Stop doing that sh*t

For anyone who‘s ever read my blog knows, i’ve Been struggling a lot with this so-called life. I go through some ups once in awhile, but mostly I go through lows. Lately, I have felt like I’ve been on a downward spiral, self-sabotaging my life in very serious ways. The depression beast seems to have had a monster of a hold on me for the past 2 or more months. Maybe even for the past year or whole life.

inevitably, whenever I fall down this dark tunnel, I wind up thinking I need to fix me. I’m clearly broken. There’s something seriously wrong with me and i’m In my own way. I know this logically, that everything I do or don’t do is a choice that I make. I start plotting and planning new plans to get my shit together. Inevitably those plans wind up falling apart maybe a month (at the most) later And I’m back to feeling like crap all over again.

The I buy self-help books. I try different books all the time to improve my self or one particular area I struggle with. Sometimes I can read them all the way through, but most of the time I don’t finish reading them, especially if there’s some hard work to do with myself. I know, if I actually did the work, I’d probably be a lot better off than I am now. And again, I fall back to the same old patterns over and over again.

”Le sigh...” as Pepe LePew would say.

i have recently discovered a new self-help writer named Gary John Bishop. I read his first book, Unfuck Yourself, and found it interesting. However it didn’t quite have the lasting affect I wanted it to have on me, as I quickly forgot about the point. I don’t think it quite resonated with me as much as I hoped it would.

When finishing the book, I noticed an ad advertising his newest book named Stop Doing That Shit. The whole point to this one was how to stop sabotaging yourself. As I have been doing that very thing a lot lately, particularly with work, and, well, all of my life now, I thought this was more apt.

I’m not the world’s fastest reader. In fact, through the process of trying to read two books lately, I have in fact linked my issues with reading with what I suspect I’ve had my whole life but has never been diagnosed: ADD. I will begin reading, then my mind starts to wander when I’m reading at the same time. I constantly have to go back and re-read paragraphs over and over again because of this. This might explain why I’ve never been a strong reader. To this day, what I consider to be my crowning achievement in reading is Lord of the Rings... and that is because I saw the movies first.

I really wanted to understand this book, so I continued to read it, chapter by chapter. Rereading paragraphs that I felt were important to pay attention to, or again because my mind wandered away.

This one is quite interesting and I do highly recommend it to anyone who is struggling with personal goals. Of course, as the title suggests, there are a lot of swears here and there, but effectively placed. He tells you straight up what is screwing you up and what will help you stop doing that shit. So the title is very apt.

SPOILER ALERT FOLLOWS...

Basically, the point of the book is that the reason why you are sabotaging your efforts is because you are operating from the perspective of the past and being controlled by those events, subconsciously of course. He says there are three saboteurs to be aware of, how you see about yourself, how you view other people and how you view life itself.

Here are my answers:

1. I’m unworthy.

2. People are untrustworthy.

3. Life is unfair and too hard.

These are the thoughts that sabotage my best interests and throw me off course. No wonder I can’t accomplish my goals if I think I’m not important or worthy enough of the effort, or if I see people as though they will all eventually hurt me somehow, or that not matter what I do, my life will always suck because the odds are stacked against me.

So now I get it. I finally get why I‘ve been unable to get myself out of this rut I’ve been in for many years. Even if I try to work towards fixing myself or my life, those doubts come into play and I inevitably fall into the same old habits because they are more familiar and easier to do. Also, as the author points out, I am always trying to find evidence to support those conclusions I have based on my past experiences. Bing! Bing! Bing! We have a winner!

What’s the solution to this predicament? How do you stop this from happening? First, you have to acknowledge those thoughts and be aware of them whenever they creep up. Awareness of your internal dialogue is key, and has been the key in a lot of self-help books I’ve read over the years.

Then you need to stop reacting or doing things based on your past or those conclusions you’ve made about your life. Work from a vision of what you want your future to look like and work backwards to figure out the steps to take in order to get there. Keep forging ahead towards those goals and whenever the voice of doubt enters your mind, see them, acknowledge them, but choose a way to work towards your goal, instead of falling back to the old ways.

Believe it or not, this is really invigorating me again. Now I know why I’m struggling and what I’m choosing to do to keep that going. Now I see a way of implementing a plan to keep my life in order and figure out what it is exactly that I want it to be.

So... what do I want? I have four main concerns right now I really want to focus on:

1. Career. I am not happy in the role I have at work, mainly because I never get any opportunities to create anything anymore. No more graphic design jobs are coming my way. Any times I get to work on actual projects, it’s finalizing (flight checking) someone else’s work, copy and pasting text for French or other language versions, or picking up reprints. Sometimes I get to resize projects into different formats, and that’s the most exciting it gets. This is why I’m so bored at work and why I’ve been sabotaging even that. It’s a very stable job, but I have absolutely no creativity in it. I studied art and design in college because I wanted to do something creative as a career. But because I viewed myself as unworthy, somehow I convinced myself that I’m not good enough at design and have no business doing it when so many others are far better at it than I am.

Wow. I totally see now how that view of myself has hurt my career. I even struggled with school projects too.

So now I have to figure out what to do about that. I have started taking some online courses that were advertised as super huge discounts on Facebook. Mostly on app design. Even before this job, I was advised by an expert in graphic design that this is the career to get into, and that was about a decade ago.

I’ve also joined a writing community called Reedsy. I sign up to read certain topics like how to start writing, how to structure a story, character development, dialogue, and so forth.

My plan is for now I will keep the job I have and improve my work ethic. I.E. I will no longer be late, or call in sick, or have a shitty attitude. When I have downtime (which happens often, then I get bombarded with too much all at once), I can learn those things so at least I can do something creative.

2. Financial. Oi. I have been operating on this from the viewpoint that no matter what I do, I’ll always struggle with money and live paycheck to paycheque and be up to my ass in debt. I tend to overspend, particularly on eating out. Also, not showing up to work has had a bad impact on my monthly income. Then I spend a lot on credit cards and wind up so far in debt that it doesn’t seem possible that I will ever get out of it. So I am sabotaging any efforts in fixing that, because life is too hard or I’m unworthy.

Hell, I even justified using my credit card to purchase a ticket to Ontario because, “if Trump never has to pay off his debts, then why should I?” Don’t get me wrong, I am really glad I decided to go there. But financially it might now have been a great idea.

In fact, if I really think about it, I think my problem started when the car was finally paid off. That is when my work ethic started falling apart. This was a prime example of what the book is about, actually. I was paying $630 a month or so, every month, and was working everyday. Then when that debt was gone, I thought I’d be financially set for life and could finally pay off the credit cards. But my sabotaging self didn’t think I deserved to be that way or that I always wanted to feel like life was too hard or unfair, that I sabotaged my efforts to stay on top of it. Boom! Drop the mic!

Now, a few years ago, I did go to my bank and arranged to get a savings investment strategy, but I insisted that I didn’t want any of my money to go towards oil sands or pipeline projects. The “highly recommended” plan had Enbridge as one of their recipients and I immediately shot that down. Instead I opted for Entertainment and Technology package. They said that was risky, but how could it be when you are investing in movies, TV shows, social media and various technological projects? Oil to me is far more riskier, especially these days. Seriously people: no one wants to buy our oil anymore! Even the Kochs have pulled out of there.

Anyway, tangent over. Now I have just over $8,000 saved in this account. That’s way more than I had ten years ago. So the plan now is to go to work everyday and pay off my debts. stick to a budget. Stop unnecessary food purchases and so forth and eventually contribute more to the savings plan. Currently, $110 per month goes towards this account, but I can do better than that. I want to be financially stable. And most importantly I deserve to be financially stable.

3. Health. Something many of my blog posts have been about: losing weight. But, as Gary points out in the book, the term “lose weight” is also geared from the past. Now I know the areas in which I am sabotaging this aspect. I don’t exercise. I eat nothing but junk food, very little of the good foods. I know what needs to be done to do it, and have made a plan that should work for me. Of course, it never succeeded because my self-doubts kept me feeling like it was too hard, I don’t deserve to be healthy and alive (seriously!), and I’m slowly killing myself with food because I am alone because I don’t fully trust people. 🤯

Instead, I now need to change the mentality of losing weight to getting healthier (both mentally and physically). And this all comes down to choices. I know what to do. I have a whole binder on what to do. I just need to do it. I need to I deserve this. I won’t I’ll even pay attention to the numbers on the scale anymore. Because the number is not as important as my health. I don’t want to have to take all these damned pills anymore. I want to reverse the diabetes and be able to walk around without panting or getting sore feet. Yes, it also would be nice to fit into smaller sized clothes and improve my appearance, but I feel like at this point I want to focus on the four main goals first.

4. Organized. Always a problem area for me. I do like the Konmari method from Marie Kondo. Declutter first by getting rid of the things that no longer bring you joy. Then organize your items in a loving and appreciative way. I even found A checklist on Pinterest to work from.

I tend to surround myself in a giant mess. Then when I get sick of living like this, I take a full day or two to clean it up. But inevitably it falls apart again and I think, “why bother?” Again, the feeling comes from not feeling myself worthy enough to have a clean and organized home. I mean, I’ve come from a disorganized and messy life to begin with, of course my surroundings would reflect that!

This plan lane will be very self-explanatory. Use the Marie Kondo method to declutter in my spare time at home (of which I have plenty), and keep a cleaning schedule in place.

it seems like a lot of work to do, but these four main areas are at present the most important I have. They’ve been on my to do lists for many many years now. It’s about time I finally acknowledge my saboteurs, and work towards actually achieving the goals by not giving in to those feelings. Pursue what I want my life to be, not what my life has been. The past certainly sucks. Goodbye and good riddance to those old thoughts that have kept me idling my whole life.

I know this is a long post. Thank you for reading this, for those of you who do. I highly recommend that book to everyone who is struggling with their own saboteurs.