How to deal with your inner bit$# mind
Howdy readers!
We talked last week about self-esteem - this mirage that we all think is the Holy Grail of productivity & happiness (haha!)
In short - self-esteem is just an opinion that you have about yourself, your abilities, about what kind of person you are. It’s an assessment of your worth.
However, as our minds will mostly focus on what goes wrong with you, your faults & shortcomings and self-esteem is an opinion based on your mind - you see the conundrum.
It rarely plays out well.
Most people are stuck in a cycle where they never win the game of good self-esteem.
I am inviting you to do this experiment that I often recommend in several situations.
It's very suggestively called ACT and you can do it in any situation where you tend to judge yourself, criticize yourself, and fall into the self-esteem game.
Take a piece of paper and a pen and think about the last time you felt your self-esteem decrease, you criticized and judged yourself.
For example, let’s take a situation where you are giving a presentation and you babble.
A→ acceptance. But because acceptance has a bad reputation (as giving up), I prefer the term "making room" - make room for negative and critical thoughts.
These are just thoughts, they are strings of words, which mean nothing more than the meaning you give them.
Making room means noticing what my mind is telling me is wrong, noticing the words it uses, and distancing itself from them.
Ex.: I notice that my mind tells me that I'm incapable, that everyone will think I've made a fool of myself, and that no matter how many other good things I've said, the moment I babbled is the important one.
C →connect. Here I invite you to think about what is important for you in this situation. What is the direction in your life that you are aiming for?
Ex.: I made this presentation because it's part of doing my job well, I want to be able to grow and for that, I need to expose myself.
T→ take action- take a small action that will take you closer to the important direction for you.
Ex.: in this situation, I can go to a colleague to ask for feedback.
Just make this little experiment in your mind the next time your mind starts to criticize you. see what happens.
Till next time!