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