The just not good enough syndrome- how to become an optimist
You look at your life and you are dissatisfied. You are not where you want to be. And you want to know how to change it. There are two things in play here and making changes in these two areas will move you and change your circumstances. The way you think and your position in your social and work sphere.
There is an old saying that says “wherever you go there you are.” You take you everywhere you go and one of the most important things to notice is how you view situations and how you see yourself in the world. It’s hard to get a new attitude if you don’t know what your current one is. When you have a setback, an unfortunate occurrence how do you think about it?
When something goes wrong find the specific cause for it. When you know that you can do something about it.
This always happens! Things never change same old same old
What happened here is a decision was made that this bad thing is just the way it is in other words an immoveable permanent object.
He always gets promoted
I’ll never find a nice guy
When you decide that something is permanent you have abdicated all responsibility of doing anything about it. Always and never are easy tickets to getting nowhere in life. You didn’t get promoted and someone else did it does not mean you will never get promoted. But it might help to look at the person who did and figure out what he did to get the promotion.
You had a bad date so you decide all men in New York City are commitment–phobes. Well, you just ruled out hundreds of people because of one person. Or let’s say you had three relationships that didn’t work. Does that really mean you will never get married? Setbacks are temporary tattoo it on your forhead. That is why they are called challenges. You can deal with a temporary challenge. A permanent one means trying isn’t worth it. I worked with a young man whose logic went like this;
I just graduated I don’t have a job.
I have no experience so no one will hire me.
It’s pointless to look for a job since they won’t hire me any way.
I hate my life I don’t have a job
If he chooses to stay there he won’t have a job next year either. I know he will get rejections. But if you abdicate I guarantee you will be unemployed. This is about internal self-control. Do you affect the world or do you react to the world? Do you ever get tired? Irritated? Of course you do but you recognize that this is temporary
Decide the setback is temporary and find out what caused it. Now you are actively involved.
My marriage is over
Try
My husband is in a bad mood. Let’s see if he wants to talk about it
Pessimists think that bad events are immoveable and good events are specific. If something good happens to a pessimist they decide it is because of a factor and not because of them. This is what it looks like.
You get a compliment on a job you finished and you think.
I only got that done because I understood the specs
An optimist would assume that bad events have specific causes and good events are caused by them self
When they get a compliment on a job they think
“Yeah I’m smart. I’m good at what I do”
They assume responsibility for the good outcome.
The Blame game
Optimists blame situations and try to find where they can change things. They believe they contribute significantly to how things happen in their life. Pessimists blame themselves and decide they can’t affect the situation. They attribute events in their lives to powers outside their control. It doesn’t matter what I do.
This is your roadmap to change. It is recognizing these elements and confronting them and trying a new attitude. If you have depression, it would be a good idea to examine your beliefs and thoughts to see what you attribute your depression to. Do you feel you are able to do something about it or that it is beyond your control? Are your beliefs based on reality or were they learned somewhere along the way? If they were learned, are they still true? I use cognitive behavioral techniques to do this. If you are interested please call me and set up a free consultation. It is in person and lasts an hour.