Hi all,
It’s the third, and that means one thing… welcome to part 4 of my daily reminders breakdown.
Self-talk means ‘I will, I will…’
I sometimes notice my self-talk spiraling out of control into the popular yet fruitless fields of self-pity and disempowerment. I know I’m lost when I constantly think about what other people say, do, or think. The reel I use to pull my thinking back to a healthy place is reframing everything in the ‘I will…’ construction and centering myself around the simple steps I can take to control what is within my influence.
For bball: ‘flick, stick, and get inside-out’
As I get older, I realize my basketball abilities are slowly eroding. Each time I play, I notice that both my trained instincts and my general athleticism are fading away. I can no longer just play – I need to think. I shoot baskets by remembering to flick my wrist and land both feet in the same spot I jumped from. I orient my overall strategy around playing close to the basket early in the game (where I can succeed without being fully warmed up) and gradually play further away as the game proceeds (when I can move quicker after getting into the rhythm of the sport). My application of these reminders remains inconsistent but I sense improvement on a month-to-month basis.
This is also a good example of the prior line in action – instead of worrying about everything outside my control, I prepare myself mentally for basketball by framing everything as a series of ‘I will…’ statements.
Not best – enough
This prescription is useful for a number of temporary madnesses – competition, consumption, and perfectionism are my favorite examples. These are all caused by excess in the pursuit of best. Thinking in terms of best is a roundabout road to deprivation; framing in terms of enough establishes firm foundations for sharing, cooperation, and conservation. Most importantly, this thought encourages the abundance mentality while rejecting the notion of scarcity. If all of society maintained this perspective, I feel many of our problems would eventually go away.
Label negative thoughts
I consider the most important leadership quality to be the ability to see the best in everyone or everything. The best way to nurture this skill is to dismiss or dismantle my negative thinking as soon as I realize such a thought has crossed my mind. When my thinking drifts away from this standard, I need to take a moment to reset myself and acknowledge what exactly pushed me off my chosen path.
Am I really doing my best?
I’ve realized that I am the last person I will stop lying to. Despite my constant attempts to do otherwise, some powerful part of me remains deeply motivated to maintain the status quo. My most common form of self-deception involves anything that explains away instances where I’ve given less than my full effort. I use this thought to assess my recent behavior and determine if I really have lived up to my own standards.
