This is Ish,
And today I want to give you a really quick talk on how to overcome frustration and self-criticism.
So there are three different ways I'm going to go over.
The first is more of a long-term solution.
The last two are more short-term things you can implement immediately.
So the first way to overcome frustration and self-criticism and those thoughts where you're really beating yourself up is through taking a practice of meditation and making that a part of your routine.
So essentially what happens is that you have an area in your brain called the default mode network or DMN for short.
And the DMN is responsible for all this mindless chatter that you experience.
So you might have noticed that if you're just sitting in your room and all of a sudden your thoughts will just take over and you just start ruminating about random things and then you start self-referencing and it goes in a spiral and it seems that your mind is controlling you.
Well,
What happens in meditation is that when you sit on your cushion and you meditate,
You're able to quiet in this area,
At least for a short period of time through meditation.
And then what happens is that once you leave your meditation cushion,
You feel pretty good,
But then it creeps up again.
So this is why I say this is more of a long-term solution.
So if you keep incorporating the practice of meditation over time,
What happens is that your mind starts to become more and more quieter.
And eventually,
Once you've practiced enough,
The networks actually shrink and you just walk around day to day with less thoughts,
Ruminating thoughts in your mind.
So that's obviously really great.
And now let's talk about some short-term solutions.
So the first is to celebrate a lot of smaller wins.
So one thing I noticed as a yoga teacher is that many of my students would often try a very hard pose,
And you can really see them struggling and sweating and really trying to push themselves,
And they're really frustrated that they aren't getting it.
And in reality,
They should be changing their focus on celebrating something very small.
So instead of trying to get into the full splits right away,
Instead,
Why not celebrate that you're able to touch your toes?
And essentially what happens is that you want to think more long-term.
So instead of trying to see if you can get those splits in this example right away,
You want to focus on a smaller goal,
Such as touching your toes,
And then the next day you try something else.
And then what happens is that you're building a forward momentum of positivity,
And this actually amps up your confidence,
Which is what I talk about also,
And makes you more inclined to be more proactive and try harder and be happier rather than being very discouraged.
Because if you think about it,
If you try something really hard and you just miss and feel frustrated,
And then the next time you try to do it,
You're not going to put as much effort.
And over time,
You build this more of like a victim mentality or loser mentality where you just give up right away and you don't even try.
So this is why it's important to reframe and look for smaller wins in your daily life.
And this way,
You can start to feel good about yourself right now.
So this doesn't have to be a long-term thing.
So you can think right now,
And over time,
Trust that the momentum of stacking these small wins will build up over time.
And the next solution is related somewhat,
And this is about choosing your area of control.
So you'll notice that in people that have this victim type of mentality or they beat themselves up a lot is that they feel very powerless.
So that's something you'll notice.
And the opposite of that is someone who is in control,
And they know that they can choose their own actions.
And this is a much better way to come at life and approach life because from this stance,
You're able to be proactive in the world rather than reactive.
So in essence,
You are the one that is influencing your environment through your own actions and through what you want to do and your own intentions as opposed to being reactive and reacting to everything around you.
And you might have seen this as well in real life examples.
They've done a lot of studies on primates where they've noticed that the low-ranking primates are the most stressed out because they have a lack of options.
They're the low man in the totem pole,
So they're always scared for their lives.
They don't have much influence in their environment,
And they don't have any options.
So as a result,
Their cortisol or stress levels go up.
And this is not just a spike just once,
But rather it's an elevated level of stress.
So you can see how in humans also that an employee in a company that's just starting out is more stressed out than the boss who has obviously more power and more conscious choice of what he wants to do.
And you can also see that in primates as well where the higher status primate,
The primate boss or whatever,
Has lower stress levels on a constant level.
So in practical terms for you,
What this means is that you can choose your area of control because in life there are a lot of variables,
A lot of things go sideways,
The job that you want doesn't work out or your girlfriend,
Boyfriend,
Husband,
Wife breaks up with you.
Just like a lot of these situations that are outside of your control happen,
And in that aspect,
You can choose your response.
Rather than reacting to the situation itself,
So something happens and you're like,
Oh my god,
Someone cuts you off in traffic and you just freak out,
Instead you can think about what response you want to choose.
So if someone cuts you off instead of just honking and yelling at him and being very reactive like I mentioned,
Instead you can choose how do I want to respond to this.
And this applies to all situations,
Even like the more impact heavy ones where it seems that it's more gravity behind it and you're kind of freaking out here.
Well then you can choose how you want to respond to that,
Good or bad,
And when you do that you'll find that you gain confidence and you're able to handle the situation.
And as a result,
You have less of that frustration because you've consciously put effort and you've done that.
So again,
Just as a recap,
Three quick tips on how to handle frustration and self-defeating thoughts.
First is meditation,
And I recommend everyone start meditating today.
And this is something that will work over time in quieting those networks that cause you to ruminate and reference yourself all the time.
The second approach is to celebrate the smaller wins,
So reduce your criteria and be really happy for actually executing on something that is a smaller thing that you can easily accomplish.
And the third is just switching your area of control.
So just find out in every situation how can I handle myself and choose my response rather than reacting to the environment.
So I hope this helps.
Thank you.
