The Worst Advice I Ever Got

The dumbest advice ever:

Tell yourself that you’re supposed to feel or think a certain thing.

Sometimes people call this ‘injecting logic’. Except there’s nothing logical about this, because it doesn’t work. It would be great if it did, but it doesn’t.

The mind will always reflect what’s going on in the body.

If you’re happy and feeling good? Your thoughts will reflect that.

If you’re pissed off and you want to punch the computer screen or the person across from you? Your thoughts will reflect that too. No amount of telling yourself to be ‘happy you got it in good’, or telling yourself ‘you should be happy you put in a lot of volume’ will change that.

In fact, it’ll actually delay the nice calm experience you want.

You can’t jump to step 2 and force yourself to have different thoughts.

What you can do?

Learn to be with and accept the full experience you’re having, not just the one going on in your head. From there, the thoughts will tend to subside on their own.

Sometimes we just don’t like what we’re feeling. We’re human, and that’s inevitable.

Pain happens.

But real confidence arises when you know you can handle whatever painful experiences get thrown at you, while still feeling like yourself when that wave of emotion is happening.

If you master this skill, you’ll