Reading your essay reminded me of how hard it was for me to let myself go from a self destructive mindset, back when I was an early adult, when I would interpret negatively events that would happen in my life as part of my fate to be somewhat unlucky and destined to continue that way. With those trains of thought, attitudes of self disrespect / self destructive
behavior would consume my health (mental and physical), my state, not equating a way out of the spiral of negativity. This sequence eventually gave birth to one of the most poisonous habits/cycles that I would have to carry with me throughout a big part of my 20s:
Undesired event (or interpreted that way) -> negative reaction -> unhealthy behavior -> undesired state
This would massively impact any effort or desire that I had, as the undesired state that I would eventually be in would make me drop any goals established, accepting my fate as unlucky. Goals like:
- stop smoking;
- living a healthy lifestyle - get in shape and/or dedicate myself to a sport;
- learn something new;
- set any long term goals;
With time I eventually got myself out from this leech and draining vicious cycle, by consistently supporting my thoughts in the positive things, in my achievements as person when I would show dedication, consistency and methods. How much more gratifying life was after a single moment of validation and how miserable and frustrating life was when I would let myself be consumed by a single drop of negativity.
Only a madman would do the same thing over and over again expecting a different result. For a while I behaved like a madman, constantly destroying my own structures of achievement, what I could define as success.
With time and with deep internal reflexions I was able to spot the cycle, to understand what would trigger it and how I could fight it. I also learned to distinguish cycles of motivation and provided myself with tools to shorten the periods where it would lack.
All in all, I believe that taking time/save time to allow yourself to enter a deep reflexion state is of the most importance in order to grow and understand how your actions have been affecting you: like a retrospective on specific time ranges of your life. Sometimes these deep states are achieved alone, sometimes with friends or family, sometimes with coaches or mental specialists, sometimes in the most random of the situations.
I still battle with negative cycles and with absence of motivation, this will follow me until the end of my life. I just accepted the nature of it and found ways to shorten the length of those periods, without breaking or hurting my current being/progress.
I guess that is the beauty of life: you can always aim for perfection but you will never achieve it. Also, the pleasure of achieving something is the path we trail to achieve it and not the end result.
Thank you for sharing Miguel. What you wrote is very relatable. I especially felt what you said about the acceptance of the cyclical nature of things and that it's a never ending process.
We're all climbing our own mountains. The top is not the goal, only the point we are heading to. Sometimes it gets hard, and sometimes the views are incredible.
Reading your essay reminded me of how hard it was for me to let myself go from a self destructive mindset, back when I was an early adult, when I would interpret negatively events that would happen in my life as part of my fate to be somewhat unlucky and destined to continue that way. With those trains of thought, attitudes of self disrespect / self destructive
behavior would consume my health (mental and physical), my state, not equating a way out of the spiral of negativity. This sequence eventually gave birth to one of the most poisonous habits/cycles that I would have to carry with me throughout a big part of my 20s:
Undesired event (or interpreted that way) -> negative reaction -> unhealthy behavior -> undesired state
This would massively impact any effort or desire that I had, as the undesired state that I would eventually be in would make me drop any goals established, accepting my fate as unlucky. Goals like:
- stop smoking;
- living a healthy lifestyle - get in shape and/or dedicate myself to a sport;
- learn something new;
- set any long term goals;
With time I eventually got myself out from this leech and draining vicious cycle, by consistently supporting my thoughts in the positive things, in my achievements as person when I would show dedication, consistency and methods. How much more gratifying life was after a single moment of validation and how miserable and frustrating life was when I would let myself be consumed by a single drop of negativity.
Thanks for sharing Miguel. "Accepting my fate as unlucky", you summed it up well with that.
When you say you that, with time, you got out of this negative spiral: was there anything specific you did to help you with that?
Only a madman would do the same thing over and over again expecting a different result. For a while I behaved like a madman, constantly destroying my own structures of achievement, what I could define as success.
With time and with deep internal reflexions I was able to spot the cycle, to understand what would trigger it and how I could fight it. I also learned to distinguish cycles of motivation and provided myself with tools to shorten the periods where it would lack.
All in all, I believe that taking time/save time to allow yourself to enter a deep reflexion state is of the most importance in order to grow and understand how your actions have been affecting you: like a retrospective on specific time ranges of your life. Sometimes these deep states are achieved alone, sometimes with friends or family, sometimes with coaches or mental specialists, sometimes in the most random of the situations.
I still battle with negative cycles and with absence of motivation, this will follow me until the end of my life. I just accepted the nature of it and found ways to shorten the length of those periods, without breaking or hurting my current being/progress.
I guess that is the beauty of life: you can always aim for perfection but you will never achieve it. Also, the pleasure of achieving something is the path we trail to achieve it and not the end result.
Thank you for sharing Miguel. What you wrote is very relatable. I especially felt what you said about the acceptance of the cyclical nature of things and that it's a never ending process.
We're all climbing our own mountains. The top is not the goal, only the point we are heading to. Sometimes it gets hard, and sometimes the views are incredible.