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My cousin Sandra has created quite a bit of unfinished business in her life. In college, she initially declared her major in Journalism, but after two years she decided to switch to Theater. One year later, she gave up on that too and pursued Business Management instead.
After graduation, Sandra thought of opening a small bar and after spending a good amount of money conceptualizing and performing a market analysis, she changed her mind and enrolled herself in beauty classes to become a make-up artist. Fast forward to present day, and now the she’s a professional MUA, she’s still unhappy and discontented about everything.
I am not judging her actions, but I think if she would just sit down and figure out what she really wants and come up with solid goals, it would help her with her dissatisfaction.
In line with this, I came up with a list of bad practices that you should avoid so that you won’t feel stuck in your miseries and so that you can move towards your dreams.
Doing Things That Make You Fell Like Crap
Listening to your inner voice that keeps telling you that you are not good enough or that you are not capable of achieving something great in life can severely damage your self-esteem. As a result, you lose your sense of self and you stop doing the things that you love to do or make you happy. Instead of entertaining these useless and negative thoughts in your head, confront your insecurities, stop doing things that make you feel like crap and never allow other people’s perception define or dictate who you are.
For example, there are some people who keep on blaming themselves for all the things that are going wrong in their relationship. So, when their partners leave them, they tend to beat themselves up or desperately beg their exes to take them back.
According to writer Jade Whitfield, one of the reasons why you should move on rather than give in to the feeling of missing your ex is because it is healthy for your self-esteem.
Girl, I’m sure that there are so many men out there who will treat you hundred times better. You just have to be patient and you just have to provide him some room in your life by deciding to stop putting up with your ex’s BS and finally letting go.
Saying YES to Stress All the Time
Being nice to others or aiming for a conflict-free life doesn’t mean that you always have to disregard and ignore your own needs. To develop harmonious and healthy relationships with other people, you have to remain true to yourself and most importantly, learn to set boundaries.
Boundaries not only protect you from abusive people but they also allow you to make decisions based on what you really want. There is no such thing as pleasing everyone. And if you want to get rid of a good amount of stress in your life, then you will have to accept that there will be times where you have to upset and frustrate others.
In the piece “When, Why and How to Say No,” Dr. Chris Gilbert explains how submissive behavior can negatively impact your well-being by compromising your immune system and increase your risk of getting infection.
Ladies, the moral of the story is to learn to stand up for yourself. If saying YES gives you uneasy feelings such as tightness in your chest, muscle spasms or belly cramps, if saying YES makes you feel sick, stop playing nice and just kindly say NO. Doing so will help you keep the balance in your life while protecting your health and happiness at the same time.
Thinking that Indulging in Pleasure & Luxury is a Sign of Success
What do you think determines your success in life?
A. Drinking Starbucks coffee every day or dining in expensive restaurants
B. Living in a luxury condominium and traveling the world
C. Owning the latest gadgets like the new iPhone7 Plus
Actually, none of the things above matter if, in reality, you don’t have any savings, you don’t have emergency funds or you are drowning in debt. You have to think long-term ladies.
To achieve lasting happiness, Entrepreneur Daniel DiPiazza encourages you not to confuse pleasure with fulfillment no matter how stressed you are in this life. Instead of settling for temporary satisfaction, feel good about doing things that may not be fun right now but will reap massive rewards later.
In my opinion, there’s a big difference between spending your resources and investing them. The former is more about consuming while the latter is more about creating. At the end of the day, it’s up to you if you want to be paying loans for the rest of your life or if you want to have a peaceful and happy retirement.
Choosing to Live in the Past
If you keep pressing the rewind button all the time, if you can’t leave the past behind and if you always allow yesterday to take up too much of your time today, you will never be able to move on and become truly happy. Your past is a past for a reason. So, just enjoy the things that you can today.
And to help you cultivate the power of being in the moment, check this out – “The Power of Presence, How Living in the Now Can Change Your Life.”
Writer Allie Stark explains how practicing deep breathing and mindfulness allow your body to experience ease, openness and balance.
I used to be the type that always said yes to everyone. No matter if I thought I was too busy or not. I have since changed that and I am a lot less stressed now.
Along with avoiding listening to that negative inner voice is avoiding toxic people who seem to enjoy bringing you down. I had several of these in my life and, after severing ties, I’m feeling on top of the world.
Another people-pleaser here. I used to seek other people’s approval as a measure of my success. So, if I failed another person I was failing myself. It was a horrible way to live because I was living up to other people’s expectations. Luckily, I realize my own self-worth now, and I no longer live in toxic-crazy land.
Oh me too. I’ve got to do this because I was asked. My to-do list could already be huge but I still say yes. I’m working on that though. It’s a slow process but I am working on saying no.
A lot of people think that habits are hard to break, but I’ve always believed that it’s easy to break habits once you have made the decision. It’s usually the decision that is hard to make. Thanks for sharing this great piece.
I can attest to having listened to that inner voice that kept convincing me that I wasn’t good enough. This greatly damaged my self-esteem but once I decided to believe in myself, the path that I need to follow so as to achieve my goals became clearly defined.
I will admit that sometimes I view luxury as my recreation and signs of success. Looking at how stylish people’s lives make me feel like I want to have those all too. It’s true that I regret those decisions a lot and I’m learning on how not to be so shallow.
To a certain extent, I don’t think it’s wrong to aim for luxurious things if they are really important for life. At least make sure you use them and don’t set our life goals solely upon those items. It’s not wrong to reward ourselves after a series of hard work.
I think my number one downfall when it comes to having enough time to do the things that I want to do in order to achieve my goals is the fact that I just don’t know how and when to say no to the requests of others and I’m forever putting their needs before my own.