For today’s lesson, let’s do a little spring cleaning of the mind.
Here are a few things that you can do differently today that will not only make your life better, but make you a happier, more healthy person. Life is short, so let’s not make it any shorter by weighing ourselves down with negative beliefs and actions.
For starters:
1: DON’T BE YOUR OWN WORST CRITIC…
People always complain about “haters,” without even realizing that they are their OWN worst haters. This is typically because they have internalized the critical voices of a father, mother, or other caregiver, and carry that talk around with them well into their adult lives.
2: ….INSTEAD INTERVENE ON THE LIE
As a character in my next book recently told me: It takes one thousand encouragements to make up for one negative comment. Are you going to make mistakes? Sure. We all do. But, from now on, as soon as you generalize an error into a global self-criticism (“I’m stupid,” “I’m not good enough,” “I’ll never get this right”), instantly banish the thought from your mind and replace it with the truth (“I’m smart, I just made a mistake, but I recognized it, learned something from it, and now I’m even smarter.”) And be glad you’re not perfect. No one is. However, you ARE perfectly imperfect.
3: DON’T LET FEAR GET IN YOUR WAY…
We create fear by focusing on something we don’t want to happen, and end up giving it way too much power over us. As a result, progress, growth, and new experiences happen much slower than they should, if at all.
4: …INSTEAD RECOGNIZE MOST FEARS ARE NEVER GOING TO HAPPEN.
Write down all your fears, then cross out the ones that are irrational or unlikely to happen. Then eliminate any that have to do with things that are out of your control. Finally, cross out any events that may happen in the future. What’s left? Do you really have anything to worry about in this exact moment? No, not much, if anything. Acknowledge that it’s all in your mind and let it go. The best way to keep what you fear from happening is to stop creating self-fulfilling prophecies.
5: DON’T GIVE IN TO LIMITING BELIEFS…INSTEAD LET THEM GO
This blog post is getting long, and for most of you, if you read the section from Rules of the Game on this, I don’t need to rehash it here. If you didn’t read it, the book is FINALLY going to be on Kindle and iBooks. However, this is not a plug, just an attempt to get to the end of this list. So if you’re a broke student or unemployed, and want me to send you that section instead, sign up here and email me and it’s on the house.
6: DON’T SHIT-TALK OTHERS…
One of my favorite 30 day challenges was not saying negative things about myself and other people. If you do this, what you’ll most likely discover is that you either put down other people because you consider them competition or because you’re trying to justify your own beliefs or behaviors by getting someone else to agree with you. Both are pointless and destructive.
7: …INSTEAD PRACTICE GIVING COMPLIMENTS
Instead of putting others down, try improving yourself instead. The only person you have a right to compete with is YOU. In the meantime, treat others how you’d like to be treated. One trait that some of the best people in the world share is EMPATHY. A couple of kind words can not only make a person’s day, but earn you a friend and supporter for life. For the rest of the week, whenever you see someone you want to judge negatively, pay them a compliment instead. See what happens.
8: DON’T HOLD ONTO THE PAST…INSTEAD LEARN FROM IT
This one’s in the epilogue of Everyone Loves You When You’re Dead, also out (finally!) as an eBook along with the rest of my books next week (will fill you in on the details of why it’s taken so long soon.) Anyway, until then, learn from the past, but don’t let it interfere with the present or hold you back from your future.
9: DON’T LIVE FOR OTHERS…
You only have one life to live and if you’re living for someone else, you’re wasting it.
10: …INSTEAD BE TRUE TO YOURSELF
Grab the steering wheel of your life and drive it to a place you enjoy. I’ve written a whole email about this point before, but it can’t be stressed enough. If for any reason you don’t have that email on living your passion (headline was: The Secure Way is Really the Insecure Way), sign up here and email me and I’ll send it to you.
I still have a dozen more principles to share, but this is good enough to get you all started on your spring cleaning…