Imagine a year of you. A year of telling the saboteurs to disappear, and real friends to come near.
Imagine a year of you. A year where you choose to pay attention to positivity and shut out the negativity.
Imagine a year of you. A year where you create your relationships and your life around your personality, not the other way around.
A year of focusing on a happy, healthy, authentic you equals a happy life. A life where you achieve success in all areas of your life, and in turn, a happier world.
Life isn’t a straight line; it’s ups and downs, left turns, right turns, and u-turns. But a focus on a happy, healthy you keeps you moving forward overall anyway.
Goal setting starts from within
We’re not talking about being selfish, like those narcissists in your life (estimated to be 0.5% to 5% of the population, in the US*), we’re talking about looking after ourselves.
When we look after ourselves, yes, we teach others how to care for us in the right way, naturally attracting those who want to and repelling those who don’t, but it goes so much deeper than that.
When you focus on being happy and healthy within, you reinforce your self-worth in your mind; you protect your energy; you protect your emotional stability, rewiring your brain accordingly; and you maintain focus on all that’s helpful to keep you progressing towards your all important goals, big and small.
Over time, you stop letting people take advantage of you. And you further make choices that are right for you, your time, your self-respect, you health, your happiness, and your evolution. Maxwell Maltz once said, ‘Man maintains his balance, poise, and sense of security only as he is moving forward.’ I agree, and by focusing on you and what makes you happy and healthy, you help keep that balance, poise, and sense of security as you progress through life.
In case you’re thinking – ‘But, Sam, what about the people who think hurting others makes them happy, should they use this principle too?’ – remember those taking pleasure in hurting others are not healthy, and they won’t be happy in the long run either, they may tell themselves they are, but they are not.
And ultimately, what goes around comes around. So you just focus on what makes you happy and healthy and by tuning into your visceral sensations and your intuition, you can work out what ‘feels good’ and what ‘feels bad’, helping signpost you to which decisions are the right decisions for you and which decisions are the wrong decisions for you.
Stay focused on you
It really doesn’t matter what people throw your way to lure you into doing what they want and being what they want you to be, if they make you ‘feel bad’, that’s only going to slow down your progress or send you several steps backwards. Life sometimes takes us backwards but we don’t need to give it a helping hand. That’s just more effort and time to travel towards your desired destinations. And. Time. Is. Precious.
What difference would it make to your life if you made this the year of you?
A year of:
✔ Not letting anyone take advantage of you
✔ Not giving your time to people who don’t appreciate it
✔ Not letting people use abuse tactics to mess with your happiness
✔ Not allowing people to disrespect you
✔ Not letting disagreements disrupt your focus
✔ Not letting other people’s chaos drag you into chaos
✔ Not enabling others to dictate what you should do and how you should do it
✔ Not allowing others to tell you how you should feel
And remember, these unwelcome disturbances and distractions can enter your life from various sources, both online and offline.
For example, they could be coming via social media, emails, well-meaning people turning up at your home, family members, frenemies, job offers, the local park you like to frequent, the gym you go to, and so on.
Ask yourself helpful questions
So as you think about your goals, think about these 4 things:
- how you want to feel,
- how you want people to make you feel,
- what you want to do,
- and what’s going to help, rather than hinder, you.
Happiness isn’t just a mindset, it is also the people in your life and the choices that you make. So imagine a year of you. A year of being happy and healthy within, and being authentic.
Where might it take you?
Who would you become?
What would you achieve?
And in order for that to happen, who and what needs to change and who needs to leave?
What to do next
Ponder the above and capture your thoughts and ideas in written form without judgement. If it pops into your head, write it down. You can delete items later.
Then develop plans from those thoughts and ideas that really resonate with you. And see where a year of you takes you.
Reference
* Mitra P, Fluyau D. Narcissistic Personality Disorder. [Updated 2021 May 18]. In: StatPearls [Internet]. Treasure Island (FL): StatPearls Publishing; 2021 Jan -. Available from: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK556001/
