Here’s how your thinking might be flawed…

As we all know, most of our thoughts and reactions are automatic. Think of all the times when you’re watching TV and your mind randomly drifts into that project you haven’t finished at work, or think of when you instantly get annoyed at that driver who isn’t moving when the traffic light turns green. The good thing about this process is that we don’t get overwhelmed by the amount of information our mind is processing. The bad thing, however, is that this process has some hiccups. According to David Burns’ book on mood therapy, there are ten cognitive distortions that many of us suffer from:

  1. All-or-Nothing Thinking. This flawed type of thinking is when we see things as black and white. Either you succeeded or you failed, nothing in between. You’ve succeeded if you got a 4.0 GPA, but anything less and you’ve failed. All-or-nothing thinkers are perfectionists. The slightest mistake or flaw and they assume the worst of themselves or their performance. These thinkers are too hard on themselves (and possibly others as well). Their expectations are unrealistic, and as a result, they’re almost always going to fail to meet their expectations.
  2. Overgeneralization. This flawed type of thinking is when you treat a singular occurrence as a common occurrence. For example, you’re working on a project on your computer when the computer randomly restarts. You lost your work as you did not save it and say “This always happens to me! I’m always unlucky!” In actuality, this may have been the first time that it ever happened to you, or maybe it happened once before. It’s not an every day occurrence but you are treating it as if it is. When a friend doesn’t respond back to your text message, you might say “she never responds back” even though it was a rare occurrence for your friend to not respond to your message.
  3. Dwelling on the negative. This is when you identify a negative detail from a situation or occurrence and you dwell on it. For example, you have your performance review at work and get heavily praised, but are given one small piece of criticism. Rather than appreciating that you did so well, you dwell on that negative piece. As a result, you question how you messed up, or maybe you get annoyed at your supervisor because you felt that piece of criticism was unfair. Either way, you fail to put the situation into perspective because all you can focus on is the negative.
  4. Disqualifying the positive. This is when you take a positive situation and either fail to acknowledge that it’s positive or you disqualify it. For example, if someone gives you a compliment, rather than believing it, you might say “They’re just being nice” or “anyone could have done it.” If you do something well, you might say “I was just lucky.” This could be perceived as humility as well, however, what matters is the intent behind it. A humble person would say “I did well, but I acknowledge that there were other factors involved too and I was fortunate to be in the right situation at the right time” whereas someone who is disqualifying the positive would say “Anyone could have done it. I was just lucky.”
  5. Jumping to conclusions. This is when you make assumptions that are not justifiable by any type of facts or information. For example, if you’re talking with a friend who seems disengaged, you assume that you’re boring him, when in actuality he might just be stressed or tired and is finding it difficult to concentrate. Burns refers to this as a “mind reading” error. Another type of thinking error in the realm of jumping to conclusions is the “fortune teller error.” This is when you make an assumption by predicting something that is unrealistic. For example, if your left arm is hurting, you say to yourself that you must be having a heart attack even though you’ve had left arm pains before and it was never a heart attack.
  6. Magnification and minimization. You catastrophize small negative occurrences whereas you minimize positive occurrences. You make a small mistake at work and think that you’re going to get fired, or maybe you get into a small argument with your girlfriend and think she’ll never forgive you. Magnification and minimization is sometimes also called ‘unfavorable comparisons’ because this type of distorting thinking often happens when comparing yourself against others. For example, you might think “John’s so successful because he’s a lawyer (magnifying another’s strengths) whereas I’m not because I’m just an accountant (minimizing your own strengths).”
  7. Emotional Reasoning. This is when you think your emotions are the ultimate truth. This is when you say “I feel stupid, so I must be stupid” or “I feel guilty, so I must have done something bad.” You might think that you do not do this because the examples I have shown are a bit extreme, but ever think that you can’t solve a problem because you’re feeling overwhelmed? That’s an emotional reasoning flaw. “I feel overwhelmed so I must not be able to solve this problem.”
  8. Should/Must Statements. This can be either self-directed or other-directed. When it’s self-directed, you assume that you should or must do something and add pressure on yourself. You say “I must go to the gym” or “many people have it harder than I do so I should be happy and not sad.” Alternatively, when it is other-directed, you make assumptions as to how others should behave. You might say “He’s already overweight, he shouldn’t have eaten that brownie” or “she should’ve been here five minutes ago.” As you see here, you create somewhat of a faulty logic for yourself and others and operate under the assumption that you know what is right and how things should be done for yourself and/or others.
  9. Labeling. Burns states that labeling is an extreme form of overgeneralization. It’s when a negative occurrence happens and you label yourself for it. It’s when you say you are a certain why because of something you did. You don’t get the job and say to yourself “I’m a failure.” The labels are generally oversimplified and just wrong.
  10. Personalization. What defines this distortion is guilt. This is when you blame yourself or conclude that a negative occurrence resulted because of you. Your child got detention because he yelled at this teacher and you think to yourself that it’s your fault because you are the parent. In this circumstance, you’re operating under the assumption that you control others and other situations. You can influence others, but you cannot control them.

Final words…

In all of these distortions, you’ll notice some overlap. For example, most of these distortions are a result of faulty assumptions, false logic, and based on no real evidence. Furthermore, most of these have a tendency to either (a) fixate on the negative or (b) negate/ignore the positive. What Burns and most psychologists don’t usually talk about is individuals who have a tendency to do the opposite. These individuals are those who generally are overconfident with possibly an overinflated ego and are those who (a) assume everything they do is positive or (b) everything others do is negative. Either way, cognitive distortions exist and we are all guilty of them.

Which ones are you guilty of?

The ABCDE method for positive change

The idea of implementing positive change in your life is actually quite simple. Want to lose weight? Start eating healthy and exercising. Want to become a music composer? Start composing music. Want to find a better job? Look for one. The idea of implementing positive change is straightforward. The actual process, however, is not. More often than not, when it comes to implementing positive change, you already know what you need to do. However, despite knowing what you need to do, you often fail to do it. You don’t go to the gym. You don’t start that blog. You continue to waste money on luxuries that you cannot afford.

So what exactly is going on here? We know what we want to do, and we know what we need to do, yet we do not do it. There must be something getting in the way.  More often than not, it’s a mental barrier. Something is wrong with our mental wiring that prevents us from taking action. The good news is that we can rewire our brains and change the way we think, and this can help us turn our thoughts into action.

One method that is used in Cognitive Behavioral Therapy is the ABCDE method. ABCDE is an acronym where “A” stands for activating event, “B” stands for belief, “C” stands for consequence, “D” stands for disputation or distraction, and “E” stands for energization or effect.

“A” stands for Activating Event

Activating event refers to a trigger in the environment or an event that occurs. You get into a fight with your best friend. You cheat on your diet. You bump into an old friend at the grocery store. These are all examples of triggers. As you can tell, the activating event can be positive, negative, or neutral.

“B” stands for Belief

The activating event triggers a belief. Our beliefs are derived from past occurrences in our lives, and they are largely automatic and habitual. We may not even be aware of how they influence us. You may hold a belief that to be successful, you need to be perfect or stick to a plan 100% of the time. Alternatively, you may hold a belief that being perfect is unrealistic and that small setbacks are inevitable.

Many of our beliefs are strongly rooted within us and can be stubborn and difficult to change. They’ve been reinforced over and over again by our external environment and then by our internal thoughts. Some of these beliefs are good and constructive, while others are bad and destructive.

“C” stands for Consequence

When an activating event occurs, it triggers a belief which causes us to feel a certain way and heavily influences what we do next. It’s the result of when you combine A and B.

ABC Combined

To a large extent, the activating event, the beliefs, and the consequences are all automated. Even if we don’t consciously focus on them, they will still happen. It’s how we are programmed. Below are a few examples of what this looks like. You will notice that the activating event is almost always the same, but based on the belief (positive vs. negative), the consequences are different:

Example 1a:

  1. Activating Event: Your friend hasn’t responded to your text messages in the past two days
  2. Belief: You think that your friend is not interested in talking to you.
  3. Consequence: You get upset and decide to have a few drinks to feel better

Example 1b:

  1. A: Your friend hasn’t responded to your text messages in the past two days
  2. B You assume your friend is probably busy.
  3. C: You don’t give it much more thought and go on with your day.

Example 2a:

  1. A: You ask your sister a question, and she responds rudely
  2. B: You think she’s disrespecting you
  3. C: You get angry, yell back at her, and it results in a big fight

Example 2b:

  1. A: You ask your sister a question, and she responds rudely
  2. B: You assume she has had a stressful day
  3. C: You let it pass, give it some time, and ask her how she’s doing later on.

Example 3a:

  1. A: You’re jogging and you trip on something and fall. You sprain your ankle.
  2. B: You assume that you cannot train for the marathon anymore
  3. C: You give up

Example 3b:

  1. A: You’re jogging and you trip on something and fall. You sprain your ankle.
  2. B: You’re not thrilled about the setback, but you acknowledge it was a freak accident
  3. C: You continue to eat healthy, you focus on recovery, and when you get healthy in a few weeks, you continue your training.

How to change your beliefs

As you’ve noticed through these examples, it is our beliefs that influence these consequences (or outcomes). Some of those negative beliefs are stubborn, but the good news is that you can change them. The very first step to changing your beliefs is to become aware of them. Start to identify your ABCs. Similar to how I did above, think of a few activating events you’ve had this past week. What beliefs did you associate with them and how did that influence the consequences (your reaction and behavior after the event occurred)?

If you are trying to implement positive changes, but have been unable to do so, try to figure out why through the ABC framework. Keep in mind that an activating event can also be something that did not occur or something you did not do (e.g., not going to the gym, not waking up on time). Once you’ve mapped out a few of these ABCs from your past week, I’d encourage you to do that at least 1-2 times a day for the next few days. Get into the habit of trying to transition from ‘automatic’ mode to ‘manual’ mode.

Once you’ve become aware of your thought process, you’ll start to identify patterns and problems in your thinking that you want to resolve. That’s where the “D” and “E” part of ABCDE comes in.

“D” stands for Disputation

Disputation is when you identify a belief that you want to change and you attack it. You dispute it. Counter the pessimistic and/or irrational belief with a more optimistic and rational one. In his book on learned optimism, Martin Seligman states that there are four tactics that you can use to dispute your beliefs:

  1. Evidence – Show to yourself how your belief is factually incorrect. More often than not, you will realize that you are blowing things out of proportion. When possible, try to quantify the evidence to make it more impactful. For example, let’s say I cheated on my diet one day and consumed 1,000 more calories than I wanted to. My belief might be that I’ve broken my diet or failed, but in actuality, 1,000 calories equates to less than 1/3 of a pound gained. When looking at it that way, one singular day did very little to undo the progress I have made over a week or a month.
  2. Alternatives – Identify alternative explanations to justify the activating event. There can be multiple causes for the event. For example, if your friend hasn’t responded to your messages in two days, it’s easy to think they don’t want to talk to you. However, maybe they broke their phone. Maybe they’re working overtime this week at work and then coming home and taking care of the kids. Maybe they saw your message when they were in a meeting, but then forgot about it afterwards. There are a million other possible reasons.
  3. Implications – What if the negative belief that you have is correct? For example, what if you failed an exam and you know it is your fault because you deciding to hang out with friends all of last week rather than studying? When you know the belief is accurate, the best thing you can do is to focus on implications. For example, one failed exam does not mean you’re stupid. It doesn’t mean that it’ll keep you from getting accepted into graduate school or from getting a job. When you think about it, many negative occurrences that happen on a day-to-day basis have very little implications in the long run. Take for example the SATs. Think about how important they felt when we were in high school. However, now, years removed from high school, we look back and smile in amusement at how those were the simple days and how that exam had a very little impact on our lives.
  4. Usefulness – The last tactic you can use is to determine whether or not the belief is constructive or destructive. Maybe you hold a negative belief that is true, and the implications are also big. If that is the case, you need to ask yourself if the belief is constructive or destructive. In other words, is it useful? In his book, Seligman provides an example of a technician doing a bomb demolition who comes to the realization that the bomb could go off in any minute and kill everyone around him. The belief is true and the implications are huge. However, that added pressure on him is not necessarily useful especially if it leads to increased nervousness and decreases focus in that situation. In this situation, it is better to (a) focus on what you can do, and (b) consider having that internal dialogue later when the situation (or your emotions) are not as severe. Even if the situation is not as severe, you can still try to focus on what you can do and have the internal dialogue later when you’re calmer.

“E” stands for Energization

Energization refers to reflecting on having successfully dealt with negative beliefs. Therefore, when you have a negative belief that you were able to successfully dispute, you reflect on the implications and how that resulted in a more positive outcome. This reinforces this idea of disputing negative beliefs, and it also energizes you.

Final Words…

The key to the ABCDE method is to (a) become aware of your destructive thoughts, (b) challenge them, and (c) replace them with more constructive thoughts. You could use this same approach to stop negative behaviors and/or implement positive ones (more on that another day).

I wouldn’t say it’s feasible to do this for an extended period of time, but at least for a few days, I would encourage you to actually write down your ABCDEs. If you find yourself thinking destructively or struggling to implement a positive change, open up a memo and answer these questions:

  1. Activating Event: What happened (or what did not happen) that has me feeling negatively?
  2. Belief: What internal beliefs are causing me to feel/act this way?
  3. Consequence: What resulted from this activating event and belief?
  4. Disputation: How can I counter my beliefs? What would disprove my beliefs?
  5. Energization: What has resulted from me disproving my destructive beliefs? How do I feel? How am I acting?

Do this a few times a day for 2, 3, or 5 days. If you have the discipline to do it longer, do it longer. You’ll notice that after some time, you begin to do this automatically in your head. The ABC are automated as usual, but the “D” and “E” also become automated.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Stop failing the first task of the day

Imagine this.

The night before, you set your alarm to go off at 5am. You go to sleep but briefly wake up in the middle of the night. You look at your phone and it says 2:37am. Ah, still over two hours left to sleep! You quickly fall back asleep. Before you know it, that obnoxious sound is ringing loud. The alarm clock. You look at your phone, and unfortunately, it is 5am.

Time to get up? In a few minutes.

You play tag with your alarm clock for a bit as you keep hitting the snooze button every 5-20 minutes. Before you know it, it’s 6:53. 6:53? How did this happen? “I’m late for my workout! I’m late for my morning meditation! I’m late for (insert self-improvement/morning routine task you will likely not end up doing). Scratch that, I don’t have time for it. I’ll have to try again tomorrow.”

Sound familiar?

Maybe tomorrow you should put your alarm clock across the room because it will force you to get up to turn off your alarm. Maybe you should download one of those apps that requires you to do complex math problems to turn off your alarm. Or maybe you can get those fancy alarm clocks that rolls around and moves so you have to chase it around the room to wake up. Sure yeah, that’s definitely it.

Well, not really.

For the most part, those are just gimmicks. The problem is NOT your alarm clock. The real problem is YOU. 

Here’s the problem when you snooze:

  1. You’re setting yourself for failure for the rest of the day. By snoozing, you just failed your first task – waking up. What type of momentum is that setting up for the rest of the day?
  2. When we try to establish an early morning routine, we often have morning rituals or things we want to accomplish before the day starts (e.g., exercise, meditation, etc…). When you snooze, you miss out on the opportunity to do those things which means you likely failed again.
  3. You’re subconsciously setting yourself up for failure for the rest of the day. That’s a very extreme statement, but you’re certainly not setting yourself up for success by snoozing.
  4. Your sleep quality is likely being compromised. According to a Cleveland Clinic article, when you snooze, you’re likely interrupting your REM sleep state (which is synonymous with the restorative sleep state).

So what are some quick things (not gimmicks) that you can do to help you get up early without snoozing?

  1. Make sure you hit your target sleep range. If you’re sleeping less than six hours, you’re going to most likely hit that snooze button. Get enough sleep.
  2. Increase accountability in the morning. I’ve noticed that I’m particularly good at waking up in the morning (even when I’m sleep deprived) when I have some sort of commitment that forces me to get out of bed (e.g., getting up for work, having an early morning meeting, having someone depend on me for something).  If I have to get up because other people are depending on me, I feel an increased urgency to get up. I still might snooze a few minutes, but it’s very short-lived. Ask anyone who has to get up early for work. Ask any parent who has to make breakfast for their kids before they go to school. When someone is depending on them, they will wake up. Start scheduling things early in the morning or start making morning commitments to people. That will force you out of bed.
  3. Don’t schedule difficult tasks, tasks that you dislike, or tasks that require a lot of willpower early in the morning. When I tell myself that I want to get up early so that I can workout, it almost never happens. Why? Because I hate working out and my mind knows it. Sure, it’s good for me, but it’s not like I want to do it. I’d rather sleep. Therefore, it’s better to (a) schedule these tasks for later in the day so you have no excuse for not getting to them, or (b) find a way to increase accountability. I’m very unlikely to wake up in the morning and workout. However, if I have a workout buddy, I’m much more likely to wake up because I know their success depends on me. If accountability is there, it’s easier to wake up to a task you dislike.
  4. If you don’t do number 3 and schedule difficult tasks in the morning anyways, have a backup plan in case you snooze. The reason many of us want to get up early in the morning in the first place is so we can create time to do things for ourselves early in the day before other commitments take priority. Unfortunately, if you have a habit of snoozing and you schedule an early morning workout or yoga session, there’s always a chance that you might snooze and miss your morning session. The best thing to do in this situation is to create a contingency plan in case you are unable to wake up on time. For example, if I’m unable to get up at 5am to do yoga, I’ll do it after work around 6pm instead. This way, even if you fail to wake up, you don’t compromise your other goals that depend on you waking up early.
  5. Be realistic. If it’s 1am and you’re still awake, don’t expect to get up the next morning at 5am. Odds are not in your favor. Set the alarm for 7 am instead and plan accordingly.
  6. Slowly become an early riser. If you usually get up around 8am, don’t expect to magically be able to get up 6am the next morning. The key to developing an early morning routine is to slowly work your way towards it in increments. As I described in another post, it’s better to take baby steps. Start by waking up at 7:45am consistently for a week. Then drop down to 7:30am. Then to 7:15am and so on until you reach your target wake up time. When you take this approach, you gradually regulate your sleep in a way where you start becoming more of an early riser and it becomes habit.

With these suggestions, keep in mind that they’re intended for those who snooze habitually but want to stop doing so. The tips above are to help you get started and develop a consist routine of waking up at the time that you want to wake up. Once you break the cycle and develop a habit of NOT snoozing, you can start experimenting with these suggestions to further optimize your productivity in the morning.

Final words…

When we snooze in the morning, we are failing the very first task of the day. The occasional snooze is perfectly okay if you have no agenda for the morning and just want to catch up on some sleep. However, more often than not, we aim to get up at a certain time every morning for a reason. Maybe it’s work, maybe it’s for the kids, maybe it’s to focus on personal development/health, or maybe you just want to ease yourself into the day. Whatever the reason may be, when you become a habitual snoozer, you’re doing yourself a disservice. In addition to compromising your sleep, you’re likely delaying the inevitable.

Whether it’s 5am or 6am, you have to get up to get things done. The difference is that if you snooze, you often wake up feeling slightly disappointed because (a) you didn’t get up at the time you planned, (b) your morning is a bit more rushed than you would like, and/or (c) you may have failed other goals, such as exercise or meditation, that were dependent on you waking up on time. Alternatively, if you do not snooze, everything is reversed. You succeeded at your first task, you can ease into the morning, and you have time to complete your morning goals.

Optimism wins

Way too many people out there have this belief that optimism is synonymous with delusion and/or being unrealistic. I hear it all the time that optimists are just sunshine, rainbows, and flowers. They don’t see or acknowledge the hurt and pain that’s out there in the world. They are optimistic because their life is good. Their reality is distorted. One individual on Fox News went so far to say that optimism was at fault for why a US soldier killed 16 Afghan civilians because “soldiers are actually taught to deny stress and trauma, and false bravado is actually encouraged.”

But did you ever stop to think that maybe optimists are the realists? Maybe their life is good BECAUSE they are optimistic? The truth is that optimism and positivity wins. A mild dose of pessimism has its utility, and extremism of anything is unhealthy, but by and large, optimism wins. According to the research shared in Martin Seligman’s book on optimism, on average, optimists have better physical and mental health, and they are better achievers than pessimists. It’s just a fact.

That being said, optimism is not necessarily what you’ve been fed by other people. It’s not just turning everything negative into something positive, and nor is it something you can experience by just having a positive pep talk with yourself while standing in front of a mirror. Ultimately, the way you distinguish an optimist from a pessimist is based on how an individual explains to themselves the bad things that happen to them in their life.

Optimists vs. Pessimists:

When something bad happens, an optimist WILL feel bad. Of course they will. They’re human. It’s not just that their glass is half full. They’re not delusional. However, the difference between them and the pessimist is that the optimists’ feelings of helplessness are temporary and they are more likely to contextualize the bad event. The pessimist, on the other hand, views bad events as more permanent and a general occurrence in their life that is inevitable and unavoidable.

The pessimist is very passive and helpless. The pessimist accepts the inevitable doom of his or her life, and a bad event is just a reflection of that. The pessimist feels they cannot really do anything about the situation. The optimist is also passive and helpless, but that’s very short lived. Soon the optimist realizes that:

  • The bad event is not a reflection of my life; it happened because of X, Y, and Z. Maybe I can’t do anything about this situation, but I can do A, B, and C to move forward.
  • Bad things happen, and they suck, but that will not stop me from growing, getting better, and achieving my goals. Just because I feel bad about this doesn’t mean I need to feel terrible about my entire life.
  • I have the power to move on and not feel terrible anymore.

On average, both the optimist and the pessimist experience the same bad events. Furthermore, they feel equally as bad when bad things happen to them. However, the difference is that soon after, the pessimist enables the helplessness whereas the optimist suppresses it. The pessimist feels a lack of control while the optimist takes control. The pessimist becomes passive while the optimist becomes active. Optimists forgive themselves and the negative events in their lives whereas pessimists hold a grudge.

When it comes to how we perceive the good things that happen to ourselves in life, we see almost the exact opposite thing happen. Optimists view the good events as more permanent and a general occurrence of their life whereas pessimists view good events as more temporary and are more likely to contextualize or think it is a fluke. An optimist takes a good event, savors it, and then is motivated to replicate the good event (they feel a sense of control). A pessimist, on the other hand, sours some of the good feelings by thinking this occurrence is not sustainable and is a result of luck or chance.

Final words…

Both optimism and pessimism are habits. The good news is that optimism can be learned and pessimism can be unlearned. Again, it’s not to say that all optimism is good and all pessimism is bad (that’s a conversations for another day). Also, it  doesn’t mean that optimists can’t have pessimistic moments or vice versa. A bad event is a bad event and everyone is going to feel bad about it. The difference, however, as Seligman states in his book, is that “in optimists, a failure produces only brief demoralization” (p.76). It’s short-lived. Optimists rebound faster and take control of their situation. This is why they are generally healthier, happier, and higher-achievers.

Optimism wins.

 

 

If you’re excited about Friday, something might be wrong…

Friday is great. For most of us, it’s the last day of the workweek and the beginning of the weekend where we can be relax, be lazy if we want, and actually do the things that we enjoy. We can stay at home, or we can go out. We can spend time with family and friends rather than our manager or boss. However, if we’re excited about Friday, and we spend the greater part of our week in anticipation of Friday, then do you wonder that something might be wrong?

Think about it.

We’re happy on Friday night, Saturday, and the greater part of Sunday. Sunday night comes around and we start dealing with the Sunday night blues. We’re dreading the fact that our weekend, our mini-vacation, is over. We come to the realization that we now need to start preparing for the worst part of the week – Monday. On Sunday night, we’re sad that the good part of the week is over and now the bad part of the week is about to begin. Then comes Monday and we try to survive. On Tuesday it’s a little easier to survive. On Wednesday, we’re somewhat adjusted to the week and feeling okay because it’s hump day and half the work week is over. Thursday is also okay because it’s almost Friday, but Friday needs to get here soon! On Friday, we jump for joy because it is FINALLY Friday!

Our whole work week revolves around waiting for Friday night. However, is 57-71% of our week so bad that we’re just waiting and waiting for the moment to arrive where that part of the week is over? And we expect to live 40+ years like this where from Sunday night to Thursday we’re just waiting for Friday? Here’s an excerpt from a few talks by Gary Vaynerchuk that describe the problem with Friday:

To live your life where you love Friday night, Saturday, and Sunday, and despise Monday through Thursday or Friday morning… it’s devastating to me because you’re wasting too much of your life, and I’m trying to put pressure on the conversation to say if you love Friday that much, then you really need to look at Monday through Thursday

If you start your week being sad, and it progressively gets better, you have a problem. We spend way too much time in our lives doing our jobs. When you’re spending most of your life working, it’s important that that thing is on point. It’s a math game. If you’re spending 83% of your time, 72% of your time, 64% of your time on something you hate, that’s devastating.

We basically live to work. If you’re not happy, where are you going?

Final Words…

Let me say this – being excited about Friday is not necessarily a bad thing. We should be excited to have more time for ourselves, our families, and our non-work related interests.  However, if you’re excited about Friday, but you are dreading Monday, then THAT is a problem. If you sleep eight hours a day and work 40 hours a week, you’re spending about 36% of your waking hours at work. You can probably add in an additional 10-15% for overtime, commute, and when you’re not at work but thinking about it. That’s almost half of your waking hours every week.

We’re never going to be in a situation where we’re 100% happy or a 100% satisfied with our work life, and sometimes we might even have to do a job that we do not like. However, if you’re so eager for Friday and not about Monday, I strongly encourage you to find what you love and pursue it, or find a way to transform what you do into something you love (or at least find bearable). If you can do that now and it’s feasible, then do it. If you can’t do it now because it’s not feasible, find a way to make it feasible.

It’s easy to fall into the trap and say to yourself “I just don’t like work” or “I am in a situation where I can’t leave my work and find something else even though I dislike it,” but if you don’t make a change, you’re going to be spending almost half of your waking life for up to 40+ more years miserable and just waiting for Friday. Find a way to make it happen. Either transform your work or find better work.

Happy Friday…!?