On your own terms

If you don’t like the way things are or the way that other people tell you that things should be, you don’t have to accept it.

So often we find ourselves frustrated and feeling hopeless as if there is no other way. But we forget that we have other options available to us. You always have the option to do things on your own terms.

Do things in the way that makes you feel happy, brings you joy or simply just makes you feel good. Other people might not get it, they might even question it but it’s not something that you ever have to justify or explain.

Talk is easy

…the hard part is following through.

When you end up being focused on the short term things like how liberated we’ll feel when you say it or how the other person will think of you when they hear your words, you distract yourself from the long term.

It’s the long term that matters most, things like how it will feel to follow through with what you said, the effort it will require, how long until you see desired results or what you’ll need to put in place to make it easier to keep to your word.

Sometimes doing what you said you’d do is easy but other times it’s a little more challenging. And so I think it’s worth focusing a little more on the action required and a little less on talking about it.

Reasons to leave an online membership

This blog post is actually based on an online membership I joined earlier this year but recently cancelled my subscription for.

Prior to joining I was quite excited and I thought I would really enjoy the membership. It turned out that I thought the membership was pretty good and definetly worth the cost. However, it just wasn’t quite right for me.

But instead of cancelling when I came to that realisation I remained in the membership for a few more months. I wanted to give it a chance to see if I changed my mind plus I’d been a fan of this persons free online offerings for years so I felt conflicted that I didn’t like the membership as much as I thought I would.

In hindsight I should have just cancelled the membership staright away and then rejoined if I felt called to but instead I chose to trudge on. Looking back a key issue was the time difference. There would be interactive live sessions held in the morning but for me it was late the night before. It was difficult to interact with the content in the way it was intended because I was 10 or 11 hours behind.

The second thing was that some of the content didn’t quite resonate with me. It wasn’t that it was bad, it just wasn’t for me. It turned out that the stuff I liked the most was the stuff that was similar to what they shared for free. I came to realise that I didn’t really want all the other stuff from this person.

The last thing was that it felt a bit much for me to keep up with. There was regular short bits of content, 2 or 3 each week but after taking a break from the videos for a couple of weeks it felt like a lot to catch up with. This particular point is more that my commitment to keeping up with the content fell away and never really came back. Whilst other members were keeping up as new content was posted, I ended up viewing at my own leisure.

Despite all this it took me a few months to actually leave the membership*. But when I did, I didn’t regret it at all and I knew I wouldn’t be missing out on anything. Of course there would be great content to come but it simply wasn’t for me. I think I had a hard time accepting that because I didn’t expect it to turn out that way.

My main takeaways from this situation can apply to any sort of commitment made, it could be about work or something with a friend.

Sometimes in life, we put ourselves in situations that we think will be good for us. Perhaps we find that they are pretty good to begin with. However, it may turn out that somewhere along the line things change.

From the outside, the clear option is to leave. Yet when you’re the one in the situation suddenly it’s not so easy. You then end up staying in situations you don’t need to be in when you know that you should just leave.

Sometimes the issue is that we don’t trust ourselves enough in the moment when the thought first comes up. Instead, we give ourselves time to ponder and ruminate but more often than not we reach the conclusion that we already had to begin with.

* Another reason was because it was fairly inexpensive so it felt easier to keep paying whilst I made up my mind than to leave and potentially want to rejoin shortly after. I’ve been thinking and making notes about subscription services so expect more on this soon.

Trial and error

In order to find the solution to a problem, it often takes trial and error. Sure, the first thing might work but not always.

Trial and error requires you to be willing to embrace uncertainty, take risks and persevere. However, often in life we’re not willing to do those things as much as we could or even should. And so our problems remain.

It has nothing to do with our problems being difficult or challenging. Instead we simply aren’t willing to try something that might not work, so we simply don’t try at all.

In the spirit of getting things done

I think that most people that procrastinate also have periods of intense productivity. It’s the only way to keep things in balance otherwise they’d just fall apart and miss deadlines.

I find that as much as a person may procrastinate they are also capable of getting things done if they create the right environment fo themselves.

Perhaps, they will write a to do list that they are able to focus on completing tasks whereas usually they would look at the list but take little to no action. They’d tell themselves that they’ll do it later or do it tomorrow even if it could be done right now, even if it would only take 10 minutes.

But when this same person is in the spirit of getting things done, they are able to get mote done in a few hours or a day than they would usually get done in the space of a week.

Other peoples numbers

Instagram now allows you to turn off the numbers (likes and views) on other people’s posts. I didn’t think much of it until I turned the likes back on.

I found that with the numbers off, I was solely focused on the content. However, with the numbers on, they were the first thing I looked at.

It’s interesting to see how many likes and views the videos and photos get. But, I think it’s easy to get distracted by other peoples numbers instead of just enjoying the content.

The mindset for starting over

When your life isn’t quite going how you anticipated. You might have the thought to start over. Often this takes a while to actually begin.

Starting over goes from being something scary that you choose to avoid (because you’d rather be unhappy with what you know than risk things being any worse if you try something new) to being something that is worth the risk.

The mindset goes from I’d rather stick with what I know and be miserable than venture out into the unknown to I’d rather venture out into the unknown than stick with what I know and be miserable.

As time passes, the value we place on familiarity in situations when we’re unhappy often decreases. It’s no longer considered worth it to stay in your current circumstances because if you’re unhappy now, the worst case scenario is starting over and still being unhappy. However, often things turn out significantly better.

The ‘wrong choice’ could be the best choice

When it comes to making decisions you might find yourself paralysed, stagnant and making no progress in life because you’re scared of making the wrong choice.

Weeks, months or even years can go by and when you look back on your life you’ll find that very little has changed. It could be about work, friends, family, romantic relationships, your home, how you spend your time, that thing you didn’t start or your appearance.

Perhaps you’re worried that leaving a job and trying something new will be something you’ll regret and so you stay in your current job even though you’re unhappy. You’re worried that leaving might be the wrong choice.

Maybe what you do next won’t work out so you’ll have to go back to a similar role that you used to work in, maybe your new career path pays less or maybe something else unideal will happen.

However, I think that if you yearn for change then maybe making the ‘wrong choice’ is the best choice. Mistakes and failures are opportunities for learning and growth. But taking the chance to try something new may also lead to greater happiness and fulfillment which I think is enough to make the risk worth while.

Everyone’s a critic

But not everyone is doing the work and not everyone understands.

You’ll often find that the ones that are talking the most are those that do that least.

When it comes to criticism, it is so important not to take on the thoughts and opinions of the wrong people. When you’re working on something and it isn’t going well it can result in your sense of self and confidence being reduced. When this happens you’re likely to find yourself more susceptible to take on the criticism of others.

Criticism can be useful, in fact incredibly helpful when it’s from the right people. However, when it’s from the wrong people, it can be dangerous. Suddenly you’re taking on thoughts from a stranger who has no real idea about the work you do and what it takes to overcome the challenges you’re facing.

The perfect character

I recently started watching a show from the 90s that has gained a significant amount of criticism for various reasons. Much of it I agree with, yet I still found the show (for the most part) enjoyable to watch.

One particular bit of criticism that I didn’t agree with was that against the main character. People raised points of her making silly mistakes, being selfish and making poor choices.

However, as much as I understood the criticism, the show was not created to present the characters as perfect. Plus, it’s unrealistic to expect all things to pass the test of time. I think for may people the real issue was that their perception of the main character had changed from good to bad.

It went from thinking she was cool and liberated to thinking that she would have been better off if she…

She went from being aspirational to being an example of what not to do.

And so I think it’s much more useful to take the show for what it was instead of focusing on this idea of a perfect character. And if that feels difficult, think about you’re own life. It is more than likely that the ideas you had and choices you made in the 90s are not ones you carry with you in present day.