We spend too much of our lives living with anxiety.
Why? Because we have misaligned expectations.
We expect certain things to happen, but we fail to lay out the ground rules of why they will happen this way.
You had losing weight as a goal, or getting a specific job, or catching the girl’s or guy’s attention.
Doesn’t matter what it is, big or small.
What matters is that you’ve made a “finish line.” It is when it was supposed to happen or how it should have unfolded. Each day that goes by, we get frustrated we aren’t as close as we should be. The weight isn’t falling off; I’m not getting enough interviews; they are responding slower than I’d like.
The gap between expectations and reality is where anxiety lives.
But, who’s deciding on what is reality? If it’s you, then you may need to get out the magnifying glass and look a bit closer.
The weight isn’t going away as fast as you want, but are you following the eating plan exactly as it was laid out?
You haven’t gotten more job interviews; are you networking or standing out more than you could?
They aren’t as responsive as you want; are you as engaging as you could be?
It’s simple. We complain and argue about external things. But, we fail to look in the mirror at our own shortcomings.
Show me a person who takes accountability, and I’ll show you a disciplined and determined person. Show me a person who complains about everything; I’ll show you a victim who thinks they never get a break.
I know because I was the latter. I was the victim. I was the person who had a complaint for everything and an excuse for why I wasn’t achieving the goals I had set for myself.
What I came to realize was that…
- The goals were too lofty.
- I wasn’t making a clear plan on how I would reach those goals.
- I wasn’t holding myself accountable for when I missed one of those checkpoints.
There were blind spots all over the place, but I was unwilling to see them.
“Unwilling” is the keyword here. I’d rather avoid the real problem (me) and blame others.
It’s useful, short-term, to comfort a victim mindset. But, it’s dangerous to continue if I want a happy, fulfilling life.
Because happiness comes with acceptance.
Life won’t be fair.
Things won’t go our way.
We won’t achieve our goals on our timeline.
And that’s okay as long as we are willing to look at why.
If it’s us, great, then we can control what we focus on and change our decisions to reflect the types of results we want.
If it’s because of something else, well, read above. Life won’t be fair. But, and this is a big but, if you only focus on life’s unfairness, you’ll forget the times it worked out when you least expected it.
We control what we can control. That’s as much physical as it is mental.
If you want to be anxious and stressed, there are plenty of things you could look at to make things that way. To be happier and free of worry, be optimistic. You won’t always have the answers on your timeline.
Stop stressing so much. Your life isn’t as bad as you are making it out to be.
But those areas that might be, are you in control, or is it out of your hands?
Coming to grips with that answer is the first step to changing your mindset.
Then, we can make a better choice about how we are going to tackle the next steps ahead.
It may not always be fair, but that’s based entirely on your perspective of the situation.