The Worst Things You Can Tell Yourself
We spend a lot of time worrying about what other people say to us.
Maybe we should spend more time paying attention to what we say to ourselves.
Some of the most damaging sentences you will ever hear will never be spoken aloud. They will arrive quietly, in your own voice, sounding reasonable, responsible, perhaps even comforting.
I think many of them fall into two categories:
Gate Blockers and Sedative Sentences.
Gate Blockers
Gate Blockers are the things we tell ourselves that disqualify us before we even try.
I’m too old.
I’m too young.
I don’t have the education.
I don’t have the experience.
I don’t know the right people.
I’m not creative.
I’m not good with technology.
I’ve never been good at that.
People like me don’t do things like that.
Gate Blockers are particularly effective because they often contain a little truth.
You may indeed be older than the typical person starting a particular endeavor. You may lack experience. You may not have the credentials someone else has. But a fact and a prohibition are not the same thing.
“I’m 55 years old” is a fact.
“I’m too old to start” is a conclusion.
And we should be very careful about turning facts into conclusions that unnecessarily restrict our lives.
A gate may exist. That doesn’t mean it is locked.
Sedative Sentences
These may be even more dangerous because they don’t tell us to give up.
They tell us to relax.
Just keep doing what you’re doing.
Everything will be fine.
Things will settle down.
Next week will be better.
I’ll deal with it next month.
I’ll start after the holidays.
Something will come along.
It will all work out.
These are Sedative Sentences because they lull us to sleep, and relieve the discomfort that might otherwise cause us to act. And sometimes discomfort is providing valuable information.
If your financial situation is deteriorating, “everything will be fine” isn’t optimism if you have no reason to believe it.
If a relationship has been getting worse for three years, another month probably isn’t the missing ingredient.
If you’ve disliked your work every Monday morning for the past five years, waiting for some unspecified future Monday to feel different isn’t much of a strategy.
Hope can be powerful.
Hope without effective action can become anesthesia. That is the danger of Sedative Sentences. They make today tolerable enough that we don’t change tomorrow.
Listen to Yourself
Pay attention to the sentences running through your mind.
When you hear one, ask:
Is this helping me accurately understand my situation, or helping me avoid doing something about it?
Some thoughts protect us from foolish decisions. Others protect us from necessary ones.
Gate Blockers tell us we cannot go through the door. Sedative Sentences convince us there is no particular reason to get up and walk toward it.
Both can leave us in exactly the same place. And perhaps one of the worst things you can repeatedly tell yourself is something that makes staying there seem reasonable.
Aspire.
Be Adventurous.
Come Upwards with Us.™
