Critics

Posted on by philipdodson

When we come from a place where we look for the good in what we do and see things how others see our work we start to get even better at what we do. When we start with kindness towards ourselves we change the internal narratives.

We have been conditioned to be our own biggest critic and that comes from the mind and its fears. Add to that the cultural norm of ‘you can do better’ mentality instilled in us from our formative years in order to satisfy the egos of others and to prepare us for a life of servitude to working for others. It creates a default reaction of self-criticism and it is a shield we put up to ‘protect’ ourselves from the perceived judgement of others. However, this behaviour only serves to affect our self-esteem and causes us to suffer within.

We never feel inspired or motivated after beating ourselves up.

However, if we choose to be our biggest fan instead then we are proud of our work and we grow in self-confidence and we feel good.

It inspires us to build on what we have already achieved and to look positively on what we have done not what we didn’t do or did badly in our eyes.

When we focus on what we did well we free ourselves from the negative energy of looking at what we think we did wrong.

Lastly, we are all already worthy of love and belonging from the moment we wake up in the morning to the moment we go to sleep, no matter what we did or didn’t do that day.

The excuse factory

Posted on by philipdodson

There are 3 steps to starting anything in life…1,2,3 GO!

Or we can, of course, complicate it, the mind is a top-level specialist at over-complication, along with perfection, it is one of its top weapons to prevent showing up and taking any risk. It is the excuse factory that will create reasons not to do something, the more levels of complication, the more thought and the more reasons to put off.

Simple small steps are easy, we can just start them…1,2,3 go.

If we break down any goal, plan, task, or action into small baby steps, that if done and repeated frequently, will over a given time period propel us to our goals.

As we are doing the tiny steps, the mind is silent as there is no perceived risk, it goes under the ‘fear’ radar undetected, and we get to our goals because guess what? we are actually doing something regularly. The journey of a thousand miles starts with just one step…as the saying goes.

It requires focus, commitment and a willingness to build a habit and, of course, patience. Like all things, when we do them frequently, they become easier and there is a compound effect that we see much greater achievement than we imagined if we do them often enough and for a long enough time.

Short-term quick ‘wins’ that require huge amounts of effort and overcoming the fear of starting mammoth tasks, always fail as we never get out of the starting blocks. There are no shortcuts and the mind’s psychological fears of any large daunting tasks are impossible to overcome without just focusing on the small step that can be done now.

Keep things simple, do them often, stay focussed in the moment that is now and don’t think beyond that. The excuse factory can be closed forever, it just takes one small step.