On... those "Off days"

So, you're having one of those "off days".  Maybe you didn't get enough sleep.  Maybe somebody said something and it brought up old insecurities.  Maybe you just woke up on the wrong side of the bed.  Whatever the case, you find yourself slipping back into old emotions and thought patterns, not being able to make eye contact, being clumsy and meek again, instead of the assured confident person you have worked so hard to become.

And you're killing yourself over it.  You hate it.  You struggle harder and harder to pull yourself out of the slump.  You fix your body language, you try to make some clever comments in the conversation like you normally do.  But it all just comes out forced and awkward, plunging you further into your own despair.  You try to explain why you're not your usual self, but you know it's not really an excuse.  The harder you try, the more awkward it becomes, and finally you're left sitting silently, or going to the bathroom to splash cold water on your face, or going somewhere to get a moment to yourself.

And still, you're killing yourself.  What the fuck is wrong with you? What the fuck happened? 

At least, that's how it is for me.  I used to hate days like this, despised myself for becoming so weak again when I knew I could be stronger.  And after dozens of these days, at various points in my own growth process, I've come to a singular conclusion: 

It Doesn't Matter.

Read it again, in case you missed it the first time.

It Doesn't Matter.

It's not a big deal, really.  It's not going to ruin your life, it's not going to kill you.  I used to worry about people seeing this side of me, about how their perceptions  of me would change, of what they'd think.

Then I realized something.

Noone Knows.

No one knows that there are insecure thoughts in my head.  No one notices every slight mistake I make, every little tremble in my voice.  I was putting myself deeper into insecure thoughts for nothing.  Very few people even noticed that there was any change.

There were a few tho.  A few observant ones, who would see that someone was different about me.  That I was a little less confident than I normally was... but nothing happened.  The next day, or the next week, when I was back to my normal self, there was no change, no big shift now that they had seen another side of me.  Nothing.  And I realized my second big epiphany.

Noone Cares.

All these big consequences that I had been dreaming in my head were fantasy.  Everybody has an off day sometimes, and it's not a big deal, taken with all the positive impressions of you they have to the few off days.  People notice, then shrug it off.

And finally, there were some people who both noticed and cared.  They would worry about me, ask what was wrong, ask if it was something they did.  The people who cared that I wasn't my usual self, cared because they cared about ME.  These were the people who were the closest to me, and for these people:

It Doesn't Matter.

One off day is not going to change their feelings for you.  These are the people who will stick with you through thick and thin, one little off day isn't going to change a thing.

I finally realized that by making these off days such a big deal, all I was doing was giving them power they didn't deserve. By constantly self monitoring myself, and fighting against myself, I was just making things worse.  What started out as a molehill only became a mountain because I piled the dirt myself.  

When a day like this strikes me now, I don't worry about it.  I accept it, I understand that things will be a bit different today.  Sometimes, if I find myself dwelling on it too much, constantly monitoring myself, I'll try to get in a little exercise.  Do a few jumping jacks, wave my arms, go for a run.  Anything to get myself out of my head.   

Sometimes, you'll find that what you thought was an off day was merely an opportunity to express a differet side of your personality.  Maybe you'll be a cool, laid back guy because you have less energy.  Maybe you'll be a crazy wacky guy because your thought patterns all over the place.  But by not fighting it, it becomes merely another form of expression.

Other times, you'll find the weird feeling will go away completely, and you'll be your normal self in no time.

Still other times, neither of these things will happen.  you'll be that slightly more awkward persona you used to dread so much.  But now you know the truth: It Doesn't Matter.  and in realizing this truth, you'll find the problem won't be nearly as bad as it had been in the past... a small speedbump, and nothing more.

At the end of the day, instead of beating yourself up, you can look yourself in the mirror and ask yourself the only question that really matters at this point: What can I learn from this?

And the next day, when you wake up refreshed, confident, and alert, you can back to what you do best, knowing with utter certainty that you can handle yourself even at your worst... anything else is easy.

The Results Are In...

Tallied up the votes just now, looks like the top winners are:

1.Core Vs. Ego, how to tell the difference. (6 votes)

4.Back to Basics, How to be a Man (Tough love post) (4 votes)

6.How to have an Excellent Conversation with a Complete Stranger (6 votes)

8.College Game: Meet to Lay (5 votes)

I'm glad that 1 and 6 are the top votewinners... those are the two I feel most in tune with right now.  I'm not sure I could write a tough love post right now with any sort of feeling, and I'm not at college.  Core vs. Ego tho, HUGE topic, and one that I have some valuable insight on.  Six is a community mainstay of course... but I think much of the community misses the mark on this one.

Getting laid and having an excellent conversation are two very different things... but they're not mutually exclusive if you know what you're doing.  I'll be tying in a lot of the concepts from the blog together in this one.

Stay tuned,

Matt

Change Your Life Now: Two Skills You Can Implement Right Now, to Change the Quality of Your Life

Above you see highlighted what might be considered the core of behavior change.  To the left you have your instinctual, on the spot decisions.   To the right, you have something much more unique (although not exclusivey belonging) to the human race:  Intellect, planning, self awareness.   But in the center, that is where the true behavior change master focuses their initial effort.  By making it a habit to control each of these four elements, you gain two huge advantages:

1. You learn how to consciously and easily switch between the Instinctual and Thoughtful Mind, which both have their own distinctive advantages and disadvantages

2. You make acquiring productive behavior both easy (Principle of Least Effort) and rewarding (Profit of Action Principle).  

So what are these four area?

Logic- Making a habit of being able to think things through, and Plan.

Values- Making a habit of taking abroader moral perspective on things.

Emotion- Making a habit of knowing, expressing, and effectively dealing with your feelings.

Exercise- Making a habit of being aware of, taking care of, and using your body.

These all sound vague, but they break down to specific skills, all of which are scientifically validated,  which through the use of The Succes On Autopilot System, you can turn in to habits.

So bringing this back to down to earth, what are two skills I can give you right now, which, if turned into habits, would immediately help you out:

Cognitve Reappraisal

This is used to go from the Instinctual Short Term Brain to the more long term focused brain.  It's especiall useful to combat cravings and desires for bad habits.

1.Label: Turn your brain on, by consciously labeling the desire, and go a step further by judging it. "I want a cigarette... this is bad"

2.Bring your values into it, by tying the reason that you can't do it in with your beliefs and values about what's right and wrong.

3. Bring your long term planning mechanisms in, imagine the long term awful benifits of doing the behavior.

4.After 10-15 minutes, the craving or desire should fade.... now that your long term brain is involved, offending excitors no longer have the same weight.

Beware of moral disengagement as portrayed in the first example in the video above.  The course also goes over "Cognitive Restructing", the process of changing your values and rules to make them more consistent and productive.

Motivational Priming

This technique is used to go from the Thoughtful Mind to the Instinctual Mind, and bring you to a state of immediatet positive action, it's effective when trying to defeat procrastination of a positive behavior.

1.Take a deep breath, relax every muscle in your body, release tension.

2.Stop Labeling, become intensly aware of the sensations provided by surrounding stimuli, but do not try to put words or thoughts to them.

3.Perform an action (such as a specific movement) or expose yourself to a stimulus (such as the above video clip) which gets you into a motivational or determined state.

4. You won't be able to help but doing the action you were previously procrastinating.  

The key to this one is identifying stimuli or movements (which are stimuli in themselves) which can induce positive states within you.  One particularly helpful way to do this is to take a look in the mirror, or better yet, videotape yourself, when you are in these positive states.  Replicating the body language and facial expressions of a state will immediately bring you into that state.

The course also goes over how train new stimuli to specific states, and even how to take two or more states and combine them with one stimulus, creating "anchors" to the desired states.

I hope these help you guys in your quest to become more effective, productive, succesful, and integrous individuals.  As always, I'm interested in getting feedback on how they worked for you, or any questions you may have about the techniques.  Leave a comment, or shoot me an email at MagicMattG(at)Gmail.com and I'll get back to you as quick as possible.

Thanks,

Matt