Tag: self help

Your best friend is you: Part 1 (Translation)

Self-demanding, my worst enemy

There’s no better way to start than with the origin of 90% of all of my emotional woes: perfectionism and demanding too much of myself. In other words, my black and white, all-or-nothing thinking, 100 or 0 thinking. The profound conviction that I was never enough. That I always had to do a little more. I was even convinced that I shouldn’t celebrate or be happy about the accomplishments that I had invested so much time and effort into because I was just doing my duty. It’s what I had to do. So, automatically, without time to process what had happened, I had to continue being productive, reaching objectives, chasing goals. For example, if I managed to get good grades on tests, it wasn’t a reason to celebrate. I was just fulfilling my obligation. No matter how much blood, sweat, and tears it cost me to pull it off, I didn’t even feel gratification but rather a sense of spectacular indifference that made me shift my attention to reaching the next goal.

When I try to find the root of all this, I realize that one of my biggest concerns since I was very young has been to not disappoint others. Act the right way. That’s made me had a huge sense of responsibility and an extremely rigid and demanding mindset.

You know those horses that have blinders on both sides of their eyes to give them tunnel vision to keep them from getting distracted so that it’s clear what path they must take? Well, I’ve been exactly like that all my life.

As children, we observe what happens in the adult world, all of the problems and discomfort that comes with it, which is why we don’t want to add more fuel to the fire. Therefore, we force ourselves to be perfect little beings to not cause any trouble for those people that we love and admire so much. Or at least, that’s what happened to me.

Wanting to control everything in a world where nothing is predictable produces a tremendous amount of anxiety. It’s living and constantly trying to keep a multitude of factors and circumstances that escape us under control.

I’ve always believed that there was a sort of drill sergeant in my head that spent all day ordering me around, disregarding how I felt completely. “Don’t stop! You have to be skinny to be beautiful! You have to tell everyone yes so that no one gets disappointed. You have to be popular, be the best friend that everyone would wish to have. Be the best daughter, the best student, the best girlfriend. You must study to have a degree that makes other people proud. Give your 100% in everything, be super clear about everything, show self-composure.”

All my life spent repeating these mantras to myself, beating myself up, and talking to myself as if I were my worst enemy. My worst teacher or my worst boss. Little by little, this took its toll on me and, of course, on my mental health. Sometimes when I look back, I would like to hug that girl and tell her not to be so hard on herself. To not be so afraid. To not put so much pressure on herself. That it’s not worth it and isn’t going to be good for her. But I guess that everything that happened has also turned me into the person I am today. It’s something that I had to go through to grow and learn.

Allowing myself even the smallest margin of error was the same as failing. I had to always be the best in everything I did. I remember perfectly that when I started going to therapy years later, one of the first things that my therapist said was: “Cris, you have to choose what you truly value and prioritize it to try to invest the most attention and time you can. You have to be an 8 or a 9. But there are other things where you might be a 5 or a 6. And that’s okay. If you try to be a 10 in everything, you’ll end up nosediving to 0. Because there is no way that your mind and your body can take that level of pressure. Assume that you can’t be a 10 in all aspects of your life.” Her words managed to open my eyes. It seemed very simple, but it wasn’t. Because for as long as I could remember my thought process had always been rigid and closed off.

Sometimes we have to hit rock bottom to realize that the level of pressure that we are putting on ourselves is completely unsustainable. And that’s exactly what happened to me. The result of demanding so much of myself ended up snowballing into a stubborn anxiety. But I’m getting ahead of myself. I’ll go into more detail about this later on.

What I have learned for sure is that we are not perfect machines. Even if we sometimes feel that the world’s pace demands that of us, we are not. In the end, as my mother says, we are nothing more than little bags of chemicals, people full of feelings and emotions, not robots. We can’t always get to everything, we can’t be liked by everyone, we can’t always be in the best mood. We can’t expect ourselves to never make a mistake ever. It’s impossible. When you internalize that and accept it, you feel an enormous freedom, even if it’s hard at first. You’re human, and therefore, vulnerable.

And that’s not a bad thing. It’s an innate part of our condition. We have no reason to run from that vulnerability. That only hurts us. And the best thing of all is that the world will not end if we are a little imperfect.

Now I know that people will not stop loving me. I’m not going to stop pursuing my goals, and I’m not going to die either. Quite the contrary. Now that I recognize that vulnerability, I stop putting so much pressure on myself. I let myself flow more, resulting in being more myself and happier.

The next time you think about demanding so much of yourself and berating yourself in some way, ask yourself if you would talk that way to a good friend that is doing the best she knows how, that’s giving her all, that’s making an effort every day to live life however she can. You wouldn’t, right? Well, don’t do it to yourself either. Because ultimately you are your own best friend.

Dear friend, invest your time and attention in the things that you value. Accept that you can’t be liked by everyone. Talk to yourself as you would talk to your best friend. After all, you’re going to be on this journey with yourself until the last day of your life.

We cannot expect perfection from ourselves, much less demand it. This chapter could have been written by me. I’ve often felt when I travel alone that there is the perfect representation of life. The novelty. The stress. The growth. And while on a trip alone you always find friends or kind strangers along the way, the takeaway stays the same. You go to sleep each night with yourself. You wake up and begin again and plan with yourself in mind.

We have to take care of ourselves. To be that friend, that parent, that partner, that support person that does not waver. Through thick and thin. Only then are we able to pick people that treat us the way we truly deserve to be treated. Only then can our self-demands stop turning into self-sabotage. We can be present and whole, prioritizing what we value. Showing up for ourselves. Appreciating our successes and learning from our failures.

Opportunities for Growth

During quarantine last year, all of the time I had to myself gave me lots of opportunities to digest thoughts that had not yet crystalized for me before. About myself, my goals, and most importantly habits and how integral they are to being successful and staying motivated.

So often we put ourselves in this catch-22 scenario where we can only do what we want if we sacrifice our own mental health in some way. We can never win. If we do what we want, we have no time. If we don’t, we feel like we aren’t doing enough.

Wait, was I just projecting my own problems with prioritizing? I guess so. I confronted these feelings a lot during my time in quarantine, needless to say.

We want to create, but struggle to do so. We want to exercise, but fail to find motivation. Wanting to achieve our goals, but — for some reason or another — we still procrastinate on them. We fail to fall in love with the process.

We have to start. That’s the first step. Then from there we have to keep going. That’s been harder than starting, some days. So I started doing a little research on how these new habits I want to form can be done in the most logical and passive way possible. Passive, in the sense that it doesn’t have to be this aggressive struggle to do as much as possible every day. I’d been living by that rule, going against the grain and pushing myself past the bounds of self-care: all or nothing. And yes, I felt drained, and somewhat unsatisfied as a result. Because it never seemed to be enough.

Growing up, my dad would always be watching Seinfeld. I was a big fan, even if a lot of the more sophisticated jokes went over my head. It was always a groundbreaking show to me, in a way, because I felt it had a different vibe than other sitcoms that were big at the time. It felt somehow more authentic.

Never would I have guessed that there was more than just comedic genius behind its creator’s success.

“After a few days you’ll have a chain. Just keep at it and the chain will grow longer every day. You’ll like seeing that chain, especially when you get a few weeks under your belt. Your only job is to not break the chain.”

I found this wonderful article (which I now cannot refind) all about the Seinfeld strategy, described above by my boy Jerry Seinfeld. He pointed out that while most people get demotivated and off–track after a bad performance, a bad workout, or simply a bad day at work, top performers settle right back into their pattern the next day. They reset and keep their long-term goals in mind. They embrace the new obstacles as opportunities for growth.

The Seinfeld Strategy works because it helps to take the focus off of each individual performance and puts the emphasis on the process instead. So instead of obsessing with where we want to be on a daily basis, we focus on the small steps it takes to reaching our destination.

So step one is to choose a task that is simple enough to be sustainable. At the same time, you have to make sure that your actions are meaningful enough to matter. And that your strategies are varied enough to keep you engaged and passionate.

Last month, I also learned about S.M.A.R.T. goals from the Habits for Happiness podcast I discovered for free with my audible subscription. I started 2021 listening to this podcast, and I would highly recommend following this strategy developed by George T. Doran way back in 1981 to help with setting clear objectives in any aspect of life. 

What makes them SMART? You have to ask yourself about any given goal you choose to set: Is it Specific? Is it Measurable? Is it Achievable/Realistic? Is it Relevant to your overall vision? And finally, what is your Timeframe for reaching your goal? You can add on points for exciting and recorded, among other qualifiers, as you see fit.

Although it has been quoted to death, as Greg Reid asserted, writing down a goal, breaking it down into steps, and following through with those steps, with the consistency of the Seinfeld method can make all the difference.

But most importantly, the motivation must be authentic. I realized how hard it was to cultivate motivation when I was actively and frequently struggling with depression. That is true for any dopamine and vitamin D deprived individual such as myself. It comes down to chemical composition. How can we level out and correct the release and maintenance of certain chemicals in the body? I realized that addressing this issue had to be part of my plan. Every plan needs room for maintenance and repair, in the event of a setback or *ahem* breakdown. And once I was in the states, finding solutions to those on-going chemical factors became a priority. 

When it comes to treatment of a disorder or illness, not breaking the chain becomes even more important. One day without taking your medicine or exercising or meditating can cause a dramatic swing in your mood and perception of your situation, as well as your motivation and momentum. It’s not often a permanent state or condition, but it can have damaging effects on your mental wellness and overall assessment of your own progress.

So, as I coped with the new balance adjustments on my chemicals, while evacuating, having no place to call home, virtual classes, familial tension… I fell back even harder on my routine. I focused on the little things that I could do for a short period of time each day. I made sure to zero in on the most pleasurable aspects of those steps in my plan.

I didn’t stop studying French. I’ve almost cleared the lessons on Duolingo and reached a B1 level in about a year of study after knowing next to nothing and not being able to fully immerse myself in real life use of the language. I’ve gradually been building up my content on social media. I’m trying to apply my SMART goals and the Seinfeld method to my writing as well — and I think it’s getting more consistent. I still get blocked looking through all of my drafts, but as long as I am still writing a few lines a day, publishing once I’m satisfied at least a few times a month, then I feel I am reaching my goal.

Another routine that made a huge difference during quarantine was establishing morning rituals. I try to use my phone as a tool to wake me up mentally via podcasts (like Up Next by NPR to get my daily overview of the news), the Daily Stoic, and YouTube videos by channels that post Alan Watts videos and self-help/introspective tips like Better Ideas and Awaken Insight to name a few. Getting your mind right and finding your best headspace in the morning is the best way to wipe the slate of the previous day’s struggles and stumbling blocks and start with a fresh outlook.

I have continued to make this a part of my routine, as well as filling my body with light, healthy food like fruits, grains, and oatmeal to help prevent my typical digestive problems. Health can never take a backburner in our daily life — if nothing else, I think 2020 taught a lot of us that.

Additionally, I applied the Seinfeld method to doing yoga daily in the mornings during my 2 and a half months in lockdown. I reminded myself that it doesn’t matter how much exercise I do, the intensity nor the duration, so long as I don’t stop doing it. Previously, I felt frustrated seeing the results of my hard work in the gym fade after I became too busy to go regularly. What’s the point if the results wouldn’t stick and I’d repeatedly have to start over every time I went?

That’s where not breaking the chain is truly genius. Even if your growth is not linear or exponential, it does pay off in the long run. I haven’t done yoga daily since my time in the States, but since returning to the gym – and on days when I have a lot of tension, pain, and stress – I use the techniques I learned during those 60 whole days straight that I practiced yoga at least once a day. 

It worked! What I learned stuck. And not because I never took time off or never had slow days or short sessions. On the hard days, I took breaks and shortcuts, but I didn’t stop.

In 2021, I continue to think proactively, to enjoy rest and productivity, socializing and self-care in equal measure. The balance has gotten easier, even though it truly is an uphill battle. It’s never as easy as it looks or seems. That’s important to keep in mind. Comparing ourselves to others is the least productive thing we can do when looking to grow and live life to the fullest.

I’ve got to shoutout both my brothers who are a strong example to me of this persistent approach to goals. Jace has gone from knowing next to nothing about music theory and never seriously learning to play an instrument to being able to sing while playing and write songs on the guitar in under a year. How badass is that? As someone who was often a defeatist with new hobbies, I was inspired by how he refused to take a day off from playing or get frustrated, even when he was in exhausting and stressful situations or when progress seemed slow.

My older brother Seth is an extremely hardworking family man. In spite of two hurricanes, having to move suddenly, and all the other crazy consequences of last year, he continues to be a high performer in everything he does. From sports to management and sales, he’s a true inspiration to me as he has become so successful in his work and family life, alike. I’m lucky I’ve had some strong examples in my personal life that have helped me to reach this proactive point in my journey.

I write through the exhaustion of a new hybrid teaching schedule. I’m continuing to learn more about video and photo-editing, teaching and what the hell’s going on in the world — because I’ll need that if I want to get where I am heading. I have projects that I haven’t finished, but at least I have something. 

And while progress is not linear, the important thing is to keep going.

I love sunrises and dusk pictures, and how could I not include some of my first edits from my New Years trip and a lovely shot of my own backyard (not in that order).