Tactical Psychology

I’m sometimes asked, “How can I reach my full potential?” I always reply with the same answer,
“take responsibility”

How can I take responsibility? What has responsibility got to do with reaching my full potential.

Its quite simple but yet so difficult for people to apply to their own lives.

You have control over three things – what you think, what you say, and how you behave. To make a change in your life, you must recognise that these three things are the most powerful tools you possess in shaping the form of your life

So lets briefly breakdown the importance of what you think.

Our thoughts are paramount to how we tackle this rollercoaster we call life and all our tools which we have control over come from our thoughts. We really are the product of our thoughts, from enjoying a cup of coffee in the morning, to feeling that dread of an impending Monday on a Sunday night. Everything we feel from the good to the bad comes from our thought process. We are responsible for both the good and the bad feelings in which accompany life.

For example, Mondays aren’t bad you know. Its simply another day in a week, a month and a year.
The bad feelings which are in your thoughts comes from you. Your attitude towards Mondays are the problem. Not the day. So if you can train yourself to see Monday as a new beginning, a new chance to create a week in which you come out on top, that’s when Mondays don’t seem bad anymore, you rewire your thoughts to accept that Monday is just a day like the 6 other days in the week. It was you that turned it negative.

As tough as Mondays are, the only one who can make it a good one is YOU. The only one who is stopping you from having one of the best days of your life is, yeah you guessed it… YOU!
You are limited by your outlook on life. Drink your coffee, smile even when you want to scream and when you can efficiently do this, YOU are in control.

Moving on to our control over what we say. No matter what people say, words have power to not only you but to others also. But today were going to focus on the power in which they give YOU.
Our words have so much power and we don’t even realise it. Your words have the ability to transform your life, I know, I know it sounds so wishy washy….. but when you are up against it, maybe you’re working out and you want to squeeze out that last rep, you see people in the gym shouting “Lets do this!!” There’s a reason for that… the reason being, their spoken words give off the energy they need to mentally prepare for that last rep or last set which they need to do. How many times have you done something tough and you whispered quietly “I got this” whether it be before an interview or for work, we all do it. So make sure the words you use this week are the right ones, the ones YOU deserve to hear.

From our thoughts, to the words we speak, the last thing we truly have control over is our behaviour. The way in which our behaviour is important is because it is the love child of both our thoughts and our words. For example, lets say something bad happens you, maybe a loved one has recently passed, maybe you get let go from work, maybe your cat shit on the carpet, whatever it is big or small, it passes through our thoughts, onto our spoken word which in turn influences how we behave. The saying “actions speak louder than words” have a weight behind it for this exact reason. If shit hits the fan and you allow your thoughts to jump to the negative your behaviour will inevitably turn negative too. Maybe you’ll drink more, maybe you’ll stop going to the gym, maybe you’ll stop giving a shit about the things you really should give a shit about, YOU’LL SELF DESTRUCT. This is why behaviour along with our thoughts and our spoken word is vitally important. If you can channel a bad situation into a good one within your thoughts, your behaviour will be positive. You’ll turn the bad into the good, you’ll use it for the fuel to light the fire within you, you’ll say to yourself “Watch, I this isn’t going to defeat me, not this time” and just like that, you can take on whatever life has to throw at you.

I know this sounds ridiculously simple, and if it was there would be no need for the likes of me to write about it, we would all live in a big world of sunshine and rainbows, which we all know at least hope we all know, we don’t. So this takes work. Daily work. Just like the gym or a diet, it takes commitment to train yourself to be the best version of you daily.

BUT THE RESPONSIBILITY LIES WITH YOU!

Don’t play the victim anymore. Get out there and start getting the life you deserve.

And finally remember this:
It takes as much effort to have a bad day than it does to have a good one!