Hello! Today I want to tell you about a concept that I was first introduced to by Brooke Castillo and have since found evidence of in the resources of many other empowering authors and speakers.
Life is 50% positive emotion and 50% negative emotion.
Whether you have $1 or $1,000,000 in the bank.
Whether your kids are 2,4 & 6 or 18, 20 & 22.
Whether you've landed that dream job or you're still working somewhere you really wish you weren't.
So what does this mean and why is it important?
1. First of all, it releases us from the pursuit of perpetual happiness. Whew! Isn't that a relief?! We aren't supposed to be happy 100% of the time! (and life really would be so boring and uneventful if we were because we would have NO idea how good we had it! :)
2. It normalizes negative emotion. As in, its totally ok to have off days, even when you've achieved a meaningful milestone in your life or are in the process of doing so.
3. When we embrace this fact, we learn to savour the positive 50% more presently AND we choose to learn from the negative 50% more consciously.
So how does this apply to goal setting?
If life is 50/50, then we need to make peace with the fact that when pursuing our goals, the road will also be 50/50. And if we can go into our goal setting journey consciously aware that about 50% of the pursuit will be accompanied with emotions like fear, disappointment, frustration, doubt, confusion, overwhelm, etc.....
THEN SUCCESS IS ALWAYS 100% WITHIN REACH!
Why?
Because if you plan for hard days....If you write yourself pep talks for the negative emotions you anticipate you will feel.....if you can dig deep to figure out what thoughts patterns are causing negative emotions with the same triggers....if you can craft affirmations and categorize actions you can take on the days when action feels impossible....
then nothing can stand in your way!
One of the most helpful pieces of advice I can pass along to you as you enjoy your life and pursue goal setting from a mindful place is this: negative emotions are going to accompany you on the journey about 50% of the time.
Every single one of us will experience fear, discomfort, confusion, overwhelm, analysis paralysis, etc. as we pursue higher versions of ourselves. And often these icky feelings come up BECAUSE we are reaching higher! Our primal self loves our comfort zone and it can kick up one heck of a tantrum when we dare to dream big (and these tantrums present in the form of negative emotions a lot of the time).
But the people who succeed no matter what, are the ones who anticipate these emotions, make peace with their existence, embrace inquiry toward the root thought patterns that cause them, rewrite any thought patterns that aren't serving them and take meaningful steps forward when most people stop at step 1: feeling overwhelmed and admitting defeat.
