Have I Actually Got This – Or Am I Just Fooling Myself?
Believing that you’ve got this is the first step to handling everything we experience.
Sometimes the day begins with you waking up excited, anticipating good things to come, and feeling rested. Other times, you begin the day with dread, not looking at all forward to what you have on your plate.
Most often, at least in my experience, you probably begin your day groggy, maybe a little achy, uncertain, and unsure of just what lies ahead for you.
The first is clearly positive, the second negative, and the third neutral – though it might lean toward the positive or negative end of the spectrum. No matter how your day begins – you choose what’s next.
On a Monday morning, the vast majority of people begin their workweek. If you love your job – this is probably a boost in your energy to get going. However, if you loathe your job – this is dreadful and likely makes you feel down. But if you fall somewhere between the extremes – you choose, every day, how to approach it all.
I do not, nor cannot know what lies ahead today. Yes, there are appointments, deadlines, obligations, and the like to be met. However – among those are far more uncertainties.
This is where I get to ask – have I actually got this or am I just fooling myself? This question is just as mindful in the here-and-now as any about thoughts, feelings, actions, and intentions. And what I believe is going to impact both how I approach and how I handle the day ahead.
Looking back to look ahead
I know, normally I say leave the past in the past. That still applies here.
What I am suggesting here is that you take a look from a broad perspective at your past. Don’t dive in, don’t analyze – just look at where you have been before.
FYI – I am borrowing this from Gary John Bishop’s Unfu*k Yourself – Get Out of Your Head and into Your Life (which I am rereading presently).
When you look back at all of your previous life experiences, you’re going to see from this broad perspective a wide mix. Good stuff, great stuff. Bad stuff, horrendous stuff. Things that just happened both in and out of your control.
There is a single thread that ties all of this together. You did it. And you got through it.
It might have been amazing, or it might have sucked a lot. No matter what it was – you got through it. The horrific breakup, the amazing sunrise over the Grand Canyon, getting fired from that job, getting recognized at that other job – all of it. You got through all the things that happened to you in the past.
You are here. At this moment, you are. Maybe your life is amazing, maybe it sucks, or maybe it’s somewhere in the middle. But looking back, you can see that you have managed to overcome and survive everything tossed your way thus far.
That can be empowering. Especially when – faced with whatever is coming up ahead – you can not just say, but believe – I’ve got this.
I’ve got this. You’ve got this
Maybe you woke up on the right side of the bed today. Perhaps you woke up on the wrong side of the bed today. Most likely – you just woke up today like you do every day.
Great – welcome to the day. What have you got going on today? Good, bad, indifferent, unknown? How do you choose to face this? Are you scared, excited, intimidated, nonplussed, uncertain, neutral?
It doesn’t matter because this belief can and will direct how you handle this day:
You’ve got this.
Sometimes this feels like utter bullshit. C’mon, really? I’ve got this? Have you seen what I have on my plate?
No, I don’t know what you are dealing with. But I do know this – you are here, now. And you made it through everything good, bad, and indifferent that you experienced up to this point. That tells me that you’ve got this – because you did it before.
And you will do it again.
Let’s address the one snag in this whole narrative.
Am I just fooling myself?
Everyone encounters obstacles, challenges, and the unexpected in their lives. Doesn’t matter if you are a Jane Doe or an Elon Musk – shit happens that you have little to no control over in the moment that it happens.
And it might seem insurmountable. The challenge is like nothing that you’ve faced prior. And you have no idea, here and now, what on earth to do. How will I get through this one?
I’ve got this? Yeah, right!
But looking back from that broad overview and where you have been before – can you see that you have overcome similar obstacles and challenges in the past? You are here, now – so yes, you have. The bad breakup, the false accusations of impropriety, the situation you diffused before it could blow up in your face – all of it. Big and small, you got through this.
So – am I just fooling myself if I believe that I’ve got this? No.
But that doesn’t mean that you won’t feel that way. Imposter syndrome, the brain weasels chittering away destroying your confidence, the uncertainty making you question everything. Saying “I’ve got this” in the middle of such can feel like a lie.
But you have empirical proof that it’s not. Everything you experienced before -you made it through. You had it then – you’ve got this now.
How do I convince myself?
No matter what you’ve got on your plate today – you can do the following:
Pause. Take a deep breath. Be here, now. Ask yourself,
- What am I thinking?
- What am I feeling?
- How am I feeling?
- What am I doing with this and why?
These questions bring you to the present. This makes you consciously aware in the here and now – mindful. That, in turn, empowers you in this moment, right now, to see where you are at. Who, what, how, why, where, and when you are becomes clear.
That clarity also lets you remember that you’ve made it through everything you’ve ever faced before. Thus – you can do it again.
In other words – you’ve got this. And believing that – even when you have doubt – empowers you to actually, factually, have this.
Pause. Question. Recognize. Acknowledge. Be here, now. You’ve done this before even when it wasn’t the same. You can and will do it again. It’s not a lie, you are not fooling yourself – you’ve got this.
Believing that you’ve got this isn’t hard
It’s all about working with mindfulness of your thoughts, feelings, actions, and intentions.
When we take a broad, wide-focused look back at all that we’ve been through in this life – we can see clearly that we made it through everything we’ve dealt with before. Knowing that, even with lingering doubt, we can choose to believe that whatever we face now, we’ve got this. No matter what lies ahead for me today – I’ve don’t it before, I can and will do it again. I’ve got this.
That empowers me – and it can empower you, too. And we can use this to stay more neutral subconsciously, while consciously choosing things leaning towards the positive end of life’s extremes.
Taking an approach to positivity and negativity – from the vast space that exists between them – I believe shifts the concept in a way to open more dialogue. In that form, we can explore and share where we are between those extremes and how that impacts us here and now.
Finally, I believe the better aware we are of ourselves in the now, the more we can do to choose and decide how our life experience will be. If that empowers us, it can also open those around us to their own empowerment. And that is, to me, a worthwhile endeavor to explore and share.
Thank you for coming along on this ride with me.
This is the four hundred and twenty-fourth entry of my Positivity series. It is my hope these weekly messages might help spread positive energies for everyone. Feel free to share, re-blog, and spread the positivity.
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