Hi guys! Welcome to Episode 237 of the Wildly Successful Lifestyle podcast! I always wonder what thoughts you guys have about the title. Like this one, Are we being too hard on ourselves? Do you see that and wonder if maybe you’re too hard on yourself or is it kind of a relief to think you aren’t the only one? Or maybe you want to hear it because you would like some relief from being hard on yourself?
But sometimes when we are having a hard time at it, it feels good for someone to say: you’re being too hard on yourself and don’t get me wrong. You ARE being too hard on yourself. Beating yourself up for a mistake doesn’t change the mistake, it just makes you feel worse. And you’re human. Every one of us makes mistakes. And even though to you, your mistakes seem like the worst, just know the more you dwell on it the worse you’ll make it. Don’t be so hard on yourself for simply being human.
But there is another way we are being hard on ourselves that maybe we don’t think about us much. Most of us do this too. We make it hard on ourselves by not taking responsibility for what we are focusing on, what we talk about, what we make things mean, and what we tell ourselves about ourselves.
I was talking to a friend about a situation and she said Heidi, your standards are too high for yourself. You think you should have no negative thoughts at all. That’s a noble idea but it isn’t reality. And I agreed with her. I can be pretty hard on myself. I don’t like to have negative thoughts but that’s part of being human. But if you’re aware of it then it can teach you things about yourself and why you do the things you do. I got a big dose of that last week.
I got my feelings hurt. And I learned so much from it. I’m finishing up life coach certification and we normally always practice together as a group before our class. I just assumed our practice call would take place as normal but never got the zoom invite. I was chatting with another coach and she said oh we are practicing but the girl who sets it up wanted it to be a little more focused today so there are only going to be a couple of us on the call because someone asked for extra help. So I made that mean something about me that I was excluded. It hurt my feelings. I felt like I was the only one so I didn’t even reach out to see if anyone else wanted to practice. I was having a little pity party when another coach reached out and said hey are we having our group practice? I haven’t seen any emails about it. You see it wasn’t personal about me at all. It wasn’t personal about any of us. So, I told the coach that reached out, I’m available and we had an awesome one on one coaching practice call.
What I realized was that because I had my feelings hurt I didn’t reach out to the rest of the group. If I had , I would know that there were others who wanted to practice as well and weren’t included either. It had nothing to do with me personally but for a minute I made it mean something about me. I still have lots of work to do on myself, it’s never going to be done and I love that. I love learning because this experience opened my eyes to how I do this same thing with my family. Because I have felt rejected in the past I pull back but that just keeps you in that place of feeling rejected. I talked to my older sister about this and she said they feel like we are just too busy to spend time talking to them, isn’t that funny? If we could all just be transparent, so many times we are shooting ourselves in the foot for absolutely no reason at all and we think it’s true but it’s not true at all. I made things harder on myself last week simply because I assumed things were about me when they were not.
I make things harder on myself with my family because I pull back when I should be reaching out. After talking to my older sister I realized that. We are human and being more aware that how you view situations is based on your perception. If you think the world is out to get you, it is. If you think the world is your oyster, it is.
We live in a world where what’s bad is magnified all around us. To never have a negative thought you’d have to be a monk living in the mountains of Tibet. Never being around other people and certainly never getting wind of the news.
We are in unprecedented times right now but it’s nothing new. Every generation lived through unprecedented times. It’s called expansion and that’s a really cool thing we do as humans. We expand and then we grow to meet that expansion. Our brains evolve to adapt. Things are changing quickly with the advancement of technology and we will catch up, we will balance things out. Eventually we will collectively know the damage staring at our phones 24/7 does and we will evolve to make it better.
But in the meantime. You have to take care of yourself. You have to set boundaries for yourself to care for your mental health. We are a very free country here in America. We can watch what we want and spend as much time on social media as we want. We are free to do that.
But with that freedom comes personal responsibility. We don’t want the government telling us what we can watch or how much time we can spend on social media like they do in say China. We can do whatever we want. That’s the good news AND the bad news.
It’s normal anymore to be up to speed on every single Netflix show or the latest politics, or the drama of the week. There’s a new one every week. Something to keep us distracted and detached and afraid and angry. But there’s way more good in the world then there is bad, you wouldn’t know it based on what gets magnified. Think of the magnified bad news as fast food and the good, happy news as yummy salad and steamed veggies. Which one is easier to find? which one are you more addicted to? Which one makes you feel better after you eat it? Innately you know the veggies are better for you but they aren’t the norm, they aren’t what’s in your face every commercial. You have the freedom to choose which one you eat just like you have the choice of what you focus on and just like fast food leads to decay, so does the magnified drama…in your mind, it leads to decay because it pushes away your creativity and your innate happiness.
And I get it, I’m easily distracted. In a way I think we all can be. So sometimes yes I’m hard on myself but it’s because I’m expecting to not have negative thoughts or worry when I’m filling my head with things that there’s no way I can feel good and look at. I know going into it won’t make me feel good but I do it anyway, kind of like eating McDonald’s or Taco Bell.
I talked about my 20 day challenge in episode 236 and it’s been going really really well. I haven’t been on twitter at all for almost a week now and every single day I’m not on it, I care less and less about it. Twitter doesn’t make me better, it actually causes me anxiety. The time I used to spend on Twitter, I now spend reading a book or creating content for my podcast or coaching. I notice I’m more present with my friends and family…that all makes me better.
Is there something you’re doing that causes you unnecessary anxiety, self loathing or fear? Really think about it because it could be doing those things but you spend so much time with your head in your phone you don’t even realize you’re thinking those thoughts. When I record this, It’s May and It’s mental health month. That won’t mean anything unless you take it to heart and say what can I do to improve my mental health? Suicide is up for both men and women, with women it’s up much higher. I think part of that difference is that men are used to certain things in society, whereas women not so much. I’m reading a book and it’s saying boys as they grow up they call each other slobs or morons, that’s how boys will communicate to each other, so much so that it is just the norm, whereas women are different. We don’t do that. So the realities of social media can be harder for us…. Just notice that.
You’re going to get your feelings hurt. You’re going to assume something that isn’t true. You’re going to tell yourself things that are not very very nice. You’re going to have thoughts that aren’t serving you. We all are. I just want us to be aware of that stuff. I want us to be aware of the actions we take because of those thoughts, those hurt feelings, those assumptions.
Don’t spend so much time on Instagram if you find yourself feeling less about yourself. Limit your time on Twitter if you are finding it hard to be present with the people right in front of you. Stop making life harder for yourself by focusing on things that don’t serve you.
Stop being hard on yourself by making it hard to be nice to yourself. Comparing yourself to that 28 year old swimsuit model is making life harder than it needs to be. Comparing your success to the success of someone that’s been doing it way longer is making life harder than it needs to be. Getting your feelings hurt because you assumed something that may or may not be true is making life harder than it needs to be.
Make a list of the things you do that are not serving you Spending too much time on social media or watching tv. Eating and drinking things that cause you to be depressed, Spending time on your phone when you have real live people in front of you craving your presence and then also make a list of things that are serving you, meditation, journaling, nature, uplifting books or podcasts, being present with people you love…do more of that. My challenge to you is to make your own challenge. Pick one or two of the things that aren’t serving you and commit to eliminating them for one week..starting today. Challenges are fun and they work. We do enough to make life harder on yourself, let’s give ourselves a break this week by doing something intentionally that makes our life better.
I love you guys and I’ll talk to you in a few days!
