Thank yourself for pulling yourself through the past year. The act of marching on during such emotionally, economically, politically turbulent times, in what seems like the second dark age, is the greatest feat of bravery. If you find yourself drifting into the new year, aimless, betrothed to the passing of time but unsure how to take control when everything is so uncertain, here are a few truths to keep in mind that will help guide and focus you. Here’s how to adjust the proverbial sails, and change what you can’t accept.
- Anxiety is lying to you. Science says you are capable of achieving whatever you put work, discipline, and passion into through the growth mindset. Abilities aren’t fixed, inherent things bestowed on us at birth — they’re cultivated. Every self-made successful person goes through the learning curve, those who reach their destination simply persevere through failure through the growth-mindset.
Anxiety is also lying about others’ perception of you and you’re letting a lie control you. The truth is, we’re not at the center of everyone’s lives — everyone is their own main character, too busy thinking about themselves. Stop rejecting yourself before the world does. Stop deciding for others — in job applications, relationships, and any good opportunity.
Anxiety also distorts your world view and creates the negative feedback loop which you base your actions off, which then results then reinforce your negative beliefs.
Combat anxiety by objectively analyzing the validity of your negative thoughts, arguing with them logically through self-talk, and treating yourself with the kindness and forgiveness you’d treat a friend.
Exposure therapy — sometimes recommended guided by a professional — is also the ultimate confidence builder. If anxiety is an irrational fear of something, you can only shut it down by disproving it through tried success. Exposure therapy simply works — I’ve seen it diminish my fear of presentations, interviews, public speaking, and more. I did so by focusing on the controllable — my level of preparation, detaching myself from the outcome, and being fearful but doing it anyway. Confidence is built by disproving anxious thoughts. Stepping outside your comfort zone builds the confidence needed to challenge anxious thoughts and tackle bigger feats. Remember, anxiety is an unreliable narrator. From those small gains you’ll have the confidence to make bigger leaps.
- Keep going even when you see no results — our controllable situations are lagging measures of our compoundable habits. Effort crescendos behind the scenes building the potential to unleash incredible change. It won’t be the last push that did it, but all the effort that came before it.
- Listen to what discomfort tells you, do a life audit, and implement a plan of change in each area daily. Negative emotions are often responses to circumstances that we feel need to change. In fact, feelings of anxiety can be part of the growth process and evolution into your ideal self according to Dabrowski’s “theory of positive disintegration.” Anxious thoughts point out areas of dissatisfaction in your life that you want to work on to align with your inner goals, personality, and desires to live out your personal values.
And our thoughts form our identity, habits, and behavior
- Nothing can bring us peace but Jesus Christ. Peace truly isn’t a place, status symbol, escapism, another vocation, a dopamine chase, vice, or an object to be coveted. Treasures of this earth leave us feeling empty. Peace is not being reliant on external factors to feel confident in the Spirit which works within us. Peace is faith in Christ.
Life is not about vanities and carnal treasures of this earth, but about what has the breath of life itself. Once we shift from the ego to the self, we can focus on the imperatives of life instead of ending up full of regret from centering around a frivolous focus.
John 14:27 ‘Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you: not as the world giveth, give I unto you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid.”
“We have two lives, and the second begins when we realize we only have one.” Yet we spend the now — all we ever have — wishing, escaping, envying, and complaining it away — ad infinitum. A mind controlled by ephemeral external circumstances and validation is a mind of no peace at all — it’s a reactive mind that lets inconveniences and outside pressures dictate your daily mood. Peace of mind isn’t externally created, as both research, and the Bible instructed us. To think happiness — an ephemeral response — is a buy, drink, night, trip, job, degree, or bank account digit away, is to have confidence in the flesh and all the things on earth which turn to dust. “Vanity of vanities; all is vanity.”
Cultivating a proactive, mindful mindset focused on seeking the kingdom of God, bearing no thought for worries, and living with noble purpose among loved ones is the key to peace in an escapist, consumerist world of calamity. To live with purpose and trust in our Lord is the greatest act of rebellion one can achieve. What is 90 years to eternity? Live every day with urgency, love, and focus.
- Passion is inescapable, don’t spend the rest of your life wondering ‘what if.’ Passion doesn’t have to be sidelined as a hobby, but it can be harnessed as a shortcut to success if you wish. To find it, ask yourself “ if I was the last person on earth would I still do it?” Passion is what feels like fun to you but works to others. If you feel resistance, it’s because you care deeply about something that you fear messing it up — that is a sign of passion. The question of whether you’re meant to be something, is answered by simply doing it. Ignoring it only breeds eternal dissatisfaction. Don’t listen to those who have never tried, look to those who found a way to succeed. The 9-5 will always exist, live purposefully and responsibly while you’re young.
Ignoring passion breeds eternal dissatisfaction. It’s why people often wonder why their lives don’t match their inner world — their hopes, goals, and vibrance. The road to your goals starts by identifying those cognitive dissonances, then closing the gaps. Action — not intention — determines destination.
Succeeding in your passion requires detaching yourself from the outcome and falling in love with the process. Those overinvested in success and terrified of failure, will never write a symphony. It demands creating more than you consume — sacrifice escapism to create a future you don’t have to escape from.
- If you want the meritable rewards of life, you must risk failure, or forever sit on the sidelines wondering “what if.” Failure is part of the unpaved journey towards success, the self-made travail. Abilities are not fixed, and everything can be learned through discipline and passion. The only true failure is not trying at all, and having a fixed mindset controlled by fear of failure. You’ll become a big fish in a small pond, amassing affirmation, never leaving your comfort zone to allow for growth, forever fearing the learning curve pointing towards success, because of that fear and wonder why you didn’t end up where you wanted. Become immune to the fear of failure and apply, approach, express yourself.
- Lfe is a dance, not a mission – only the present is real. Life is what happens while you’re waiting for your “real ife” to start. Living in the past or future robs your every day. Start now, start where you are. Take every goal one day at a time. Don’t forget how you’re living what past you dreamed of. Sing to God’s creation, and cherish those around you.
- Accept what you can’t change, and change what you can’t accept. Never complain but take action and pray. Worry is the opposite of faith. We can not be lukewarm.
- You can’t think or read your way out of depression. Isolation, rumination, and a lack of small but mighty action exacerbates this state and digs a bigger whole. A simple trip outdoors can change your perspetivve for the day — witnessing life and its beauty, its people, its nature, the cosmically insignificant size of our planet among the stars in the open sky. These experiences can be humbling and encouraging. Exposure therapy works. Pursue healthy fun. Live life outside safely. Stop intellectualizing emotions. Drop everything that is ruminating, depressing, and romanticizing negativity and depression. There exists a whole world outside your mind that is not aligned with the distorted worldview depression can paint. Seek out experiences that challenge your negative view.
- If nothing changes, nothing changes. Persistence through failing methods will leave you stagnant and bitter
- You don’t hate yourself, you hate not being yourself. You don’t hate being alive, you hate not living your life. Many cases of depression are normal human responses to negative circumstances. Ask yourself, are there areas in my life causing me stress and pain — socially, physically, career, financial, etc. Consider your diet, exercise, social life, career path, finances, flaws, etc. It’s easy and vidicating to chalk it all up to a nihilistic tear in the fabric of our human experience that billions of sheeple haven’t been able to discover, but it’s hard to audit one’s life and slowly chip away at those stressors to build positively anew. Nihilism is a coping mechanism. Life is the only point.
- Authenticity attracts true friendship. Stop trying to be universally likable for people you don’t even like. The flower does not pine after the bee, it just blooms. Stop hiding yourself in a futile attempt to be universally easily consumable for people you don’t even like. Authenticity attracts your like minded tribe. Authenticity kills anxiety by shedding the pressure of constantly performing a public person
- Beauty isn’t worth. Stop worrying about being conventionally consumable. Existence is an act not a state. I never based my worth on external validation because my idea of value was based on the caliber of my work, the merit of my actions, not fleeting self-image. The greatest historical figures didn’t immortalize their name with beauty but a weaponized brain or talent.
- Procrastination isn’t laziness, it’s the fear of failure. Ending the tendency to procrastinate requires a mindset shift that turns into a habit when the fear of doing nothing exceeds the fear of doing it badly. Challenging perfectionism, embracing a learning curve, and detaching your value from your performance is the key to getting started. After all, action precedes motivation — completing one task progressively builds the confidence to take on new and bigger goals without hesitation
- Do not engage with negativity at all. Don’t seek out content, people, or experiences you dislike. Don’t talk negatively about others or their interests. Be so focused on your life and spreading light, that you have no time to pay to things on a lower, negative wavelength.
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