Sometimes we need to fall down in order to reassess ourselves before we can get back up stronger than ever
Insofar as self-improvement goes, there’s a facade to what we think it stands for. The term self-improvement reflects something akin to being on an escalator that is continually ascending. It’s not.
There are days where the escalator malfunctions and you fall backwards a couple of steps. You’re disoriented from the sudden jolt and you have to sit with yourself.
When life knocks you down, sometimes all you can do is sit with the misery of it. Those are the moments where you get to make the conscious decision to observe what’s hurting or retreat to drown out the pain.
Success isn’t owned. It’s rented, and rent is due everyday.
J.J. Watt
There have been times where my ego gets so high from my own progress, that I start to lose perspective. A couple of months ago, I took on the challenge to run everyday. The mental fortitude I fastened on for the month kept me feeling like a winner on the daily.
The following month and a half, I fell off the routine — in fact I completely lost the balance of consistency and did less than the baseline of what I would normally do when it comes to fitness. A part of it may have been circumstances in life, I believe it was just mismanagement of my own time.
I felt I had done more than enough work the month before, and counted on the residual wave of positivity to keep me going. However, we all know that consistency is the key to maintenance.
Every lesson is built on previous lessons. Every experience is viewed through a lens of your collective experience that preceded that. Enjoy your victories, and keep a mental note of them — but never lose sight of the journey that got you there.
Why You Should Examine Yourself
The practice of illuminating all of the dark corners of our mind can be a treacherous thing. It can hurt because we are digging things up about ourselves that perhaps we haven’t even consciously acknowledged.
In those moments where you examine an aspect of yourself and unintentionally uproot more than you are prepared for, the feelings released can be miserable. So why should we do it?
I’m one to believe that every stone should not be left unturned. How else will we know what’s festering underneath? What other way can we be proactive on improving habitual behaviors that are rooted in past events, traumatic experiences, and pent up emotions that have not been acknowledged? Those behaviors do not serve us for the better.
It’s really important that we feel confident enough to tackle our personal struggles. There will be moments where you will discover things about yourself that just don’t add up to the “idealistic” version of the “you” that you envision. Those moments will be a blow to your ego and it will hurt.
Examine Yourself Compassionately
Remember that there is a fine line between over-examining our psychological faculties and adopting a self-compassionate acceptance for what is.
If we are operating from a place of inadequacy, we will always be looking for another road to improvement without stopping to appreciate how far we’ve come.
Learn to catch yourself when you are over-correcting for any mistakes you have made. The act of doing more than you need to, to show that you’re trying to make amends with your personal faults or shortcomings might just be shooting yourself in the foot.
Be gentle with yourself. It’s in those moments where you have to stop, breathe, and say to yourself “what has been done is done.”
There is absolutely no shame in the fact that you have made mistakes! Humans make mistakes. Take solace in the fact that we are always trying our best given what we know at the time.
Allow yourself room to acknowledge that you are human and humans have limitations. Know where your boundaries lie.
Process Of Unlearning
The process of questioning something you believe to be the core attributes of your identity is a painful process.
It sucks to pluck at the threads that sew together the fabric of our identity. Unfortunately, there’s a lot of extraneous fabric that does not belong and is weighing us down. Some of the worst feelings you can feel when you start ripping away at those threads will leave you for the wolves.
Suddenly your deepest insecurities will surface up and attach themselves to those feelings like a hyper polarized magnet. The faculties that process your feelings are inundated with heaviness. It clogs up your heart. You feel this immense weight on your chest and in your gut. Your brain goes into overdrive to make up a thousand and one reasons for what those feelings might be. The weight on your chest becomes less of a weight and more of a void — you drift off into a space where you collide with humanity’s greatest foe: loneliness.
Remembering that you are not your thoughts, feelings, or insecurities can help tremendously. Look at them head on, acknowledge them for what they are, and then look beyond.
Reframing What We Believe To Be Our Identity
You are not your thoughts, because you think them. You can’t be your feelings, because otherwise, who’s the you that feels them? You are not what you have, you are not what you do. You are not who you love, or who loves you. So when you think about your identity, when you think about what it means to be alive, when you think about why you deserve to exist… [it’s to be the most authentic version of yourself].
Caroline McHugh
Many of the ideas we attach to our identity are in fact things that we have picked up from the people who have come into our lives — the experiences we’ve collected.
Our need for social acceptance is hardwired into our humanity. I believe that need has hijacked the way we put meaning to our identity. In a way it has tricked us into believing that all of the interactions that we’ve had with others — good and bad, in part define who we are.
How can that be? Our interactions are transient — to base our identity on how we engaged and behaved in our past interactions is to limit ourselves to our memory. It means we are taking a snapshot in time and ascribing it to our ever evolving sense of self.
Our past interactions shed light on what we knew at the time, and how we used that knowledge and wisdom to engage. To accept that our identity is rooted there means we deny the kaliedoscopic nature of life! We are always changing and growing. At least we should be.
Moving Forward
Looking beyond is the hardest step — it’s hard because when you look beyond, you don’t actually know what you’re looking at or looking for. It’s because of that, you might want to stay within the zone of familiarity. At least here, you can recognize it. You know how to identify with it. Keep in mind, this is the zone where all of the self serving bias, insecurities, and toxic behaviours live.
Don’t do it. It’s a false sense of security. Remember that growth is right around the corner. The thing that is just beyond what’s in front of your vision will manifest itself to you as you continue focusing on what’s beyond.
That is the trajectory of growth. To push beyond what you know, so you can become more than what you know.
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