Have you ever wondered why people act the way they do? This is very general question, but think back to a time where you didn’t understand the actions of another person, it could have been a time during a relationship, job,school etc. What most people in my case fail to realize is our decision making and who we are as people is defined totally by our life experiences and our prior experiences dictate our reactions to specific events that occur in our lives. It also has an effect on how we pull ourselves together during hard-times.
I would say without getting into gravely details that I had a rather fractured childhood and some of the events in my childhood such as the feelings of lost, abandonment, ambition, hard headedness, laughter/humor, needing to feel loved have followed to different areas of my life and have reared their head from time to time.
What I have learned about myself in 28 years is that
1. As much as I try I could never fully put myself in someone else’s shoes (not literally). There is a depth to human physch that nobody can ever cross fully. We can only go so far to understand someone even if we think we understand their position fully, in essence its impossible. The effort though to put yourself in someone else’s shoes and see things from their vantage point is always fully applauded by your counterpart when the effort is given.
2. Don’t try to change who you are for anybody because you will fail. The person you are inside is hard-coded from many years of experience, although you can change some aspects such as habits, who you are here overall is who you are going to be. Learn to be comfortable with yourself.
3. Confidence comes from knowing who you are inside and being comfortable sharing who you are with others without having to feel like you need to change or become someone else at any given time. I looked back on all the times in my life where I felt like I lacked confidence and at almost all those times I wasn’t comfortable with who I was.
4. The more you share, the more others will trust you. Sharing personal details is one of the hardest endeavors to do in this world cause we are all scared of being hurt but the courageous ones who feel the need to share are the people who are trusted by many.
5. 9/10th’s of the game is showing up. Even though your prior experiences might try to hold you back from reaching a specific goal, if you power through it and understand the importance of “showing up” the goal will in essence seem more attainable.
Past experiences can pull us back and influence us to do weird things but we have to overcome them, just as a Derek Jeter ( I am a Yankees Fan) will continually overcome a prior strike out to succeed in his next At Bat. We need to put the past behind us and focus on our current at bat.
