{"id":2356,"date":"2014-12-15T20:36:20","date_gmt":"2014-12-16T01:36:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/illuzone.net\/?p=2356"},"modified":"2019-05-18T22:19:28","modified_gmt":"2019-05-19T02:19:28","slug":"article-hack-yourself-if-this-doesnt-give-you-a-sudden-burst-of-motivation-nothing-else-will","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/illuzone.net\/article-hack-yourself-if-this-doesnt-give-you-a-sudden-burst-of-motivation-nothing-else-will\/","title":{"rendered":"ARTICLE | Hack yourself \u2014 If this doesn’t uplift your spirit, nothing else will"},"content":{"rendered":"

[dropcap]Y[\/dropcap]ou can be happy, you can live the life you want to live, you can become the person you want to be.\u00a0This is what I’ve figured out so far.<\/span><\/p>\n

Stop assigning blame; this is the first step. Stop assigning blame and leave the past behind you.\u00a0You know whose fault it is that your life isn’t perfect; your boss, your teachers, your ex-lovers, the ones who hurt you, the ones who abused you, the ones who left you bleeding. Or, even yourself. You know whose fault it is \u2014 you\u2019ve been telling yourself your whole life. Knowing whose fault it is that your life sucks is an excellent way to absolve yourself of any responsibility for taking your life into your own hands.<\/p>\n

\"Take<\/span><\/p>\n

Forget about it, let it go. The past isn’t real. \u201cThat was in another country, and besides, the wench is dead.\u201d If we\u2019re not talking about something that is real and present and in your life right now, then it doesn’t matter. Nothing can be done about it. If nothing can be done about it, then don\u2019t spend your energy dwelling on it \u2014 you have other things to do.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"Quotes<\/a>I may sound cruel, I may sound simplistic, I may sound like I’m saying you should just \u201cget over it,\u201d by suggesting that you should let go of your past. I\u2019m sorry for that. But life won\u2019t hold still and wait for you to lick your wounds. The race is still being run. Get up and keep moving. You can\u2019t do anything about yesterday.\u00a0You can do something about tomorrow though and about the next day. Focus your energies there.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t have time to write.\u201d \u201cI can\u2019t dance.\u201d \u201cI can\u2019t talk to new people.\u201d \u201cI’m not attractive.\u201d\u00a0I hear this all the time. I always hear the people around me sabotaging themselves, drawing lines and borders and boxes around themselves.\u00a0To which I say: make the time, dance, just talk to people, be attractive!\u00a0Yes, again, it\u2019s simplistic of me to say that. But it\u2019s simplistic of you to so easily say what you cannot do!<\/p>\n

\"Stop<\/a>We\u2019re excellent pattern-matchers. That\u2019s what the human mind does; it\u2019s a pattern-matching engine. So we look at ourselves, at our history, at our behaviours and we draw straight lines between the points. We assume that just because we’ve \u00a0done things a certain way in the past, we\u2019ll always do them that way in the future. If we’ve failed before, we\u2019ll always fail.\u00a0Screw that!\u00a0Surprise yourself. No \u2014 amaze yourself.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"quote<\/a>You don\u2019t have to keep doing the things you hate. Why go home and beat yourself up for, say, not going over and saying a few words to someone you find really attractive? Can any damage they could do to you by rejecting you possibly be any worse than the damage you\u2019re going to do to yourself for missing the chance?\u00a0Find the demon. Do you know what I’m talking about? It\u2019s the little voice in the back of your head that\u2019s always whispering, \u201cYou can\u2019t.\u201d You know the demon. You may think you hate the demon, but you don\u2019t. You love it. You let it own you. You do everything it says. Every time there\u2019s something you want, you consult the demon first, to see if it will say, \u201cYou can\u2019t have that.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"The<\/a>What you don\u2019t realize is that your demon doesn’t know anything, it\u2019s an idiot. It\u2019s nothing but a parrot repeating back to you anything negative that it has ever heard, anything that makes you hurt, makes you squirm. If a teacher once told you \u201cYou\u2019ll never accomplish anything,\u201d it was listening; it hoards words like that and repeats them back to you to watch you jump. It doesn’t know what it\u2019s saying. It doesn’t care.\u00a0Exorcise yourself.<\/span><\/p>\n

You can take me literally or not, as it suits you. But do, please, the next time you hear that voice in your head, imagine it, visualize it, as something physical that you can get hold of, tear it out of you, feel its fingers weaken and lose their grip on your spine, and grind it to dust, to nothing, under your boot heel on your way out to dance in the streets.\u00a0You can. You think you can\u2019t, but it\u2019s telling you that. You can.<\/p>\n

\"Be<\/a>You don\u2019t exist.\u00a0You just think you do.\u00a0We\u2019re nothing but the stories we tell ourselves. We know in our hearts what kind of people we are, what we\u2019re capable of, because we\u2019ve told ourselves what kind of people we are. You\u2019re a carefully-rehearsed list of weaknesses and strengths you\u2019ve told yourself you have.\u00a0(Self-confidence, for example, is a particularly nebulous quality you can easily talk yourself out of having.)<\/span><\/p>\n

You owe no allegiance to that self-image if it harms you. If you don\u2019t like the story your life has become \u2014 tell yourself a better one.\u00a0Think about the person you want to be and do what that person would do. Act the way that person would act.\u00a0Amazingly enough, once you start acting like that person, people will start treating you like that person.\u00a0And you\u2019ll start to believe it. And then it will be true.<\/p>\n

\"ChangeWelcome to your new self.\u00a0You are a product of your environment.\u00a0Most people realize this \u2014 usually, in the form of having something else to blame \u2014 but they tend to forget one important fact:<\/span><\/p>\n

\"NegativeHumans are the masters of changing their environment.What this means is that if your environment affects you, and you can affect your environment, then obviously, you can affect yourself.\u00a0Your environment includes people. <\/span><\/p>\n

Figure out who in your life isn\u2019t good for you, whose presence tears you down more than it builds you up, whose nearness is poison to you \u2014 and get rid of them. Get them out of your life.\u00a0<\/span>I don\u2019t care if it\u2019s your best friend, your boss, your mother, your lover \u2014 if they are harming you, if they are doing nothing but reinforce everything bad you tell yourself about yourself, then your relationship with them needs to radically alter or it needs to end.<\/p>\n

Your environment includes goals. Don\u2019t set yourself pie-in-the-sky impossible goals and then beat yourself up over not achieving them. Set yourself goals that will be good for you, not a source of pain. Attainable goals. Set them and meet them. Don\u2019t tell yourself you can\u2019t \u2014 that\u2019s the old story, that story you used to tell yourself about what a poor sad victim you were and how you could never change anything about your life. You can meet your goals. <\/span><\/p>\n

This is the new story. Trying to clean your house? Good for you \u2014 a clean house can really affect your state of mind for the better. But don\u2019t say \u201cToday I\u2019m going to clean the entire house from top to bottom,\u201d when you don\u2019t have the time and energy to \u2014 don\u2019t set yourself up for failure; don\u2019t feed the demon. Just say, \u201cToday I\u2019m going to wash all the dishes and clean off the kitchen counter.\u201d And do it.Don\u2019t tell yourself, \u201cThis month I’m going to write that novel.\u201d Tell yourself, \u201cToday I\u2019m going to write five pages.\u201d And do it. Take your dreams and break them down into small pieces and you\u2019ll have them in your hands before you know it.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"smallAnd you\u2019ll find, as you start meeting your goals, that you like it. That it feels good, makes you feel confident and capable. You\u2019ll develop a hunger for it.\u00a0Your environment includes yourself \u2014 your physical presence. Do what you know you need to do \u2014 treat yourself better. Sleep, eat right, exercise. This doesn’t mean you have to stop staying out late at night now and then, it doesn’t mean you can\u2019t have a candy bar, it doesn’t mean you have to stop sitting around watching television \u2014 it just means start doing the things that are good for you as well as the things that are bad for you, every so often. <\/span><\/p>\n

It\u2019s not an all-or-nothing proposition; you don\u2019t have to devote your life to being a health nut. Just try eating more fruits and vegetables, the occasional vegetarian meal; go for walks in the park on the weekends. You\u2019ll feel better and be more alert if you\u2019re a little healthier, and once you start feeling a little better, you\u2019ll start wanting the things that make you feel better. You\u2019ll see.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"try<\/a>Your environment includes your appearance. If you\u2019re not happy with yourself, if you\u2019re angry with the person in the mirror, it can honestly help to literally change who you see when you look in the mirror. Try a different hairstyle, new glasses, new jewellery, new clothes. It doesn’t have to be expensive \u2014 there\u2019s a whole universe full of possible You\u2019s waiting to be found in thrift stores, if need be. <\/span><\/p>\n

If you\u2019re deciding to become the person you want to be, then decide what that person is going to look like. Dress the part. It\u2019s not shallow, it\u2019s not about vanity, it\u2019s about self-transformation \u2014 even the most primitive tribes understand the value of costumes and masks for ritual, for change, for becoming someone else.\u00a0You are not an object. You are a system. Like with any system, if you change the inputs \u2014 change what goes into it \u2014 you\u2019ll change what comes out.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"Change<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

Despite everything I\u2019ve just said:<\/p>\n

Self-examination can be paralysis.<\/p>\n

Don\u2019t \u201cremember to breathe\u201d \u2014 just breathe. It\u2019s a Tao thing.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s the paradox at the center of all this \u2014 remember that, \u201cAm I living up to being the person I want to be?\u201d, is not a question the person you want to be would ask.<\/p>\n

If I can leave you with just one thought, it\u2019s this:<\/p>\n

Stop wasting your time fretting over not being happy.<\/p>\n

Just be happy.<\/p>\n

By Michael Montoure<\/p>\n

Don’t forget to share it if you’ve liked this article. Please share the love and make somebody else happy.\u00a0\"\"<\/span><\/h3>\n
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