of, fall into your gut instinct. If you feel like something is unfair or unjust, it’s probably a valid indicator that you are being taken advantage of, which will make it easier to draw the line.

    Recognize when you feel like you’re not being respected, or you’re being stepped on, and reflect on it. After recognizing this feeling, think about what actions need to be taken to get rid of this feeling.

    What could you do that would make you feel like you’re being treated with respect? Do you need to say something, assert your boundaries, or leave the situation?

    Assert your boundaries

    You need to have boundaries in life. It’s not okay when people push their will onto you or blame you for their failings. As someone who is seeking to be more secure in yourself, you need to get the message through to people when they are crossing a line.

    This can feel daunting at first, but the more you start drawing and affirming boundaries, the easier it will be to see when someone is crossing a line, or if you’re just perceiving them too. Think of it this way. How will people know when they’re crossing a line if there isn’t a line?

    The more you assert your boundaries and prevent people from crossing them, the quicker you’re going to feel empowered by drawing boundaries and asserting yourself

    Start being grateful for what goes right

    One of the best ways to counter the victimhood mentality is to cultivate gratitude for your life. Gratitude is the ultimate trump card for the victim mentality because you cannot be a victim while you’re feeling grateful. They’re polar opposites of vibration.

    As the victimhood mentality is associated with scarcity, learning to be grateful for the little things will help you see things in a new light.

    To learn more about how to cultivate more gratitude in your life and why it’s so beneficial, click on the link below and we’ll dive right into it!

  • How to Break Negative Patterns In Life, Once and For All

    You’re not exactly sure why things stay the same in your life.

    You certainly don’t enjoy it for the most part, but you find that the same patterns repeat themselves as if you’re stuck in a loop.

    Despite how hard you try, you always seem to end up back at square one. You encounter the same obstacles that have withstood the test of time, and which appear to be an inseparable part of your existence.

    Deep down you know that something needs to change, you just have no idea what that thing is.

    That’s going to change now.

    It’s time to get off the hamster wheel and look at why things aren’t changing in your life. Let’s look at what you can do to gain a broader perspective of these negative patterns, and learn how to finally put a stop to them!

    What are negative patterns in life?

    Couple in the middle of an argument

    A negative reoccuring pattern is a familiar, but painful situation you regularly find yourself in.

    Whether the situation is a painful breakup, being taken advantage of, or sabotaging a good opportunity, if it keeps happening, you’re attracting it one way or another. This is why it becomes a pattern, because you continue reliving a particularly painful experience.

    If there seems to be a negative theme in your life that just keeps happening in different forms, then there is a reason why it’s happening. You may be aware of this reason, and you may be oblivious to it.

    After all, all situations are teachers.

    That’s why you’re doing this human thing in the first place, to learn. As with school, you’ll have to repeat the same class until you pass it. With life, you will repeatedly attract the same experience in different forms until you overcome it.

    Why do I perpetuate negative patterns?

    When you aren’t aware of the negative patterns in your life, they will continue happening because the root cause has not been addressed.

    There is a wounded part of you that is unconsciously seeking out these painful experiences because they’re familiar. Even though you want these negative patterns to end on a conscious level, the unconscious may wish to seek them out, because they’re safe.

    Your external world is a reflection of your inner world. If that inner world is wounded, the gears of reality will spin to bring about the same situation as a mechanism for you to become aware of the deeper underlying issue.

    Until you take radical self-responsibility and stop pointing the finger at the external, you’re not going to make progress.

    Whether it’s a long line of bad relationships, being victimized, or sabotaging good jobs, your awareness of these negative patterns is the first step towards breaking them.

    Without cultivating an awareness of the reocurring situations in your life, you stagnate because you’re not learning from those experiences (and mastering the lessons they’re trying to teach you).

    You attract situations that you need to learn from

    I always had a negative pattern around money, which we can call a money block. I would often be stolen from, robbed, left unpaid by jobs, and continuously lose sentimental items that meant a lot to me. Often when I started getting ahead, I would be hit with fines or unexpected costs.

    This seemed to happen like clockwork.

    I believed it was out of my control and that I was just unlucky, so my response was to play the victim. All this did was fuel the pattern because I wasn’t looking at why this was happening.

    This negative pattern continued like clockwork for many years until I ruled out the possibility that it was a coincidence. So I wondered, how is this possible? Why does this keep happening to me?

    Inspecting this negative pattern brought me to a deeper realization, that I always believed I was undeserving. Metaphysically speaking, the universe obliged. This pattern slowly started to dissolve as I worked on my self-worth issues, changed my energy around money, and believed I was deserving.

    It takes time to change the negative patterns in your life because the unconscious mind has layers. Sometimes the root cause is deeply entrenched, and it can be hard to weed out.

    The deeper you go into the issue, the more layers you reveal. Unconsciously, you are causing all the negative patterns in your life, whether they appear to be within your control or not.

    Without taking a hard look into the patterns that you blindly operate on, you have no way to break the negative cycles. This is why it’s important to realize that there is always an underlying cause, and the situation won’t stop occurring until you heal the root wound.

    Where do negative negative patterns come from?

    Negative patterns are often the result of unresolved childhood trauma. These unconscious patterns are manifestations of hidden wounds that will dictate your life until they have been healed.

    Look at reoccurring situations as beacons. They’re illuminating an unconscious wound, and until healed, these painful situations will reoccur. Therefore, negative patterns are not your enemy. They exist to serve your best interest, despite how painful they are.

    Every time the painful situation repeats itself, you are a little bit wiser, a little more healed, and you react a little differently until it has been overcome completely. This is the way you need to treat them.

    Look at the wound as the cause, and the situation as the manifestation. Unless the wound has been healed, this problem will continue showing itself in your life.

    The situations that repeat themselves are proportionate to the severity of your underlying wound.

    If your vibration is generally low, you’re going to attract all sorts of situations into your life that are on the same frequency. If you’re stuck in a low state, the universe is going to give you some big kicks up the ass to motivate you to change, otherwise, you probably wouldn’t.

    Identifying negative patterns in your life

    Negative reocurring pattern

    Now that you know what a negative pattern is and why it’s happening, you can start identifying painful trends in your own life.

    Here is a table of common negative patterns that people face, what they believe, and the root cause. If you have a look, often what you think about the situation isn’t what’s going on. This is why it’s important to dig into why these situations keep happening, and why they do.

    Negative reocurring patterns example infographic

    Now it’s your turn. I suggest reflecting on your life and writing down some common themes within it. Here are some questions to answer:

    • What are the common themes within my life?
    • What situations seem to repeat themselves?
    • How do these situations make me feel?
    • What is the common denominator of these experiences?
    • What signs are present before the situation happens?
    • What will I do next time it happens?

    Look for the common denominator of your experiences

    Think about the reocurring themes that happen in your life.

    The common denominator is something that is always present when the situation occurs. It could be a certain emotion, a trigger, an action, a place, or a person. It’s important to identify the common denominator of your experiences because it is the trigger.

    Once you’ve identified some negative patterns in your life, think about what you usually do when the occurrence happens, and what you can do differently.

    This cycle can be broken by training yourself to see the signs that you’re spiraling into another pattern, and taking a different path.

    Consequently, your awareness of these situations will flush up the underlying wound. You need to keep a mental notebook of what works and what doesn’t. This way you can begin adjusting your approach until these old patterns deteriorate.

    Think about what the situation trying to teach you.

    What lessons do you need to learn to heal the internal wound and move past this situation? You need to do a little digging here because each person’s wounds are different, and the situations that manifest from them are unique.

    It may be a mindset, belief system, or energy that needs to change. Perhaps the situation is trying to help you accept something in your life without combating it, or letting go of something that happened in the past.

    How to break negative patterns in your life

    Nonattachment: Breaking free from possessions

    By taking alternative courses of action to dissolve those stubborn patterns, you can begin reconstructing healthier courses of action that serve you.

    Create better habits by noting what works, and then consistently doing it when the negative pattern reemerges. The more you create a positive shift in your emotions, attitudes, behaviors, and responses, the more you will break out of the negative pattern until it doesn’t happen anymore.

    Something important I’ve learned on my path is that nothing changes until we take responsibility for it. Often, this means taking responsibility for things that we believe are out of our control.

    The first step to breaking these painful patterns is to stop playing the victim and take full responsibility.

    After all, the situation is happening to you, so you’re creating it in one way or another. When you truly take responsibility for what happens in your life and stop playing the victim, this is when things start to change.

    When you find yourself walking into a repeating situation, make different choices. Even if you don’t know what the solution is, just try something else.

    Responding the same way to situations is a sure way to ensure they keep happening.

    If you usually get triggered by someone when they bring up a certain topic, stop and focus. Instead of perpetuating the cycle by lashing out and getting defensive, try talking about it. Try understanding their perspective even if it’s really difficult to do.

    Do something out of the regular every time you catch yourself in the same situation, and gauge the results.

    If things turn out bad again, then you can cross off that alternative path. If you did something a little differently and got a better result, then focus on taking similar approaches if the situation arises again.

    Keep working on yourself and be aware of these negative patterns, and you will slowly move in the right direction until you no longer need to relive them.

  • Growth Mindset: The Cornerstone of Personal Development

    Growth Mindset: The Cornerstone of Personal Development

    Have you wondered why some people are completely stuck in their ways, while others are on a constant path of learning?

    What separates Camp A from Camp B? Is it their attitudes, motivations, or belief systems? Is it simply who they are?

    It’s about having a growth mindset: the conviction that every aspect of our identity is cultivated, not innate. Nothing is set in stone, and through diligent effort, you can become more proficient in any endeavor.

    The growth mindset is the foundation of personal growth. Let’s look at what the growth mentality is and how you can train it in yourself.

    Adopting the growth mindset

    Growth mindset

    The growth mindset is a realization that you are a work in progress. It’s the belief that every trait, skill, ability, and characteristic can be developed to mastery, and there is always a step further to take it.

    People who have a growth mindset believe that their lives are the result of their actions. They will view the mind as a machine that is always learning, growing, and developing – right to the day they die.

    People who don’t have a growth mindset tend to believe their minds are fixed beyond adolescence. Their personality, intelligence, and characteristics are set in stone – and no amount of work will change it. Everyone has been given a hand of cards, and we must play with what we’re given.

    Someone with a growth mindset will believe they could become an astronaut if they put their mind to it. Likewise, they could become a saint, a rockstar, or an influential politician.

    After all, why not?

    Sure, I’m not saying it’s going to be an easy journey by any means. It may require a lifetime of dedication, learning, studying, and practicing, but it is possible if you apply yourself right.

    If you agree, likely you have a growth mindset. Otherwise, if you focus on all the barriers, then your lens may be shrouded in self-doubt and uncertainty – by pessimism. In this sense, it may benefit you by adopting the growth mindset to realistically see why it is possible.

    Benefits of a growth mindset

    The growth mindset is a particular lens that allows you to see an abundance of opportunities in the world. It’s an optimistic mindset that encourages growth, hope, motivation, and inspired action.

    If perceive success to be the result of learning the right information, then you’re going to apply yourself. If you believe there is no point because you have hit a cap, you’re probably not going to try.

    When I was younger, I didn’t understand life. I didn’t understand school, social relationships, how to manage my mental health, or how to learn.

    Worst of all, I didn’t have any desire to learn these skills and abilities that would benefit my life, because I didn’t know these things could be learned. I thought a charismatic person was born like that. That’s just who they are, and I’m just a shy, awkward kid.

    Unfortunate, but that’s just how it is.

    As a result of this fixed mindset where I thought I was trapped as my inferior self, my life was quite stagnant. Not much changed for a long time, and I was as unhappy as ever.

    At one point, I discovered that dating skills could be learned. After relentlessly researching how to improve myself in the eyes of a lady, this opened Pandora’s box.

    If I could learn to date, then what else could I learn?

    This created a major shift in my reality and marked the conception of the growth mindset.

    I continued growing, and even though I am certainly not perfect, I have come a very long way from the person I once was.

    Embracing continuous learning

    The growth mindset is to put yourself on a path of continuous learning. If you are constantly striving to become your best self to make the most of your life experience, then you probably have a growth mindset.

    A growth mindset = being on a personal growth journey, something I highly advocate.

    It’s important to view your life as a continuous learning curve.

    Think about it this way.

    You might not be able to achieve whatever you want to achieve, but you can become the person who can. Developing the growth mindset pushes you to develop yourself into a more competent person who can achieve the things you want.

    Without the conscious will to grow into a better person, you stagnate.

    Stagnation is spiritual suicide as it prevents you from capitalizing on your potential.

    Ultimately, your growth journey is the most fruitful path you can walk as it leads to some incredible life experiences. There is nothing you can’t achieve as long as you develop the skills, qualities, and traits needed to achieve it.

    You are an impressive ecosystem of skills, characteristics, beliefs, and so much more at play. So what can you do to make sure this ecosystem thrives?

    Learn!

    Growth mindset vs fixed mindset

    Infographic showing growth mindset vs fixed mindset

    The concept of the growth mindset was popularized by Carol Dweck (an American psychologist), who segmented it into the growth mindset and the fixed mindset.

    Dweck suggests that on one end of the spectrum, you have the growth mindset which is a big factor in success (read about her studies here). On the other hand, you have a fixed mindset (stagnation in your patterns and programs).

    The growth mindset encourages you to continue growing and to use every opportunity that life presents to grow.

    As growth applies to every aspect of your life, the growth mindset applies to everything too. There is nothing you can do in life where knowledge doesn’t benefit you.

    The fixed mindset is a mentality where you have no desire to learn or grow.

    You live in absolutes.

    This means that everything that forms the collective of you including your skills, personality traits, and belief systems are concrete. This is a limiting belief system that stunts your growth because it doesn’t inspire you to take action or consciously learn.

    Infographic of growth mindset

    Examples of the growth mindset

    Life provides so many opportunities to grow.

    When you start to see these opportunities in everything you do, whether it’s your work, relationships, hobbies, or avocations, you will speed up the process of growth.

    Therefore, keep an eye open for learning opportunities in everyday life.

    These might come in the form of conversations, observations, work, traveling, painful lessons, things that went wrong, and things that went right.

    You can extract wisdom from every experience, and that’s what you need to do if you want to accelerate your learning curve.

    Characteristics of the growth mindset

    Growth mindset characteristics

    Instead of seeing the growth mindset as something that’s taught, look at it as a shift in perspective that you need to make.

    This shift in perception facilitates more growth in your life on all levels, which results in a better life experience.

    Let’s look at some common characteristics of people with a growth mindset, so you can adopt them too:

    • Be persistent: Realize that any failure is the result of not yet building the required competence.
    • Be adaptable: People who have a growth mindset adapt to their circumstances and make the necessary changes.
    • Embrace challenges: Challenges are good because they provide an opportunity for you to stretch yourself. If you don’t challenge yourself, you’re not going to learn.
    • Seek feedback: Internal and external feedback provides information to help you improve.
    • Reflect on failures: Reflect on things that didn’t go to plan (and things that did too). Engage the feedback loop to continuously improve.
    • Believe in success: No matter how many times you fail, you will always have reason to try again. As long as you’re continuously working towards your goals, you can’t fail.

    Develop a growth mindset

    Growth mindset
    The growth mindset is not a switch, but a wisdom that seeds the more you encourage it.

    Everything begins with desire. If you desire to have something, then you’re going to push yourself to attain it. When you have a strong enough desire to grow, you will consciously look for ways to grow.

    By developing the willingness to grow, suddenly life becomes a learning curve where every situation, good or bad, aids your development.

    Here are some things you can do to develop a growth mindset:

    Constantly expand on your skillsets

    Look at skills as tools.

    The more skills you develop, the more tools you have in your arsenal.

    If you’re a construction worker who has the same routine day in and day out, you can learn more about the equipment you work with, procedures, mastering skills and techniques. You can learn more about the environment you work in, the people you work with, and the business you work for.

    If you work in customer service, you can learn about the product you sell, customer etiquette, and social interactions. You can learn about management and operations.

    There is always more to be learned regardless of what you are doing, and this knowledge will always have some practical value in your life.

    You just need to train your eye to see it.

    Be a creator

    Realize that you are limitless.

    There is no cap to your evolution, and certainly no limit to the amount you can expand your consciousness.

    Your mind is elastic.

    Even though your upbringing has a big influence over who are, you are responsible for your life journey, nobody else.

    There are always more opportunities to learn, despite what you’re doing. Furthermore, personal growth is a bottomless pit. You can get to deeper levels of well-being and wisdom, but there will always be more to learn.

    Engage the feedback loop

    The feedback loop means that you reflect on your performance in any given situation, and think about what you could do better next time.

    If you’re constantly engaging the feedback loop, you’re going to constantly be learning from your experiences.

    To grow as quickly as possible, make sure you reflect a lot.

    Introspect.

    Think about what you can do, and how you can better yourself. Your internal processes serve as a powerful aid on your growth journey.

    Open your mind

    Opening your mind is hugely important to develop a growth mindset.

    An open mind is a catalyst for personal growth as it allows you to absorb more ideas and perspectives about the world around you.

    You can open your mind by making an effort to entertain different perspectives and ideas, even if you disagree with them.

    Listen to everything, and look at all sides of any given situation. Aim to be the most knowledgeable you can, and you will start to absorb more information

  • Mental Rehearsal Techniques To Practice Anything, Anywhere

    Mental Rehearsal Techniques To Practice Anything, Anywhere

    Imagine if you could improve a performance-based activity such as public speaking, dating, or doing well in an interview just by playing it out in your head.

    Well, by utilizing mental rehearsal techniques, you can do exactly that.

    By mentally rehearsing an anticipated experience before it happens, you’re more likely to perform well. You can mentally simulate any experience before it happens which facilitates the space to practice, rehearse, and prepare.

    Let’s look at how you can mentally rehearse before any event to give you the ultimate edge.

    What is mental rehearsal?

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    Mental rehearsal is a technique to mentally prepare for, and improve your performance of an anticipated event.

    Mental rehearsal isn’t about learning new things. It’s about applying the knowledge you already have to a simulated scenario. The more you play out this scenario as successfully as possible, the more likely you are to execute it successfully in real life.

    Think about it this way: if you repeatedly envision yourself doing well at something, you’re likely to perform well too. Mentally you’re creating a pathway to walk, meaning you’re less likely to:

    • Become flustered and forgetful
    • Feel nervous and fumble
    • Get caught off guard
    • Make mistakes and muck up

    You’re more likely to achieve your desired outcome when you envision it happening because you’ve already been there and done that many times already, therefore it doesn’t feel intimidating. Your performance becomes muscle memory-oriented instead of improvising.

    Mental rehearsal can be applied to almost anything you do, so it can be a game-changer when making or breaking anticipated opportunities.

    Since you can mentally rehearse anytime, anywhere, you have every opportunity to shorten your learning curve solely with the power of your mind.

    How does mental rehearsal work?

    Studies suggest that new neural pathways are formed via mental rehearsal. Existing connections are strengthened similarly to physically practicing the activity.

    By rehearsing an anticipated event repeatedly in your mind, you’re going to reinforce your intended outcome – and unconsciously veer towards it.

    Therefore, it’s going to feel much more natural for you.

    Likewise, when you anticipate every potential challenge you may encounter, you set yourself up for success because you have planned for those challenges.  If you encounter one, you have already envisioned what to do.

    As long as you explore each potential pathway in your inner reality, plan for each possible situation, and see yourself successfully overcoming any road bump, you greatly improve your chances of executing the performance smoothly.

    What can mental rehearsal be used for?

    Mental rehearsal can be helpful for your physical performance, preparation for an anticipated event, and eliminating worry or fear.

    Here are some things mental rehearsal can help you with:

    • Public speaking
    • Speaking and pronunciation
    • Rehearsing a presentation
    • Excel in interviews and meetings
    • Dating
    • Physical activity that requires coordination or precision
    • Conversational skills
    • Body language and mannerisms
    • Dancing, theatre, and performance
    • Practicing an instrument
    • Fine motor abilities
    • Performing crafts and skills

    Mental rehearsal to desensitize

    Woman mentally rehearsing

    Mental rehearsal can also be done to help you desensitize from particular negative or unintended outcomes.

    This phenomenon has been studied here, where people have desensitized from irrational fears, by playing them out in their mind.

    If you’re nervous about an upcoming job interview, meeting someone new, or doing something out of your comfort zone, mentally rehearse the event before it happens. This can be a great way to ease the nerves and make you feel more confident.

    It’s no mystery why successful public figures often rehearse before important events. Resourcefulness like this has helped them get to where they are today.

    During my youth, I feared being engaged during a live event. On the odd occasion when I was called upon with all eyes on me, my face lit up like a ripe tomato.

    This tendency to blush when the spotlight was on me only made the situation more awkward. I wanted to end this embarrassing habit, so here’s what I did.

    Sometimes I visualize myself in the audience of an event when I’m laying in bed. In my visualization, the performer will ask me a question.

    “What’s your name? Why don’t you come on stage and make yourself known.”

    As I’m playing the scenario out in my mind in vivid detail, I’ll start to feel the same discomfort as I would in real life.

    As I envision this happening while lying in bed, I’ll feel blood rushing to my face. My body heats up like an oven. However, instead of trying to compose myself as I would in real life, I’ll exacerbate the situation in my mind.

    In my visualization, I will fumble. The performer will be silent, waiting for my response. I will blush more and begin sweating.

    The performer will make a witty comment: “Look at this guy, why is he going so red from such a simple question?” The crowd will start laughing while I’m standing there.

    I’m trying to dig into that uncomfortable sensation by playing out the worst-case scenario and sitting with the emotional and physiological response.

    After a little while, the emotional response will subside. Every time I did this, I imagined a similar situation to drum up an uncomfortable response. However, every consecutive time I did this mental rehearsal technique, both the emotional and physiological responses lessened.

    Now I don’t have an emotional reaction because I already experienced this situation many times, therefore it’s not a big deal.

    Mental rehearsal for preparation

    Mentally rehearsing for a successful date

    I used to be a very shy person. Social interactions scared the crap out of me, so you can only imagine what dates were like. Due to being inexperienced, I didn’t know what to do, say, or how to behave. When the rare opportunity for a date arose, I always blew it.

    So I would start envisioning myself on a date.

    Every time I mentally rehearsed a date, it was always in a different set and setting, with a different person. This person would always have a different personality, and there would be obstacles to overcome.

    Perhaps I spilled a coffee over my date or left my wallet at home. Perhaps my date started flirting with another guy at the bar, or we just had nothing in common. Envisioning a broad range of challenges gave me the flexibility I needed to improve this skill set.

    At first, it was difficult to even imagine myself doing well because I didn’t know what well was. To learn, I watched YouTube videos on the topic, paid attention to characters in movies, and observed other people’s dates in real life.

    I would visualize myself being charismatic and making the woman laugh. Sometimes I would imagine myself in other people’s shoes, and act like them.

    In my visualizations, I practiced conversations and thought about situations where I usually get stuck.

    How do I establish physical comfort and make a move? How do I avoid coming across as a creep? What was my body language, eye contact, and posture like?

    These were all big questions in my mind, but the more I played out these situations, the better I got.

    The more I practiced this mental rehearsal technique, the quicker and smoother my actions would be. And the best part – it translated into real life.

    Mental rehearsal isn’t magic. I still screwed up sometimes, and there have been situations I never anticipated, but mental rehearsal was a huge aid when it came to improving my dating skills.

    Next time you’re anticipating an event that makes you feel anxious – mentally rehearse. It can make a world of difference.

    Mental rehearsal to enhance performance

    Woman preparing to speak at a conference

    I have always loved to dance, but I was insecure when dancing around other people.

    Often I would listen to my favorite tunes when going to bed, and imagine losing myself to the music. I visualized myself dancing with coordination and rhythm while pulling off impressive tricks like a rock star.

    During these visualizations, I would feel my body moving to the beat while picturing each step, slide, and spin.

    When visualizing myself dancing, I would watch myself dance in 3rd person and 1st person. I would feel blood rushing through my body, sweat building on my brow, and the sensation of my body swiftly brushing through the air.

    Unconsciously, I mentally rehearsed dancing every time I listened to my favorite songs.

    Because I instinctively visualized myself dancing when listening to music, now I love dancing. This skyrocketed my confidence, and now I see this confidence manifest into my reality.

    Combined with actually practicing, my ability to dance has improved dramatically. The experience of dancing means something very different to me now – it’s an expression of joy and a form of therapy. But I may have never given it a real shot if I hadn’t envisioned myself doing it many times prior.

    Making mental rehearsal techniques effective

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    Now you should have a good idea of what mental rehearsal is and how it works. Here we’ll get into the details to do it effectively.

    Be realistic

    Visualize the activity in as much detail as you can to build a realistic picture of it.

    You’re trying to build an accurate image of the real-life scenario, so when it comes, you are prepared.

    If you’re mentally rehearsing a date you’re nervous about, swooping the person off their feet and giving them a long romantic kiss, at first sight, is probably not very realistic.

    If your mental rehearsal is vague by leaving out lots of necessary details, you’re just fantasizing instead of preparing for the real-life scenario.

    Pay attention to the details

    Your visualizations should be vivid by incorporating the smaller details into the picture – because they’re important.

    Think about your senses. Here are some things to include in your visualizations:

    • What do you see from your perspective?
    • What are some of the finer details like lighting, temperature, and the clothes people are wearing?
    • What is the setting like? Are you in a park, or a busy cafe with lots of background noise?
    • How are you feeling? Are you feeling motivated, nervous, excited?
    • How well are you executing your speech? Are you speaking with power or slurring your speech?

    The more details you add to your visualization to paint a vivid picture of the scene, the easier it will be to fully embody the visualization.

    Diversify your visualizations

    Visualize many different scenarios to prepare for alternative outcomes.

    Life doesn’t always play out as you hope, so it’s good to diversify your visualizations to prepare for different situations. If you only rehearse one possible outcome, you might get caught off guard.

    Think about how you can respond to unexpected occurrences such as:

    • Being late
    • Making a mistake
    • Being interrupted by someone/something
    • Being distracted by loud background noises
    • losing your phone

    How do you recover from these situations?

    Prioritize mentally rehearsing for situations that are likely to happen. Insert unexpected scenarios and improvise to the best of your ability.

    Take your time

    Take your time with the visualization and be present with it.

    Aim for quality. If you give a half-assed effort, you’ll get a half-assed result. Provide the visualization with the time, effort, and care it deserves.

    In other words, don’t just play out the fun parts, visualize the entire scene including the parts you don’t usually think about. This can include:

    • Waiting
    • Awkward silences
    • Mannerisms and body language
    • Responses

    Whether this mental rehearsal translates to a better performance or a stuttering wreck largely depends on the quality of your rehearsal.

    Are you truly embodying it?

    Repeat until it feels natural

    Replay the scene many times until you feel confident in your visualization

    Mentally rehearsing something once or twice probably won’t cut it. You need to drill your actions into your unconscious mind to habituate them.

    Just like practicing a sport, you can’t just practice a few times and be a pro. The mind works the same way when you visualize something.

    The more you go over any given scenario, the more natural it will feel to implement your desired actions.

    Don’t rush the process but give each repetition care, attention, and effort, just like you would in real life.

  • Become More Optimistic: How To Find The Silver Lining In Life

    Become More Optimistic: How To Find The Silver Lining In Life

    Since undergoing some major transformative healing experiences during my youth, people generally consider me to be an optimistic person. I quickly built a reputation amongst my friends and colleagues for being a positive guy who always looks at the bright side.

    For the most part, it’s true.

    Of course, I have my rough spots. I feel hopeless at times, but those moments are always temporary. It’s not a permanent haze, but rather moments of inner work and growth. Once I process the experience, I always come out the other side, feeling even better than I did before.

    So my understanding of optimism has changed over the years. It’s not something I do. Optimism is a mental program reflecting how I feel on the inside.

    Some people suggest that optimism is a disposition of your genetics, but I wholeheartedly disagree.

    Optimism is a reflection of your internal state. If you are deeply hurt, your view of reality will reflect this hurt. If you are emotionally clean and on a path of personal growth, your outlook will reflect this.

    Fortunately, anyone can become more optimistic by healing themselves and adjusting their worldview. If you have trouble seeing the silver lining in life, here’s what you can do.

    How does optimism improve your life?

    Optimistic woman enjoying life

    Being optimistic is a reflection of your emotional health, your environment, and your views of reality. Although you don’t want to pretend to be optimistic, genuinely seeing the world more joyfully is something we all can achieve.

    When you become a genuinely optimistic person, your life improves in so many different ways. Of course, optimism makes you feel good, but it also drives positive change in life.

    I owe a lot to my ability to be optimistic. It has encouraged me to build a much better life for myself – One where I know I can achieve what I set out to do. I feel good about my life, knowing that it’s always progressing, and will only get better as long as I apply myself.

    Some benefits of optimism include:

    • A reduction in stress
    • Less worry about the future
    • You become more hopeful
    • You have a higher zest for life
    • Optimism can inspire action
    • Better management of emotions

    Optimism makes you feel powerful, energetic, and hopeful about the future. It gives you motivation and makes your whole life experience much more enjoyable.

    What makes people optimistic?

    Being optimistic is largely dependent on how healed you are because it’s a reflection of a healthy emotional body. If you are emotionally healthy, naturally you will feel optimistic because there is no emotional baggage weighing you down.

    There’s a strong correlation between a person’s state of well-being and their perception of life. People who have a lot of trauma tend to perceive the world through a pessimistic lens.

    Therefore:

    • A healed person is naturally optimistic and joyful.
    • A wounded person is naturally pessimistic and miserable.

    I’m not saying this is always the case, but a rule of thumb. Wounded people feel miserable. Misery seeps into their perceptions and outlooks about themselves and the world.

    Therefore, healing is what truly moves the needle when it comes to optimism, because the more healed you are, the more genuinely optimistic you will become.

    It’s important to note that you don’t want to pretend to be optimistic. If you’re pretending to see life in a positive frame, you’re bypassing doing the inner work, and it will cause you more harm than good in the long run. This is spiritual bypassing and you can read more about it here:

    Optimism versus Pessimism: What’s the difference?

    Optimism exists along a spectrum, with the opposite side being pessimism.

    The middle ground between these two outlooks is realism. Realism is a neutral outlook that favors negativity as much as it does positivity.

    Optimistic people generally see the world as a wonderful place, filled with excitement, adventure, and opportunity. They are generally hopeful and believe that things will inevitably get better.

    Optimists tend to unconsciously focus on the pros rather than the cons of any given situation. This is usually considered a desirable outlook as optimists tend to be happier and more at peace with the outcome.

    Being optimistic doesn’t mean pretending that your problems don’t exist, or that everything is always good. Doing this will cause more problems in the long run. Being optimistic is to genuinely see the good side of everything, but to still be rational and realistic.

    Pessimism on the other hand is a negative outlook. Pessimistic people tend to see the world as a dark place, in which it’s only getting worse.

    Pessimists tend to focus on the cons of any given situation, and focus on what is, or could go wrong.

    Due to their negative outlooks, pessimists can be bitter, miserable, and lack appreciation for the good in life. This outlook can put a damper on positive feelings about oneself and the world. This is why it’s good to steer clear of pessimism.

    Pessimism

    Pessimism is a negative view of the future which acts as a spawning pool for painful feelings and misery. 

    Pessimism generally involves:

    • Negative outlook
    • Focus on what’s wrong
    • Glass half-empty mentality
    • Worry about the future
    • Self-doubt
    • Hopelessness
    • Lens of regression
    • Lack of faith
    • Dystopian outlook

    Realism

    Realism is a view of reality that has neither a positive nor negative connotation. It is to see reality through an unbiased and objective lens.

    Realism generally involves:

    • Objective assessment
    • Solution-oriented
    • Acceptance of limitations
    • Takes a cautious approach
    • Skeptical about possibilities
    • Critical of situations
    • Uncertainty
    • Realistic outlook

    Optimism

    Optimism is a positive view of the future that encourages positive feelings and emotions about oneself and the world.

    Optimism generally involves:

    • Positive outlook
    • Focus on what’s right
    • Glass half-full mentality
    • Excitement for the future
    • Self-belief
    • Hopeful
    • Lens of progression
    • Faith
    • Utopian outlook

    How to become more optimistic

    Woman expressing content

    Becoming more optimistic isn’t something that happens overnight. Cultivating optimism occurs by creating shifts in your perception which facilitate a lighter way of seeing your life.

    Here are some ways that you can begin transforming your outlook, to see the world more optimistically.

    Look for a win-win situation

    Acknowledge that there is always a way where everyone can benefit from the situation.

    Viewing life through a competitive lens where one person must fail to ensure the success of another doesn’t instill optimism. It’s better to look for a way (and believe in a way) where there’s a solution that works for everyone involved.

    Therefore, seek out outcomes that mutually benefit everyone involved to get out of the mentality that someone must lose for another to win.

    Look for the silver lining

    Some of the best experiences in my life transpired from things going wrong. It’s normal to go through the motions, but there’s often a better situation for you waiting around the corner.

    There is always something to gain from every experience, regardless of how difficult it is. People who learn to see the bright side of any given situation tend to become more optimistic.

    Being let go from your job might be a stressful situation that causes painful feelings, but can you view it in a way where you benefit in some form too?

    The silver lining could be:

    • The job wasn’t ideal in the first place
    • You didn’t get along well with your peers
    • You can now spend more time with family
    • You can work on the avocations you keep putting off
    • Opens up new opportunities
    • Opportunity to rest and recharge

    Of course, allow yourself to feel those painful emotions, but also shift your focus towards what you can gain from the situation at hand.

    Whenever you’re caught in a difficult situation, ask yourself if it could be a blessing in disguise, and how you may benefit from the situation in some form.

    Put it into perspective

    When you view yourself as the center of the world, every trivial matter becomes a major ordeal. Sometimes, you need to put it into perspective and acknowledge that an undesirable circumstance is not the end of the world.

    Whenever I feel like I’m in an unfortunate situation, I think about people who have it much worse than me such as:

    • People who are in extremely difficult situations
    • People who are homeless or in extreme poverty
    • People who have had much less fortunate lives than I have

    When I think about people who objectively have it much worse off than me, it puts my situation into perspective.

    Suddenly, the problems won’t seem so bad. It becomes easier to feel optimistic about your future knowing that you have some major advantages, regardless of what you’re going through.

    Next time something comes up, think about how lucky you have it, and the daunting walls will shrink into small hurdles.

    Reframe the narrative

    Our lives are webs of narratives because narratives allow us to make sense of who we are and what we’re doing here.

    Some people will construct the narrative that they’re victims of the world. Others will create a narrative that humanity is self-destructing and we’re approaching the end of our civilization.

    But do these narratives bring you joy? Do they cause you to see the world in the brightest possible light? Or do they cause pain and disintegration?

    Begin rewriting a better narrative to live by, and be aware of what ideas you’re constantly reinforcing to yourself.

    You can learn to rewrite your narratives by following the link below:

    Appreciate the little victories

    Be grateful for all of the little victories that you have daily.

    Most people give special attention to every negative thing that happens to them but turn a blind eye to all the things that go right.

    If you’re stuck in traffic, you’re probably going to notice the undesirable situation. But do you notice the times when you have a clean run? Do you pay attention to all the small things that go right, or normalize them?

    To become more optimistic, you need to build a habit of appreciating everything that goes right. Paying attention to the positives helps you cultivate gratitude – Which causes you to feel more optimistic.

    For a deep dive into gratitude, read the article below:

    Don’t skip the inner work

    Being optimistic is not about throwing a tarp over your worries and pretending everything’s fine, nor is it about alluding yourself to a false sense of positivity.

    Needless to say, things will happen from time to time in your life – Things that are out of your control. If you want to genuinely become a more optimistic person, do not repress negative emotions when they surface. Don’t deny the bad things that happen.

    Some situations won’t be fine, we are human. Don’t pretend that everything is always good because you need to be authentic, feel these emotions, and let them drift through.

    Don’t pretend that everything’s good, but understand that it will be okay.

    When you accept your difficulties and confront your issues, a weight will be lifted from your shoulders. You will be able to see the future with zest and excitement.

    Don’t make assumptions

    You can learn to see situations in a different light, depending on the narrative you give them.

    If you don’t know the full story behind something, be careful not to assume the worst. By assuming the worst-case scenario, you’re setting yourself up for disappointment. By assuming more positive alternatives, you’ll release a burden from your shoulder.

    Learn how you can reframe situations below by using a cognitive reframing technique:

    Listen to inspiring stories

    As we tend to embody the messages we hear, the stories and ideas we’re exposed to can be taken to heart – Resulting in a more optimistic or pessimistic outlook. We don’t always want to take things to heart, but humans are naturally impressionable.

    If you’re constantly listening to people telling you about their failures, or how hard it is to make it in life, of course, it’s not going to instill optimism.

    On the other hand, if you’re regularly listening to inspiring stories and surround yourself with people who are encouraging you to do better, you’re likely to feel more optimistic because of these influences.

    Therefore, it’s important to be selective about what sort of messages you’re soaking up.

    I’m not saying to turn a blind eye, but perhaps be more selective about what sort of energy you’re exposing yourself to. If it’s mostly negative, consider giving yourself an arm’s distance from these influences.

    Reassess your priorities

    Pessimism is often born from superficial priorities or unachievable goals.

    If making money is your whole world, you might not feel so great if you’re not where you want to be. How can you stay motivated when your goals are so difficult to achieve?

    I suggest making your priorities intrinsic.

    Don’t aim to be rich, aim to be satisfied with what you have. If you set internal qualities over material pursuits, you’re bound to feel more optimistic because your goals aren’t only easier to attain – They’re fulfilling.

    As long as you value your personal development over any external gain, you will always win because the toughest experiences usually yield the biggest rewards.

  • The Opportunity Mindset: How To Step Into A Life Brimming With Opportunities

    The Opportunity Mindset: How To Step Into A Life Brimming With Opportunities

    The life you lead is the result of the opportunities you’ve pursued. Every choice you’ve made, no matter how small – Has shaped your life journey. By viewing opportunities as stepping stones, you’ll understand why it’s so important to jump on them.

    Opportunities are gateways to new life experiences. That’s why it’s so important to develop an opportunity mindset – Where you perceive your life to be abundant in opportunities, choices, and new exciting experiences.

    What is the opportunity mindset?

    Different opportunities concept art

    The opportunity mindset is an optimistic view of life where you constantly feel abundant in opportunities and perceive them to be pathways to new life experiences.

    Someone without an opportunity mindset might thoughtlessly brush off an invitation to meet new people. Someone with an opportunity mindset is likely to think about the potential doorways this experience could open up – And is more likely to pursue it.

    By developing an opportunity mindset, you’ll see life through a frame of possibility. You’ll think about where any given course of action could take you, embrace new experiences, and view challenges as opportunities for growth.

    The opportunity mindset is empowering because it encourages you to take a more proactive approach to life. By seeing your life through a frame where there is always a new road to take, you’ll never feel like you’ve hit a dead end.

    You never know where a doorway will lead you or how your life will change by walking through it. So instead of seeing barriers everywhere, learn to recognize uncertainty as a gateway to new experiences.

    To get started, visit the article below to learn more about the growth mindset:

    You’re always abundant in opportunities

    The truth is you’re always surrounded by opportunities. Part of the opportunity mindset is to recognize that there is always a pathway you can take, and if nothing seems obvious, create one!

    The reason why you don’t see these opportunities is because you’re stuck in the groove of doing what feels normal to you. So you end up doing the same things over and over again, and wondering why you’re life is stagnant.

    But every day you can make different decisions.

    You can try new things, meet new people, and go to new events.

    You can reach out to friends, try a new hobby, and change up your routine.

    There’s an infinite amount of possibilities, and you never know where any one of these things will lead you.

    Opportunities lead to opportunities.

    By looking at all the different pathways you can take daily, you will never feel like you’re trapped. And if you do, it’s because you’re not changing things up.

    Opportunity mindset vs threat mindset

    Why is it that one person might see a situation as an adventure, while another may see it as a nightmare?

    The way we perceive things often boils down to our mindset and outlook. The opportunity mindset and threat mindset are contrasting lenses that determine how we see different situations in life.

    People who don’t see through a frame of opportunity are often trapped in a threat mindset. Instead of seeing your circumstances in a way where you can somehow benefit from them, a threat mindset is a pessimistic counterpart.

    The threat mindset is a limiting belief system where you focus on the risk and perceive obstacles as barriers. Instead of trying new things, you have an aversion to change. Therefore, you see challenges as something negative.

    The threat mindset leads to a much more conservative lifestyle. Instead of jumping on different opportunities that are presented, you try to hold onto security.

    A threat mindset magnifies risks and leads to a heightened sense of fear, which is why it’s important to identify and replace it with an opportunity mindset.

    Making wiser decisions with your life

    The opportunity mindset

    It’s easy to think of some reason why you’re not living the life you want to live. But at the end of the day, it all comes back to the decisions you’ve made, and the decisions that you continue to make.

    Your life path is built with decisions, and each day is shaped by hundreds of little decisions.

    You decide to meditate or watch another episode of your favorite show. You decide to get drunk or to work on an avocation. You decide to apply for a new job, take a course, or move to another country.

    Your decision to work towards better things makes a world of difference. No decision should be seen as good or bad, but you should think about where those decisions will lead you, and what opportunities will open up in the future because of them.

    If you’re constantly making decisions that stunt your growth and limit you, then you have nobody to blame but yourself.

    Strive to make better decisions that open you up to a more colorful world, because your decisions facilitate the experiences you have.

    Navigating the major life decisions

    Your day-to-day decisions pave the road you walk, and the bigger decisions plan out the route. The big decisions can change the trajectory of your life, so they’re important to consider carefully.

    Do you ever wonder where your life would be now if you did things a little differently? Did you decide to leave that toxic relationship, even though you knew it would hurt? Did you pursue a line of work that fulfills you? Have you closed yourself off to other people, or do you have a thriving social life?

    When it comes to the little things, you decide to work on yourself or not. You decided to shut out conflicting ideas that could have helped you. You decided to be a victim, to be stuck in your ways, and you are responsible for every decision you have made.

    But don’t beat yourself up. We are human and it’s okay to make some bad decisions, that’s how we learn after all. But realize just how important your decisions are, and strive to make better ones that will serve your growth.

    To take full responsibility for your decisions, read the article below:

    Are you a yes person or a no person?

    Some people will have a reason why they can’t do anything out of the ordinary, and other people will be open to anything that happens.

    Although there’s nothing wrong with saying no, it can become an ingrained habit where life itself becomes a rejection of anything that doesn’t fit into your box of comfort.

    Whether you say yes or no to life, in general, sets the foundation of the opportunity mindset. By saying yes to life, you’ll notice a stark contrast in how you interact with it, and where it leads you.

    Identifying windows of opportunity

    Windows of opportunity

    Opportunities are like windows. They open temporarily, but if you don’t jump through them while they’re open, they can close forever.

    Throughout your life, windows of opportunity are constantly opening and closing. Many of these windows will appear suddenly (last-minute invitations, the perfect moment for a first kiss), and that window could be a make-it-or-break-it moment.

    A window might appear in the form of a partner or relationship, jobs, avocations, friends, hobbies, or anything at all. The more determined you are the follow that particular path, the further it will lead you into a different lifestyle.

    Utilizing opportunities is about seeing these windows all around you, and the pathways each window potential leads to. You will never know what could have been if you always let these windows close, and never take a risk to find out.

    Windows of opportunity can open out of the blue, so jump on them before they disappear forever. Take a chance and see where these windows take you, otherwise, you might regret not crawling through them when you had the chance.

    Start making more connections

    So many opportunities in life come through people. So if you want to live a life abundant in different possibilities, it’s important to meet people, make contacts, and push yourself out there a little bit.

    If you’re always sitting at home making no effort to stay in touch with people, go to events, or take the initiative to invite people to things, your life is probably going to be pretty bland.

    So start by working on your social life and creating contacts. There are always people to meet through the workplace, friendship groups, and by going to networking events.

    Do some research to see if any events are coming up that interest you. Make an effort to go to these events and chat with people. Stay in contact with friends, and don’t decline opportunities to meet their friendship groups.

    The more you generally put yourself out there on all fronts, whether it’s making more of a name for yourself in your workplace, networking at events, or engaging the online social sphere more, naturally the more opportunities are going to show up.

    Keep an open mind

    Have you ever been invited to something and thought it would suck? But then you ended up doing it, and certainly didn’t regret it?

    Well, think about everything in this way. There are so many things that we turn down regularly because we either don’t have time, feel uncomfortable, or the opportunity doesn’t even register because we’re so caught up in routine.

    Maybe someone starts chatting to you at a cafe. Instead of engaging in the conversation and seeing what you can learn from it, you dismiss the person, often unconsciously.

    Maybe some people at work invite you out to do something. You feel like it might be a bit awkward, so you don’t go out, and don’t strengthen the connection with your colleagues.

    Suddenly you’re on the outside of your workplace, and those colleagues never become more than colleagues because you didn’t take the opportunity to get to know them better. You had the opportunity, but you closed your mind to it.

    How about trying something new for the sake of experiencing it? Even if you don’t think you’ll enjoy it, what do you have to lose from giving it a shot?

    This is why it’s important to keep an open mind because you never know what you might enjoy. If you base your decisions on what you think might happen, then you’re not allowing yourself to explore a little and discover new things in life, and you close yourself off.

    The opportunity cost: Weighing up the pros and cons

    Divorce

    The opportunity cost is what you would have missed out on if you didn’t take an opportunity that was presented.

    Think about it this way. If you don’t take an opportunity to meet some acquaintances for a coffee, you miss out on creating deeper connections with them. If you seldom get out of your comfort zone, you forgo the competence you would gain otherwise.

    It’s important to think about the opportunity cost for every decision you make. Assessing the opportunity cost gives you some sort of framework that allows you to decide on an unbiased lens.

    Therefore, ask yourself what you would gain by pursuing any given opportunity. Likewise, ask yourself what you could lose.

    If you’re struggling to make a decision, write down all the potential benefits, and all the potential setbacks of pursuing that particular opportunity. If the pros outweigh the cons, act on it.

    Assessing the opportunity cost for big life decisions

    Always exercise caution, but don’t let moderated cautiousness mutate into paranoia. Some situations are dangerous. Some are not worth the potential loss-to-gain ratio.

    If the opportunity doesn’t seem like it’s worth the potential payoff, don’t follow through with it. But if you identify that it’s solely fear holding you back and taking the opportunity is likely a good move, then do it.

    It’s important to not instantly dismiss any opportunity that’s presented. Make sure you give it some consideration, weigh up the potential risks, and then decide whether to jump on it or not.

    Reframing how you perceive challenges

    rubik cube 1703600 1280

    Viewing everything that happens to me in a frame of personal growth really drives the opportunity mentality. Instead of defaulting to not doing something because it pushes me out of my comfort zone, I think about how it will help me grow as a person.

    If I’m invited to a social outing with people I don’t know, I might feel a little uncomfortable and my first instinct will be not to go. After all, it’s much more comfortable to stay home. But if I let that little voice win, then I’m absolutely sure it won’t be a one-off occurrence.

    So I need to challenge that voice with the growth voice and think about why it would be beneficial for me to do it. What would I potentially miss out on if I decided not to take the opportunity?

    That’s the side of me that says ‘It might be uncomfortable, I might even regret it, but trying something and having a bad time will make me feel a whole lot better than not experiencing it at all.

    Overcoming resistance to change

    Life is constantly presenting you with choices. If you feel like nothing ever happens, it’s because you’re not being proactive. If opportunities aren’t coming to you, you need to start seeking them out.

    A big reason why you’re not seeking out opportunities is because you’re avoidant. You’re complacent in a life where you’re not struggling enough to force change, but you don’t have a big enough incentive to change either. I call this the stagnation zone.

    When you’re in the stagnation zone, it’s important to start moving the needle in any way possible. Think about what you can gain from having new experiences, and how these new experiences can lead to better things.

    If you view your life in a frame of personal growth, this should incentivize you to change things up. Then it comes to discipline. This means making decisions that will benefit you and forcing yourself to follow through.

    You will disappoint yourself at times, and it’s okay. But use every time you fail to redefine what you want and to move towards it. Remember, your life is built up brick by brick. You need to commit to change before you begin to see it manifesting in your life.

    Seeing obstacles as challenges

    Whenever you’re presented with a challenge in your life, look at it in a way that it’s there to push to you grow. Because if we weren’t challenged, we would probably just stay and same and get nowhere.

    The most competent people have usually had some pretty big challenges in their lives. But instead of feeling defeated by those challenges, they strove to grow from them.

    The result? They become more capable people who can handle a lot more. They know that future obstacles are just temporary barriers that lead to even more growth, so they move toward them rather than away from them. After all, why wouldn’t you when you see how beneficial they are for you, even though sometimes they suck?

    This is the mentality you need to adopt. Any obstacle in your life is there to teach you valuable skills. You just need the determination, ingenuity, and perseverance to overcome those obstacles, and you’ll find that those obstacles are essential to building you into the person you want to become.