Overcoming Your Ugly: Dealing With Bad Habits and Poor Behavioural Patterns
Understanding what are psychological triggers, unhealthy coping mechanisms, and embracing the road to recovery
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We all have a little ugly inside of us.
I took a bit of intentional time off prior to the start of the New Year to soul search, travel, think, and most importantly, rest. There’s definitely an incoming article about the importance of rest as a practise for high performance, but I do feel that’s a little bit cliché to start off with when the season for extended rest draws close.
Something much more powerful I came up against during this time away, was my ugly.
What do I mean by that?
I mean the parts of myself I’d rather not share with the world. The bits I’d rather not own up to - the feeling being reminiscent of a guest dropping by into your house before you have had the opportunity to clean. And now, you’re in an awkward spot, self-projecting judgement and shame for something which is probably normal and felt by all at some point in their life.
The thing about being self-aware is that it isn’t all a bed of roses. Sometimes, it’s acknowledging the thorns or weeds that threaten the flowerbed, and for me, I realised plenty thorns in my flowerbed last year. I was quickly burning out, becoming complacent, and running on absolute empty.
It wasn’t until I realised that old patterns, old behaviours and old hurts were surfacing like re-opened scars that I realised I had a problem and needed to unplug. I was, and continue to be, under immense pressure from all sides. I work in a high-pressured job, I co-own a high-pressured enterprise, I have high-stakes relationships, and I have high-pressured responsibilities pressing which, in the last few months, admittedly had me by the neck. I got to the end of the year after months of non-stop work and production, and mercifully gave myself permission to rest.
That was me. But what have I learnt during this time, going for extended walks in the sunlight, reading fiction book after book, baking to my heart’s content and seeing my family for some quality time?
That I had bumped up against my ugly.
The ugly for you might manifest a little differently. For me, my ugly looks like poor sleep, a short fuse, and overworking myself to the point of physical exhaustion. It looks like avoidance and delay, running away from the things which It looks like, at its extreme, poor prioritisation, existential dread, and doubting whether I am living a purposeful life in any case.
I share this with you because I believe that the true high performers and productivity merchants are not those that are perfect 100% of the time. They are the ones who know their limits, their weaknesses, and rather than punish themselves for it, they lean into them and are committed to overcoming.
Let’s get into that overcoming, shall we?