Effective Self-Help Takes Work
We’ve all heard the same story over and over again. Everywhere you turn it’s common to find hundreds of people that have taken up a task that they have zero prior experience in and 100% nailing that task on the first attempt without anything even close to an error. Perfection!
Wait… WHAT?! Oh my God, are you kidding me? That literally NEVER happens!
Everybody fails! Everyone. It’s a part of life. Failure is as much a part of success as any other part of the process. In fact, having a high volume of failures under your belt can mean a great deal for the volume of your successes. Studies have even shown that mistakes are beneficial to the learning process.
This makes perfect sense. What good is having a life experience if you don’t plan on learning something from it? Take some time to examine your life experiences. What sticks out as having been consequential, in both a good or bad way? Think about how you handled those situations while
they were happening and how you reacted to them. Did your actions help your situation or did they make things worse?
Self-assessment and self-reflection are two of the most important steps to take in order to offer yourself effective self-help.
On the surface it seems like the results of it should be pretty cut and dry. If your actions were beneficial to the outcome, then remember what you did and mirror that behavior in the future. If your actions made things worse…then don’t do that again! Simple, right?
Well, that’s not always the case. Often we look back on a situation and we only know that we weren’t happy with the outcome. But as we look to populate the blame column, often nowhere in that column do we see our own name. And maybe you are blameless! Maybe someone else totally stepped in and pulled a total dick move that you had no control over. It happens. Sometimes people do things that we can’t control and we have to deal with the consequences.
But other times, well let’s just say that blameless isn’t a word that you should use to describe yourself. We’ve all had stubborn moments where we may not even be refusing to accept blame. We may instead be completely blind to the fact that we have any blame to accept. Sometimes our emotions get the best of us and don’t allow us to realize that our own reaction was half of the reason that an issue occurred.
It’s moments like these that we should reflect on our actions and aim to be 100% truthful with ourselves. When you find yourself in a situation that requires self-assessment, ask yourself this question:
“Could I have done anything differently here that would have improved the outcome?”
Answer it truthfully! Leave your pride at the door. Pride has no place in a self-assessment like this. This situation calls for complete honesty with oneself.
Put yourself in the shoes of an outside observer that has been tasked with determining the best way to resolve this situation. Consider what everyone involved would need to do in order to reach the most favorable outcome. Now match that up with what you actually did.
You might find that you were in the right. Or…you might find that you were actually the bad guy here.
Whatever the case may be, make a mental note. Make a physical note! Do something that is going to make you remember this should the situation ever arise again. I know, I know…easier said than done. But trust me when I tell you that if you can nail this process, it will be 100% worth the effort.
Tony Robbins has long told his audience, “If you do what you’ve always done, you’ll get what you’ve always got.” 100% true! I credit him and his “Get The Edge” program for turning my life around. He’s got an updated version of it available, “The Ultimate Edge” that can turn your life around too. CLICK HERE to check it out if you’d like.
Effective Self-Help Means Learning
In the end, if we don’t learn from our experiences, there is no point in going through them to begin with. When life is trying to teach you a lesson, just paying attention isn’t good enough. Take good notes! Study them! And for God’s sake put them to practice. Only through repetition can you truly expect to soak it in and make it a habit. Be a student of life and you’ll find that the lessons you learn will send you to the head of the class.
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