How I Said Goodbye to Negative Thinking

I post a lot of motivational stuff here on my blog. I say things like, "Fuck what they think and go after what you want" and those are 100% true. I believe in what I preach, I practice what I preach, and I'm all about sharing those with everybody else. But as enthusiastic as I may sound, I haven't always been that way. I was the complete opposite of that just a couple of years back.

You'd never hear me say, "It'll be fine, the struggle isn't permanent" or "Remember this is all for your future" to myself. I was all about the negative stuff, and I'm pretty sure that cloud follow me everywhere I went because it affected so many areas of my life. I was negative in school, and that affected my relationship with friends, and then I brought that attitude home. Heck, there were some times (too many, actually) when I just wanted to end it all. I was that unmotivated, uninspired. I was that negative.

So what did I do? 

I stopped blaming the world for the shit it poured on me. I became open to the possibility that, you know what, maybe this is my fault. Maybe I didn't pass that entrance exam because I didn't bother to review. Maybe I didn't get selected because I just wasn't right for that program. For a long time, I blamed the world for being unfair, but I realized that wasn't entirely true. We just have to find where we truly belong, even if it's not where we imagined ourselves to be. By understanding that I didn't have to put the blame on someone or something, I stopped believing that the world was against me, and I started to see more beauty in the world.

Often it's easy to think that we're being punished for whatever reason, but you should know that the world isn't against you or anyone. No higher being is holding a grudge against you and making your life as terrible as you think it is. (Honestly, sweetie, what makes you that special though, to have the world be against you?) I understand that it can be hard to admit our faults and weaknesses, but as soon as you own up to them, you'll be more open to improvement, and ultimately change outcomes in your life, too.

Then, I opened myself to possibilities beyond what I had always known. I've always been a planner. I like planning where to go and what to do at certain points in my life. But as soon as those plans were destroyed by the smallest things, I'd be devastated. When I didn't get accepted into my dream college, I didn't know what to do next. I was so restricted by those plans that I began closing myself off from opportunities that might've been better for me. Thankfully I realized that I didn't have to follow the life I had planned for myself. I can still follow my dreams, make a name for myself, and have a career without following a silly plan.

From an early age, we're made to believe that we need to follow a linear plan. Go to school, go to college, get a job, get married, have kids, get rich, get grandkids, blah blah. Everything seems so planned out and ready, but what they don't make us accept is that it's fine if we take a quick break, take a different road toward that destination, or even make several U-turns along the way. As long as you get to where you want to be, it doesn't really matter how long it took you to get there, or how many hurdles you had to get through. You did it. That's what matters.

I also started to realize that some things in my life weren't beyond my control. I developed an, "Okay, this is a problem, so let's deal with this right now and get it over with" attitude. I wasn't going to be defeated by the challenges thrown at me. Before, I used to think that challenges were there to punish you, but then I saw that challenges were there to build you up and prepare you for greater things. No longer was I going to give in to my defeatist attitude and my dark thoughts. I was stronger than that.

Finally, I realized that I still had a lot of things I wanted to do. I used to see no real purpose to life, but then I thought, "I must be here for a reason, right?" I played with my creativity, juggled different passions, and found what I wanted to spend the rest of my life pursuing. Developing and fueling that passion sparked a fire in me, making me realize my worth, finally letting me see my purpose.

Ultimately, I think all it took was the willingness to say, "You know what? I don't think this is all what my life is supposed to be." All it took was the courage to step away from that dark place filled with doubts and negative thoughts. Doing that definitely allowed me to have more opportunities, meet more people, and see myself in a more positive light.

I used to roll my eyes at that quote that goes, "Beautiful things happen when you distance yourself from negativity" but after moving past negativity, I gotta say there's no other quote that echoes so much truth.