aiming to feel more joy?

Apr 07, 2023 3:16 pm

Learning to enjoy your journey

Each of us has many decisions to make in life, one of the main crossroads is which hard we decide to go with.

See, life is going to be challenging no matter what you do.

Yet, there are many differing degrees to the specificity of each path.

You either choose the hard which involves delaying gratification or you are a slave to instant gratification.

Which path would you think to be more rewarding and enjoyable in the big picture?

Values/Expectations

When I write the phrase' big picture' immediately I feel energetic.

Because humans love to have expectations for things, yet these expectations usually end up creating pain in our minds.

So in relation to the big picture and our expectations for it, a huge piece to learning how to enjoy your life is setting correct expectations for each time frame.

For example, an expectation to get rich quick is a sign of immaturity, wealth is generated with patience and the consistent addition of new skills that provide value.

It's not rocket science, yet the marketing industry has corrupted the minds of the masses.

To even want to get rich quick is foolish, it shows they don't understand the difference between having money and being truly wealthy.

See, money is an amazing tool that helps make your life better, that being said it does not at all mean you'll be in love with life.

If money did seal the deal, rich people would never numb and suppress their emotions with substances.

What matters here is that you get your VALUES straight.

Become both financially free and free from the confines of your mind, which means to raise your understanding of your own attachments, bias's, tendencies and common pitfalls.

Your relationship with yourself

To enjoy your journey you have to stop bullying yourself within your mind.

Maybe it was just me.

I don't know.

Whenever I did an action that wasn't aligned with who I wanted to be, I would feel the pain of guilt and regret.

So there's a bit to unravel there.

Do you know who you want to be?

I sure as hell had no clue...

Besides becoming a label, an NFL football player, I had no idea about who I was deep inside.

See, labels are okay, as long as you don't let them define you.

My problem used to be that I thought the person was the label.

This is a foolish trap that many fall into.

I'm this, that, this and that...

Well, those are all things that you do or ideas that you like, what's more important is your character...

The quality of your perception and mind.

If you judge others, you're going to judge yourself.

If you gossip about others, they will also gossip about you, the truth is you get what you give in this journey.

So if you'd like to create a enjoyable journey, you have to be fully committed to doing your absolute best in leading by example.

If you do this well, your mind will be totally free from stress and anxiety due to being so aligned with the truth.

Choose wisely

So It's a fact that life is full of hardship, yet how we choose to deal with this makes a big difference in how it feels.

You don't control much besides your own actions.

And there are many methods of handling uncomfortable situations.

I've found when I loose my cool 99% of the time I'm filled with guilt and regret.

It's a priority for me not to lash out and loose my cool.

Also, complaining never has helped me.

Simply makes you think poorly and creates a victim mentality which brings feelings of insecurity and weakness.

We don't want to feel that way.

Point is, there are many poor methods of coping.

Now, there are amazing healthy ways to cope too.

Using re-frames is so powerful.

For example, your boss is rude to you and internally you notice you feel angry and annoyed.

There's a choice here.

You can choose to think about how much you dislike this person and sit in that negative frequency, or you can choose to get back to the moment and focus your energy on what you are hearing and feeling right now.

The quicker you're able to re-focus your attention on right now the better you will feel.

There are some things that are not helpful, and thinking in a low frequency isn't beneficial at all.

Know the traps

When we don't delay gratification our minds become weak and distracted.

We don't want weak minds.

Many people have way too high stress levels, this is mainly due to their poor intakes and their lack of awareness.

You see, there's a massive feedback loop here.

You indulge in instant gratification like porn, this messes up your dopamine system, which makes you not want to do any deep/focused work and that feeling leads you to more instant gratification.

Eventually you'll break the cycle because you'll be tired of feeling poor. (I hope) |

Good things take time.

We benefit greatly from creating a meaningful vision for where we want to go in life.

With a strong why, you can persist and grow powerful.

If un sure, begin with what you DON'T want and then reverse engineer.

Use process of elimination.

See, It's not easy to know what to do.

There's so many damn options, I was confused.

If you bet on yourself and follow your strong gut feelings you will get where you need to be.

Never give up on yourself.

If you do, you are done for.

If you fill your days with actions of delaying gratification and you focus on enjoying these actions you'll feel so much better than previously.

Responsibility -> meaning

It's so easy to get caught up in what you're working for.

"I'll be happy when I get ____", oh how destructive this type of thinking is...

We can be filled with intense want and desire.

This is okay.

The game is about noticing our wants/desires and not letting them consume us.

It's totally normal to have these strong feelings.

Where it becomes an issue is if you are a slave to your things.

It's so powerful when we notice our feelings without getting sucked into them and overthinking. This is where habits of delaying gratification come in.

If you're not building something meaningful, you won't have any true reason to make your life better.

Well maybe you'll just be done with the pain, that's a great reason to change.

So, we need a good reason to even begin delaying gratification.

To be a slave to pleasure means you will be filled with regret down the road.

It means you'll never learn to regulate your stress levels.

It means the quality of your connections and relationships will be poor.

If we want to feel good and look back at this life and admire it, we will be pulled toward the direction of delaying gratification.

Building something fulfilling through persistent reflection and iteration over an extended period of time.

If you're inspired to change who and how you are, there's an opportunity for you below.

Sincerely, try this

So I've laid out a bit of the foundation, now we can get into some very actionable steps.

We benefit the most when we pair education with action.

Learning on the go.

It's usually not efficient to stack and hoard knowledge, it's much easier than acting and that's the issue.

-What are my bad habits of instant gratification?

-What are my common urges/triggers/tendencies for each habit?

-What is the most destructive bad habit and how am I going to replace it?

If you're sincere about becoming a better being, you'll answer those questions.

It's all up to you.