Effective Ways to Manage Stress: Success Tips
Have you ever caught yourself thinking, “I can’t believe I said that,” or “I should’ve tried harder,” or “If only I could have done it differently.”? Or “I should have done that, then this would have happened:”. This is self-imposed stress at its finest. It happens when our self-talk is full of the words should, or could.
These incidents keep replaying on our mind’s stage. Each frame offering various scenarios that unfold exactly the way we imagined that they should.
Oh, if only simply wishing it had played out differently could actually alter the script. But as the Three-Eyed Raven of Game of Thrones explains, “The Past is written, the ink is dry”. (I promise, that is my only Games of Thrones reference)
We do need to think it over, determine where we went wrong and what we should do about it moving forward. What we don’t need is to find ourselves thinking about it a week later – still hitting ourselves in the head behind closed doors.
So by all means, address it. Once it has been addressed, learn from it, file it away and move on.
Studies at Stanford University show that human beings have approximately 60,000 thoughts a day- and 90% of those thoughts are repetitive. Wow! It isn’t the number of thoughts that impress me, it is the fact that we are spending so much time thinking about the same things over and over again.
We enable our recurring inner conflicts by granting them permission to remain. Allowing self-judgment and regret to set up shop in your heart and mind will not serve you. Don’t give up precious real estate by allowing the whispers of self-judgment and criticism to permeate your thought process.
Remember this: We are all perfectly imperfect; every single one of us is flawed. We all screw up, say the wrong thing, walk away when we should stay, speak when we should be silent, be silent when we should speak.
When you find yourself dwelling on what you could have or should have done, see it as a red flag; step up your game and take control.
Free yourself from the should, coulda, woulda’s: The past is written the ink is dry.
Life is too precious to allow ourselves to continually focus on what we cannot change. Allow those 60,000 thoughts a day to visit the sweet spots of your life- steering them into the present moment, away from what is done, and towards what is yet to come.
“Life is an ever-flowing process and somewhere on the path some unpleasant things will pop up – it might leave a scar, but then life is flowing, and like running water, when it stops it grows stale. Go bravely on, my friend, because each experience teaches us a lesson. Keep blasting because life is such that sometimes it is nice and sometimes it is not.” ~ Bruce Lee
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