Why I Will Never Stop Trying To Better Myself

Hello!

My sincere apologies for not blogging much lately. I have had a much needed holiday in Portugal with my lovely family. It was really great to have a complete change of environment and people to test this challenge out on. I wasn’t really sure how it had gone, until yesterday. I was on the sofa having a cuddle with my mum and she turned to me and said ‘You’ve been really lovely this Christmas.’ And it was then I knew I’d done what I’d set out to do.

Here’s a bit of context: Whilst I get on enormously well with my family, I do also have a bit of a temper, and I tend to get into arguments with my mum very easily. Nine times out of ten I am completely in the wrong. Nine times out of ten it’s just me taking my mood out on her. Sometimes I can be really unreasonable and it can create a really sour atmosphere for all present. When you throw stuff like packing, travelling, and airports in it can be a recipe for disaster. In general, when my mum gets stressed I get grumpy, which makes her more stressed and me more grumpy. It’s a vicious cycle.

This holiday, it was virtually argument free. There were a couple of times when I snapped unreasonably, and I was called out on it. In the past I would have just had a sulk and walked off. This time I was very quick to apologise. There were also many occasions where I could have snapped, but I took a pause to say to myself ‘is this really worth getting annoyed over?’ And I simply moved past it.

It was really great.

I also made more effort to be actively nice to people. I sent out some Christmas messages to a load of my friends, I tried to pay more compliments to my family (something I now wish I had done more of – I can tell my mum really appreciated it!) and I tried to be a good house guest to my Aunt and Uncle. I found that doing nice things can be quite addictive really, especially when you get good responses!

Now I was in no means perfectly behaved. I don’t think I’ve managed to go a single day this month without doing one of the things I was supposed to not be doing. I also look back and wish I had taken more opportunities to be actively nice. However, I think I have achieved what I set out to achieve – I am changing for the better.

Really, that’s what this entire challenge project has been about.

And here are some thoughts on…

Why I will Never Stop Trying to Better Myself

It is so easy to brush off your own behaviour with phrases like this:

‘That’s just me’  ‘You do you and I’ll do me’ ‘I am who I am’

Or phrases like ‘That’s not how I do things’ are used to get out of doing something you probably should have done.

While it’s really important to be true to yourself, I find a lot of the above phrases are not too far away from one of the phrases I most detest in the world:

‘If you can’t handle me at my worst, you don’t deserve me at my best.’

All my hatred for this phrase is pretty much summed up in this fantastic article titled If I Can't Accept You at Your Worst, Then Maybe You Should Stop Being So Horrible.

Because the thing is, while some things about your identity may be fixed and not in your control (sexuality for example) for the most part you get to choose who you are.

I had a conversation with a friend once that involved him using ‘I’m just not as organised as you’ as an excuse for some pretty lazy behaviour. Another way of phrasing it could be ‘I’m just a lazy person.’

Now I could be wrong here, but this is what I believe about personality: Only a part of it is genetic. Most of it is to do with environment and social conditioning. And you know what, it can be hard to change that conditioning, but I really believe it is completely doable. I didn’t come out of the womb an organised individual. Somewhere along the line, I made the choice to be organised. Or rather, I made a series of choices that lead to me becoming an organised person.

And really, I think that’s the trick to it. Small decisions. It could seem a little daunting to turn around and say to yourself ‘I am going to be a more organised person.’ But it’s quite reasonable to turn to yourself and say ‘I am going to get up half an hour earlier every day’ ‘I am going to make my lunch for the next day every evening.’ ‘I am going to do my homework as soon as I get home today.’ Put all these little choices into action, and hey presto, you have become an organised person.

I’m not trying to say it’s easy. I know it’s not. It’s hard. But what I am saying is it is your choice. It is your decision. No matter what has happened in your life to make you the way you are – the way you go forward from this point is still your choice.

Having this realisation has been really empowering to me.

Every time I was rude, aggressive, or patronising in the past, that was my choice. I’d like to think most of the time I didn’t mean to hurt people, but still, it was my choice to take that risk. And it’s my choice now to stop. And yeah, accepting that responsibility: that feels powerful.

The truth is I will never be perfect. I will make mistakes. I will no doubt be rude, aggressive and patronising again in the future. But I really hope that I will never again brush off that kind of behaviour as ‘just a part of me.’ Because I now realise that for the most part I choose what is and isn’t a part of me. I hope in the future that I will be able to own my mistakes, apologise for them, forgive myself, and then work towards making sure they don’t happen again. While I will never be perfect, I will always aim for perfection. I will always aim for better. I will always have that ‘shoot for the moon and you might land among the stars’ mentality. Because…. Well because, why on earth not?

So, in a way, I will never be truly content with who I am. I will always be striving for more. But that very part of my nature, that desire to always be moving forward in positive ways, that choice that I have made makes me proud of who I choose to be. It makes me happy. It really does.

So, I guess what I’m trying to say is this: If (like me) you have something about your personality that you don’t like, or you see traits in others that you wished you had in you – go for it. Make those choices. Make those changes. Empower yourself. It might be hard, but I promise it is worth it. 

Positivity For The Win

Hello beautiful people!

Today's blog is all about POSITIVITY and how the more effort we make to put it into the world, the better our lives will be. I have so much to say on the subject, but I can't write it all, so I'm gonna scatter some nice quotes throughout that I think sum up some of my feelings :)

The challenge is going well. It’s a difficult one to track because of the fact that it’s about internal change rather than external, but I really feel like day by day it’s getting easier. For me it’s all about drawing lines between just getting things off your chest, and moaning. Sometimes things can get too much and you need to talk it through with someone. But it’s all about making sure that the negativity from that situation doesn’t seep into other areas of your life.

In my second show week I worked really hard to avoid negative conversations, and what I actually found really helpful was to actively be more positive. I was trying to do things like compliment people more, and ask more questions about them rather than talk about myself. I was putting more of my focus on other people and listening more. I was making more effort to engage people in conversation. Basically, I was simply making more effort to be nice. Each day I was going in with the aim to make the people around me happy.

And I think it worked. It was a really great week, and despite the stress of doing a massive musical, everyone seemed to have a good time. Now I don’t take full responsibility for that, but I like to think that I brought a bit of positive energy into the mix.

Then I started thinking. I was thinking back to first year of uni, when we didn’t know each other. I remember how much effort I made to get to know people. It was the same kind of thing, paying extra attention to what people were saying and really engaging with them. I remember it in other people too. We were all really nice and polite and kind in the beginning. After a while, these things tend to give way a little. It’s natural, I think. When you get comfortable with people you then start showing your darker sides a bit. And it’s great when you have friends who will put up with your bad sides because they love your good ones. But it’s occurred to me lately that maybe it would be better if we carried on making that kind of effort with people.

Because really, why would we ever stop being nice, polite and kind to each other? What does that achieve? When you stop and take just a little bit of time to make effort with someone, whether that’s through complimenting them, or making effort to include them, or just making sure you really listen to what they have to say, it has the potential to really brighten their day. And that in turn can brighten yours.

I’ve started to realise that even if you’ve known someone for a while, you probably only see the tip of the iceberg. People are a complex and exciting amalgamation of thousands of moments that can be explored: All you have to do is ask questions. And really listen. I randomly asked a friend who I don’t hang out with much what their family Christmas traditions were, and we launched into a massive conversation about it. I’ve known this person for a few years now, but because I made the effort to ask about them, I got to know them a little bit more that day.

It can be easy to get wrapped up in yourself and lose interest in others. It can be easy to write someone off because of a personality clash, or a difference in opinion. It can be easy to say ‘hey, we’re not that close’ and just stop making the effort. But I’m realising now that if you do that, you really miss out on a beautiful part of the human experience. The more you get to know people, the more chance you have of understanding them. And the more you understand people, the more forgiving you can be. And things just feel a lot better that way.

So this challenge is sort of morphing as it goes along. As well as trying to cut down on all those negative habits, I’m now trying to boost all my positive ones, and make a lot more effort to spread positivity and happiness to those in my life. Seems an appropriate challenge for December.

Thirteen days left (and only eight till Christmas!!!!)

Peace and Love

Stage One: Hyper Awareness

Hello!

Week one of this challenge is almost over, and it's been a tough one! I've been trying to cut down on all of those nasty habits I spoke about: blaming, interrupting, whining, bitching, moaning, gossiping, controlling, criticising, judging, and preaching.

Now of course, I haven't been able to go completely cold turkey. Giving up sugar was hard, but controllable. Changing your habits in the way you think and speak and behave is completely different. I'm essentially trying to cut down on something that is part of my current personality. I believe that it's doable, but it works differently from cutting down on something external. I think it goes in stages, and the first stage is awareness.

I've heard the phrase 'awareness is half the battle' quite a lot before, and I like to think that's true. I may not have been able to cut this stuff out immediately, but I feel very aware of when I am doing it, and therefore I am certainly doing it less, and also am able to admit when I have slipped up. 

Now part of the challenge this week has been my environment. I am currently in a show, and so am spending a lot of time in a dressing room with the other girls. It's a very high stress environment and so bitching, moaning and gossiping is kind of a given. And when reflecting on it this week, I don't think that's entirely a bad thing. When things go wrong, it's good to have a network of friends you can go to to have a good rant. And it's nice to be able to share stories with people. What I found interesting this week was defining the difference between getting things off your chest and using each other for support, and then being needlessly negative or mean.

Some examples: My friend and I were swapping stories about ex boyfriends, and obviously not all these stories painted our exes in the best light. And I thought to myself, 'am I breaking my own rules? Is this bitching and gossiping?' Eventually I came to the conclusion that it wasn't. I think bitching and gossiping only really applies when you're talking about people who currently feature in both of your lives, and you do it with an intent to mock/shame/belittle said person in the eyes of the person you are talking to. But sharing stories about people from your past is different. You're really talking more about yourself, and something you have been through. There's no 'shit stirring' element to it.

Later on, when we were talking about the behavior of someone we all know, I thought 'this is bitching and gossiping', because we were fueling and encouraging each other's dislike for the individual in question. I don't think we were wrong in the way we felt, but it made me think, should we waste our time talking about this person? It was only making us feel angry. Sometimes I removed myself from these kind of conversations, other times I was not so honorable, but every time I was super aware of what I was doing. Again, I realized it's quite complicated and hard to draw the line. It's only natural to talk about the people in your lives. The main thing I was trying not to do was 'fuel the fire'. When people tell you some gossip, of course you are going to have a reaction and opinion, but then what I have often caught myself doing is adding fuel to the fire by offering more gossip on top, and that's when it can become a bit of a spiral. 

As well as being aware of myself and my own behavior, I am becoming increasingly aware of other people's too. I realized that again, interrupting is a bit of a grey area. Listening to my friends talk, I saw that interrupting and talking over each other is something we all do all the time. It's the way we naturally converse. Waiting for a proper gap was actually quite hard. And I realised that again it all depends on context. Interrupting each other in normal conversation is, well, very normal. But it's when you use interruption as a tool to silence or put down someone that it becomes a problem, and something I would like to avoid. In proper arguments and debates it's easy to get caught up in your passion, but it's important to really listen to what the other person is saying, even if you don't agree.

So I think I'm starting to get somewhere with this. What's important to acknowledge and remind myself of is that it's only my behavior that I am trying to change. If other people want to bitch and gossip and moan then that's absolutely fine. I will not judge them for it, partly because that's on my list of things not to do, but also because I am in no position to judge. I know that those things do not make you a bad person, and I know they only come from a place of frustration and people need a place to vent that. And so I won't judge, and I certainly won't preach! All I want to do is ensure that I am not adding to any anger or negativity. I want my contribution to the environment to be a positive one, and if that means sometimes I have to just be silent and let things go by, then that's fine.

Twenty Four days to try and crack this thing. 

Trying to be Nicer

This challenge is going to be an interesting one.

I’ve been doing a lot of self-reflecting lately (probably brought on a little by my meditation) and I’ve been coming face to face with the things I don’t like about myself.

I like to think that I’m a nice person, and when I look at the wonderful people who call me their friend, I am assured that I must have some great qualities. But I think it’s important to be aware of your faults and to work towards changing them.

It was while I was thinking about this that I came across This Article. It basically claims that there are ten things you can cut out of your life to make yourself happier. These things include:

Blaming: This is definitely something that I do, especially when it comes to university. I can often be found moaning about something someone else has done instead of just dealing with the situation.

Interrupting: Oh yes. When in a discussion/debate I can get very passionate and I often end up interrupting and talking over people. This also means I often don’t wait for people to finish what they are saying, and I jump to conclusions. I don’t really listen properly. I’d definitely like to change that.

Whining: All the time. You can add bitching, gossiping and moaning to that list as well.

Controlling: This is probably my biggest issue, and something I’d really like to work on.

Criticising: And judging. Doesn’t really do any good.

Preaching: Yep. I know I can come across really self-righteous sometimes, and I really don’t want to. I have a lot of opinions, and I’m not ashamed of that. But sometimes those opinions are not asked for, and yet I tend to impose them anyway.

Now, it was pointed out to me that although all of these things can be quite damaging, both to others and myself, most of them seem to come from a good place. I expect a lot from people. I have my own ideas about morals and how people should behave, and I expect people (especially my friends) to live up to them. When they don’t, that’s when I tend to get super critical and preachy, because I care about them and I don’t want to see them doing things that I believe are wrong. But that’s just the thing, that’s my belief, not everybody’s. Sometimes I think I need to have more of a live and let live attitude, and be able to let things go.

When it comes to the moaning, whining, bitching and gossiping side of me; that is something I’d really like to shake off. I am aware that I talk negatively about people far too often, and I don’t think it does any good. I don’t ever want to be the person creating negative tension in the room, but unfortunately I think I do that a lot.

So that’s what this month’s challenge is going to be. I am going to work really hard to stop blaming, interrupting, whining, bitching, moaning, gossiping, controlling, criticising, judging, and preaching. Essentially, it looks like I’m going to be a lot quieter!

I think this is going to be a really interesting challenge as I’m going to be figuring a lot of things out along the way. I don’t want to lose any of myself, and I still want to be able to voice my opinions. But I’m hoping that through this challenge I’ll be able to find ways of doing that without upsetting people and bringing people down. I aim to create a more positive environment for myself and the people around me. It’s going to be hard, and no doubt I’m going to make a lot of slip ups along the way (already this morning I have caught myself breaking the rules) but I think awareness is the key. I’m going to have a little notebook with me so that I can record my progress as I go along and keep myself in check.

I’m not sure exactly how this is going to go, but I think it could be really great.