I Will Be Happy With My Life When — — — — — — — — — — .
Give it some thought and then fill in the blank
Want to be happy with your life? Start by being happy with yourself.
We’re not who we want to be, none of us. We’re all aware of our shortcomings, our perceived inadequacies. We want to be better people, stronger, smarter, more attractive, with better social skills.
Self Improvement is Incremental There’s nothing wrong with wanting to be better. Self-improvement is always desirable. But the goal is to improve gradually and steadily, without being constantly dissatisfied with ourselves and our achievements.
Life is a mental game that some play effortlessly and with natural grace. Many find it harder and have difficulty performing at the level they’re capable of, and that makes them ask: Why can’t I do better?
Disgust with performance can spread to disgust with our lives, what we’re doing, relationships, where we live and work. If the dissatisfaction grows strong enough, we might quit our job or take the geographic cure — move to a new place with “better” opportunities and a fresh start. Such moves rarely work. As Ernest Hemingway once said, “you can’t get away from yourself by moving from one place to another.”
It bears repeating. You can’t escape yourself, and you can’t escape your outlook. What you must do is change your outlook, your self-perception.
Give Yourself the Right to be Wrong As humans, we have good days and bad days. Mistakes are the price of admission to the human race.
We must cut ourselves some slack, give ourselves the right to be wrong. The brightest among us make mistakes. Successful stock traders succeed not by being right all the time, but by being right more than they’re wrong.
Stop obsessing over past mistakes and turn over a new leaf. You won’t perform well in the future if you’re dwelling on poor performance in the past.
Many of us think of ourselves as kind people. If it feels right to be kind to others, why not be kind to ourselves? Forgive a little.
In Choose Yourself! James Altucher says we must learn to love ourselves, and that begins with an affirmation he credits to Kamal Ravikant: “I love myself!” Repeat it whenever you are down on yourself or your performance, whenever the regrets and recriminations begin. It’s a potent way to self-forgiveness.
Finally If you reach the point where you can fill in the title, I Will Be Happy With My Life When I Am Happy With Myself, you will be on your way to real satisfaction. Then, make it happen.
Practice self-acceptance right alongside self-improvement. Forgive your inadequacies — they’re normal, everyone has them!
Get right with yourself and you’ll be right with your life.
Ken Martin writes from the high country of Colorado.
