Hopefully, you are making positive changes to your life and working towards becoming the best version of you. If you are anything like me, you will probably run into difficulties. You might be struggling to stop engaging in negative behaviours, whether that is lying, stealing, or harming others in other ways. They become habits and we can do these things without even being aware we are doing them.
We can mindlessly punch our friend in the arm as a joke or when they upset us. We may be so familiar with lying that we have trouble even knowing what is true anymore. We could suffer from being a kleptomaniac or some other problem. The more we do negative things, the more often we automatically do them with no thought behind them really. The problem is that we have undisciplined minds and we usually do what our mind or ego tells us to do rather than trying to control our impulses. Trying to stop doing these things when it is almost our nature to do them can be tricky and overwhelming at times.
How do you stop doing negative things? Start slowly and deliberately. First of all, look at the people around you. Are your family or friends behaving negatively? If they are doing mostly negative things, you will have an incredibly hard time to break away from those things. It may be difficult, but you have to start separating yourself from those people. You need to find good people to be around. Try to find a place that is good that you can start to hang out. Build that up and change who is around you, so the negative people don't drag you down with them.
The negative people will not like it if you change, because they need you to be bad like them to make them feel better about themselves. You see if you are negative then they know they are not alone in their bad behaviour and they fool themselves in this way. So, these negative people will give you a hard time if you start to change or spend less time with them. If you truly want to change you have to break away from them or you will never be able to escape the negative patterns you find yourself in.
I have left negative relationships and left bad people behind me. In fact, I have nothing to do with my parents anymore because they were unable to stop their toxic, negative behaviour towards me. I asked them repeatedly, but they ignored my requests. Since they obviously have no respect for me and my feelings, I left them. I have nothing to do with my youngest brother, because he too chooses to behave negatively. It is only after leaving them all behind that I am now seeing the damage of the abusive cycle I have been trapped in from growing up with them. I still struggle to stop this cycle completely, but I hope I am making progress. It can be isolating at times, but I am far better off. It is better to be alone than to be with people that are negative, that will harm you and will pull you down in life. I would rather be alone than be in a bad relationship.
Okay, so not only do you need to change who you are spending your time with, but you can start to change your habits. Begin to do positive things like being kind to others. You can listen to my previous podcast on the topic of how to start ascending for more guidance. Making your mind more familiar with doing good things, helps to diminish the time you might be spending doing negative actions. You will start to feel better about yourself knowing that you are doing positive things to change your life for the better.
You can stop doing negative things a little bit at a time. Pick a negative habit that you don't do very often. Like maybe you don't tell very many lies. Whatever you choose, try to stop doing those negative things completely if you can. Ones that you don't really do very often at all, would be the easiest to stop. Once you find you have stopped and don't do it anymore, you can rejoice!
For negative habits you do more often see how long you can go without doing them. Can you go 5 minutes without doing it? Try to do that then. Once you stop for 5 minutes, you can feel good that you did it. Then try to stop for 10 minutes. Then 15, 30, an hour and so on. Keep making the time between doing the negative thing longer and longer, until you find that days, weeks and months have passed by and you haven't been doing them. Then it will be years and you will eventually stop doing it altogether. That will be wonderful.
Remember, no one is perfect. No one is going to stop all their negative behaviours immediately. That is impossible. You will slip up like everyone does. You will find yourself falling back into old patterns and negative ways of doing things, especially if you continue to hang around those negative people or return to them again. You are normal and just like everyone else. We all struggle to stop our negative habits. If you find yourself falling back into negative behaviour, no matter how long you find yourself being like that, as soon as you decide you want to stop again, go back and try once more. Do this as many times as you need to.
It can be hard not to get down on yourself or beat yourself up for failing, but you haven't failed if you keep trying, no matter how many times. You only fail if you completely give up and embrace a negative lifestyle. Even then there is still hope for you in the far off distance future. If you need encouragement and help, go find positive people that can help you and support you. When I talk about positive people, I am referring to those individuals that are doing good deeds, that you witness engaging in positive actions to help others. I am not talking about those fake, bubbly, pretending life is perfect people. They can be just as messed up as the negative people.
The more you practice this, the easier it will become. We just need to make our minds familiar with doing good deeds rather than bad ones. Give yourself as much time as you need to accomplish this. You have the rest of your life to work on improving yourself. The longer you have been doing negative things, like if you started in your childhood, then the longer it might take to stop them. That is alright, as long as you are trying your best. That means the best that you can do. Do not compare yourself to anyone else because they are not on the exact same path that you are on. They are on their own path and will make progress in their own time, their own way. If someone has been trying their whole life to be a good person, they may not have as many negative habits to get rid of, so they may make progress a little quicker. That's okay. That doesn't make what your are doing or how long it is taking you any less valid. In fact, you are changing more than they are and that is commendable.
Look for people that will encourage and support you to help you stay on this new path you are carving for yourself. Steer clear of anyone that makes fun of you or gets angry at you for making these changes in your life. You are not alone in your quest to become a better person. Seek out other individuals who are also trying to improve themselves. We can all work on this together and break free from our negative habits. I wish you every success.
You can listen to the podcast here: https://youtu.be/cjR2pCCbZdQ
Comments
Post a Comment