🚀 Mind over Matter
Picture this.
You’re now a couple months deep.
You consistently work on your craft every single day without fail.
You sacrifice as much as you can to make time to learn, experiment and grow.
At this point you think your life is the best it’s ever been and then;
BAM
The universe has thrown a spanner in the works stopping you from progressing.
Now you blame yourself for everything, question your intentions and experience a severe case of FOMO.
Does this sound familiar?
Well you have your amazing mind to thank for all this.
Jokes aside, your mind is such a complex thing.
It has the ultimate ability to instill specific thoughts and feelings at any given time.
What is especially annoying is when you encounter a road block on your path and have this “I told you so” moment from your mind that keeps playing in your head over and over. (very inconvenient if you ask me)
There is no easy way out of this battle. The more you fail, the greater the threat your mind is to your journey.
No one can gain access to what thoughts should be in their heads. However, one can learn how to control and tame their mind to ensure that they do not become slaves to their thoughts.
How do you control the mind you ask? Here are some coping mechanisms that work when my mind plays games with me;
Journaling: A very underrated way of de-cluttering all the thoughts stuck in your head. Often times, it is the best way to vent out your emotions and go about your day with more peace and better mental clarity.
Positive self-talk: If you tend to negatively view and describe yourself to others then it is bound to attract the same type of energy. The more you love yourself, the better you stand against any form of adversity.
Happy hour: Work aside, what is something that you do on your own that makes you happy? In my case, I dance and sing to a playlist of feel good songs in the dark before I go to bed.
The options are endless! You could garden, go for a walk, call a close friend, play some video games etc.
“Age is an issue of mind over matter. If you don’t mind then it doesn’t matter” ~ Mark Twain
You have found your coping mechanism to push through this rut but nothing seems to be happening. You’re desperately trying to find the light at the end of the tunnel.
What now?
Yes you could always throw in the towel and go back to your old ways in a heartbeat but no curious zoomer gives up without putting up a decent fight.
The best thing to do in this instance is to follow the four R’s
Reset
Readjust
Restart
Refocus
Do this as many times as you need to but don’t you dare utter the three treacherous words “I give up”
A lot of the time when we go through rough patches; we tend to steer towards finding external validation and unfortunately risk the chance of losing everything we’ve worked hard for by simply quitting.
It doesn’t sound crazy until you realize that you essentially gave another person the authority to determine whether you should or shouldn’t continue pursuing YOUR dreams.
Now why on earth would you do that?
Of-course it’s easier said than done. You never think about all this in the moment but let’s break down why we want to give up in the first place.
As a creative myself, the worst thing for me is to have expectations. For me, having an expectation about something is like sharing your kryptonite with your enemy.
You are essentially giving your mind something to recollect when you fail so please stop sabotaging yourself.
Let us all say it together…
Expectations lead to disappointment.
Infographic from Matt D’Avella’s newsletter Slow Growth
I came across a beautiful YouTube Video from Ali Abdaal who talks about input and outcome dependent goals.
Input dependent goals are things that YOU (the creator) has control over.
Now those goals could be anything from;
Writing five pages of your screenplay
Drawing for an hour everyday
Exercising for twenty minutes
These quantifiable goals are set by you and can be adjusted as you please since YOU have control over them.
However,
Outcome dependent goals (i.e. expectations) are things that you DON’T have control over so that could be any of the following;
Expecting your book to be a New York Time’s Best Seller
Expecting your film to win an Oscar
Expecting to get signed by a record label
The point is that your mind should be focused on goals that are reliant on your input because it is a waste of time and energy focusing on goals that are determined by someone else’s input over your dreams.
Just make sure you perform the tasks that you have control over to the best of your ability and let the universe take care of the rest.
Once you start navigating life without any expectations; you will feel a huge weight lifted off your shoulders. You will learn to realize that your happiness in its purest form is just immersing yourself in this passion of yours.
And that my friends is a beautiful thing.
Over and out Zoomers :)
Links to articles and videos that you may find useful:
Here are my favorite’s of the week!
Podcast: https://bit.ly/3E6BKDU
Song: https://bit.ly/3jDw24v
Quote: “I care about decency and humanity and kindness. Kindness today is an act of rebellion.” - Pink
Presenting this week’s meme and unpopular opinion:
Unpopular opinion: Tomatoes and lettuce are the unnecessary backtracking fetch quest of the burger world.
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