We've all had these days...working on your computer and it starts acting sluggish, webpages are slow to load, and it freezes a time or two. You start praying it won’t totally crash before you finish what you’re working on. At this point, you KNOW what needs to be done, but you are dreading it. Cause, let’s face it, 342 tabs are open, and powering down may not save them all. It will only take a few minutes and once the computer is back on, it will work soooo much better.
This is EXACTLY what we need to do as humans sometime. When we’re not functioning as designed, feeling sluggish, bogged down with multiple tabs open in our brains, overwhelmed, and stressed, we need a REBOOT. It doesn’t take long and is necessary to keep going. There’s a chance that just pushing through will lead you to the dreaded BLUE SCREEN and you’ll be forced to shut down without a choice.
I’m not just talking about needing a nap, this is something deeper. If you are not happy with the person you see in the mirror, if you lack a sense of motivation, direction, or purpose, if you keep shrugging off these feelings hoping they will blow over and get better, but nothing is changing and you are just going through the motions day after day, after day. It’s exhausting, but when you start becoming numb and life seems meaningless, these are danger signs and you need to step up, take responsibility for yourself and REBOOT.
You don't look forward to tomorrow
Do you often find yourself waking up in the morning, hitting the snooze button, turning over and wanting to go back to sleep? Do you find yourself about to sleep at night kind of dreading or worrying about what will take place the next morning? Do you get the feeling that you'd rather just keep on sleeping?
Do you feel somewhat disappointed that when you wake up tomorrow it will be the exact same day as today? And that whatever frustrations you have today will basically just carry over to the next day? Do you feel that there's really not much to look forward to?
If any of this applies to you, keep reading. There is a solution. It might seem simplistic, but it goes a long way in clearing up tremendous internal obstacles that make you either fearful of or apathetic to what can happen tomorrow.
You don't take risks because you focus on what you stand to lose
Do you come across new ideas and opportunities, but you almost always never take them? Does it seem like you stumble upon great ideas, but you feel that they're probably not going to pan out? Well, a big reason for this is you feel that you have a lot more to lose than you can gain.
There are a lot of opportunities you can be investing your time, effort and money in, but at the back of your head, you're always thinking of how much it would cost you and how much you stand to lose if things don't go well. You're always looking on the downside.
The less risks you take, the more fearful you are of taking further risks in the future. You actually get worse and worse. You get more and more accustomed to shying away from any kind of possibility of loss.
Life, by definition, is very risky. Thankfully, there is one simple thing you can do to free yourself from this almost crippling obsession with the downside.
You daydream a lot, but never take action
Daydreaming is generally used to escape personal frustrations, but it could be used for so much more!
When we learn to harness the power of dreams and use them to set goals and take action, that's where the magic is at! The problem is that we are not taught how to daydream properly.
For example, we were tossing around the idea about getting a sailboat. In my current reality, there was NO WAY I could see that happening. My husband, being a master at daydreaming, started painting a picture about sailing out to a deserted island, even buying the island and described exactly what life would be like. Being curious, I started looking at what it would cost to buy an island just for fun. Long story short, since we dreamed so big and even took action by researching, buying a boat didn't seem ridiculous anymore after considering buying an island.
We are trapped by the self-limiting beliefs inside our minds. One of my favorite Disney quotes is, "if you can dream it, you can do it."
If you use dreams simply as an escape from reality and aren't taking any action, you need a reboot!
You keep comparing yourself to others
It’s really hard to be on social media and not compare yourself to others. Your body isn’t good enough, your wardrobe isn’t trendy enough, and your house isn’t Pottery-Barn enough. It might even make you feel like you aren’t enough.
With 24/7 access to view the best parts of everyone else's lives right on my phone, I know exactly how I measure up against every other person with a social media account.
Here are some questions to help you figure out if comparing yourself to others is a problem for you:
- Have you ever made an impulse purchase on Instagram?
- Do you get FOMO (fear of missing out), or even anxiety, after spending time on social media?
- When something good happens to someone else, is your natural reaction to be annoyed?
- Have you ever deleted something from social media because it didn’t get the response you wanted?
- Do you check who’s viewed your Instagram story or liked your Facebook post several times a day?
If you answered yes to a bunch of these, no shame here! I’m just as prone to falling into the comparison trap as anyone. I’m guilty of worrying what other people think about me too.
Keeping up with the Joneses shouldn't be the motivation behind why you do anything. Stressing over likes will cause you to spend time, effort and money for approval you don't need.
You're convinced that the best things in life are already taken
Do you find yourself planning and setting goals, but you have this feeling that you're just wasting your time because “it’s already been done” or “I didn’t get in at the beginning”?
If you assume that the best things in life are already in the hands of other people, it's very easy for you to believe that you are just wasting your time. Why try so hard? Why put in all this effort? Why struggle when it's already a foregone conclusion? Whatever it is that you're hoping for, whatever dreams that you want to achieve for yourself, they're already somebody else's property.
It’s a common mindset to create excuses so you don’t have to try hard, drifting from one "hot idea" to another, unable to get anything done because you are sabotaging yourself by believing that the best things in life are already taken by other people.
The truth is, nobody can do you, but you. How many chicken restaurants are there? Just because KFC serves chicken, doesn't mean nobody else can.
Another way to rephrase this takes the popular form of "the rich get richer and the poor get poorer." This is a very damaging mindset that really saps you of your energy and creativity.
You believe that your best days are behind you
When we stop growing, we no longer have purpose. If you believe that your best days are in the past, you end up sabotaging your future achievements.
Whatever you do today and tomorrow will never ever come close to what you did in the past.
Why try so hard? Why sacrifice? Why stick to really high standards? You know that they won't even come close to meeting what you've done in the past.
It's very easy to fall into this pattern. It's very easy to become mentally lazy by allowing ourselves to feel inferior by comparing ourselves to our imagined past self. If you're honest with yourself, you’ll realize that most of the things you did in the past could stand some improvement.
Instead of your past holding you back and dragging you down from doing what you need to do today to achieve greater heights in your career, your relationships or in your personal life, your past can actually push you forward.
You have a tough time looking forward to anything
Have you ever been so excited about an event, planned it all out, counted the days, and when the day was finally here, you were disappointed?
You can only experience these things so many times until you just lose hope and let go of looking forward to anything.
When you no longer looking forward to anything, life becomes just a routine. When past disappointments define the present, it poisons the future.
The goal is to make a few tweaks so you can start looking forward to new things again. It is possible to start getting excited by new opportunities and your ability to make those opportunities happen again.
You find it hard to get excited about learning something new
Human beings are learning creatures, it's hardwired into our DNA to ensure our survival. When we learn something, it triggers the reward chemicals in our brain that create an uplifting sense of accomplishment. When we’re not learning and growing, we start feeling worthless and depressed.
Once you tap into your inborn sense of curiosity, you become more fulfilled, you get rewarded more, and most importantly, you feel like you're doing something meaningful with your life.
Unfortunately, it only takes a few disappointments, letdowns, and a couple of personal disasters for us to crawl into our emotional shell. While we do understand that life is full of lessons, in our heads, we've just dismissed it all because if it all leads to disappointment, why even try?
This can easily poison your mental processes, where you start living in a mental prison, scared of any new opportunities. You don't want to meet new people. You don't want to find out about people. You just want to go through the motions.
The key is to reboot, break this cycle and become motivated to learn and try new things without being crippled by fear that is caused by past failures.
You believe you can't afford anything
Do you find yourself saying these phrases a lot? "I don't have money," "I can't afford that," and "That is too expensive for me."
When you say these things, you are defining yourself as somebody who is unable to afford anything. You're basically saying that this item is out of your personal possibility.
This can easily become a habit because once you start seeing the price tag, you go back to this statement. You start looking at how expensive things are and the "fact" that you don't have the money to afford them.
You keep saying to yourself, "I don't have the money. I can't afford that. There's no way I can achieve that." And each time you say these things, either out loud or mentally, you emotionally hardwire yourself and program yourself to not affording them.
Instead, start asking yourself, "How can I afford it?" or "What do I need to do to buy that?" Instead of a statement of fact regarding what you're capable of and what your resources are currently, when you say these questions, you challenge yourself to change your financial state.
When you challenge yourself to figure out how you can afford something, you can get the ball rolling regarding the problem-solving skills you need to have to change your reality.
Finding opportunities is not difficult. They come to us once we start looking for them. Once you start training your brain to search for answers, you’ll notice an abundance of possibilities all around you!
You always focus on how much a new experience will cost
When we encounter the opportunities for new experiences, most of us automatically ask, "What will it cost? What will it take out of me? What do I stand to lose?"
If you're always focusing on how much a new experience will cost, you're focusing on the loss instead of what you stand to gain. You start distrusting new experiences. You start equating them with you losing something.
Instead of looking at the loss, focus on what you will gain.
A few years ago, I was shocked to find out how much scuba diving cost. The classes, equipment, travel and so on. Recently I decided to just jump in and do it. On the other side, what I gained was above and beyond the cost. I’ve met new friends, crushed fears that I didn’t know I had and now I get to grab my gear and continue to have amazing experiences with my family.
New experiences are not equal. Some experiences really take your life to the next level, other experiences are not so valuable, but you won't be in a position to know that because you're always focusing on the cost. You're giving yourself excuse after excuse not to try.
What do you need to do to reboot your life?
The answer is simple. Look around you. Look internally. Look at what's going on in your life. Your life is full of clutter if the 10 Signals above apply to you.
Clutter is not just physical. It doesn't just take the form of stuff you bought and never got to use or stuff that is filling up your home. It is more than things that you can see, smell, taste, touch and hear.
Clutter can be emotional or psychological. You can be hanging on to toxic ideas that hold you back and drag you down. You can be letting your past rob you of present joy or at least the willpower to become a more effective person today.
Clutter can also take the form of ideas that don't really serve you. If anything, they poison your self-esteem, your relationships with other people, and most importantly, your perception of your ability to change certain things in your life.
No matter what form it takes, clutter always leads to the same place. A sense of being trapped in your life.
If you learn how to declutter your life, you can become a more effective person. If you learn to take care of clutter the right way, you can reach a point where, when you decide on a goal or a dream, it becomes true. You will be able to fill your life with achievement and feel that you are living life to the fullest. You would be able to live a life of meaning, purpose and value.
Unfortunately, you can't tackle this process by jumping in with both feet. That is a surefire recipe for disaster. It really is. You can't be impulsive about this. There is a right way and a wrong way to declutter.
I've come across a lot of people who are convinced that decluttering causes more harm than good. When I ask them follow up questions, it turns out that they didn't really declutter their life because they went about it the wrong way.
Learn how to declutter your life the right way. Click here. This resource will open your eyes to a systematic and methodical way to add a lot more value to your life by teaching you how to get more with less.
About the Author:
Julie Lewis, Gamification Expert | SEO Specialist | Online Business Strategist | Tech Nerd
Julie has been developing websites for 23 years. Growing up as an online gamer and fascinated by psychology, she merged her "nerdiness" into an online business. Using her technical skills and gamification research, she teaches female entrepreneurs how to develop their online strategy to engage their customers and LEVEL UP their online business!
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