All I’m here to say today is the next time you’re in a position to either do or not do something that you know is bad for you, don’t do it. That’s it. Seems easy enough right? Seems logical and obvious. Seems like something we could all get on board with. Seems like something that shouldn’t need to be said. However, I bet we can all think of a time in our life when we did something we knew was the wrong decision. Knowingly, we consistently put ourselves at a disadvantage. I want you to think of where you could be if you were incapable of conscious self sabotage.
There are some serious psychological and emotional factors at play when it comes to knowingly hindering oneself, but with my uneducated clinical knowledge, I simply want to make you think of small everyday actions. Like, why is the phrase “I had a couple too many last night” even a thing? If it was too many, why did you do it? Maybe someone made you, I don’t know, but probably not. We drink too much, eat too much, exacerbate nagging injuries and stay up til 3am, all while knowing we really shouldn’t. Then later we deal with the consequences.
Is it that we lack discipline? Are our priorities unclear? Do we neglect taking responsibility for anything? Ask yourself why you do the thing you do. When you feel good why do you feel good and when you feel bad what happened that made you feel that way? Usually you can trace your steps backwards to a moment or a decision that could have drastically changed where you currently are. You may have even foresaw the possible outcome and consciously proceeded anyway. I’m all for taking risks, believe me I’ve made several big ones, but a risk not calculated is nothing more than a gamble. There’s never been a book about the success story of a lottery winner.
So instead of proceeding with an accepted reckless abandon, if you can, just ask yourself a few questions before doing one of those things you know you probably shouldn’t do. Ask yourself what future you from 24 hours from now would say. Ask future you from a year out, 5 years or 10 years out what they think about your current decision. Hey, maybe you from tomorrow will be upset but 5 year future you will be thankful. Like I said, I’m all for taking risks. You have to enjoy life, live on the edge and allow some spontaneity. Just make it calculated. Knowingly putting yourself at a short term disadvantage for the sake of a long term advantage is a highly underrated skill, but never knock yourself down if there’s no opportunity to get up stronger.
- Cody