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  • Walk your talk or what happens when you don’t follow your own advice

    Last month was quite a terrible one for me. I was sick almost three out of four weeks, lying in bed with a severe cold. Even more painful is the fact that I totally deserved it.

    Not because I was unusually rude or committed more sins than other people (based on the popular false assumptions that good things happen only to good people and bad things happen only to bad people), but simply because I made a series of stupid decisions. Very stupid decisions.

    I probably infringed on every advice that I blog about. Maybe not every single one, but certainly the main ones. Here are the four things I didn’t follow, even though I constantly preach about them, and that cost me three weeks of my life:

    Now let’s get to the story.

    Never go to war against yourself

    It’s so easy to become your own worst enemy

    I love all seasons except winter. It’s not that I don’t like snow or the holiday spirit, I simply can’t bear months of freezing temperatures and bad weather. The cold outside is like kryptonite to my body and immune system. That’s usually true for all highly sensitive people. That’s what I do know about myself.

    But knowing something about yourself and respecting it are two very different things. If I’m even more attentive to my health during the winter time, for example with less stress, warm clothes, staying on a healthy diet, not drinking alcohol and so on, I can survive just fine.

    Well, there is one more thing I must avoid at all costs: intensively exercising in cold temperatures. That’s exactly what I did. Not one time, but three times. By not respecting my limits, I became my worst enemy.

    It was a lovely sunny winter day outside. I really missed the outdoor training that I do all the other seasons. The temperatures were quite cold, but the sunny day attracted many people to go outside. Thus, I decided to go on a hike.

    While hiking, I got the idea to run uphill with the goal of doing proper HIIT training. I ran the desired distance, catching my breath but feeling extremely good and proud. Nevertheless, I knew that inhaling cold air so fast so many times in a row wasn’t good for my body. As simple as summing up one plus one, the next day I obviously woke up with a cold.

    Einstein - quote about insanity

    It took me five days to recover. I wasn’t even healthy for two days, when I did the same thing. I went running uphill. I simply needed it. I thought to myself: I just got over a cold, of course I’m not going to get sick again. I was wrong, because that’s exactly what happened. Wrong assumptions and stupid decisions always bring some kind of pain and suffering and in this case, they made me stay in bed for an additional week.

    To make a long story short, I did pretty much the same thing even the third time. The only difference was that I wasn’t running uphill, but performing an exercise with a bike. But again, I didn’t put limits on intensity, I didn’t listen to my body, and I didn’t respect the weaknesses I have.

    By not respecting my limits, I again became my worst enemy.

    In summary, I made three big mistakes that I usually manage to avoid and even help other people avoid them:

    • I didn’t stay flexible: I wanted to exercise in the same way I do the other three seasons. I just didn’t want to adjust my exercise regime, because who’s going to stop me, right?
    • I made a stupid decision in its own right: Reward was really small (a few additional calories burned and endorphins released), but the risks were huge (my health).
    • I did the same thing three times and somehow miraculously expected a different result. That’s the formal definition of insanity. I operated based on the wrong assumption with solid proof that I’m doing something stupid, but completely ignored the proof (hard core data).
    Big risks don't always bring big rewards
    Smart investors know the most important value investing concept: “Heads, I win! Tails, I don’t lose that much!” Small risks, big rewards. You should follow the same rule everywhere in life.

    But why?

    I guess the first important question is … but why?

    By nature, I’m quite an inflexible person. I like it when things are the way I want them, without any need to adjust. But I figured out quite soon that such a philosophy only leads to big setbacks, failures and suffering.

    That’s why I’ve spent years training myself how to be more flexible, and I blog about it. But from time to time, my old habits take over. Hopefully only as a good reminder of what I shouldn’t go back to.

    On a more positive side, I’m also quite a smart guy by nature. I can identify a stupid decision or wrong assumption very quickly. Deep down I knew I was taking a big risk with a small reward in play. I got the reward, but the risks didn’t pan out. I lost three weeks of my life. Three weeks that I will never get back; not to mention that being ill sucks a lot.

    After performing a short self-reflection, it quickly became obvious to me that the reward was much more than a few extra burned calories and a good workout. I needed fast recognition or approval. My monk mode was running out. I didn’t achieve everything that I had planned. My ego was kind of suffering. And performing an aerobic exercise that not many people can do (I’m fast at going uphill), was a good way to quickly prove myself to myself.

    My ego was suffering and pushed me into making a stupid decision. Three times. That’s why. Severe emotions, positive and negative, drive us to make stupid decisions if not under control. The less you know yourself, the less you reflect, the less you put your analytical skills to use, the more it happens on an unconscious level.

    There’s nothing wrong with feeling severe emotions. The problem arises when you are not the one managing your mind and emotions, but they are dictating your decisions and your life instead. My mistake in this case was that I didn’t already do the reflection the first time I went against myself. Don’t make the same mistake.

    Never go to war, especially with yourself.

    Nobody follows their own advice all the time

    My winter saga holds another important lesson. Don’t assume that people who write personal development articles and books follow their own advice all the time. Especially when the articles are named 50 things you should do to achieve [x].

    We are all humans, not robots. You must have realistic expectations towards life, yourself and others – including people who write self-help advice.

    I just gave you an example of how I didn’t follow my own advice. And that is just one example. I can give you a few additional ones, if you will. I lived without a car for a year. But still, on average once or twice per month I borrowed a car from my mother, brother or girlfriend because I needed it.

    I eat a very clean diet, but once per month you can see me having a pig-out day, stuffing my face in McDonalds. Sometimes I’m even scared that somebody will take a photo of me and call me a liar.

    You have to be very critical towards everything you read. I suggest you quickly categorize personal development articles into something like:

    • Author has extensive experience with the topic, it seems like s/he follows the advice most of the time. I should try to implement the same thing in my life and see if the solution also works for me.
    • Somebody put together a general article with all the possible advice on the topic. That can help me get new ideas for what to experiment with in my life, but I know that nobody can follow all the advice all the time.

    The main point is that you can easily feel frustrated after reading a few personal development articles. It might seem that everybody employs all the possible tools for improving their lives at the speed of light and that they follow an endless list of healthy habits and life wisdom. That’s very far from reality. Those are very unrealistic expectations towards others. Remember, even Jesus got mad.

    Walk your talk

    Make sure you walk your talk most of the time

    The last important point is: even though you can’t follow your own advice all the time, make sure you follow it most of the time. Let’s say “80 % and up” of the time. It’s easy to give advice and share wisdom. It’s hard to consistently follow that wisdom and navigate through life with strong values, unbreached integrity, and a smile on your face while achieving your goals.

    Actions prove who someone is. Words prove who they want to be.

    I once knew a person who loved to share life advice; and the advice was quite solid. But when I asked him why he’s giving advice he isn’t following himself, he replied: “I know they can be better than I am”. I think that was the most hypocritical and double-standard answer I ever heard.

    Follow these two simple rules when it comes to life advice:

    • Don’t be an askhole – An askhole is a person who constantly asks for advice, yet always does the opposite of what they’re advised. Ask for advice if you’re really prepared to change something in the situation you’re dealing with.
    • Walk your talk – Make sure that the advice you give is also the advice you follow and gives you the desired results. You have no right to preach to other people what to do, if you’re not following the same wisdom.

    Here is my blog post with a few more things to be careful about when asking for advice.

    It’s time to get back on track

    The third time I got sick, I had a really bad fever. I was sweating, hallucinating, and felt like my head was going to explode. When things don’t go as planned, feeling sorry for yourself is always a handy thing. And I felt sorry for myself, for a short period of time.

    The question, “why do I have to suffer this now” was going through my head, like there was some black-magic misfortune currently present in my life.

    But when I honestly answered the why question from a rational, not emotional perspective, it became very clear that in this case I was hit with disease only because I was inflexible, made a series of stupid decisions and didn’t respect my true self. Sometimes that’s all there is, without any actual bad luck.

    For me, everything was a good reminder to always walk my talk. Not doing so cost me three weeks of my life. It also led to me being behind with my blogging schedule. But now after the lesson has been learned it’s time to get back on track. Stronger than ever!

  • Please don’t criticize people – instead understand, love or mentor them

    It’s so easy to criticize other people, and so hard to give a single honest compliment. It’s so easy to see yourself in a good light and at the same time focus on imperfections of other people.

    But criticizing people is a complete lose-lose situation that only creates distance, spreads negative energies and causes tensions. Criticism is one of the worst kinds of negative thinking, talking and acting.

    If positive thoughts are creative thoughts of connecting, including, sharing and loving, then negative thinking is composed of thoughts and words (and consequently actions) that disconnect, exclude and spread hate.

    Since it’s impossible to live a positive life with a negative mind, it’s obvious why criticizing others is so unproductive and irrational. So let’s put a stop to it.

    Why do you love to criticize people?

    On a logical level, we probably all know that criticizing people brings no good to anybody. And yet we still do it. If you do it, that means it must bring you some kind of value or benefit. Well, it does in the short term. The benefits are of emotional nature, and emotions are most often stronger than logic.

    That means you must understand criticizing other people on an emotional level, to deal with it once and for all. So let’s analyze the most frequent reasons why we all love to criticize other people so much and have a hard time resisting it.

    There is no rational benefits in criticizing other people. But emotional short-term benefits (that quickly backfire) are always present.

    Criticism is not good

    You criticize people to create emotional distance

    We are often more kind to strangers than we are to our loved ones. Many couples, parents or siblings are very critical towards each other. Most often the emotional reason for that is to create distance in a relationship. Criticism is a great way to emotionally distance yourself from another person.

    Now, why would you want to do that? Well, because on the subconscious level you are afraid to be hurt or disappointed. Kids leave their nests, siblings can be more successful than you, your spouse might break your heart, and so on.

    By criticizing others and focusing on their imperfections, you can emotionally protect yourself at least a little bit (they’re sour grapes – more about that later).

    Understanding that leads us to only one important conclusion. It’s ridiculous to create distance by criticizing others. By criticizing you are ironically forcing them to hurt you sooner or later.

    Nobody likes to be criticized; and obviously nobody can hurt you more than your negative untamed mind can. Thus, there is no need to create distance, only to improve your thoughts, feeling of self-worth and turn critiques into praise.

    On the other hand, sometimes we even use criticism to create connections and closeness with other people. That is in cases when we look for a common enemy to consequently find common ground with somebody we like or can benefit from.

    But starting a relationship based on hate is absolutely not a good start. We’re only showing off what we are prepared to do to other people, just to get a little bit of attention and love. Negative energies always somehow escalate and backfire.

    You probably love to criticize other people because you were criticized a lot as a young person.

    You criticize people to feel better about yourself

    The second most frequent reason why people criticize others is to feel better about themselves. If someone’s success or personality is too shiny, it’s easy to throw dirt at it, and the shininess instantly loses its brightness. At least a little bit; in our eyes. What a relief. Not.

    It’s been statistically proven that we are very indulgent towards ourselves and much harsher and judging towards others. We have double standards to protect our egos.

    If somebody is better in something important to us or owns something we want or outruns us in a competition, we must quickly find all the reasons why they aren’t as good as they appear; otherwise we feel humiliated.

    You criticize other people because you envy them

    Criticizing others to feel better about yourself and criticizing out of envy are closely connected motives. They are a slightly different tones of the same voice. Let me explain.

    It’s in our genes to hate unfairness. And when somebody gets something we want in a very unfair way, or when we feel life was unfair to us and kind to others, brutally strong feelings of envy arise.

    Examples of situations that usually make us envious, because life is unfair:

    • A friend gets lucky and earns much more money, much more easily than we do
    • A parent shows more attention to a sibling than to us
    • A coworker gets promoted, but we obviously deserve the promotion more
    • A colleague is talented and doesn’t have to work so hard to be good at a certain sport
    • We offer much better support to our kids than we had, but it seems they don’t appreciate it
    • We can find many similar situations

    All these situations are very unfair. Well, life can be extremely unfair sometimes and that hurts. We protect ourselves with many different rationalization mechanisms. We protect ourselves with self‑delusion.

    “Sour grapes” and “sweet lemons” are two very frequent rationalization mechanisms. With self-deception, you make things that you want but don’t have less desirable (sour grapes) and things that you do have but are not that important to you more desirable (sweet lemons).

    Criticizing others is absolutely a way to make grapes less sweet – to make other people’s accomplishments less worthy, to make relationships less important, and what other people have irrelevant.

    In a way, we could say that criticizing others is often an easy way to express frustrations and other negative emotions. But criticizing other people or complaining won’t help. Only a superior life strategy and going into action to improve your life will.

    Keep a positive attitude, make a lemonade out of lemons

    You don’t accept that people have different levels of capabilities

    Very capable and highly organized people usually have zero tolerance towards less capable people. They very strictly judge and criticize others when they do something wrong or don’t meet their standards. I used to be one of them (and still am a little bit).

    The reason behind that is that usually these people were severely judged in their upbringing. Consequently, they set extremely high demands for themselves and others. It’s an internalized judging voice of parents that haunts you (inner critic) and is also directed towards others (outer critic).

    In such a mental model, we don’t realize that people have different capabilities. We don’t take into account that people have different levels of experience, competence and that maybe not all were raised to high perfectionist standards.

    That doesn’t mean you must lower your standards, but criticizing others is rarely the way that leads to improved performance of other people. It sooner leads to hate than improvement.

    Criticism is an indirect form of self-boasting. – Emmet Fox

    A complete lose-lose situation

    Nobody gains anything from criticizing. The other person feels devaluated. It creates distance and decreases capacity for love. With criticism, you easily spread the negative energy around and destroy other people’s days.

    People rarely listen to criticism, even if it’s justified, and they don’t try to improve themselves. Instead they take it personally and then avoid you, cut you out of their lives or criticize you back.

    With criticism, you might feel a little bit better about yourself and your ego might feel a bit safer, but at what price? You are doing damage to relationships, your mental health (negative thoughts) and you are trampling the other person’s potential and provoke their inner peace.

    You are pushing people away from your life. You are depriving yourself and others of love. That is a huge price to pay for feeling a little better about yourself in the short term.

    Sometimes you criticize people to help them, sometimes to hurt them. In both cases, you are doing damage to yourself and other people. There are better ways to help others or your ego and feeling of self-worth.

    Transforming criticism into more constructive thoughts, words and actions

    Now that you know the real problems and cause of criticism, let’s look at a few solutions for transforming criticism into more constructive thoughts, words and actions. There is the long-term, harder way to deal with the desire to criticize people, and a few short-term shortcuts and hacks.

    The long-term way is all about developing better self-esteem and self-worth, and a greater capacity for love. When you love yourself more, you can truly start loving others; and consequently you can stop criticizing them at every step they make. If you don’t feel threatened, there is no need to criticize.

    With higher self-esteem, there is no need to create so much distance in relationships or trample others. Because you know your high worth and you know you will survive and be fine (maybe even thrive), it doesn’t matter if somebody is better than you or that they might emotionally hurt you some day in the future.

    The best short-term way to deal with criticism is to use the “switch” approach. You switch from a bad habit (criticism) to a good one (praise).

    In practical terms, that means that every time you want to criticize a person, you bite your tongue (really hard) and do the following – mentor the person, find something to compliment, try to understand why the person is acting as they are, or make a conscious decision to mind your own business.Transform criticism

    Rather than criticize, show people how to do things

    Every time you want to criticize somebody because they didn’t meet your standards, show them how to do things better – mentor them. Just say, you did an excellent job (or parts of it); I have several additional ideas, let me show you …

    Or use the sandwich technique. Find something to compliment in their work, then show them what and how to do better, and end your talk by praising the person again. And if you roll your eyes while showing other people how to improve, you’re doing it wrong.

    Besides that, be careful when showing people how to do things. Make sure that your way really is more efficient, effective, profitable or better in a certain important standard. There are many ways how to achieve the same goal, and who says your way really is the best.

    If you don’t have data or metrics as a proof that your way is the right one or if you aren’t sharing small tricks of industry masters, maybe you are the one who can learn something from the other person.

    Rather than criticize, show respect or mind your own business

    Every time you want to criticize others with the goal of dirtying their shiny success or luck, bite your tongue and instead find a way to even deepen the relationship with that person. Find a way to develop a new dimension.

    If their success is based on hard work, just think of what you can learn from them. Ask them if they are prepared to mentor you or give you some tips to be more successful.

    If you envy them their (unjust) luck, well, it won’t help you with your luck in life in any way. Rather than drowning in envy and criticism, brainstorm how you can get luckier in life. Do it based on the quote: the harder and smarter I work, the luckier I get. As an alternative, you can also think of all the things that you have and are grateful for.

    Other people’s luck doesn’t mean your misfortune, if you have the abundance mindset. Life is not a zero sum game. Wealth and luck can always be created. With the abundance mindset, you know that sooner or later, you will also get lucky, as long as you stay proactive and positive enough.

    Be happy when other people are struck by luck, and while you are happy, mind your own business and mind your own luck.

    Any fool can criticize, condemn, and complain but it takes character and self-control to be understanding and forgiving. – Dale Carnegie

    Praise or show empathy rather than criticize

    Last but not least, every time you want to criticize someone’s personality, instead find something to praise. If you manage to achieve 7 compliments for every critique, you will dramatically improve your relationships with others and with yourself.

    The same millisecond you think of a critique make sure you don’t say it and start searching for something to praise.

    • If a person’s extroversion bothers you, find something they’re wearing that you can compliment
    • If a person’s negativity bothers you, find something that they did well and tell them
    • If a person’s pimple in the middle of their face bothers you, find a body part you like on them and focus on that

    Physical traits, character, competences, there are so many different things you can compliment – if you just invest a little bit of effort. Remember, you are criticizing others to create distance, protect your ego, and because you are a hard judge towards yourself.

    Once you stop being hard on others and focus on their positive traits, you will also focus on positive things on yourself. Consequently, you will develop greater self-confidence and capacity for love. You will become more tolerant towards yourself and towards others. What a blessing.

    One more extremely powerful weapon against criticism is empathy. First, let’s define what empathy is. You mustn’t confuse it with sympathy or support. Sympathy means having the capacity to feel the same way as somebody else. Acting in a tender, understanding manner and standing by their side is a form of support. They are both useful, but not as powerful as empathy.

    Empathy means being able to precisely understand other people’s thoughts and actions, and where their actions and behaviors are coming from. When you deeply understand the context, you know the motives and what is really going on in a certain life situation. Then there is no need to criticize, only to forgive, understand or find a way to fix things.

    By developing empathy, you become more tolerant and respect the diversity that life has to offer. Maybe you would be or act the same if you had the exact same life circumstances. Understand, mentor, or develop new relationship dimensions and forget about criticizing.

    When you judge others, you do not define them, you define yourself. – Earl Nightingale

    Don't criticize people

    Concluding thoughts on criticism

    Openly criticizing anyone, or even doing it behind their back, is very destructive behavior that spreads misery in your life and the life of people who surround you. It’s impossible to live a happy and successful life with a negative mind and by spreading negative energies.

    There are better ways to operate in relationships than criticizing. There are ways to transform the desire for criticism into subtler energies and more constructive actions.

    You transform criticism into more positive energies, words and actions, by making sure that:

    • You understand there are many ways to achieve the same thing, and maybe yours is not the best.
    • If you know a better way, show people how to do it, don’t criticize them.
    • If something bothers you on a person, it’s usually something you don’t like about yourself; or you need to understand their context and life circumstances better.
    • With self-delusion of how you are better than others, you won’t get far in improving your life situation. Only with self-improvement, by minding your own business and working hard you can become luckier and happier.
    • You have to be little to belittle others. Thus criticizing others only shows you have to work on your feeling of self-worth and self-esteem.
    • Severely criticizing others means you are creating distance in relationships and that you have a low capacity for love. Ironically, you are forcing people into behavior that you’re afraid will happen to you. Stop it.

    The moment you start excluding others, creating distance and spreading negative energies, switch your thinking and acting to a more positive one. The same millisecond you want to criticize, switch to and ignite thoughts of connecting, sharing, love, praise, tolerance, compassion and empathy.

    That’s how you will deal with your inner and outer critics once and for all. Because when you develop tolerance towards others, you will develop tolerance towards yourself.

  • The best tools for successful conflict resolution in personal relationships

    Every single relationship is also a bit of a power struggle. Most often the struggle is very subtle and goes unnoticed. These are all the times when you’re making small compromises, looking for common ground, gently testing the boundaries and exchanging superficial thoughts and opinions – selecting a place to eat, a movie to watch or gossiping about a third person.

    But from time to time, the power struggle escalates. At the end of the day, you can’t agree with everyone on everything and you can’t always find common ground. The bigger the differences in goals, opinions, beliefs, interests, values, ideas, motivations or desires, especially the ones that are very important to you, the fiercer the conflict usually is. Conflicts become especially strong when you take something personally or when relationship boundaries are seriously breached.

    If that happens to you often, don’t assume you are the unlucky exception. Conflicts, big or small, are a normal part of every healthy relationship. If there are no (properly managed) conflicts in a relationship, the relationship is definitely a superficial or toxic one.

    So thinking about how to avoid or run away from every single conflict isn’t the right strategy. It not only prevents a relationship from developing more dimensions, it also hinders your relationship assertiveness and proactivity. It makes you a coward.

    The right direction is to develop superior conflict resolution skills instead. It’s one of the best skills to have to enjoy healthy relationships. If you have no such skills, a conflict can quickly be mismanaged, and a relationship can get seriously damaged.

    On the other hand, if you develop good conflict resolutions skills, every conflict becomes an opportunity for strengthening the bond between two people and making the relationship even deeper; because you open up. Think about how unique and deep make-up sex can be.

    My whole life has been spinning around conflicts and power struggle. In my family home, when I was managing a VC fund, dealing with politicians and in numerous cases when I decided to kick things out of the status quo a little bit (I love to do that a lot).

    So I’ve learned a lot about conflict resolution and in this blog post, I want to share with you my thoughts and experiences that may help you improve your conflict resolution skills as well and consequently develop deeper bonds with the key people in your life. Because I may deal with conflicts a lot, but I also always enjoyed really deep relationships in my life.

    Conflict resolution stratagies

    Your options after a fight are quite limited

    After a big fight, you don’t have many options. Actually, there are only five options to choose from:

    1. You can decide to terminate the relationship or at least put it on hold (termination)
    2. You can pretend that there is no conflict and become more and more passive-aggressive (lying to yourself and others)
    3. You can openly punish the person and pour gasoline on fire (competition, fight, avoidance, ignorance)
    4. You can fawn and yield to the other person and betray yourself
    5. You can try to fix the relationship as soon as possible (collaboration, compromise, negotiation)

    If the fight was too big, if someone violated the relationship boundaries really bad, you have every right to terminate the relationship. Sometimes that’s the best thing to do, especially in cases of toxic relationships where the same damaging patterns are repeating themselves.

    You have every right to terminate a relationship that isn’t working. If you do that, there is no need for conflict resolution. Just don’t confuse avoidance and ignorance with terminating a relationship and letting things go.

    The second thing you can do is to fight. You can decide to compete, to overpower and go for a win-lose situation. Sometimes that is necessary. Sometimes going for a fight is what you have to do.

    I saw that numerous times when the second or third employee in a business left the company and started a competing business. Again in such cases, there is no need for conflict resolution, you just have to make sure that you win. It’s kind of a similar situation if you decide to yield and kneel, you just don’t fight but submit and so there is no need for conflict resolution.

    But cases where terminations, submissions and fights are the only options are quite rare. They do happen, people can do all kinds of unbelievably damaging things, like cheating, stealing, being abusive etc. (actually, we all behave stupid from time to time), but they aren’t a part of everyday life; as long as you aren’t living in a war-zone, prison, toxic family or any other kind of hostile environment and if your relationships are healthy at least to a certain extent.

    The most often scenario in interpersonal conflicts is the one, where you should successfully solve the conflict as soon as possible, but you rather play power struggle games. Punishment games.

    That’s when conflict resolution skills are really needed, because any kind of punishment destroys trust in relationships. It’s the opposite of successful conflict resolution. It’s a big waste of time, energy and it destroys the relationship’s “wealth” or value. So the best option you have, when there is no need to fight or terminate a relationship, is to try to resolve the conflict as soon as possible.

    Ignoring each other

    Any kind of punishment destroys everything you’ve built in a relationship

    Every relationship is like a mutual bank account. By doing something good for a relationship, you put money into the bank account. By doing something bad for a relationship, you withdraw money from the relationship bank account.

    Every relationship bank account can be full of money, barely above water, in negative numbers or even bankrupt. A lot of “money” or “wealth” means relationship happiness, low numbers lead to low quality of the relationship.

    Examples of investments in the relationship bank account are spending time with somebody, going on a nice trip together, doing somebody a favor etc. Examples of withdrawals from the relationship bank account are all the things like cheating, lying, not keeping your promises etc.

    Even if it might seem so on the first glance, conflicts aren’t withdrawals yet. Mismanaged conflicts turn into withdrawals from the relationship bank account. Properly managed conflicts can be an investment, assuming that relationship boundaries weren’t seriously breached.

    That’s because properly managed conflicts can deepen the relationship bond. They present an opportunity to open up and forge a deeper bond. And conflicts that get out of hand (aka when severe punishment is happening) always cause destruction in relationships.

    Here are examples of the most frequent punishments that lead to mishandled conflicts:

    • Aggressive reactions – physical or verbal abuse, explosiveness, loss of temper
    • Passive-aggressive reactions – silence, creating distance, becoming unreliable, rejection, isolation
    • Devaluing relationship – sarcasm, cynicism, criticizing, shaming, focusing only on the negative
    • Revenge, eye-for-an-eye thinking and similar destructive behaviors

    Here is the thing. In the relationship bank account, the same rule applies as it does to the money one – it’s so easy to spend money and it’s so hard to save it. It’s so easy to punish someone or lose temper and so hard to invest energy into successful conflict resolution. But at the end of the day, that’s what makes the difference between wealthy and poor people in whichever context, the money or the relationship one. Wealthy people do the hard things.

    So when you want to do additional damage in a relationship with punishment after a fight, ask yourself, why would you further destroy something you’ve been building (for months or years), why would you destroy the key wealth and value you have in your life? Relationships are one important part of the wealth you have, so chose the hard path, the asap resolution path.

    You don’t just throw the computer out of the window when an error occurs; because you know it has value. The most important relationships in your life are even more valuable. So do the opposite from any kind of punishment. Decide to resolve a conflict as quickly as possible.

    Well, fast doesn’t necessary means too fast. Resolving a conflict as quickly as possible has certain limitations, because you don’t want to do it superficially. Here are the exact steps to follow, which will absolutely lead you to successfully resolving a conflict:

    1. Avoid all-or-nothing thinking
    2. Wait for the emotional charge to neutralize
    3. Really understand what’s happening behind the scenes
    4. Forget mind reading, honest communication is the key
    5. Decide to show respect to the other person
    6. Don’t preach and make sure that the conversation is balanced
    7. Focus on a specific behavior that bothers you and your feelings
    8. Take a timeout if things get heated again
    9. Sometimes you have to agree to disagree
    10. Some conflicts simply can’t be resolved

    Avoid all-or-nothing thinking at all costs

    My personal biggest obstacle in successful conflict resolution in close relationships was always all‑or‑nothing thinking. For me, relationships were either perfect or nothing.

    I was so happy and thankful for having someone in my life when things were perfect, and then after a small quarrel, the value of the relationship went straight to zero. Then things went back to perfect again after the conflict passed and soon back to zero, and so I was oscillating on an emotionally heavy roller coaster.

    It took me quite a while to understand that life is never black and white. That all-or-nothing thinking is a very toxic cognitive distortion. There is no perfect relationship. If you want to have a healthy relationship with anyone, you have to accept turbulent times as well as happy times.

    There is, of course, a line to draw where there is no going back or when there is just too much drama, but you still have to make sure that your emotional reaction in a quarrel is not out of proportion and that it doesn’t lead you to damaging the relationship even further.

    Therefore, before we even go to successful conflict resolution, have realistic expectations regarding relationships. You can’t properly manage conflicts if every disagreement you have in life takes a relationship from everything to nothing.

    Neutralize the emotional charge

    If you want to successfully resolve a conflict, you have to first neutralize the emotional charge – on your side. Actually, it has to be neutralized on both sides. Take your time to calm down. Go for a walk. Take a few deep breaths. But that doesn’t mean you can’t immediately mitigate potential damage.

    Agree with the other person to take time for emotions to calm down, but also agree to meet and resolve the conflict as soon as possible. Show your good intentions that you want to keep the relationship alive and that everything will be okay, things just need to calm down and then you’ll talk about it.

    Humor is a good way to neutralize the emotional charge. Try to squeeze a small smile out of yourself, even though you are drowning in negative feelings, and explain the plan – let’s take a day or two for things to calm down and then we’ll have an honest talk. If you don’t do that, mind reading will come into play on both sides, and mind reading usually makes things much worse.

    Mind reading

    Forget about any mind reading

    If you don’t immediately agree that you will both put the energy into resolving a conflict, mind reading games will take place. And trust me, your mind can take you to some very dark places – from fantasies about worst case scenarios and exaggerating about how the other person is feeling, to dreaming about potential revenge options and magnifying all the negatives and minimizing the positive aspects of the relationship.

    You don’t know how the other person feels and what the other person thinks. Don’t try to be a fortuneteller and read minds. It doesn’t work. You are only assuming and you can be assuming wrong.

    So you want to open honest communication as soon as possible, not base your actions purely on your assumptions. Wrong assumptions are the mother of all fuckups and if you act based on them, you can only make everything worse.

    When you immediately agree to resolve the conflict somewhere in the nearby future, there is nothing to fantasize about, because you already know what the next step will be – finding a solution and getting back on good terms. If you manage to do that (and it does take some guts) the conflict already hit the bottom and things can only go upwards after that.

    Really understand what’s happening behind the scenes

    There are two types of conflicts –intellectual and emotional. Intellectual conflicts almost always have an obvious root cause. One person thinks A and the other person thinks the opposite or sees things differently in some way. Then you have to make compromises, find out-of-the-box win-win scenarios and new solutions, or at least develop empathy towards different opinions.

    Emotional conflicts almost always have a deeper meaning. Usually you are fighting about one thing, but the root cause of the problem is something completely else. For example, in an intimate relationship you are fighting over whether the toilet seat should be up or down, but that is rarely the true reason for the conflict. Usually the real reason is that somebody feels neglected or some other deeper needs aren’t being met.

    You can analyze with 5 Whys what really upset you or the other person so much, and make sure that you really understand what’s happening behind the curtains of the conflict. Look for changes in relationship patterns, like:

    • What could be the person afraid of or angry about?
    • Is there any big change that is causing stress (moving to a new place or offices, changing a job, illnesses, changes in market trends etc.)?
    • Which things are different in a relationship than they were a week or month ago and how (how much quality time you spend together, are there new people present in social circles, are there new interests and desires that you are aware of etc.)?
    • Are there changes in how much you or the other person is investing into the relationship?
    • Were there any wrong assumptions present in the relationship from one side or the other or was something not communicated clearly?
    • Is there a transference, projection or emotional flashback happening?

    The first step is to take the time for an emotional charge to lose its power. Then you analyze what could be the real issue and what the fight is all about, while you avoid any mind reading. Please be careful about the difference. Mind reading is your mind going crazy and acting purely out of your ego assumptions.

    A thorough analysis is something completely different. It’s a reflection about potential issues that are causing the conflict, while being aware of which parts of the analysis are only your assumptions and what are the facts. And even more, an analysis is about finding the right starting points for an honest talk. Following up on the honest talk should be your next step. But there are a few rules of how to have an honest talk.

    Dont fight

    Always show respect to the other person

    The emotional charge should be gone by now, but you still might be a little bit angry, sorrowful, upset or hostile. Thus you have to consciously agree with yourself that you will show respect to the other person no matter what.

    You must have an active constructive approach to the honest talk. That means no name‑calling, sarcasm, cynicism or labeling. You have to follow the basic rules of good communication. There is no quality relationship without mutual respect. That’s your start.

    Always respect basic human rights. Everybody has the right to be treated with respect, to make autonomous decisions and to not listen to your advice or overtake your values. Everyone has the right to their own beliefs, values, opinions, preferences and feelings. As do you. Be tolerant and respect that.

    Challenge yourself to find the good and beautiful thing inside of everyone. It’s there. It’s your job to find it. Not their job to show you. Mark Manson

    Don’t preach, let the conversation be balanced

    I love to preach. I love to judge, aggressively explain my convictions for hours and argue how I am right (fortunately, I’m doing that less and less). But here’s the thing. Nobody likes to be preached to. Even if people pretend that they are listening and agreeing with you, they are usually not. That was a big epiphany for me one day, and you won’t believe where – in a church.

    I was raised as a catholic. And I always loved reading and listening to different views and opinions. So I always listened to priests preaching and then thought about what they were saying, why they were saying it and if it made any sense.

    After the mass, I always wanted to debate with people what was the sermon all about. And I figured out that nobody really listened. Nobody had a clue or they had at most a vague idea of what the priest was talking about. I provoked dozens of people, young and old. Same response. Huh?

    People don’t like to be preached to. So explain your view, emphasize especially how you feel and why you feel like you do (explain your values), make sure you are understood and then listen. The conversation must always be balanced. Don’t preach and don’t interrupt the other person.

    When solving a conflict, focus on behaviors, feelings, values and solutions

    During the honest recovery talk, don’t criticize the person and avoid “you” statements. Successful conflict resolution is not about playing the blame game, but about directing energy towards potential solutions. So focus on a specific behavior that bothers you and explain your feelings and experience connected to it.

    Show your vulnerability. That’s how you create a safe zone for an honest talk. Explain your view through values and have radical candor. Suggest a few solutions and keep your mind open. That is the recipe for having a successful and honest talk that leads to conflict resolution.

    It’s hard to achieve that. You have to open up and constantly keep your feelings in check. Your mind will try to slip back into the blame game, protecting your ego and minimize the value of the relationship. But you are stronger, you are smarter.

    • You can turn anytime again against the other person (expressing your feelings in an unhealthy way)
    • You can turn anytime against yourself (stifling your negative feelings)
    • You can express your feelings in a healthy way and find a solution. Which one will it be?

    Timeout

    The timeout

    Since it’s not easy to always keep your feelings in check, there is one more tool you need. The timeout. In case a discussion gets too heated, agree that anyone can call a timeout. When someone calls the timeout, you just have to agree when to continue with the conversation.

    My girlfriend and I always use the timeout strategy when the negative emotional charge gets too strong. When one of us calls a timeout, we immediately stop with any kind of action, words or unproductive non-verbal communication. We wait for things to calm down and then we continue with conflict resolution.

    If every sports game has a timeout to cool down the heat, you deserve to have a timeout in your relationships when communication isn’t going in the right direction.

    Sometimes it’s okay to agree to disagree

    Much like you shouldn’t have unrealistic expectations that relationships are only a bed of roses, so you shouldn’t have wrong expectations that after a conflict, you always have to find a position where you both completely agree with the new common perspective.

    Sometimes you just have to agree to disagree. If that’s emotionally okay with both parties, it can be a “win-win” situation.

    It’s not like one person is always right and the other person is wrong. You can both be right, or you can even both be wrong. Thus it’s sometimes completely okay to agree to disagree. The main point of conflict resolution is that the trust doesn’t get damaged and that there are no heavy emotional knots in the relationship, growing into big emotional balloons that burst sooner or later.

    Some conflicts simply can’t be resolved

    Last but not least, some relationship conflicts can’t be resolved; or it doesn’t make sense to resolve them. It takes around 90 – 120 days for a relationship culture to get established; assuming that two individuals spend enough time together in person. After that, every relationship unfolds more or less by specific patterns.

    The longer a certain pattern lasts, the harder it is to change it. And in every relationship, there are healthy and unhealthy patterns. We can further divide unhealthy patterns into tolerable and intolerable ones. The main idea of a pattern is its repetition. So if an intolerable pattern starts to occur and can’t be stopped, any further investment in a relationship is probably futile or leads to even more damage.

    Cheating, physical violence, verbal abuse, threats, drugs and many similar extreme toxic behaviors have a tendency to repeat themselves (much like good relationship patterns do). So you must be extremely careful to set very straight and strict boundaries in relationships.

    Once they are crossed, or the second time they happen at most, think twice before resolving the conflict and repeating the same scenario again from the beginning. You aren’t here to save people in relationships, you are here to enjoy relationships.

    Successful conflict resolution

    Your toolbox for successful conflict resolution

    Now you have the toolbox to successfully resolve conflicts. I’m completely sure that you already intuitively knew 90 % of the things discussed in this article; or even more. But it’s not about knowing it, it’s about practicing it.

    If you are currently in the middle of a conflict with anyone, you know what to do. Send a message, drop an e-mail or call the person to set a date to have an honest resolution talk. Assuming that deep down, you hope to resolve the conflict.

    And if you aren’t currently in any conflict, you know what to do the next time you encounter one. Commit yourself to handle a conflict at least a bit differently, slightly more constructive than how you usually handle it.

    Homework

    There are many options how you can do that. To repeat them:

    • Do the opposite from the aggressive, passive-aggressive or any other type of toxic action after a conflict occurs.
    • Immediately agree to solve the conflict somewhere in the nearby future (it takes guts to do that, but it feels good) and take time for the negative emotional charge to pass.
    • Don’t let your mind take you into dark places with all-or-nothing thinking or fortunetelling.
    • Practice empathy and try to analyze what’s happening behind the scenes. Use the 5 Whys technique, self-reflection, and analyze if you or the other person might be in an emotional flashback.
    • Always show respect. That is your starting point. In intimate relationships, love is lust and respect.
    • Let the conversation be balanced, don’t preach, and focus on behaviors, values and solutions.
    • If the conversation gets too heated, call a timeout. Also use the same tool the first time a conflict occurs, if things are going completely in the wrong direction.
    • Look for win-win solutions, find new creative standpoints. If you don’t find any of that, agree to disagree and continue to enjoy the relationship. The key thing is not to damage the trust, to open yourself, show your vulnerability and see a conflict as an opportunity to deepen any relationship.

  • The proven ways to stop taking things personally

    You were just badly insulted. You’re raging inside. You need to talk to somebody immediately. You call your best friend, explain the crappy thing that happened to you, and their wise words to calm you down are: “Just don’t take it personally”.

    Right after that, you can hear solid statements and arguments like: it’s not about you, it’s about them, you can’t control what other people think or say, you need to have thick skin in life, and even that what others think of you is none of your business. That’s all well and good, but it still hurts.

    Why is that? Because when you take things personally, you’re emotionally hurt and offended. A wise rational statement may help you a little bit, but it’s far from enough. Taking things personally is about emotions, not logic.

    What you have to do is to dig a little bit deeper into your emotions and personality to uncover the source of why you’re really taking that specific situation personally. Only then can you detach yourself from the negative situation.

    In this article, you will learn how to really stop taking things personally. So let’s start digging deep into the emotional reasons of why sometimes cheeky words hurt much more than usual. Here they are:

    • Deep down, you agree with the critique
    • You experience an emotional flashback
    • You perceive being treated unfairly in the situation
    • You may feel excluded
    • You have unrealistic expectations

    Feeling offended

    Deep down, you agree with the critique

    The first and most frequent reason why you take something personally is because deep down, you silently agree with the person who is criticizing you. If you have no doubt in yourself and in what you’re doing, and if you know that the hater is only delusional, you have no problem to just move on.

    But if deep inside you, there is just a small sliver of doubt, a single thought that they might be right, it will hurt you and you’ll go straight into a defensive and crying mode.

    Losing your temper is always an indicator of a core that isn’t solid enough. Losing your temper shows that there are doubts present.

    Actually, there are three scenarios when you can silently agree with a critic:

    • What they’re saying is true and there’s nothing you can do about it.
    • What they’re saying is true and you know it, because you follow the “fake it until you make it” philosophy or you are work in progress.
    • What they’re saying is not true but you just aren’t self-confident enough.

    The critic is right and you can’t or won’t do anything about it

    The first situation is the hardest somehow. Let’s say that somebody insults you that you’re fat and it’s true. You only have two options. Change it, which leads us to the second bullet point. Or accept it. If you are bald or short on the other hand you can only accept it.

    When you learn to accept reality as it is, you can’t take it personally anymore. So in such cases the only thing you can do to stop taking things personally is to accept reality, move on and focus on the positive.

    But it’s easier to say that than to do it. Sometimes the mantra “to forget is the next best thing to forgiveness” might help. And more about accepting reality in one of the following blog posts.

    • Solution: It’s time to accept the harsh reality; or if there is something you can do about it, start improving.

    When you are work in progress

    If you find yourself in the second situation (when you are work in progress), you need to have a vision and a mission greater than any life problems or any hurtful words a hater can say.

    You have to trust in the process of hard and smart work, see how you’re constantly improving, and be aware that you’re a work in progress. You can ease the pain by looking at the list of your past accomplishments, things that you’re grateful for or at life metrics that clearly show your progress. Ease the pain, but don’t engage in a fight. If you engage in a fight with a hater, only more pain waits for you.

    Never wrestle with pigs. You get dirty, and besides, the pig likes it. George B. Shaw

    If the critique is justified from a boss or somebody you respect and it hurts, you can ask for a clarification and make an action plan of how you will do better in the future. Having the growth mindset and a desire to improve yourself is the way to go in such a situation. If you have the growth mindset you can’t take things personally, because you know you can easily improve and that effort is the road to mastery.

    • Solution: Compare a critique to your improvements and have a vision stronger than any problem.

    When you only lack self-confidence

    In the last case, if what they’re saying is entirely false but you have doubts, there is an easy exercise you can do that will wash away the pain immediately.

    Make a list why you don’t agree with their statement. It will help you see the objective truth, trust more in yourself and distance yourself from the comment. Such a list will also help you build up your self-confidence.

    • Solution: Make a list why you don’t agree with the statement that you’ve taken personally.

    You experience an emotional flashback

    The next most frequent reason for taking things personally is that you experience an emotional flashback when somebody criticizes you, doesn’t agree with you or shows you no support.

    An emotional flashback is when a current life situation reminds you of past traumatic life experiences, especially from your early childhood. Maybe your parents constantly criticized you or they abandoned you, and now in the adult age a single small critique reminds you of all the past emotional pain.

    All the past pain combined together can erupt like a volcano in such situations. Then you may ask yourself how could such a small thing upset you so much.

    Emotional flashbacks aren’t an easy thing to deal with. The first thing you have to do is to become aware of them. You can do that with the following exercise:

    • Ask yourself: is your emotional response proportional to the critique? I guess if somebody pokes you a little bit, it doesn’t make sense to completely lose your temper and destroy an otherwise nice day.
    • Ask yourself: of whom or of what thing from your youth does the situation remind you? Don’t censor your thoughts, note the first thing that comes to your mind. It should be something like “My mother always criticized me, and now this.”

    Becoming aware of emotional flashbacks will somewhat disarm the tendency to take things personally. But to completely wipe out such emotional flashbacks, it’s necessary for you to do hard work on your mindset.

    You can do many different mind upgrades on your own, but sometimes professional therapy is the way to go. Analyzing emotional flashbacks will also help you understand what easily pushes your buttons.

    What are you saying?

    You perceive being treated unfairly in the situation

    There is one thing we hate the most. We hate it in our bones, every internal organ and in every situation possible. We hate being treated unfairly. We hate unfairness.

    If you weren’t treated properly as a child and in your youth, the judgment towards unfairness is even stronger – because it’s combined with an emotional flashback.

    If somebody criticizes you, you can very quickly see it as unfair. You fight for something, you put in all the hard work, long hours and all the effort, and then some unimportant hater dares to throw mud at you and diminish your efforts. That is so unfair. Injustice – what we hate the most.

    Well, in reality it’s not. You must become aware that you aren’t being treated unfairly. Haters are a fact of life. They’re a byproduct of success. They always existed and they always will. You have to start dealing with them the moment you go above the average. No exceptions. Everybody has to and there are many reasons for that:

    • There may be a clash of interests
    • People have different values
    • People have many personal issues or act based on stereotypes
    • Many people might envy you
    • Bad communication is a frequent reason for haters
    • Some people are just assholes

    Just go to a few blogs, YouTube or Facebook pages of public figures and you’ll immediately see a ton of hateful comments. No matter the industry, no matter how good the cause it is, there are always haters present. You aren’t alone in this game, so don’t see it as unfairness towards you.

    There is a saying haters gonna hate. There are many reasons why somebody might not agree with you or wants to engage in a fight with you. Everyone has their own opinions based on their belief system and there’s nothing wrong with that.

    It’s impossible for everybody to have a belief system where they like you and adore you.

    If you encounter people who are against you, that doesn’t mean that life is treating you unfairly. That only means you stood up for something important and that people with different belief systems who have poor communication skills exist and can’t express their opinion in any other way than insulting you. Nothing else. So don’t take it personally.

    You’re probably doing the same to other people, just in a subtler and more civilized way. If you’re trying to change other people, that means you don’t really like them as they are.

    Your belief system is different from theirs, and you have different values and preferences. That’s why you’re trying to change them. Luckily, there is a level above not agreeing with people in a respectful manner and trying to change them – accepting people as they are. I practice that a lot.

    You may feel excluded

    We are social beings. As such we need to belong. We can’t survive alone. We can’t succeed alone. So if somebody tries to exclude you from a social group, there is no other way but to take it personally. Again, it can be mixed with an emotional flashback, if you didn’t feel accepted at home. A few decades ago that might have been a big problem, but today it’s not.

    All you need is the abundance mindset. You have to see that there are so many different social groups, clubs, associations, meet-ups, hobby gatherings etc., that you should have no problem finding a few social groups where you completely fit in.

    Usually the only obstacle preventing you from finding the right fit for yourself in different social groups is laziness, fear and a desire to stay in the comfort zone. Don’t hope for others to change. Don’t hope that the world will change to be more to your liking just because of your ego. Find people where mutual respect is present and where you can shine.

    Your environment matters a lot. And being who you are matters a lot. Don’t take it personally if you don’t fit somewhere, instead find a group of people who will accept you with wide open hands and hearts. Don’t be a nerd trying hard to fit in with the cheerleaders. And don’t be Penny trying to become a nerd.

    Much like it goes for social groups, so it goes for individual relationships. You’re the one choosing your key relationships in life. So choose them wisely. Don’t spend time with people who don’t support you, believe you and encourage you to become the best version of yourself.

    You have unrealistic expectations

    One more source of taking things personally are unrealistic expectations, especially regarding relationships. In life, you must never go against markets or human nature.

    There is a saying that relationships are like glass, but the glass is already broken. There is no perfect individual and there is no perfect relationship. People lie, people cheat, they try to control you and manipulate you. Usually they hurt you because they themselves are hurt or afraid.

    But it doesn’t matter, these are all the things that happen in a relationship. They aren’t an exception; they’re more of a rule. And strangers aren’t the ones doing them. People you like, people you love and work with will do that to you.

    Many times, you act the same way towards others. That’s the reality of life that you have to accept if you don’t want to take things personally. Like you have to accept your flaws and learn to love yourself the way you are, where you have no power to change things or to improve.

    Stop taking things personally

    Homework

    Simple exercises to stop taking things personally

    There will come a time when people won’t agree with you, they will play against you or even throw shit at you. To happily and calmly continue with your day and not drown in misery, you have to learn how to not take things personally.

    We already mentioned a few core weapons that will help you with that:

    1. Make a list of arguments for why you don’t agree with the statement.
    2. If a critique is justified and it hurts you, ask for clarification and make a battle plan for how you will improve yourself. Keep the growth mindset no matter how harsh the critique is. You can and will improve.
    3. Ask yourself about the proportion of your response to the critique and what the critique reminds you of. Analyze whether there may be an emotional flashback involved.
    4. Analyze how many critiques other public figures receive and realize that there is no unfairness happening to you, it’s just life. Not all people can agree with you and love you
    5. Find a group where you really fit in and where you can blossom. Don’t try to fit in and work with people who simply don’t resonate with you.
    6. Have realistic expectations towards people. We may be civilized animals, but deep down we are still nothing but animals. Sooner or later, the people you love will hurt you and you will hurt others.

    In addition to that, there are several other things you can do that will help you not take things personally:

    1. Make sure you don’t give people any solid reason to trash talk about you. Then you always have the greatest power in your hands – transparent evidence that they’re wrong. Make sure you are always transparent and that you always act out of good intentions.
    2. In most cases, completely ignore the evil people. Don’t think about the evil people, don’t talk to them or write to them. Never gossip about them or God forbid that you try to give them advice. Maybe from time to time, you can turn their critique into a joke or defend yourself in a professional way with arguments and transparency when your reputation or ego is at stake.
    3. Make sure you aren’t a hater. Respect other people. Only give constructive criticism and share your positive ideas with others. State facts with solid proof and don’t only share your vague opinions or insults. Practice empathy and put yourself in other people’s shoes. Treat other people like you want to be treated.

    If you 100 % don’t agree with the statement, if you don’t experience an emotional flashback, if you always keep realistic expectations and if you know that it has nothing do with unfairness, you have nothing to take personally no matter how tough the words that are pointed towards you.

    When you learn to not take things personally on the emotional level, your life will be much calmer and you’ll be able to go more smoothly towards your goals even through the days when somebody is throwing shit at you. Now you know how to not take things personally. Use it, apply it, enjoy it.

  • If you are a perfectionist, learn to be satisfied with good enough

    I am a big perfectionist, often caught in all-or-nothing thinking. They are both (perfectionism as well as black & white thinking) severe cognitive distortions, probably the most frequent ones in the general population, and they hinder the quality of life to a great extent.

    A thinking and mindset upgrade to properly manage these two distortions is mandatory, especially for unlocking a whole new productivity and happiness level in your professional and personal life. In this article, you will find the answer to how to successfully fight with your chronic perfectionism.

    An illuminating concept that helped me deal with perfectionism and all-or-nothing thinking is called “good enough”. This model of thinking emphasizes that it doesn’t have to be perfect, it only has to be good enough. It completely changed my life.

    Now I never go for perfect, I always rather settle for good enough, even if I still aim high.

    The idea behind the concept of good enough is that it’s completely acceptable to be reasonably consistent with your goals and not following them 100 % of time to complete perfection; because the latter is simply impossible and only makes you unhappy and miserable.

    • You don’t need a perfect job, you need a good enough job
    • You don’t need a perfect spouse, you need a good enough spouse
    • You don’t need to be filthy rich, you need a good enough financial situation
    • You don’t have to eat perfectly healthy, your diet must only be good enough
    • You don’t have to be a perfect parent, you have to be a good enough parent
    • You don’t need a perfect life, you need to fight for a good enough life

    Good enough

    Perfectionist’s greed

    The main driving force behind perfectionism is usually a desire to be loved and accepted. You think you can achieve that by being flawless. Perfectionism usually develops if you’re raised by overly critical parents or parents who have low capabilities for emotional care and loving support. To simplify, with perfectionism you usually want to show other people that you are good enough to be loved.

    But perfectionism is a very bad surrogate for love. The main problem is that you strive for perfectionism in your achievements to show other people how good you are, but new achievements don’t equal a greater capacity for loving yourself and others. That’s why you always want more and more.

    No matter how good the achievements you have, you never feel loved enough. Additionally, there is always somebody better than you and that can quickly humiliate you for not being good enough – ever. Thus you become extremely greedy.

    No matter how much you earn, you want more. No matter how good your partner is, you are more focused on their flaws and you want better. No matter how successful your career is, there is so much more you could do.

    One cheat meal and your otherwise good enough diet seems like nothing. Even though you just bought a laptop, you know that in 6 months there will be a new model, and the one you have won’t be good enough anymore. A greedy soul that’s never ever satisfied.

    If you’re a perfectionist, you’re an obsessive “maximizer”. You want the best in everything. That may lead to greater achievements, but it may also lead to a miserable life (achievements ≠ happiness). Wanting the best all the time is impossible, and that kind of a distortion can only lead to being clinically depressed.

    The characteristics of perfectionists and maximizers when it comes to choice-making are the following. According to Barry Swartz and his book The Paradox of Choice, they:

    • Have a big fear of missing out on things
    • Always compare their decisions with those of other people
    • Spend too much time and energy even on small decisions
    • Are generally unhappy with their outcomes and constantly want something new

    Rather than a maximizer, be a satisfier. Absolutely aim high and have big goals, but also learn to be satisfied with good enough. Learn to recognize and be aware of your greed, and curb it with the new better mindset and by developing a greater capacity for self-love. Learn the difference between happiness and achievements. Become aware when things are good enough for you.

    Here are the characteristics of satisfiers, they:

    • Have fear of missing out on enjoying high quality of life, in other words being happy
    • Accept the good enough concept
    • Don’t obsess too much about their options
    • Can easily move on after making a decision
    • Are generally happy with their choices and outcomes

    Don’t constantly beat yourself up with perfect. It’s good enough, now move on.

    Slipping from time to time will make you more disciplined

    Life is not meant to be perfect. You need imperfection in your life. If everything were perfect, there would be no room for improvement, there would be no room for effort and for the capacity to grow. Without flaws, life would be boring as f*ck.

    You need some level of stress so that you’re stimulated to go forward and your brain synapses can grow. You need a little bit of imperfection that drives you towards your new accomplishments. That’s all good and necessary until it’s too much and it becomes toxic.

    A benevolent man should always allow a few faults in himself.

    And you can’t be constantly 100 % disciplined. You need to slip from time to time. You need a cheat day. You need to reset yourself. Like you take a break during the day, so you need to take a break from your consistent effort from time to time. Progress is always achieved in the form of one step back, two steps forward.

    There are no straight lines in nature, and there is surely no straight line on the path to success. So don’t strive for perfection, but see everything together with flaws as perfect. Imperfections enable progress and help you on the way towards your goal by enabling you to not be too tough on yourself and go crazy.

    When you slip, just remember that tomorrow is a new beginning. Don’t beat yourself up for your slips and mistakes, but calculate them into your doing and decision-making. They are part of the equation. What matters in the end is that you make many more good than bad decisions.

    Don’t beat yourself up for your slips and mistakes, but calculate them into your doing and decision-making.

    Don’t make good enough be an excuse for not giving your best

    The good enough concept is a potential cure for a perfectionist, not a handy excuse for a lazy person. If you aren’t as motivated as you should be, if you are underachieving in your life, the new better mindset might be going from good to great rather than settling with the good enough. The good enough concept in such a case may even further hinder your ambitions and the will to act. You need to use the right tool for the situation you are in.

    It’s not hard to know which tool to use – good enough or from okay to great. Deep down you always know if you are miserable because you aren’t giving your 100 % or because you’re greedy. What you should do is assess where you are based on the life success metrics, measure how fast your progress is, assess how much you trust the process and especially how realistic your expectations are.

    Looking at life metrics immediately tells you what is the source of unhappiness.

    Find a progress pace that is respectful and realistic – not perfect, but good enough. Make sure you are constantly improving and growing (the kaizen mindset), but also that you aren’t caught in a greedy perfectionist’s mindset that’s never satisfied with anything, where nothing is good enough. Find the middle path that works for you.

    Good enough like

    Aim high, but define good enough very clearly

    It’s not enough to just know the good enough concept. You have to define what an ideal situation is for you and what is a good enough situation. You must have a clear definition of good enough to shut up your inner critic when you’re unrealistically assessing your current situation and your progress.

    Defining how much money would be an ideal situation for you and going after the number is great, but also define how much money is a good enough situation. Being rich is probably ideal, but what about owning a house without debt and having savings for 6 months of expenses, would that be good enough for you?

    You can make a persona of your ideal partner, the perfect partner, but you also ask yourself what flaws your spouse can have and still be good enough? Cheating is probably unacceptable, but what about them having a bad day from time to time?

    Having a magazine cover body, being able to run a marathon, deadlifting 200 kg (400lbs) and no health problems would definitely be the ideal health situation. But what is a realistic good enough health situation for you? Realistically, there are body weaknesses you have to accept, you have to be okay with being ill from time to time, there are sports you are good at and bad at, and so on. Considering all that, what is a good enough health situation for you?

    Homework

    Please sit down, take a piece of paper or open a notepad on your computer, and define what is currently good enough for you in different areas of life – health, key relationships, money, career, competences, enjoying life etc. Really do the exercise, no excuses. Not doing the exercise is definitely not good enough. ;)

    Emotional accounting combined with the good enough concept

    I trust that you’ve done your homework above and defined the good enough situation you can happily live with. You have your minimum that should bring pure happiness and satisfaction in your life. Good.

    Unfortunately, that’s not enough to fully employ the good enough concept. That’s because your perfectionist mind is like a crazy monkey that tries to attack you at every single opportunity.

    So regularly talking back to your perfectionist inner critic is the key. You do that with emotional accounting. To perform emotional accounting, all you need a simple table (you can download the template below). The table for doing the emotional accounting has a few columns. Here they are:

    • Toxic thought going through your head (automatic thought, self-criticism and perfectionism)
    • Type of negative feeling it’s causing and the intensity of it (emotions)
    • Performing a rational response to the toxic thought (self-defense with using the good enough concept)
    • New intensity of the negative feeling (outcome)

    You simply go from column to column. First you learn to identify toxic negative thoughts and cognitive distortions (I’m not good enough, I don’t earn enough, the Joneses have a better car etc.). Then you try to identify what kind of negative feelings the negative thoughts are causing you (anger, sadness, self-hate etc.).

    In the next step, your greatest tool is self-defense, talking back to your inner critic with a rational response and a more realistic situation. That should lead to a big release of negative emotions. The good enough concept can help you with the rational response.

    Here’s an example:

    • I make so many grammar mistakes. I guess I am a poor writer. (pure perfectionism)
    • Negative feelings: Anger, frustration (intensity: 8 out of 10)
    • Rational response: Even if I still make quite a lot of grammar mistakes, I have great ideas for articles, my style is improving and so is my grammar, and I get a lot of positive feedback on my articles. I already am a good enough writer and I’m becoming better and better. I am proud of my progress.
    • Negative feelings after the rational response: Anger, frustration (2 out of 10), feeling proud

    As the first step, I suggest you use the template you can download below. You will soon become such an expert in identifying negative thoughts and performing emotional accounting that you will easily do the exercise in your head, like I do it now all the time.

    Template

    Here you can download the template:

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    How much is just good enough to be happy in life and successfully move forward?

    It may be hard to perform emotional accounting the first few times, but I promise you that it can completely change your life. Combining emotional accounting with the good enough concept can really help you successfully fight your perfectionist nature.

    The best battles are the ones you win over yourself, and now you have the tools to fight your inner perfectionist critic. Good luck with your fight.

  • More than 100 signs of power

    In life, you have to learn how to be powerless if you want to be happy. You have to learn to accept the things you can’t change and all the things you can’t control. It’s not an easy job, but mandatory for a high quality of life. For a good life. “The glass is already broken” mindset may help you with that.

    The other side of the same coin is that you need to gain as much power in life as possible. The more power you have, the better position you’re in to bend your own destiny and the destiny of humankind (to the positive, I hope). You need power if you want to introduce any kind of change into the system (government, community, your life…).

    There are many reasons why power is good. Here are a few of them:

    • Only by possessing enough power can you grow and change yourself and your destiny
    • Power means that you can influence how other people behave and which goals they follow
    • With assets and other people’s resources (time, money), you can achieve your goals faster and you can go after even bigger goals
    • With power, your sexual market value is much higher and thus you have more options to connect with someone who is really your fit

    Power can, of course, be either used for good or misused. If you’re a good person (and plan to stay that way, no matter how much power you gain), your duty is to become as powerful as possible. We all want to have good people in the position of power, not corrupt, shady and evil ones.

    The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing. Edmund Burke

    Well, this blog post is actually not even about why power is important. We’ll talk about that in one of the following blog posts. This one is about the signs of power. It’s about how we humans express our position of power and how we show it to other people. It’s also about the signs of how we recognize powerful people.

    Most signs of power are always signs of power, no matter the situation. But some of them are only signs of power in specific situations and the right context. For example, in some situations egoism is a sign of power, in others altruism shows real power. Both can be good in the right context, and both can be misused and cause harm.

    With altruism, you can just keep giving someone a fish again and again, instead of teaching them how to fish; because you’re scared of them becoming independent, and that isn’t powerful. Without egoism, you may be failing to take care of yourself regularly and lead yourself to a burnout, which is definitely not a position of power. In banking, a fancy suite is a form of power, in high-tech it isn’t. There is many times a context that you have to consider.

    Signs of power

    The big seven signs of power

    First, here are the big seven signs of power. They’re kind of the universal signs of power and the most powerful ones. Some of them are inherited, but most of them can be built, at least to a certain extent. Here they are:

    1. Beauty
    2. Muscles / Being fit / Health
    3. Money / Wealth
    4. Fame
    5. Rare titles – prince, royalty, Olympic winner, owner of a medal of honor, miss etc.
    6. Formal positions and statuses – CEO, president, prime minister, etc.
    7. God-like personality – the right combination of different personality traits that are signs of power, many of them listed below

    Obviously, the first step towards more power in your life you can take is to start building up your personality, becoming the best version of yourself and taking care of your health. Then you need to go after the outer assets, according to the formula for massive success.

    All other signs of power

    Besides the big seven signs of power, there are many others, some of them easy achievable, others not, some of them inherited, others obtained. Below are all other signs of power I could think of, arranged alphabetically. Some of them may repeat themselves or are expressed with different names.

    • “90–60–90” (for women)
    • Achievements
    • Adaptability (being lean and agile)
    • Age
    • Aggressiveness
    • Allies
    • Altruism
    • Ambitions
    • Antiques
    • Assertiveness
    • Attractive smell (natural, perfume, aftershave)
    • Awareness
    • Battle scars (to some extent)
    • Being busy
    • Being different (and not be bothered about it)
    • Being natural
    • Being observant
    • Being romantic
    • Body modifications (golden teeth, piercings …)
    • Charisma
    • Clothes – big brands
    • Communication skills (flirting, negotiating, presenting etc.)
    • Courage / not being afraid
    • Creativity
    • Decisiveness
    • Deep voice
    • Domination (in bed)
    • Drive (vision, mission …)
    • Effectiveness
    • Egotism and egoism
    • Empathy / Lack of empathy
    • Exclusive social circles
    • Execution / Immediate implementation
    • Expensive accessories
    • Expensive art
    • Expertise
    • Family
    • Feeling good in your body
    • Fighting for a cause
    • Formal contracts
    • Formal education (MSc, PhD)
    • Fit
    • Generosity
    • Good posture
    • Grandiosity
    • Groomed body (hair, nails, depilation…)
    • Happiness
    • Hard work
    • Height (for men)
    • History, legacy
    • Hobbies (rare, cool, adrenaline ones)
    • Honesty
    • Housing (apartments, mansions …)
    • Humor
    • Idea
    • Image
    • Independence
    • Innocence (for women)
    • Integrity
    • Insight / Information asymmetry
    • Intelligence (IQ)
    • Interrupting others
    • Jewelry (rare metals)
    • Knowledge
    • Laser-focused work, concentration
    • Leadership skills
    • Listening skills
    • Love
    • Luxury goods
    • Managing emotions
    • Manipulation
    • Mastering your body (fasting, meditating …)
    • Mindset (abundance, growth, optimal)
    • Mindfulness
    • Musical intelligence
    • Non-agreeableness
    • Non-neediness
    • Not giving a fuck
    • Number of followers & fans (real life, social media)
    • Openness
    • Patience
    • Penis size
    • People coming to you in social groups
    • Personal brand
    • Personal income (how much money you make per year)
    • Physical intelligence
    • Playfulness
    • Political skills
    • Powerful friends
    • Premium class traveling
    • Pride
    • Pushing yourself
    • Rare experiences (landing on the moon)
    • Rare personality traits
    • Rationality
    • Religion
    • Renunciation
    • Resilience, persistence, stamina
    • Rich imagination
    • Self-confidence
    • Self-discipline
    • Self-interest
    • Setting boundaries and limits
    • Sex (getting & not giving)
    • Sex appeal
    • Sexual abilities
    • Skills
    • Slower movements
    • Social capital
    • Social intelligence
    • Social media influence
    • Speaking in public
    • Speed
    • Spontaneity
    • Strategy (or a superior plan)
    • Style (tattoos, ornaments, clothes …)
    • Superior organization
    • Survival and fighting skills
    • Symbols (medals, ranks …)
    • Taking (calculated) risks
    • Taking space
    • Talent
    • Taming or being good with (wild) animals
    • Tech products (expensive ones, like Apple)
    • Technological skills
    • Technology
    • Tolerance
    • Transparency
    • Unavailability
    • Valuable collections
    • Virginity
    • Vulnerability
    • Weapons
    • Wisdom
    • Yachts, planes & helicopters

    Based on your current position in life, your goals and knowing all the signs of power, think of how you can become more powerful in life and also show to other people that you are powerful. Everything, of course, with the goal of putting your power to good use and changing yourself, and consequently the people you love and the whole world to the better.

    Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man’s character, give him power. Abraham Lincoln