I’ve seen many people screw up their life over the years.
Most of it has been the result of poor decisions and a lack of discipline. I’m no angel myself – I too have screwed up parts of my life as well.
Your life is something you should reflect upon regularly. Learn to become your own critic and commit to fixing the things you know deep down inside are screwed up. Sometimes it takes a rock bottom period in your life to work out that you’ve screwed up.
The frustrating part is that you shouldn’t have to go to hell and back to figure out that you have screwed up your life. Personal improvement and reflection can get you to a place of understanding much faster. It takes time to get there though.
You might need to spend ten minutes a day assessing your life and seeing your decisions for what they are. I know what you’re thinking though: “Tim, I don’t have ten minutes a day, I’m flat out trying to survive and stay above water!”
If that’s your answer, then my response is this: If you don’t have ten minutes a day to reflect on your life and make sure you’re not screwing it up, then you already have a massive problem. Lack of time is the beginning of all of your problems.
Here’s how you will screw up your life:
Falling for addictions you think you don’t have
We all have one of the following addictions:
– Food
– Drugs
– TV shows / Online Games
– Sex
– Escapism
– Depression / anxiety
– Money
These addictions are at the root of what goes wrong and force us to screw our lives up. No matter who you are, you’re probably suffering from one of these even if you won’t admit it. I know I’m guilty of many of these. The first step is to admit your addiction.
Pretending you’re fine and not obsessed with one of these will force you to become ignorant. Ignorant people then go on to believe the lie that they can be perfect and that the problem is with everyone else. Before you worry about someone else’s backyard, think about your own first.
“If your own backyard is full of weeds, it’s because of your addictions”
Significant other
Romantic relationships are a big part of why we screw up our lives. While it’s impossible to avoid making mistaking in this area of your life completely, you can certainly minimise the damage. Ask yourself the following questions:
Why am I in a relationship?
How do I treat the other person?
What’s one negative similarity I have experienced in each romantic relationship?
The key phrase to remember with this part of your life is that you take “you” with you to each relationship.
Until you answer the above three questions, you’ll keep experiencing the phenomenon that is déjà vu in your romantic life.
Not saying this word enough
Your life get’s screwed up because of complexity. When your time is not focused in the right areas of your life and you have too much going on, everything goes bad.
Saying no is how you take back control. If you listen to interviews of billionaires, you’ll find that they are all superb at doing one thing: saying no unashamedly.
Part of what causes us to say yes to so many meaningless offers is that we don’t want to upset people. Living in this pretend world where everybody loves us causes us to become lost. Not everyone is going to like you and that’s okay. The key I’ve found is to learn to say no with respect.
By saying no respectfully, you become much better at it. That’s because the reactions you’ll get will be far more positive.
Never taking risks
Making the decisions that are always comfortable is the fastest way to screw up your life. We must grow as human beings otherwise we fall for addictions because we become bored. Life starts to lose it’s meaning when we don’t choose uncertainty.
Having the answer to every problem is not the way to go; not having the answer to every problem but taking the risky option anyway is where you want to get to. Everything I’ve achieved in my life has come from taking a chance and not knowing what could happen.
“The times I’ve personally fallen for addictions have been when I’ve become bored or stopped growing”
In this state, I’ve wanted to choose addictions to help experience some uncertainty or a high that quickly wears off and brings me crashing back to rock bottom.
Taking risks is harder than it seems. It takes practice and discipline. The beauty is that we all get options to take risks every single day. There’s no lack of risky decisions in this world. You’ve got a playground to practice in.
“Sometimes it’s fun to swing on the monkey bars of life and fall down a few times”
Taking these seemingly crazy risks opens up your perspective. From these new heights, you can see the world for what it is: a beautiful place, full of wonderful people all trying to live their purpose and find meaning.
Risk taking will eventually lead you to your individual purpose if you stay on the right path and don’t fall for comfortable results or addictions.
Allowing limiting beliefs to win
The beliefs you have will determine whether you’ll make decisions that will screw up your life. We all have limits that are caused by our beliefs. For a long time, I thought that I couldn’t be world class because I wasn’t smart enough and didn’t have the resources.
When you analyze your beliefs (and I recommend you do), you realize that they can limit you in so many ways. The reason you don’t make certain decisions is because of the underlying belief of what you believe the outcome might be.
When you remove the speed limiter that’s controlling your life, you can go in any direction you want, at whatever pace you want. You can achieve what ever you want, whenever you want. All of a sudden, anything is possible. The challenge is that your limiting beliefs are invisible to your brain.
They’re not easy to see and it takes practice to find out what they are and then throw them in the bin. It’s worth doing though because your beliefs can mess everything up. They can cause you to be broke, selfish, unlovable and very unhappy.
Not believing in yourself
“The biggest idea, the best person, the greatest tool you have, is you!”
Your life will be screwed up when you don’t believe that you can achieve your dreams. No one else can believe in you unless you do so first. You must know that you have everything inside of you to produce any outcome you desire.
Think about all the good things you have done and focus your time on that. Be grateful for how far you’ve come and then you’ll appreciate what it takes to get to the end game. Most of all, treat yourself nicely. Talk nicely to yourself and be patient.
Thinking change is a problem
Change is not a problem; it’s an opportunity. Nothing stays the same forever and to think it will is how you’ll screw up your life. When you accept that constant change is going to occur no matter what, the surprises, shocks and bumps in the road become something you look forward to.
You’ll begin to understand that every little change is the start of a new season in your life. Change becomes a challenge to keep on growing in new and wonderful directions. The strategy you’ve been searching for is hidden in the change that is right in front of you.
Change is not the problem because change is the start of the solution. Change is the first step.
Change equals uncertainty and we’ve already said that this risky place is the destination you need to aim for. It’s where the yacht is waiting for you to take you to that place you’ve always dreamt of.
Stop screwing up your life.
