By 5 NOTES TO SELF YOU SHOULD MEMORIZE BEFORE THE WEEKEND
By Angel Chernoff
1. Don’t get stuck on the one little thing that wrecks your mood. Breathe. Life is too short for senseless negativity. No matter how good or bad you have it, do your best to wake up each day thankful for your life. Remember, someone somewhere else is desperately fighting for theirs.
2. You didn’t go to sleep hungry last night. You had a choice of what to wear today. You have access to clean drinking water. You have access to the internet. You can read. The secret to being grateful is no secret. You choose to be grateful for the little things, again and again.
3. The majority of what’s stressing you out today probably won’t matter a week from now. Shake it off, reset and bring your attention back to what’s important. Remember, what you focus on grows. Stop micromanaging your time and start better managing your focus, so you can truly move forward.
4. Distancing yourself from someone who keeps giving you headaches and negative vibes is self-care. Stepping back from situations where you consistently feel unappreciated or disrespected is self-care. Choose to honor your feelings and boundaries, respectfully.
5. Too often we take for granted and “wait” away the vast majority of our lives. Truly, some people wait all day for 5 pm, all week for Friday, all year for the holidays, all their lives for happiness. Don’t be one of them.
And let’s be honest, we all have negative thought patterns we emotionally default to when times get tough. Patterns like procrastination, people-pleasing, reacting with a victim mentality, wanting to spend more time in toxic situations or indulging in negative self-talk.
But it’s time to break up with the faulty patterns of thinking and behaving that are holding you back! Remind yourself that the most powerful weapon against stress is a healthy mind’s ability to choose one thought over another. You need to train your mind to see the best of what you have right in front of you, so you can leverage it to make real progress again.
There’s nothing wrong with being open about struggling with your faults, venting on occasion, or even complaining about others every now and then. But accept the fact that your thoughts and actions, especially the ones you tend to revisit daily, are the foundation you cast your future upon. For example, when you think about something repeatedly, you begin to personally identify with it, and your inner identity gradually becomes your outer reality.
The bottom line is that, despite the real-world challenges we all face, the biggest and most complex obstacle you will ever have to personally overcome is your own mind. Let that sink in. You aren’t responsible for everything that happens to you in life, but you ARE responsible for undoing the self-defeating thinking patterns these undesirable experiences create.
YOU CAN THINK BETTER, and that means you can live better.
