We humans love thinking in ultimatums.
We think of ourselves either as nice or not, either as smart or dumb, caring or neglecting, or either hard-working or lazy.
Everything characteristic and attribute is an “either-or” so we can put it all into certain categories.
But this is only part of the problem, the other problem is that there are some qualities, that you value a lot above others.
You might have gotten a lot of love, affection, support, and power from being the smartest person around… but as soon as anyone threatened that intellect of yours you got defensive.
There are some qualities, characteristics, personality traits, attributes or things that we value above all else.
We all do this with certain things; be it how nice we are, how good we are at our particular jobs or even how well we perform in a certain sport.
There is always one area we take too seriously, which we can easily identify by checking when we get angry because anger is the best sign of an activated defensive mechanism.
This is the area that we fight over, cry over and take so seriously that it can ruin our lives.
But there is a great way to stop this from happening!
To prevent yourself from taking anything to seriously you need to accept yourself for everything that you are.
If you are someone who values your intellect a lot, then realize that sometimes you are incredibly stupid!
You sometimes act very dumb, sometimes cannot remember things, and are not at all smart when it comes to certain categories!
You are just really dumb and stupid at times.
When you accept that you are not always smart you will not take your intellect so seriously because you know you’re not!
And even if you try to deny this, it is true in certain situations anyway!
But doing this allows you to react completely different at insults, problems and mean comments regarding this quality, and when someone comes and calls you stupid or dumb, you will only be able to laugh and say “I KNOW!! I WAS THERE!”
That doesn’t mean you are stupid, but it also never meant that you were totally smart.
Get off of the idea that you have to be “either-or”! Life is not that simple!
It is that “either-or” thinking that gets to all of us, but you can disrupt that by realizing there is a middle ground!
This middle ground will be the ground where you are most free and take yourself very not-seriously!
However, to do that you first have to realize what it is that you value a lot about yourself.
There are two ways you can go about doing this:
1. Figure out what really pisses you off that others say about you.
2. Figure out what really makes you happy that others say about you.
Imagine your friends calling you really stupid and meaning it.
They do not say this jokingly, do not want to lie to you and instead are honest, direct and serious about it.
What is your reaction?
If you feel negative emotions, try to justify why they do this (“My friends would never call me stupid”) or try to change the topic, then you can see that this is something you value because you cannot accept it.
Try this with both positive and negative qualities and find out which mean the most to you.
The next step is to then accept the opposite.
Accept the fact that you are sometimes an asshole, that you can be really stupid, and that you are not always great at the sport that you do.
In accepting the opposite you allow yourself to see two endpoints, which allows for a spectrum, rather than being bent on one thing.
We always think of ourselves as being one thing or the other, never even contemplating or believing that we could be what we despise.
We are just nice, kind, smart and caring and would hardly ever consider that there was an opposite for ourselves.
But only when you do exactly that can you make room for the third step:
The last step is to realize that you are in the middle.
Know that you are not always nice or smart and that you are sometimes a jerk and stupid.
Do this without giving any labels as to when you are being one or the other because otherwise, you will make situational ultimatums for yourself, which is the same problem as before.
Instead, leave it as it is and accept the fact that you are not either smart or stupid, but something in-between.
You are maybe 10% stupid and 90% smart, but when or where that 10 % or 90% fall, no one knows.
As long as you keep that room and that ability to fluctuate alive, you will not care nearly as much when someone calls you stupid, as it will just be part of that 10 %.
Focus on these 3 steps and you will put yourself in a position that is allowed to fluctuate.
You will not be that hard rock anymore that is always something, and instead act more like water that can bend to whatever comes along.
When someone insults you, you won’t crack, break and be destroyed, and instead will bend to whatever the situation calls for, make it work, accept it and move on.
“Be like water making its way through cracks. Do not be assertive, but adjust to the object, and you shall find a way around or through it. If nothing within you stays rigid, outward things will disclose themselves.
Empty your mind, be formless. Shapeless, like water. If you put water into a cup, it becomes the cup. You put water into a bottle and it becomes the bottle. You put it in a teapot, it becomes the teapot. Now, water can flow or it can crash. Be water, my friend.” — Bruce Lee
Be like water, and stop taking everything so seriously!
Stop being less than you can be and reach your goals. Send me a message saying “Coaching” to work 1 to 1 with me. Lukas Schwekendiek
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