Mindsets I Had to Kick to the Curb

Now, I'm not here to tell you that this will help with everything. I'm not here to tell you that happiness is a choice either. What I want to talk about are the mindsets we carry with us that affect our lives every day. The choices we make are important, and how we make these decisions are even more important. Here are the mindsets I had learned over time, and then had to unlearn.

"It'll Be Okay, I Just Have to Make It Though This Week."

Don't wish your life away. We all have bad days/weeks/months/years, but how you handle your rough patches is up to you. There's nothing I regret more than the days I wished away. There are so many good things that could have happened that day that I missed out on.

Now, I don't mean to look forward to something. You can work through your stressful week with the motivation that the weekend is near. I just mean that you should change your wishing five days a week away to only two. Find a way to make every day worth while even if it's, "Wow today really sucked, but I got to pet a dog so it wasn't all bad."

This helped me a lot personally, especially during the school year. The stress of school can really make you start wishing your life away. But I realized that because I was wishing my life away and always waiting for it to get better, I was losing the value in my life. I didn't enjoy my life because it was always supposed to get better. Don't let life beat you down until you're just wishing it away. Take every day as best you can.

"Making Money Is All That Matters."

I don't mean that money doesn't matter at all. Of course it does, but you shouldn't base all you decisions on money. Sometimes you deserve to go on vacation, even though it makes your paycheck smaller. You deserve to be in a career that you are passionate about, even if it doesn't pay that much.

Now, not all situations allow you to do this. There are some serious, rough times and every hour counts, I understand that. I only suggest that it shouldn't control on you decisions. You deserve to be happy in life. What life is worth living where you don't enjoy that which you spend the majority of you time on? Kicking this mindset led to me choosing my career: Teaching. Will I get paid well? No. But do I love my job? Absolutely. It's hard to find that balance, but don't make all you decisions based off of how many 0s you'll see on your pay stubs. You deserve to be happy, even if it means you wont be making six figures.

"I Deserved That."

Self-blame is a hard habit to get over. I blamed myself for a lot of things over the years. I took a lot of abuse and went through a lot of pain because I told myself I deserved that kind of treatment for something I did. Lately, I've come to the realization that this mindset was utter garbage. I deserve better. YOU deserve better. You are a human being with feelings, thoughts, and flaws. You shouldn't be treated poorly for any of those reasons. We all make mistakes, but we should not be punished forever. You do not deserve that kind of treatment by your family, friends, S/Os, bosses, or anyone else. You should always listen and work towards being a better person, but no one is deserving of the pain people hurl your way for their own justified reason.

"I Have Got to Be Polite."

This one is definitely one for the books. You do not owe anyone politeness. I'm not giving you permission to be a jerk, but one of my famous sayings among my friends is, "Sometimes, you just have to be the bitch." Some dude is trying to talk to you when you want to be alone? Tell him. Some person keeps asking you out even after you've politely turned them down? Turn them down without any politeness. Someone is treating you like crap? Stand up for yourself, you don't owe them anything. This is a game changer, trust me. You will soon learn who really cares about you and who doesn't. Of course, don't be mean, but you don't need to be polite at all either.

Please also be careful. Assess your situation and make sure you are safe to express what's going on as well. Sometimes, like at work, you just have to play the game, but you don't owe anyone your politeness.

These were all conscious efforts on my part. Working away from these mindsets and developing new ones took years of working out and perfecting. I still make mistakes a lot and I still have my days were these mindset, that were deeply taught, inside of me take over some days. But we are all a work in progress, and that is a good thing.

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