Starting Today, I’m Not Going To Let Anything Or Anyone Put Me Off

I have proposed to invest in myself, to ensure that from today no one takes away my desire, my spirits, my smile. I say “no” to letting someone, whoever they be, put me off. From this moment the gray clouds, the trains that are delayed or the stones that want to appear on the road will not matter, because my day is mine alone, my life belongs to me and I have decided to live it with optimism.

Taking this personal approach, this message loaded with openness, resistance and motivation is not something exactly easy. As Richard Lazarus, one of the leading experts on stress and anxiety, explained to us, every day the most varied and capricious situations will arise, largely impossible to control, those that will fill us with contradictions, those that will cause us tension, discouragement and even frustration.

On the other hand, as we all know, discouragement can have multiple origins: an inaccurate word from our partner, a critical comment from our boss or even that social and political context that surrounds us, so disrupted and circus at times , causes us to fade our desire and even optimism at a given moment. That this happens is something normal, as long as the frequency does not make it habitual or that the intensity does an earthquake of a very large scale.

We cannot forget that yesterday’s discouragement, added to today’s discouragement, is creating a residue. Thus, and in case of allowing that substratum to accumulate day after day in the scene of our mind, what will happen is that we will feed the demon of defenselessness, and with it depression itself. However, there is good news, because there is a great remedy to prevent this from happening: learn to think better.

When discouragement is caused by low self-esteem

There are people who have that ability, that particular distinction: that of “stealing spirits.” They do it naturally, sometimes without realizing it and sometimes openly, with treachery. For example, this practice is quite common in many families, where parents shape upbringing and education based on contempt, on detracting from the efforts, tastes and initiatives of the children themselves.

They are dynamics that completely threaten the psychosocial and emotional development of children. Practices where it is common to hear phrases such as “you will never be good enough for this or that” or “with that character of yours, no one will love you.” The most complex of these situations is that there comes a time in the life of that child, now a teenager, in which he will no longer need to listen to those messages from his family environment to live permanently installed in the garden of discouragement.

The mind itself already creates them, already encodes them in a natural way by having  a devastating internal voice that will repeat that of “you can’t, you don’t know, you don’t deserve.” It will not be necessary for anyone to discourage you, because few things are as effective as self-criticism itself, nothing is so dangerous after all as that dysfunctional education that encourages the construction of low self-esteem.

Thus, it is very possible that there are many people, full grown adults, who identify with this same situation, with this same inner wound through which all their opportunities escape because they feel valid, capable of aspiring and achieving what they want.

Three simple keys so that nothing and nobody discourages you

Very recently, a team of British psychologists led by Andrew Lane developed a simple motivational technique that would later be broadcast by the BBC on one of its science programs. The strategy itself may seem very elementary; However, make no mistake, because in reality it forces us to put into practice a series of psychological dimensions that cannot be achieved in one day or two.

In fact, they are the result of constant work where we can face that critical voice within us, and even those dysfunctional relationships in which we are sometimes immersed. Relationships that, almost without realizing it, also steal our spirits, enthusiasm and prospects. Let’s see what those three keys are below.

• Internal dialogue with visualization. Internal dialogue is the best strategy to face all those gaps in our self-esteem, to become aware of all those loose pieces that prevent us from taking control over our life. Likewise, the team of British psychologists established that one way to facilitate this technique was by adding positive visualizations in our mind, where we can find calm and a safe setting where we can find ourselves.

• You are the boss. To the internal dialogue and visualization we now add a verbalization, a motivating and powerful phrase:  “you are the boss, you are in command and control, let no one discourage you, let no one take that power away from you.” 
• Plan. Discouragement is not only overcome by leaving aside those who dare to infect us with their bitterness, with their criticism or bad arts. This is important to take into account, because the best medicine so that nothing and no one discourages us is planning our dreams, clarifying objectives, prioritizing personal needs and desires.

At the end of the day, when one has an illusion and motivation to achieve it, what others say and do is irrelevant. Let us therefore feed that engine in our day-to-day life, the one that works thanks to good self-esteem and the security of those who are clear about what they want in their life and what and who is better to avoid.

Images courtesy of Eugene Smolenceva