I’m not going to rush anything. I’m not going to stress out or worry about how things will work out for me. Instead of overthinking, I will align my faith with divine timing and trust that everything that belongs in my life is making its way towards me right now.
Idil Ahmed
Dose of Prose
The holiday season yields a mix of emotions and experiences, both positive and negative. It can be difficult to focus on creating the life you want for yourself due to all of the distractions, pressure and consumerism that occurs during this time (apparently another name for this is seasonal affective disorder 🤷🏾♀️) For me personally, 2019 has been a tough year. I have been challenged and tested in ways that I never have before. However, I have tried my best to make the most out of the cards that I have been dealt. I am still carrying these weights and I have learned to carry them well, but keep in mind they are still heavy. I will write a separate blog post specifically about what I’ve learned this year, but today’s post is about what I do (and what you can do) to feel at peace with yourself and where you are in life, when surrounded by chaos.
It took me a while to realize that there is beauty in the struggle, but once I saw the power in timing, patience, resilience and perseverance, I’ve become more appreciative of my journey and have overall improved my quality of life. I want to share with you the habits and lifestyle changes that have enabled me to work through periods of discomfort. To those who are facing a struggle, going through a period of transition or generally having difficulty staying motivated, this post is for you.
1) Choose a piece of good news.
Worrying does not take away tomorrow troubles. It takes away today’s peace.
Randy Armstrong
Mary Poppins wasn’t kidding when she said a spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down. I’m sure you have had days, weeks or months that just, for lack of a better term, suck. During those times when nothing is going your way, everyone and everything is irritating you, and all you want to do is complain, it is imperative to reach for that spoonful of sugar. What I mean is, pick a piece of good news and hold onto it. Think about one good thing: something good that happened to you, something good that brings you happiness, someone good who has unconditional love and support for you, etc. and focus your energy on that. I usually write down one positive thing about my day on a piece of paper. Pro-tip: write down a piece of good news every day and put the pieces of paper in a jar. At the end of the year, you can reflect on all the great things that happened to you throughout the year!
At the end of the day, nobody knows what goes on behind closed doors. You truly never know what someone else is going through nor do you know how what you say and what you do impacts the lives of others, which is why it’s so important to be kind. I could have a terrible day, (which it’s totally okay to have a bad day btw), but instead of dwelling on the terrible day I had, I choose to focus on that piece of good news. For example:
- XYZ bothered me today, but the coffee barista gave me a free coffee, which made my day.
- I dealt with XYZ today which was upsetting, but at least I had a great workout so I can’t complain.
- I’m feeling down this morning, but I woke up today – that’s all that matters.
Big or small, your feelings are valid and it is important to feel them, but in order to truly manage them in a way where you are motivated, a small shift in your perspective can make a huge difference in how you can live your best life.
2) Don’t sweat the small stuff.
How people behave is an external representation of what’s going on internally. People’s opinions/advice are often rooted in their biases and programming. Consider their level of self awareness and the life they live before accepting it as your truth or your way.
Vienna Pharaon
I’m about to get a little philosophical for a second, so please bare with me. The world that we (as humans) see is through our own lens. What I mean by that is, what you see and how you react to things that happen to you throughout your day, is based on your own interpretation. These reactions are often based on past experiences; as a result, you may create an assumption about something or someone without having concrete evidence. Basically, you are assigning your own contrived meaning to an action. The fine line between intuition and projection is easily blurred.
If you did not understand anything I just said, let me put this in layman’s terms: in order to boost your quality of life, you have to stop judging, assuming or reacting to things/people without clarifying the true meaning and reasoning behind the action that you are reacting to. Let me give an example. There have been times where people will take a while to answer my texts/calls/emails or they don’t reply at all and I create a story or narrative in my head about why they didn’t reply, why they took so long to reply or why they said what they said in their reply. (ie. he/she is busy doing XYZ and doesn’t care about me, he/she thinks XYZ about me, I am not important to he/she, etc.)
Another example: there are times where I have to sacrifice my social life because I have other priorities. Sometimes I felt anxious about what people would think of me or assume about me if I were to repeatedly turn down their invitations to hang out. As you can see, more often than not, the narrative that I have created is usually negative because A) I overthink/overanalyze everything and B) my brain wants to feel safe and at ease, so it associates action X with meaning Y. In reality, I am reacting to the narrative that I have created in my head, not what actually happened.
All of this is more difficult and long winded to explain in text than I thought it would be (hmm maybe I should start a podcast? 🧐) so I’ll try to get to the point. In order to improve your quality of life, you have to embrace the feeling of the unknown and detach assigned meaning from actions. Things aren’t always the way they seem, in any context. Some people and their actions are not worth responding or reacting to. Pick and choose your battles. Instead of getting negative, emotional and jumping to conclusions, the next time someone says something or does something to you, take a step back and think about if your reaction stems from your intuition or if you are projecting. Once I stopped being so reactive to everything, I was able to improve my anxiety, not take things too seriously nor too personally and overall, quite frankly, I learned the art of not giving a f*ck, which truly changed my life in the best way possible!
Ultimately, if you are living your life in a way that you don’t like, or you have this ongoing self-sabotaging narrative about yourself, others, the situations you end up in, the way people treat you, etc. Guess what? You have have the power to change it. You can create the life you want, but first you have to understand that some things cannot be explained and some people cannot be changed. Once you realize and accept things as they are, you will be able to let go and make room for healthier habits and belief systems.
3) Compete with yourself, not others.
Confidence isn’t thinking you are better than anyone else, it’s realizing that you have no reason to compare yourself to anyone else.
Maryam Hasnaa
It’s not your responsibility to make others feel comfortable being around you, nor is it your job to make them feel comfortable with who you are. You don’t owe anyone an explanation nor do you have any reason to compare yourself with anyone else. The only competition you have is you. It’s between you and you. I have always been my own critic and put pressure on myself, but there are times where I have compared my achievements and timeline with others, which would impact my self-esteem and make me unappreciative of how far I’ve come.
Social media is a highlight reel and it’s easy to look at others and feel like they “have it together” and you don’t, or that they “seem happy” and are achieving their goals but you’re not. Jealousy is a difficult emotion to acknowledge, but it can be managed if you understand where the feeling is coming from. For me, I had to learn to stop waiting for happiness in the next milestone and be happy with my life as it is, because if I continue to look at what I don’t have and what I haven’t done, I’ll never be satisfied nor motivated to do anything at all. By celebrating my wins (big and small), I was able boost my quality of life because I had the motivation to show up for myself, every single day. Friendly reminder: don’t be so hard on yourself and give yourself credit when credit is due.
By changing my perspective, becoming more self-aware and managing my mindset, I have been able to improve my quality of life and you can to. It really all boils down to asking yourself two questions: does this person or experience I’m dealing with support the life I want to create? How committed am I to the life I say I want to live? If you can answer these questions, nothing can stop you.
At the end of the day, all you can do is your best and the rest will fall into place. I hope this post wasn’t too jumbled and helped to inspire you to stay motivated if things aren’t going your way right now. The life you want is right there in front of you, all you have to do is go after it. When you go after it, people and situations will either be on your side, by your side or in the way. How you choose to react to those people and situations will determine your level of happiness between where you are and where you want to be.
-Kaamilah
