Do you look at some aspect of your life and wonder why you're there? Or perhaps there's all sorts of reasons why you're there. People and circumstance have conspired against you to put you there.
That may be true in the short term, but if you're still there a year later, you've only yourself to blame.
Some will accept that with a sad sort of resignation, others will openly refute it but it's still the case 99% of the time.
You are exactly where you choose to be.
That may not be by conscious decision, or to your liking. In fact, many people are in a situation, be it a job or relationship or financial circumstance they dislike or even despise but they still choose to be there.
Here is an example I often give. A woman grows up in a roach infested tentament in the bad side of town to immigrant parents. She dreams of being rich. She pushes and pushes and finds a way to make it to and through university. She gets a nice job and ends up renting an apartment on the nice side of town. She has a decent salary, a modest car, and stability. She still dreams of being rich but she simply isn't. Unless something changes in her, or in her life (like marriage) she will likely remain there, perhaps for life.
Now let's assume Paris Hilton suffers a horrendous financial collapse that ruins her reputation. Her fame is gone, her millions are gone and she ends up sharing the apartment with the above woman. What do you think will happen? Will Paris Hilton remain in that apartment? In that life? No, of course not. She simply can't. It's so far beneath her minimum expectations of life that she will work, think and plan day and night on how to get out of that life and back to the one she knew. It'll basically be her obcessive predominate thought. In time, sure enough, she'll find a way to recoop her old lifestyle. It might mean starting a new business, or marrying some rich guy she doesn't like but somehow she'll do it.
So if Paris can - and will - do it, why doesn't the first woman? Because the first woman is comfortable where she is. She may not be content, but she's comfortable. It's an acceptable standard to her. It's not to Paris.
It is human nature to go with the easy 'win'. The question is, what's an acceptable standard for you? A great many of us, myself included, need to raise our standards.
You might think you're living below you're standard, but you're not really, no one does for long unless they're a prisoner or have some debilitating circumstance. You can't. It's so uncomfortable you are restless until you do something to change it and get back above that mental standard. Even alcoholics will eventually drag themselves to an AA meeting and start the process to get out of the hole they dug and back into their comfort zones (unless, they are comfortable in the gutter).
Your standard, your comfort zone, is tied to your own self-worth. If you don't think highly of yourself, you accept a lower standard. If you think very highly of yourself, then you expect more from yourself. Our self-worth is often tied to what others - parents, teachers, peers validated us as being. If you heard 'You're worthless' enough times, chances are high that you, at a subconscious level, believe it. If you had a parent, or parents, that didn't validate you, no matter how much you tried, you might feel the same way.
But know this: You do not need to be particularly smart to be successful. You don't need to be good looking. You don't need to very talented. You just need to want it. And I mean you have to, 'HAVE TO', have it. You have to want it - bad. Being where you are now, must be so far beneath what you're willing to accept out of life that it drives you to do something about it.
My son used to struggle in school. He's a tactile learner. When it's something he can touch, he does well. When it's something that's all in the mind, he struggles with it. Unless... it's something he really wanted.
He struggled to learn his times tables but he could tell you everything about every single Pokemon. What their powers were, their stats, who would win over who and why. That's a lot of work to study 150 Pokemon to that level, yet he had no problem with that. Because he wanted it - bad. He was driven to learn it out of his desire to play Pokemon card and video games and love for the characters. Not knowing wasn't acceptable to him. It took away from his enjoyment and was out of his comfort zone. So he learned.
You can succeed at most anything but first you must choose to do so. The idea of anything less must simply become so distasteful, so unacceptable to you, that it simply won't do. The discomfort of being there will compel you into action.
If you still find yourself living a life you don't want, you are still choosing to live it in that way. Either you don't feel you're good enough to have better or you believe it's too much work to have better or perhaps somehow that having better will make you a bad person and it's a values conflict. Regardless, if you want it bad enough, you'll figure out what's holding you back - and change it.
Choose the life you want to live, know you are worth it, know it's possible, take action and do not accept anything less.
That may be true in the short term, but if you're still there a year later, you've only yourself to blame.
Some will accept that with a sad sort of resignation, others will openly refute it but it's still the case 99% of the time.
You are exactly where you choose to be.
That may not be by conscious decision, or to your liking. In fact, many people are in a situation, be it a job or relationship or financial circumstance they dislike or even despise but they still choose to be there.
Here is an example I often give. A woman grows up in a roach infested tentament in the bad side of town to immigrant parents. She dreams of being rich. She pushes and pushes and finds a way to make it to and through university. She gets a nice job and ends up renting an apartment on the nice side of town. She has a decent salary, a modest car, and stability. She still dreams of being rich but she simply isn't. Unless something changes in her, or in her life (like marriage) she will likely remain there, perhaps for life.
Now let's assume Paris Hilton suffers a horrendous financial collapse that ruins her reputation. Her fame is gone, her millions are gone and she ends up sharing the apartment with the above woman. What do you think will happen? Will Paris Hilton remain in that apartment? In that life? No, of course not. She simply can't. It's so far beneath her minimum expectations of life that she will work, think and plan day and night on how to get out of that life and back to the one she knew. It'll basically be her obcessive predominate thought. In time, sure enough, she'll find a way to recoop her old lifestyle. It might mean starting a new business, or marrying some rich guy she doesn't like but somehow she'll do it.
So if Paris can - and will - do it, why doesn't the first woman? Because the first woman is comfortable where she is. She may not be content, but she's comfortable. It's an acceptable standard to her. It's not to Paris.
It is human nature to go with the easy 'win'. The question is, what's an acceptable standard for you? A great many of us, myself included, need to raise our standards.
You might think you're living below you're standard, but you're not really, no one does for long unless they're a prisoner or have some debilitating circumstance. You can't. It's so uncomfortable you are restless until you do something to change it and get back above that mental standard. Even alcoholics will eventually drag themselves to an AA meeting and start the process to get out of the hole they dug and back into their comfort zones (unless, they are comfortable in the gutter).
Your standard, your comfort zone, is tied to your own self-worth. If you don't think highly of yourself, you accept a lower standard. If you think very highly of yourself, then you expect more from yourself. Our self-worth is often tied to what others - parents, teachers, peers validated us as being. If you heard 'You're worthless' enough times, chances are high that you, at a subconscious level, believe it. If you had a parent, or parents, that didn't validate you, no matter how much you tried, you might feel the same way.
But know this: You do not need to be particularly smart to be successful. You don't need to be good looking. You don't need to very talented. You just need to want it. And I mean you have to, 'HAVE TO', have it. You have to want it - bad. Being where you are now, must be so far beneath what you're willing to accept out of life that it drives you to do something about it.
My son used to struggle in school. He's a tactile learner. When it's something he can touch, he does well. When it's something that's all in the mind, he struggles with it. Unless... it's something he really wanted.
He struggled to learn his times tables but he could tell you everything about every single Pokemon. What their powers were, their stats, who would win over who and why. That's a lot of work to study 150 Pokemon to that level, yet he had no problem with that. Because he wanted it - bad. He was driven to learn it out of his desire to play Pokemon card and video games and love for the characters. Not knowing wasn't acceptable to him. It took away from his enjoyment and was out of his comfort zone. So he learned.
You can succeed at most anything but first you must choose to do so. The idea of anything less must simply become so distasteful, so unacceptable to you, that it simply won't do. The discomfort of being there will compel you into action.
If you still find yourself living a life you don't want, you are still choosing to live it in that way. Either you don't feel you're good enough to have better or you believe it's too much work to have better or perhaps somehow that having better will make you a bad person and it's a values conflict. Regardless, if you want it bad enough, you'll figure out what's holding you back - and change it.
Choose the life you want to live, know you are worth it, know it's possible, take action and do not accept anything less.
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