You know those little things that you sometimes say inside? Well, they don’t do you any good if they’re negative. If you’re telling yourself that you’re not capable of anything creative, then you won’t be creative.
Hello Mr. Rock. I’m sad. Help?
If you try to make a shelf with your newly-learned woodworking skills and aren’t happy with the results, where’s your incentive to do it again? A lot of the time we set ourselves up for punishing our learning experiences.
Let me unpack that a little bit. When we learn and experience new things, it’s not a matter of how bad we did it. It’s a matter of what we get out of it. Too often we attach ourselves to the outcome as opposed to the process.
Part of that are happiness-killing narratives that are ruining your efforts. Let’s go through a couple of those and you will figure out how stop these dead in their tracks.
#1: You Tell Yourself That You’re Ignorant
I don’t understand why people do this. No one in the world, not even the smartest person in the world, can know everything about everything. There are two types of ignorance: there’s vincible ignorance, and then there’s invincible ignorance. Invincible ignorance is the kid that doesn’t know anything about driving a car. He’s not there yet. He hasn’t gotten to the point where he even knows driving a car is possible.
Then there’s vincible ignorance. Vincible ignorance is when you’re 40 years old and your mom is still chauffeuring you around and you don’t want to do anything to change. You know that you can drive a car.
You know that all you have to do is go get your driver’s license and maybe borrow mom’s car every once in a while. But you just don’t want to do it. Stop telling yourself you’re ignorant and start learning what you need to know.
#2: You Tell Yourself That You’re Stupid For The Things That You Do
Again, this is attaching the results to personal worth, and that doesn’t help. Stupidity is a negatively charged word that people have used to describe intelligence. There are 9 different types of intelligence that people can have. And guess what? It’s not all just about book knowledge.
There’s music intelligence, there’s physical intelligence, and several more that Malcolm Gladwell has detailed in some of his books. Don’t beat yourself up for not being a book-nerd.
#3: I Tell Myself That I Don’t Deserve More Money
If you do this, it’s probably because you grew up lower or middle class and you don’t believe you deserve better things in life. You grew up scrimping and scrounging.
And now, you think you have to stick to that even though your capabilities have grown. You are worthy of more. Don’t live outside of your means, but it is okay to notice that your means increase with your overall revenue and income.
#4: I Tell Myself That I’m Not A Good Person
I love to tell people that that’s absolutely wrong. You were born good. You were born a person that is capable of all good things. And, chances are, any bad thing you’ve done so far wasn’t as bad as you think, because you did what you thought was right at that time with the knowledge you had available.
Now, I’m not saying that it was absolutely right, but you have to forgive yourself. Learn from it and move on. You know more now and your responsibilities have increased. You are a good person. Forgive yourself for the past. And start from scratch.
Get Rid Of That Negative Self Talk Already
The four happiness-killing narratives need to be dealt with and deleted from your life. Don’t allow them to take over your overall feeling of happiness. They just don’t belong there.
Stop telling yourself you’re ignorant. Stop telling yourself you’re stupid. Stop telling yourself you don’t deserve more money, and stop telling yourself you’re not a good person.
All of those things are false, and you shouldn’t believe them. Don’t be deceived by the great deceiver’s deceit. You are worth much more than that, and it’s time to live the great life you were meant to live.