3 Straightforward Ways to Stop Fighting Reality, And Start Working Towards What You Want

Woman in black workout clothes and black boxing gloves hitting a punching bag

Photo by LOGAN WEAVER | @LGNWVR on Unsplash

Fun fact, I had a completely different post typed up before this one.

I finished the first article then shortly thereafter decided that I hated it (which does sometimes happens, not a big deal).

But then I fell into the very trap that I’m here to warn you about.

My usual modus operandi goes like this — I write something that I feel super good about, then I go back to edit it the next day and think “Actually, this is crap. How did I even think it was good?”. But then I mess with it for a little while, get back into the flow, and make it work out.

Not this time.

This time I spent the next three days spinning in thoughts like “This shouldn’t be so hard. I don’t even want to write this anymore. Nothing is working. This is stupid”, and then I would go eat a snack, make some coffee, and binge cooking shows on tv.

I was fighting the reality of having to write a blog about fighting reality.

I’m a firm believer that life is a balance of emotion, positive and negative, and that we’re not supposed to feel good all the time.

The question is, why do we choose to prolong our time in the negative?

I don’t know if anyone loves their job 100% of the time, but usually we can get back into it and remember why we signed up in the first place. The same holds true for trying to live healthier or manage our finances, we have times we’re in flow and times that we aren’t.

The problem comes when we start fighting our circumstances. Naturally the thoughts I was stuck in, “This shouldn’t be so hard”, and “I don’t want to work on this anymore” are going to make me feel crappy. And when I indulge in those crappy thoughts long enough I end up feeling depressed and resentful.

Have you ever tried being productive when you’re feeling depressed and resentful? (0/10, I don’t recommend it).

It’s easy to blame work, our health, or our finances for our unhappiness. But by blaming our circumstances — something that’s outside ourselves — we give away the power to make ourselves feel better and improve those circumstances.

The way to take back that power is to change the thoughts that are keeping us stuck in that negative loop.

Here’s how to get out of that rut and start moving toward what you want:

Accept where you are now

Let me clarify, I’m not suggesting you paste on a happy thought and force yourself to love your current circumstance (in fact I will never give you that advice). Acknowledging you’re not where you want to be is a sign that you’re ready to start thinking about moving forward and leveling up your life.

What I’m offering is for you to accept you are where you are right now, make it a neutral circumstance — you have a job, you have a body, you have a bank account. Accepting your current circumstance doesn’t mean it will always stay this way.

Instead of spending your time and energy fighting it, spend that same amount of time and energy getting curious about what you might want to do instead.

And just a heads up, when you try to ask your brain what to do next it will automatically answer “I don’t know”.

Never let your brain stop at “I don’t know”.

Instead ask a better question, such as, “What if I do know, what would it look like?”. Or, “If I could make money doing anything at all, what might that be?”.

Understand the benefit of staying stuck

Holding onto the thoughts that are making us unhappy has net benefits.

When we stay stuck in an unhappy situation we become the victim of that situation and we give up the power to change it. When we give up the power to change it we also abdicate responsibility, which saves us from having to take scary actions like trying something we’ve never done before and risking failure or embarrassment.

Our brains are so tricky like that.

They’re designed to keep us safe, and keeping us safe means keeping us comfortable. But being comfortable and being happy are not the same thing.

We’re comfortable with something because it feels familiar, but that doesn’t necessarily mean we enjoy it. This explains why most of us will spend years stuck in a job we don’t like, we may not be happy but the work is familiar and we don’t have to risk failure by trying something new.

How to move forward anyway

I don’t know who needs to hear this, but: You don’t have to have all the answers before you get started.

You can be unsure, you can be scared, and you can even be wrong (okay, chances are you will be wrong, at least a few times), but you can also do it anyway.

None of us were born knowing how to walk, run, drive a car, or write a blog, every one of us had to learn by doing.

For some reason, it was easier when we were kids. Maybe because we didn’t worry so much about failing back then? As adults, when we start thinking of doing something new, our brains are wired to tell us it’s too difficult. It will automatically answer “I don’t know how”.

Never let your brain stop at “I don’t know how”.

The “how” is, you research the thing, and you take the first step. There is no right or wrong answer here, there’s just one decision or another. You pick one thing and you try it. If that doesn’t get you the desired result, then you try something else. It’s really that simple (notice I didn’t say easy).

Once you’ve committed to your decision on how you want to move forward, put your blinders on and go for it. Decide you will try it for at least “x” number of days or weeks (or longer) before you change it up and try something else.

You may not achieve your first goal, but then again, you might. Or what if you end up doing something completely different, something even better than you could imagine?

You may even discover that you’ve become a better person along the way.

Key takeaways:

Accept your current circumstance/reality. You don’t have to like it but you’re wasting time and energy by fighting it.

Understand that staying stuck will seem easier than changing your situation because it requires no risk and no commitment, but you will be miserable in the meantime.

Ask your brain productive questions about what you might want to do next or what the first step might be. Then let your brain surprise you by coming up with answers you never thought you knew. And don’t panic! You don’t have to execute every idea, just go into each one with curiosity.

Once you’ve decided what you want to do, commit to one action that will move you forward. Then enjoy the person you’re evolving into while overcoming obstacles to get you the life you want.

Discover What’s Possible.

3 Steps You Can Take (Today!) to Beat Overwhelm as an Escrow or Title Professional

Few people outside the title/escrow business understand the hustle it takes to run a successful desk.

Maybe this sounds familiar to you:

You walk into your office Monday morning, Starbucks in hand, optimism in full effect, ready to conquer your workday.

Then you start scrolling (and scrolling) through emails.

And notice the red light blinking on your phone.

And the stack of files on the corner of your desk from Friday.

Overwhelm starts to set in, your shoulders start inching up around your ears, and your chest begins to tighten. It’s enough to make even the most dedicated of us want to run for our TikTok fyp.

You’re not alone!

When we spin out in overwhelm it’s because of our thoughts, and the feelings that those thoughts generate. Our brain is telling us that the tasks ahead are too much:

We’ll never get them all done (failure).
We don’t have an answer for that lender or agent (inadequacy).
We have to admit a mistake – even if we’re not the one that made it (vulnerability).

These unproductive thoughts lead to unproductive actions, which leads to more overwhelm.

But you can break that cycle.

Here are 3 steps you can take to start conquering overwhelm today.

Step 1: Get a Plain Journal or Notebook

Go into your closet and grab one of the seven journals that you started but never finished (or is that just me?).

Give yourself an hour for this exercise, and do it the same day/time each week. I find that Sunday mornings, coffee in hand, dogs next to me on the couch, is the best time for me. I’m in a relaxed state and thinking with the logical part of my brain (prefrontal cortex). You definitely don’t want to do this when you’re under pressure or already stressed.

Now write down all of the to-do items that wake you up at 3 o’clock every morning…the question you’ve been meaning to ask underwriting, the 1,000th email you need to send to the seller’s agent, your daughter’s soccer game that you volunteered to bring snacks for.

All of it.

You’ll want to start freaking out at the number of tasks on your list – but don’t! You don’t have to do any of it yet, or even at all if that’s what you decide. The point is to just get everything out of your brain and onto paper.

Step 2: STS (Schedule That Shit)

Go back into your closet, next to the stack of unused journals, and get out one of your unused monthly calendars.

It doesn’t need to be fancy or complicated, simple is actually best.

Open up your calendar for the upcoming week and schedule each task on your list.

Each task gets a time frame:

Email client – 7:30am – 7:45am

Walk at lunch – 12:30pm – 1:00pm

Stop after work to get soccer snacks 5:30pm – 6:00pm

Again, don’t panic! It’s your calendar, you’re in control. You get to decide what goes where, or even if it goes at all.

Schedule with kindness! Don’t sabotage yourself by planning an entire day, or days, of back-to-back tasks. You don’t need to be super-human to get it all done, just realistic.

For example, if you’re not a morning person, don’t schedule a gym session for 5 am. If you know your brain is typically dead by 6 pm schedule your high-functioning mental tasks before 3 pm, or, better yet, before work.

Pro tip: Schedule self-time FIRST. It can be as simple as taking yourself to lunch or dinner, even binge-watching Yellowstone (yes, you can still binge tv shows! Just schedule it). We know how quickly self-time goes by the wayside if we don’t make it intentional.

Also, think about delegating tasks when possible: order groceries online, use auto-pay for your bills, or even hire a house cleaner to come in once a month, if that’s feasible for your budget.

Step 3 – DO. THE. DAMN. THING.

Spoiler Alert: You will want to avoid this step.

Your brain will try to tell you it’s too hard or uncomfortable.

It will tell you to pick up your phone, head for the fridge, or go get more coffee.

Expect those thoughts. Be ready for them.

When they arrive just tell your brain to settle down, and then put on your big girl pants and get it done.

Five minutes of feeling uncomfortable beats two weeks of having that same task hanging over your head while you beat yourself up for not having done it.

Budget the time you think each item will take, then use ONLY that time, and move on. If you’ve underestimated how much time you needed then re-schedule another time to finish it.

Obviously, there will be circumstances outside of your control, but it’s your schedule, and you get to decide how to respond.

This isn’t about writing yet another to-do list, and it’s not about wearing our busyness as a badge of honor or feeling sorry for ourselves.

It’s about making decisions on purpose, then executing those decisions. We know what to do, we know how to do it, and we’re worth the effort.

Now, get to scheduling! I’d love it if you’d drop your comments below and let me know how this works for you, or if you have any questions!

Sometimes You Just Want to Feel Bad

Yesterday I went to the gym, feeling good about the workout because I knew I could do it. Throw a bar over my head 15 times, then do some single-under (haven’t mastered the double-under yet) – I was looking forward to it!

Except when I got to the gym and tried throwing that bar over my head. 15 times. I went into it with an expectation that the ‘prescribed’ weight was fairly light, I knew I could get it off the ground and up to my shoulders. But unfortunately that wasn’t the workout, the workout involved yanking it up from the ground and throwing it directly over my head all in one motion.

And that I could not do. Not even once.

So I stripped the bar and added a lighter weight. Still couldn’t do it. So I stripped that weight and added the smallest weight I could before having just an empty bar. I was finally able to handle that one, but I was bummed that it didn’t go the way I had expected it to. At all.

Disappointed, I left the gym and went home to get ready for work, only to discover that my dog had gotten on the counter while I was at the gym, and had eaten the cornbread that I was planning on having with my lunch that day. And then, when I went to change my clothes, I pulled my sweatshirt off over my head and got my hair caught on the zipper, yanking out a substantial chunk of my hair.

By that point it was only 6:30am and my day was off to a REALLY bad start! I wasn’t in full-fledged self pity mode yet, but I was definitely staring at the possibility.

Later on at work, in an attempt to make myself feel better, I decided to take a break and drive to Starbucks for my favorite coffee (blonde vanilla latte with two pumps of caramel please and thank you). And then when I got back to work to drink it, I realized they had forgotten all the flavoring and it was basically just a coffee with steamed milk (wah-wah).

Normally this would have sent me straight into a full, grown-ass-woman pout for the rest of the day – which is NOT pretty!

But recently, I’ve started understanding just how much power we actually have over our own feelings.

They’re not something that just happens.

As an experiment I asked a few people on Facebook what they did for a ‘pick me up’ when they were feeling down, or when things weren’t going their way.

Their answers were all a little different, but ALL involved doing something that didn’t address the actual problem. Instead, they chose something that allowed them to AVOID THE BAD FEELING ALTOGETHER. Whether that was bingeing on Netflix (a common answer), or indulging in food, alcohol or online shopping.

***We just want to do something that will make us feel better right now. We hide in something comfortable to avoid feeling uncomfortable.***

Rather than deal with the uncomfortable feelings, we choose to hide from them. What we want is something that will make us feel better right now, so we hide in something comfortable to avoid feeling uncomfortable.

Have you ever done this? And does it really serve us? Do we consider the long term effects of eating all that candy or carbs? Do we consider the long term effects of drinking that alcohol? Do we consider the long term effects of that cigarette, or too much online shopping? Are we really willing to pay – in the long term – for the effects of all those habits just to avoid whatever uncomfortable, TEMPORARY, feeling we’re having right now?

Here’s something to consider…why not just let ourselves feel bad? Who says we’re meant to be happy 24/7?? Well, besides the internet, tv and radio. Every day. All day 🙁

But, just maybe, we’re not here on earth to be happy all. the. time. That without the bad, we wouldn’t know what good IS. Without sad we wouldn’t know what happy is.

“If we only experienced positive emotion all the time, we wouldn’t even know it was positive. We wouldn’t be able to distinguish beauty without knowing what ugly is.”
-Brooke Castillo
The Life Coach School

One thing I realized about my no good, really bad day is that it was all brought on by my expectations on how the day SHOULD have gone. In my mind I SHOULD have been able to lift that weight, I SHOULD have been able to enjoy the cornbread (did I mention it wasn’t just cornbread, but HONEY cornbread!!?), there SHOULD have been sweet creaminess in my coffee!

Without me having those expectations, would my day really have been that bad? I mean: #1 I still had a good workout. #2. I still had another box of cornbread I could make. #3. I still took a break from work and had a nice, hot coffee.

Eventually, I just accepted the fact that my day was obviously not meant to follow the expectations I had set out for it! And instead of fighting that reality, or feeling sorry for myself, I thanked God and the Universe for showing me a bad day so I could truly appreciate my good days…how many coffees, before that one, were just fine? How many times have I PR’d at the gym that I’ve only been going to for 4 months (3 PR’s btw!). How many times have I taken off my sweatshirt without ripping out my hair with the zipper? (Honestly that had never even happened to me before that day).

Your feelings alone can’t hurt you, only your reaction to them can.

So maybe the next time you’re feeling disappointed, sad, frustrated, or even scared, instead of reaching for something to mask that feeling, something to make you feel better right now, just acknowledge it. Your feelings alone can’t hurt you, only your reaction to them can.

Learn to look at the feeling objectively, maybe even with a little curiosity…What triggered you into feeling that way? Did something (or someone??) not meet an expectation that you set for it? Or for them? Did something not go the way you felt it should, or expected it to?

If you’re feeling bad, or sad or scared, it’s alright to just accept that it’s just the way you’re feeling for the moment. It’s temporary, there is no need to hurry and move away from it or hide. Realize it for what it is, that whatever you’re feeling is OKAY, because you’re human. Make your peace with it, and then keep moving on. Just like good feelings, bad feelings end too.

It’s going to be okay my friend 🙂

Thank you for reading my little blog 🙂