Hello Aluxers and welcome back. Are you a professional at talking yourself down? Do you have a habit of arguing with yourself every day? You might even do it unconsciously. There are a series of thoughts you may have lingering in your head that keep holding you back. In this article, we will 15 Damaging Thoughts That Hold You Back.
You may be aware of some, but in this article, you’ll go over the most damaging thoughts that you need to learn how to get rid of. Welcome to Alux – Where’s starting off the list with: If you don’t feel like reading the article here’s the video version:
1
It’s too late for me
So your friends have better lives than you. Even your enemies are doing well. But not you. Somewhere along the path, you got a bit lazy, or just didn’t think ahead enough. You got comfortable in the position you were in and things were fine.
Your highschool friend got married. Your college friend bought their dream house. Your childhood friend now owns a business. You somehow missed every train. And you say to yourself “well, it’s too late for me now”
But here’s the thing.
That friend who got married may have been pushed by the family and now they are miserable.That friend who bought the dreamhouse may struggle with life time debt. That friend who started a business had to sacrifice their teen years and now they don’t have any real friends.
You never know the full game other people are playing. Nor do you know what they had to pay for it. You are playing your own game. It’s never too late, or too early for that matter.Things happen as you do them. As long as you are still playing the game, you are fine.
2
It’s not for me
This is something you tell yourself when you don’t want to fail. You’d rather not do it than to do it poorly. It may seem like a noble thing to do at first glance, but in reality this holds you back from doing anything at all.
It’s very rare to find something that is exactly for you. When kids dream to become astronauts and actually become astronauts, it’s not because they did product market fit for their own dreams when they were 5 yo.
It just so happens that their circumstances aligned. You can’t really know if something is not for you if you don’t actually do it.
3
It would of happened by now
When you don’t know what to do or what sort of ideas you have then you tell yourself this.You’ve been saving money for 10 years and investing for 5. You should be rich by now right? So why hasn’t it happened yet?
You read all the books, followed the best advice. But you are not there yet, so what gives? You end up doubting yourself and eventually quitting altogether.
But here’s the thing. Trusting the process means having faith that as long as you are doing the right things, you will eventually hit the right outcomes.
you’ve seen this happening with music artists time and time again.
G eazy, Russ, Doja Cat. They were all one song away from making it. You just have to trust the process.
4
This is beneath me
It’s one thing to put something on a lower priority, and an entire different thing to say that’s beneath you. It puts you on a dangerous path of overconfidence and arrogance. You have something to learn from anybody and anything, regardless of where you put yourself on the social hierarchy.
5
I already know how to do this
Skipping the fundamentals is one of the biggest mistakes newbies make. Without a solid foundation, everything you build will eventually crumble. You may have a strong sense of intuition that helps you understand things faster than anyone else.
If you use it to understand the fundamentals you will be faster than anyone else. If you use it to skip ahead, you will only build surface knowledge and misplaced confidence. How many times did you assume you knew how something worked?
Only to realise in the worst moment that you actually lack crucial knowledge?
6
This will never work
Some things will never work. But here is the thing. Sometimes you don’t make something just to finish it, but to see how, why, and if it will work or not. Imagine if anyone in the history of mankind had this “it will never work” mentality.
You would all still chase rabbits with sticks. Saying “this will never work” puts you in a “thinker mentality” instead of a “doer mentality”.
you have plenty of thinkers in the world. But not enough doers.
7
This is who I am
You are saying this when you make the lowest possible effort to explain yourself.
“I’m always late, this is who I am”. No, you’re just being disrespectful of everyone’s time, including yours.
Being yourself doesn’t mean that you are self obsessed.If you 1.0 is lazy and unreliable….. Then it’s time to become you 2.0. Being just who you are, isn’t a defining factor.
Don’t let who you are now hold you back from who you can become.
Facts.
8
I don’t know how to do this
The question you should be asking is “how can you do this?”.There are so many people who for some reason limited themselves to knowing just a few things. It’s like they have limited memory slots. Once they fill those in, they are done. Have you ever been in a position where you had to do something you didn’t know how?
But then you learned and did it and said “oh, that wasn’t actually that hard. I didn’t know I could do that”.
There is nothing which is so hard.
9
I really don’t care
You really don’t care when you are being selectively ignorant to preserve mental space.Now, are you doing that, or are you just trying to be cool and edgy? You really should care about stuff.
After all, what it’s left to do if you don’t care about anything? There are plenty of things to care about in this world. You will eventually feel empty otherwise.
10
This is fine
Just because you are good at adapting, it doesn’t mean you should always do it. If things are very much not fine, and there is some conflict that needs to be resolved, do it. Don’t let it linger too much. Don’t let that be your new reality.
If you get used to your condition, anything extra will seem too much of an effort. You got a bit chubby and your clothes don’t fit you that well anymore…. But you don’t get out of the house that often anyways, this is fine.
11
This shouldn’t be this hard
The hardest thing you have to go through when you are doing something new is to accept the fact that you suck. At the very beginning, everything seems complicated and overwhelming.
The pressure is suffocating and the stakes are too high. You ask yourself “how can people do this?” Well the answer is, it gets easier in time. You get used to being under pressure.The high stakes don’t scare you that much anymore.
As humans, you have an inherent ability to adapt to all sorts of situations. If an asteroid were to hit Earth, we’d probably make memes about it.
12
I don’t have an impact
You may work at a great cause and have the best intentions in the world. But you can’t see your work having any impact.The thing with impact is that it usually has a delayed fuse. You don’t get to see it until way after the fact. It’s hard to predict.
13
There are people better than me so why bother
Nobody expects you to be the best in the world. Do you know how the Nike logo came to be? It was designed by a young graphic design student for the whopping price of $35.Was she the best logo designer in the world? Probably not.
Yet the logo still stands, decades after. Plus, she has compensated fairly afterward. Sometimes, you are the right person at the right time, in the right place.
Just because someone else might do a better job than you, that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t grab the opportunity. People rarely win because of their competence alone.
14
This is not meant to happen for someone like me
When you come from a background of “things not happening”, you get used to that mentality.If your whole ancestry lived in poverty, that doesn’t mean the same will happen to you.
You can break the link. You can be the one that stirred the boat around. It’s extremely damaging to condition yourself based on your background.
15
They keep it a secret
You think that those who made it don’t want to tell you how they did it. They are keeping it a secret and they don’t want you to find out. This kind of mentality gets you to believe all kinds of conspiracy theories.
You disregard the genuine work that most people are doing as just a facade that masks the real deals that are made behind closed doors. And look, some of that stuff does happen. But that’s not what you are focusing on.
You want, some day, to confidently say “ok, I made it.” And there is no secret on how to do that.
Now, if you found yourself within these thoughts, and don’t know what to replace them with, start with the Alux app.
16
This is impossible
Possibility is not binary. It happens in increments. If you are morbidly overweight, is it impossible to eventually have the body of an olympic sprinter? Maybe. But it’s possible to eventually look sharp in a suit. Or go on a hike with your kids.
Or have your friends tell you “damn man, you are looking healthy”. But when you’ve set yourself on the impossible, it keeps you from seeing all the other possibilities that are within reach.
It’s like that saying:
“Shoot for the moon. Even if you miss, you land among the stars”
For some, having unreachable goals gives them a great sense of purpose.For others, it works to their detriment. It demotivates them. Some things may very well be impossible…. But somewhere along that path, there is a point where you’ll love the person you became.
Don’t forget that. See you tomorrow Aluxers.
