The inflexibility of the demands you place on yourself can make you unadaptable.
Our thoughts and beliefs shape the world that we live in. The inflexibility of the demands you place on yourself, other people and the world around you may mean that you don’t adapt as well to reality as well as you could.
If our thoughts and beliefs contain firm words such as ‘must’, ‘need’, ‘have to’ or ‘should’ they leave little room for the ability to adapt to what life brings our way and they may just be adding unnecessary pressure.
Do these sound familiar?
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I must have the approval of my friends and colleagues
This thought may lead you to feel unnecessarily anxious in many social situations, leading you to put pressure on yourself by trying to get everyone to like you-often at a very high personal expense.
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You think that because you are kind and considerate to others they have to be equally kind and considerate to you.
Our value systems vary drastically and therefore are not one and the same. Our values are shaped by our upbringing, social experiences and society, just because you feel this way unfortunately does not mean that others do too. Other people are governed by their own value system and this may end up leaving you feeling hurt or betrayed even by the closest of people around you.
One of the most common misconceptions that I have discovered in my private practice (and from personal experience ) is that people often judge others based on their own belief system. Many of us assume that our friends, colleague and family members have the same values as we do. My advice to you is don’t assume and always keep in mind that we are all individuals with out very own subjective nature.
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You should have a senior managerial position and earn a certain figure by the age of 30 in order to be successful.
Creating goals for yourself and judging yourself and others by them can create massive pressure on you as well as may cloud your vision of other factors that may be equally viewed as successful. There is nothing wrong with setting goals as long as you can be mindful of the fact that your goals are subjective and what the word success means to you may mean something completely different to someone else.
Therefore, having flexible preferences about yourself, others and the world in general will pave the way to a healthy and less rigid way of life. Rather than making demands on yourself, the world and others. Try the following tips:
1.Limit approval seeking:
Acknowledge that you can have a fulfilled life even without the approval you seek from others. You will begin to feel more confident in social setting and begin to enjoy people instead of being purely focused on receiving approval as if it were an absolute need. (This goes for social media too but thats for another blog post ).
2.Pay attention to your internal language.
Replace words like ‘should’, ‘must’ and ‘need’ with ‘would like’, prefer’ and ‘want’. It will take a lot of pressure off and allow you to focus on your goal and look forward to achieving it.
3.Understand that the world does not play by your rules.
We all have our own set of life rules, and as long as you try to judge other peopleas actions by your own set of guidelines, you’ll most likely be setting yourself up for disappointment. We have to acknowledge that we all have our own set of values and those of our friends or colleagues may differ greatly to ours. Give others the right to not live up to your standards and you’ll feel less hurt when they fail to do so.
4. Love yourself for who YOU are.
Have high aspirations for yourself, set goals and dream big. But do this for YOU, never forget who you are, then you will be able to set the right goals and be flexible in your demands for yourself.
5. Preserve your standards, ideals and preferences and let go of your rigid demands about how you, others and the world have to be.
Rather than becoming upset or depressed about things not being the way you believe they must be, keep acting consistently with how you would like things to be and design and adjust your journey accordingly.
By holding onto rigid demands of how things ought to be you leave no margin for any change or error, which is completely unnatural to our human nature.
Success comes with growth and growth happens when you become adaptable.
With love,
xxx
Karolina Sky
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