Tag: beating yourself up

Being ok with things

Posted on by philipdodson

In the past I would beat myself up relentlessly about things.

Then finally I realised that it never inspired any improvement or change, not once did I feel good about myself afterwards.

So after years of painful struggle to change the habit, I’ve now reached a place of ‘being ok with things’.

I still fuck up, we all do. I still have days when I don’t achieve much, hey, we all do. I’ve slowly learnt to accept.

OK, I’ll still have the odd beating up session for old time sake. But that’s OK.

Perhaps my mellowness has come with many years of life experience, sure that’s some of it, however, I believe it’s a mindset I could have chosen at any age.

It’s not that I do not care, well actually, I don’t care, it’s only a chance to learn and that’s it, no one died, I survived, and life goes on.

If we just focus on getting even better slightly every day, then that’s the best we can aim for and it’s OK if we don’t.

Reverting to old behaviours

Posted on by philipdodson

Many times when we are going through the difficulty of changing we reach a pressure point, a moment or several moments of stress, and most often at that moment we default back to the old comfortable habits.

That’s OK, it is normal.

The important thing is not to worry about the lapses, it is to simply recognise they will happen and that we need to be compassionate without ourselves and be kind. Allow ourselves to be human and to slip now and again.

If not what will happen is that we beat ourselves up adding, even more, self-imposed pressure and we will revert completely to the old habits and many times give up on the change.

Change is difficult, being kind to ourselves is part of that so that change becomes easier in the future.

It is as ever a choice that we make inside our own heads, however, start with some kindness to ease the challenge of building new habits.