#3. Control your ego
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Walking down the street, you can easily observe countless people, nervously carrying along, with their coffees in hand (or cigarette or beer can, or whatever), jolting about, with unclear focuses. What really drives this sort of ambiguously atrocious behavior?
As kids, we only know how to speak our true minds and listen to our hearts. As we get older and are placed into the young adult/adult category, somewhere along the line, we temporarily lose focus.
Maybe this happens because we are so heavily involved in comparing ourselves to every soul we meet. It’s a truly unhealthy way of living, yet so many people continue to actively do it to feel a sense of power.
When you think about it, smoking, alcohol, junk food and sex are all guilty pleasures. Guilty pleasures give us short-term satisfaction, meaning they are, essentially, empty promises.
Empty promises have a track record of momentarily building up our happiness only to have it ripped out so that we feel totally hurt after the fact, even more so than before the guilty pleasure even occurred.
This is the mindset to which we have slowly, but surely, grown accustomed, especially in this quick-paced lifestyle that surrounds us 24/7. Having sex with a stranger will not ensure a lifetime of committed happiness, just as drowning your sorrows in a vodka soda will not make you feel any better about a problem.
These Band-Aids just create a vicious cycle of bad behavior that continually break us down. So, why do we continue to partake in all these foolish endeavors if they do nothing positive for our future selves?
Follow these three steps in an effort to minimize your short-term mindset and maximize your long-term goals:
1. Spend some time alone to look into your heart for clarity
With all the hustle and bustle of everyday living, we sacrifice ourselves for what we feel needs to be done. We need to get an education, a job and married all in a linear fashion. Truth be told, that does not always work so elegantly, regardless of how frantically we yearn for it.
We need not pressure ourselves to the point of living lives of which we are not proud. This is why the first stage of altering your short-term mindset into long-term goals is to simply take a step back from what you are presently doing and really figure out if it is what makes you happy.
We may be desperately looking for our destinies and for our big breaks, when in reality, once we begin being kind to others and lend helping hands, our destinies will pan out.
If we are living truly with our hearts, we will be able to transition from corrupting our bodies with stimulants and junk food to living purely with whole foods, whole thinking and whole living.
Ultimately, when you consciously choose to connect with your heart, you will find your way and fulfill your long-term goals.
2. Your mind is a powerful tool; put it to good use
The mind has a way of leading you through life. Whatever you feel or pursue, your mind can take you on uniquely distributed journeys. Therefore, healthy foods fuel positive thoughts.
If you want to nourish the mind, you must first nourish your body. Easy fixes may build you up only for an instant in time. Sugar and soda will give you that spark of intense energy, only to make you crash and burn within an hour or two after ingesting.
It will not lead you to anywhere in the long term. Good nutrition, like nuts and seeds, greens and vegetables, and lots of water, will contribute to your long-term goals.
These items resonate with your heart, both figuratively and healthfully, building up a strong immune system for your future. Use your mind to hone in on your real desires. What is your passion? Follow that to make a career out of it. Live in the present moment fully and be grateful every day.
3. Control your ego
Your ego protects you. It makes you who you are. The ego wants to be in charge; it wants to feel empowered on a daily basis. That being said, the more you feed your ego, the less you will feel internally happy or content. Ironic, isn’t it? But really, the ego is not our true selves.
It is a veil that covers our real feelings; it is what we put on display when we want to make a good impression on others. In essence, it can be any mask you wear for any occasion.
The will of the ego, however, is not stronger than the will of the soul. As much as you desire to feed your ego and remain in the center of attention, eventually, your soul will speak in great volume, so much so, that you will be obligated to follow it.
So, pay attention to your mindset, listen to your heart and live with honesty and kindness, each and every day.
by Levita Galinsky
This post originally appeared at Elite Daily. Reprinted with permission.
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Levita is an avid health and wellness blogger, a writer of poetry and spirituality, a professional ballet dancer (trained at the School of American Ballet at Lincoln Center), a Pre-med Psychology student, a learner of life, and a lover of truth. She aims to help people live life with a positive mindset and a balanced healthy spiritual lifestyle.
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Photo: Jinx!/Flickr
