You have far too many goals to be pursuing to allow yourself to be bogged down in unnecessary frustration and anxiety. Think of all of the negative energy that so many exert everyday to no avail.
An obvious example is political anger. While it is surely the mark of a good citizen to be engaged and conversant in public affairs, a vast number of individuals let their interest grow into an unhealthy obsession. They spend all of their free minutes fuming and raging online – or they turn every conversation into an argument that they have to win, attempting to change the mind of everyone around them.
It can feel good in the short term to give into your temptation to wallow in your frustration. But what good does it ultimately do for you? Does this energy get you any closer to achieving your goals or increasing your net worth?
In order to gain a steady hand on navigating the course of your life, you must develop some accurate intuition on what drives you bonkers; on what things or people in your life have an effect on your mood that depletes your drive to succeed and holds you back from living the life you have wanted.
I can’t make a sweeping generalization here, as the root causes of frustration are surely unique for all of us. There are some themes and commonalities that seem to pop up again and again, however. An obvious example is lack of sleep. When you are overwhelmed or dismayed by the amount that remains on your to-do list, you may think that you are suffering from chronic exhaustion – when in actuality, you just need to be getting more sleep. Keeping a close eye on your energy levels and how much exercise you are getting is a best practice that is universal for just about all of us, no matter what our background or preferences are.
There are plenty of steps you can take to assure yourself of a healthy and balanced lifestyle in this regard. For example, make an active decision to not allow unhealthy food into your home to begin with. Don’t buy that bag of candy! Make sure that your home is a healthy sanctuary. To that same end, make it easy to exercise – leave out your exercise clothes each morning so that you can’t make the excuse to yourself that it involves too much effort to get yourself ready to go to the gym in the morning.
The essential theme here is to control the inputs into your life and chart the course of your own future, rather than allowing it to be dictated and determined by events or the whims of others. Follow what I like to refer to as the “GIGO” model – garbage in, garbage out.
The premise here is that some amount of discomfort or inconvenience entering your life is unavoidable – in the same way that some amount of trash entering your home is unavoidable as well. The best response is the same that you employ in response to garbage mounting in your kitchen – containing it and then disposing of it regularly.
So you may be unable to avoid allowing any toxic personalities or unpleasant people into your life. There are plenty of occasions when it is just plain impossible to avoid some modicum of interaction with personality types that cause you some level of irritation. They could very well be members of your extended family who you will need to see at holiday times or they could be co-workers who you see at your place of business.
Because you are unable to escort them entirely from the door when it comes to your life, you are better served to minimize the time you need to spend with them and to build sanctuaries for yourself – safe spaces where you can retreat to be entirely within your comfort zone.
For most of us, this means our private homes. I would advise you to strive to keep this place as secure and free of anxiety as possible. You may need to do some interaction with toxic personality types from time to time, but keeping your home off limits will allow you to remember that you still have a safe haven in which you call all of the shots and can just be yourself.
There are a number of other methods you can use to make sure that you are regularly following this practice of “taking in, taking out” and minimizing the amount of stressful stimuli that is present in your everyday comings and goings:
- Keep To A Schedule
You can endure just about any difficulty as long as you know that you have a respite coming up. Keep parts of your calendar sacrosanct and free of work to focus on things that rejuvenate and reenergize your body and soul. An obvious example is Sunday – many successful people swear by keeping the Sabbath precious and forgoing all work activities on that day. They find that carving out a bit of solitude and reflection in their work only makes them more productive over the course of the other six days in the week.
- Monitor The Content That You Allow To Come Into Your Life
Many of us have grown admirably health aware, keeping careful track of the amount of carbohydrates and fat that we will allow into our bodies during our meals. We should exercise the same strain of vigilance when it comes to guarding against allowing unhealthy and negative content into our lives through the media that we consume.
We can trace a great amount of our anxiety and feelings of unhappiness to the messages we are bombarded with in entertainment and the media, which are necessarily focused on making us feel insufficient so we will spend more money on buying things. Make the choice to not allow trash to penetrate your thoughts via the television you watch and the books that you read.
Social media is a large factor here too. You might think there’s no harm in mindlessly scrolling through these sites, but you may not be aware of how your subconscious thoughts are affected through the unfiltered content that you are allowing in the door.
- Keep Time For Quiet
You might be surprised at how many busy and very successful people find time each day for meditating. It can seem like a waste of time from a distance to just be staring out into space, but many high achievers swear by the practice. The value lies in learning to slow your thoughts down
- Learn To Put Yourself First
We hear again and again growing up about the virtues of selflessness – of considering others’ needs before our own. Altruism and kindness toward others is surely one of the most important attributes in leading a fulfilled and full life, especially if you are raising a family. But keep in mind that is very difficult to serve others and help society if you are in need of help yourself.
Think of the wealthy benefactor who focuses on maximizing profits throughout his career instead of pursuing an occupation that is more conventionally perceived as noble, such as education or social work. The irony is that the capitalist may be able to make a more significant contribution in the long run by maximizing his own earnings and later providing more to charity than he could have on a lower salary. By the same token, consider that putting your own needs and priorities first, you may be able to help other people more over the long run than if you burn yourself out trying to be a hero to everyone.
What steps can you take to mitigate the root sources of stress and frustration in your life? What toxic elements in your daily world could you stand to show the door? It is possible to be productive and be virtually stress free.