Why You Feel Like Crap

So. You feel like crap.

You’re not quite sure what it is, but something is “off.”

You need to fix it.

Here’s what’s up.

Everyone has their ideal life – how they want to be.

Then you have your daily life.

It’s SUPER tempting to think that the majority of your unhappiness is due to the certain circumstances of the current version of your life.

But it’s more likely that it’s due to certain behaviors within it.

Both your ideal life and your reality are contained within a series of behaviors.

When those behaviors are collectively pushing you towards something good – you feel good.

When they’re not, you feel like crap.

This is about your behavior, not your environment

• For example: If you’re in debt, you probably feel like if you had $10,000, you’d be home free. But you’d be wrong. If your behaviors didn’t change – you’d be just as miserable with 10k as you would be 10k in the hole.
• If you’re overweight or out of shape, you might think that you’d be happy with six pack abs, but if you don’t change your behaviors, even with six pack abs, you might eat crap food, have no energy and put the weight right back on.
• If you’re not happy with your productivity, you might think you’ll be able to hire people to think about it for you – but until you focus on doing exactly what needs to be done – you might just get more efficient at doing the wrong things.

Another way to put this is congruency.

How congruent are your current behaviors with your ideal behaviors?

Here’s a quick visualization:

The more those 2 things intersect & overlap, the more content you are both with your life and your personhood – because you’re becoming the person you want to be.

The farther apart they are, the less happy you are and the more you feel like crap.

If you’re not perfect (welcome to the club), this is not a call to beat yourself up or feel bad, but it is a call to wake the hell up, take some responsibility and do your best to start bringing your day-to-day reality behaviors more in line with the ones you say you want to have.

Feel like crap AND too lazy to read this whole thing?

• There’s an ideal you and the reality of who you are on a day-to-day basis.
• The disconnect between those 2 people is what’s making you feel like crap.
• The more you’re able to make those 2 people congruent, the more satisfied you’ll be with your results.
• The behaviors of those 2 people are more important than the results.
• Instead of focusing on the results you’re not happy with, focus on the day-to-day behavioral actions that you’re taking.

Stop worrying about the intricacies of having the life you want to have and start focusing on doing the things you want to be doing.

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More reading: Everything is Your Fault / Why I Write

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