Even if you are not in the plastering business you are familiar with building walls, replacing bricks and painting the walls as well. Recently I have thought about how many of us prefer “painting walls” of our lives rather than “replacing old bricks” in them.
If you think about it, the first reason for doing that is that it is easier to “paint walls” which means buying new cars, clothes, going on holiday, having a drink, watching TV or other temporary distraction to forget about the issue. The thing is that after we return from holiday, get that sweater or wake up the next day, the issue is still there and we are being faced to tackle it again.This “painting of the wall” can go on and on for many years until we realise that the “wall” cannot be painted again and we are almost desperate to replace the bricks. Unfortunately this is many times done too late, with much higher consequences than if we “replaced the bricks” early enough. What I have learned over the time is that instead of painting the wall, the long term solution is to take off the painting from the wall (acknowledge and accept the issue), add missing or replace old bricks with new ones (get support by therapist or coach as we need the external perspective) and only then paint again (learn and implement new habits). As a result of this you did some deep work and you are now living your “new me”. If you want to move your life to another level, it either comes from inside or from outside and only deep change in your life is able to move you to another level.
Three simple ideas that will support you with the deep change are:
Become more present
In addition to various mindfulness techniques like breathing, asking yourself questions throughout the day or meditation, a simple thing like checking your time would help you to become more focused on “now”. If you are one of those people who are easily distracted, looking at your watch or the clock on your wall will help you stay in the present moment and be more aware of how you spend your time. It definitely helped me to plan and organise my days better.
Create more than consume
Remind yourself about keeping the balance between creating and consuming. Even though it is summer time and we have a tendency to consume more than create, if you are struggling to feel more fulfilled even though you are on holiday, increase the ratio “create:consume” and you will ultimately see more progress and more satisfaction and happiness coming to your life.
Compare yourself only with one person
Do not compare yourself to others but to who you were yesterday. Many of you have heard about imposter syndrome which is defined as ”doubting your abilities and feeling like a fraud”. You may feel like for the first couple of times you are posting or selling something online and think that many people before you have done the same and you're not bringing anything new to the world. But that’s not true - even if 100 people write about the same product or service there are going to be 100 different versions of it. You are unique and have an original perspective, all you have got to do is to find the audience that will accept and enjoy your unique point of view. In my case, whenever I now record or write a post I imagine that there are 100 better and 100 worse pieces of content which makes me feel relaxed and continue creatively contributing to the world.
