I believe that most people buy lottery tickets and diet pills for the quick fix. To make the kind of money a lottery can offer or get the results of chemical medication could take a long time. In some cases, a very, very long time. So who wouldn’t want to be “instantly” successful?
The truth is that whether we want immediate gratification or not, most of the time we have to do the “work”. This might be especially true when our self-esteem, our self-worth takes a hit. Recently I got a phone message from someone who reacted very negatively to something I’d written. They admitted they had taken the comments personally and were insulted. Even in the first moments of hearing the words and in particular when they included an admission that they were stuck in their own story, I felt comfortable in my belief that this wasn’t about me.
Since my day hadn’t been going that well, this would usually have been a signal to spiral into self loathing of some manner. Not this time. I was confident that the intention I’d written from was never meant to be hurtful. This kept me from getting out a whip and lashing myself for poor judgment. However, as time moved on and I was still struggling with the challenges I faced before the call, I saw myself slowly slipping into a place of questioning. “Well, maybe I was insensitive. Maybe I should have been more careful. Maybe I’d offended a lot of people. Maybe I was just plain nasty.”
Whoa! Not going there I said to myself! I knew that since my day was unravelling and this was adding fuel to the fire, I stopped what I was doing and did a fairly significant chore that I’d been avoiding. It was something I KNEW I’d be proud of myself for getting done. It took me a long time as I realized how much I wanted to distract myself and self-sabotage. Eventually it was done and a few other things along the way. The result was that I felt better. I did something that made me feel good about myself and as simple, or childish, or inconsequential, or minimal as that might seem – it works.
Many of us are programmed to beat ourselves up in reaction to what others might say or do. Rebuilding our self-esteem can be a slow process and what it does is create a solid foundation to operate from. It’s worth the effort.
