Category: habits

Circles in my mind.

My brain does circles sometimes.  It is not necessarily anxiety but it can turn into that if I let the circles continue.

I get fixated on one thought and I spend every minute trying to figure out how to make that thing work or make that thing make sense.  Today it has been the personality test Strengths Finder.  I was looking at the results today and one of my strengths in a connector.

I have been trying to figure it out because I don’t feel like I am a very good connector.  I like people and I like people to be happy and if someone is having a relationship problem I want to fix it.  But I don’t feel like I connect.

Then I start to wonder if the other strengths are really my strengths.  If this one is off then the other ones could be too.  I have a Bachelor’s degree in Psychology so I feel like I can figure out how to answer these tests so that I get the results I want.  If I do that then how can I trust any of these tests?

Yes I make myself dizzy with all of these questions.  Does anyone else have circles in the brain?

The point?  I have to stop the circles.  I distract myself with work or thinking about the Primary class I am teaching on Sunday.  I write, I play games with the boys.

The truth is the circles are there but I have the choice of stepping out of the circle.  Excuse me while I go get out of this circle.

I am not the Judge

I have been thinking about this post for some time now.  Truthfully it is not something I want to share.  Mostly because it shows too much of my worst faults. But it is one I feel I need to share.

I have mentioned in the past that I am very judgy of other people.  No matter who it is I see I measure myself against them.  I want to see if I am better or worse than the person I am judging.  I know I do this to try and make myself feel better.  To show myself that maybe I am not that bad.  But all it does it tear me down and tear down the people I am judging.

People always say don’t worry about what other people are thinking because they aren’t thinking about you.  I know that is a lie, though, because I am thinking about other people all of the time.

Doing this confidence challenge has shown me two things about myself that I am not very proud of.  First, I am very insecure.  This is why I judge other people.  I am trying to make myself feel better.  I am trying to show that at least I am better dressed than her.  Or I am not as heavy as her.  Or I would never be so embarrassing as her.  It is exhausting!

The other reason I am so judgy is because I am jealous.  I don’t feel that I will ever be as good as that woman.  I know that woman is so talented I don’t have anything to offer like she does.  I will never be as successful as that person!

I guess really jealous and insecurity are essentially the same thing.  Both are exhausting and both keep me from really connecting with people.  I know when I am being judgy I am keeping people away from the real me.  When I am being judgy I am putting myself on a pedestal and other people below me. (I told you this wasn’t a pretty picture of me.)

The other day I was reading in the book of Alma in the Book of Mormon.  Alma was talking to the people about their sins and how the things they were doing were a trap from Satan.  Satan was using these sins to keep the people away from connecting with God and each other.  I sat back and thought about my life.  I know that my lack of confidence keeps me from really connecting with God.  I don’t feel like I am good enough to be loved by Him.  As long as I am stuck in this trap I am not progressing.  I am not becoming the person Heavenly Father wants me to be.

As I have focused on confidence and strength I have realized I am better than I thought.  I don’t have to be perfect I am loved the way I am.  I am working on tearing down the walls of jealousy and insecurity.  I don’t want them anymore.  I know it is time to leave them behind.

So I have made myself change the way I think.  Whenever I find myself judging someone else I have to come up with 5 nice things about that person.  I would much rather find nice things about another child of God.  This has helped me to start breaking the habit of judging.  And it helps me feel happier because I am focusing on the positives of other people

Day 19 – are there personal traits that are holding you back from confidence? Find them and tear them down.  You don’t need them!

Friends

People are scary!  Wait didn’t I just write this post?  Oh yea I did.

I wrote that post knowing that there was a women’s group, meeting at my church.  (The women’s group is called Relief Society.)  I knew that I needed to start going to make some friends.  And I had been asked to make cookies.  Perfect excuse to go right?  It was also a get to know you night because there are lots of new people coming so I wouldn’t be the only “new” person there.

All day yesterday all I could think is I don’t want to go.  I made the cookies thinking well I can just drop them off.  Or I can just go for half an hour.  At least if I go I can say I did it.  I JUST WROTE A BLOG POST ABOUT BEING FRIENDLY I HAVE TO GO.

Well, I didn’t go.  The world didn’t crash down.  We had a great night together as a family.  No one called me to ask where I was with the cookies.  It was all good.  Except I felt a little guilty because I didn’t go.  I mean I did just write this great blog post.

This morning I met a fellow “This is my Brave” cast member.  To be honest I thought she just wanted to meet to sell me her product.  I couldn’t figure out why she wanted to get together.  She is gorgeous, accomplished and totally awesome.  Why would she want to get together with me???  Yes these are all of the thoughts I have running through my head.

I really wanted to tell her that I wasn’t coming.  But I didn’t.  And you know what I was totally wrong!!  She just wanted to visit.  We talked for an hour all about life and goals and how we are doing mentally.  It was an amazing hour.

Maybe I can make new friends.  I just need to do it on my terms.

 

 

Go ahead and FAIL

Gymnastics seems to be taking over my life.

For awhile I would go to two different gymnastics classes every Monday.  Now I only need to go to one.  But that class is 2 hours long.  I sit there and watch kids a quarter, yes a quarter, of my age doing things that I have never and will never be able to do.  (I know we should never say never but even as a kid I could’t move like that.  Now that I am considerably older it is not going to happen.)

Anyway,  one of the coaches mentioned that gymnasts mess up 95% of the time. They practice so much to train their muscles to do the correct thing the 5% of the time they are in front of the judges.

It amazes me to sit and watch these kids  for just a fraction of the amount of time they spend each week practicing.  They spend hours doing the same thing over and over again.  Why?  So they can cut down the 95% failure rate.  Because they know the more they practice the less failures they will have.  Because they know the more they practice the bigger the 5% of doing things correctly becomes.

This of course made me think of my own life.  I start something new and I want to be perfect right away.  I don’t want to redo anything or keep trying.  To tell you the truth the only time I argued with my mom is when she wanted me to take out stitches when she was teaching me how to sew.

I don’t have the patience to sit and work and work to figure out how to do something.  However,  I have goals and dreams.  So I may not have patience now it is certainly something that I can develop.  I choose to start now.  Everyday I choose to do one thing that will get me closer to my goal.

Right now that means that I need to learn a lot about the technical side of blogging.  I need to learn how to make changes to my website.  How to add pages and make the content more interesting to look at.

I need to learn about marketing.  How do I use different social media outlets to share my message?  How do I make interesting instagram posts?  Where do people find the awesome quotes from others?  And seriously how do they write such great quotes?

I may keep failing 95%.  But when I work everyday it gives me more of a chance to succeed the other 5% because I am doing more.

And these gymnasts that are on team are seriously ripped!  I want to be the elite gymnast of supporting others to reach their goals!  Do you have an exciting goal you would like help achieving?  I would love to help you.  Contact me for more information.

Habits and Crushing Life!

How to crush life today?! Make habits that help you achieve your dreams.

We all have habits some good and some not so much.  I have always been told that to change a habit you have to break the bad habit and change it to something good.  But that was all.  How do you break a bad habit?  How do you change something that seems to have so much control?  There times you don’t even realize that you do it.

I have been learning about how habits really work in Charles Duhigg’s book the Power of Habits.

For a habit to start there is a cue or trigger that makes you think of the habit.  For example an emotionally taxing experience.  When I get stressed I reach for the candy.  Preferably something with the most chocolate and caramel I can find.

Then the reward.  What you get out of the habit.  Of course I get a sugar rush that lifts my mood for a moment.  But I also feel a sense of calm.  A feeling that life may be crazy but this moment is just me and the chocolate

The habit forms as I start to crave the reward.  As I continue the habit I want that reward of feeling the sugar rush and calm for just a minute.  As the habit continues the craving gets stronger and stronger.

So how do you change this habit once you have a craving firmly entrenched? You have to change the reward.

The new cycle works like this: you have the cue.  The emotionally taxing experience.  Instead of reaching for the candy bar (goodbye Milky Way) I choose to pray.  I take a couple of deep breaths and pray to understand what I am really feeling.

In this case the reward is two fold.  I feel better because I am treating my body in a healthy manner.  But also the prayer connects me to a bigger strength.  Slowly I will begin to crave the new reward more than the candy bar.

According to Duhigg this change of habits works great until life hits you upside the head with a curve ball.  Then most people will go back to the original cue that brought them the reward.  Kind of disheartening right?

Well not really.  Because there is one more thing that we all need to make changing habits permanent.  And that is belief.  Belief that we can and want to make the change.  Belief in a higher power (yes AA has it correct) that can help me change that habit.  Now you see why I choose prayer as my new reward!

Is change easy with the understanding of belief?  No it isn’t.  However, as you believe that changing this habit is important.  As you believe that you have the power to make this change permanent.  As you tap into the belief that there is a higher power that WANTS to help you.  The choice will get easier and easier.  The new reward will get stronger and stronger because you will begin to crave that new reward.  You will need and want it in your life.

You deserve all the good things in your life that you want and need.  Changing your habits to good ones will help you to achieve those good things!

Photo by Kevin Lee on Unsplash