We’ve all had those moments of self-loathing and unending frustration caused by our own actions. We also appear to encounter a brick wall now and again, questioning the path we’re on and possibly experiencing a quarter-life or middle-life crisis. It’s not completely unfathomable.
Our inner devil is responsible for indecision, self-doubt, lack of confidence, and motivation. We don’t need a Dexter complex to realise that we are the primary cause of our own failures and downfalls. Fortunately, there is a solution: all we have to do is recognise this monster within us, comprehend its strategy, and overcome its discouraging voice.
Here are some reasons why you, of all people, are your biggest enemy, as well as what you can do about it.
Expectations aren’t managed by you.
You’re being guided by an aspirational, starry-eyed voice. A voice of utter irrationality and excessive optimism may be even louder. It’s important not to mix them together.
It’s healthy to have high expectations of yourself, and it’s even better to foresee positive outcomes. If you go into every scenario hoping to get the most out of it, you’ll virtually always be disappointed. If you set unrealistic objectives for yourself, such as joining a gym and committing to a workout every other day after work, you’ll either burn out and crash, or you’ll abandon the commitment and feel like you’ve failed yourself.
You Don’t Take the Time to Appreciate the Little Things
We don’t have much time on this small blue rock hurdling through space, but there’s no reason to rush through life and just pay attention to the major things that appear to matter. A car, a house, a nice career, a loving husband or wife, two children, and a dog are all on your wish list. Alternatively, a cat. That’s good, but in our haste to achieve these objectives, we overlook the smaller pleasures that surround us. The perfume of freshly brewed coffee in the morning, the cool wind that follows a rainstorm on the hottest summer day, the oddity of a cloud Even the simple things you accomplish on a daily basis count.
You take far too many things for granted.
This trait of your inner enemy is by far the most ubiquitous, similar to the argument made above. Every now and then, we’ll give to a charity and count our blessings, or we’ll observe someone close to us suffer through a catastrophe, and we’ll be grateful that we didn’t have to go through what they did. Why aren’t we doing this on a daily basis?
If you’re reading this, you’re probably sitting somewhere with an internet connection, a roof over your head, and some free time. When was the last time you took a moment to appreciate your current situation? What’s more, why should we bother?
You are the harshest critic of yourself.
Don’t get me wrong: being a harsh judge of your own character is a positive thing. The issue emerges when you go too far with it. You’ll never reach the level of contentment required to be truly satisfied with yourself if you constantly critique and find flaws in what you do and who you are.
If you constantly judge yourself, you’re essentially holding yourself back; if you undervalue yourself, you’ll never reach your full potential. Learn about the voice that criticises you, and try to figure out where it comes from and why you listen to it. Don’t be too hard on yourself for making mistakes; after all, learning from your failures is a perfectly good method of gaining experience.
You have a tendency to over-analyze things.
Another aspect of human nature is that we tend to overthink everything. We can walk in circles, pondering answers that aren’t required and relying on assumptions that are eventually incorrect. There’s a battle going on between our head and our heart, between our mind and our instincts. We come up with an early solution to an issue, then over-complicate the situation and completely change our minds. But, isn’t it good to ponder things through?
Hope it helps!