Self-control: How to take control of your time and life?

Chapter 21 Where Does Stress Come From (2)
Ms. Helen from Wisconsin and Mr. Wu from Hangzhou, China have one thing in common, they are both planted on the "greed" in their hearts.Helen's life "died" due to last year's stock market fluctuations. All her property was bet on a few stocks tailor-made for her by a securities consultant, but she lost all her money overnight; Mr. Wu went to London to trade futures on his own The transaction turned the tens of millions of property accumulated by himself and his wife over the past decade into a pile of waste paper.

Helen said: "I was kicked out of the house by my husband because investing in stocks was a private decision of mine without consultation with him. So now I can only bear the debt alone."

Mr. Wu expressed the same experience: "I am divorced, and I have to pay my wife 500 million yuan for family expenses. I am now an orphan who is ignored by no one, and no friend is willing to answer my phone, because people trust the strong and are willing to help. The strong, not the slightest sympathy for a weaker who has failed." While complaining and lamenting, they have not yet realized their real problem.In this world, many truths are extremely clear and simple, but there are many smart people who just can't figure it out, can't figure it out, and can never change it.The greed of the human heart is one of them.The root cause of their failure is that they are too dissatisfied with their current life and try to get more. While creating pressure on their subconscious mind, they also make the body's self-control system in a completely useless state-the body cannot function normally at all. functions to control these irrational desires.

In this lesson, you must understand that desires cannot be indulged, nor can the mind be fully satisfied.Everything has a boundary, but one's desire and pursuit have no boundaries. If you don't control yourself, it will be like a car out of control, faster and faster, and keep speeding forward, while your Hands have long left the steering wheel, until when it is necessary to turn, the car crashes and people die.

The only solution is to reduce your desires and control your desires. You have to tell yourself: "I am fine like this. I already have a happy family, lovely children, and enough money to make my family have enough food and clothing. I don't want anything. I don't want anything. I refuse to take risks, and I don't invest all my money in any kind of risk."

You have to set a boundary for yourself, and when you reach this boundary, you stop and stop immediately.At this point, you have to realize immediately: You have worked enough, you should rest; you have complained enough, you should shut up; you have competed enough, you should stop!

As you try to take steps to cross that line, you should mentally repeat this: "Look, I've had enough praise, I've had enough accolades, I've learned that life is about being happy, and I'm I can’t be a pawn of pressure, because I want to achieve real happiness, and excessive demands are not conducive to the realization of this goal!” When you make this prayer into a habit, the shadow of lack of fulfillment in your heart will disappear, and you will be able to Let go of the grip stress has on you.

bow your head when you should admit defeat

When it's time to admit defeat, we have to bow our heads and admit defeat.This means you can quit the race against stress.You feel that there is no hope of winning, so quitting in time is not a sign of cowardice and incompetence, but a kind of real wisdom.Only by admitting defeat in this way, facing up to the inner disappointment and giving up unrealistic fantasies, can the inner pressure be released.

Psychologists also believe that if a person wants to succeed in society, he needs to have two things: first, he must have the character of not admitting defeat; second, he must understand the importance of admitting defeat.

Most people have the first one, just like Essen said the most in the training class: "I don't want to admit defeat, I must challenge fate, either win or die." He understands "death" as the final failure , that means that he has been reduced to a garbage class in this society, forcing him to embark on the road of confrontation with society and himself.How many people are there who are as stubborn as Essen?A survey we conducted in the United States showed that more than 78% of Americans agree with the theory of fighting to the end.That is, if you lose in the competition, you will choose to continue the competition without hesitation until the winner is determined.

However, the second is a very rare quality. 22% of Americans agree with the option of retreating at the right time and admitting defeat to fate. Most of them said that they chose to admit defeat not because they were bearish about the result, but because they could not see the hope of victory.Such a mentality is still unhealthy, which shows that the stress is still taking its toll on their hearts.We must not only choose to admit defeat at the right time, but also understand that the essence of admitting defeat is not to engage in useless competition.This kind of good attitude will enable us to avoid the edge and avoid unnecessary waste, so as to retreat and win the initiative to develop with great concentration.Knowing how to admit defeat requires us to have a new perspective on winning and losing and pressure.

In the training class, I said to the students: "Admitting defeat does not mean that we are cowardly and sinking, but a kind of sober reason. We will not fight for things that are of no value to us, even if it represents infinite wealth, but As long as the process of obtaining it is full of hardships and damages our spiritual health, it is useless and worth giving up."

A friend of mine is a great role model. He has been living in China and has no experience of traveling around the world, but he has a peaceful mind.When he was young, he liked reading very much, but after two college entrance examinations and two failures, he decisively said to his parents: "I am not born to study."

He gave up continuing to study and persuaded his parents to allow him to study medicine.A few years later, his medical skills became famous in the local area, especially in pediatrics, which was well recognized by the local people.Later, after passing the examination, he obtained a doctor's license and opened a private clinic in the local area.From then to now, his clinic is full of people every day, but the larger hospital on the same street as him is empty.

In just a few years, he has developed from a small clinic to a very formal general hospital. People with a radius of tens of kilometers regard him as the first choice for medical treatment, and even people from neighboring counties often come here admiringly. The journey was far away, and after several twists and turns, I found him to see a doctor.

He said frankly: "If I didn't admit defeat at the beginning, I would not have my current medical skills and achievements." In his view, learning to admit defeat is a compulsory course in life, even more important than learning to win.

This kind of "admitting defeat" is not admitting failure, but having a clear understanding of one's own strength, calm down, and find out the shortcomings of the body: "Which things are beyond my reach and must I give up?" So as to rationally adjust the direction and strategy of one's struggle.

When you bow your head, it is not to give up your pursuit, but to take a step back to re-evaluate the situation and find the right direction.Therefore, "retreating" when necessary can broaden one's mind space, divert and relieve pressure, allow the body and mind to fully rest and adjust, and better seek opportunities for success.

Where is the way out for modern people

"Right now, the human pressure is overwhelming," says White, my assistant.He's felt it all the time over the past few years: New York City has more traffic, late work, bills, and incomes.Modern people are throwing themselves into an "stress abyss", in which not only the pressure is huge, but also various health problems occur in the body.Even the sound of the TV can drive you crazy or send your (stress) hormones up.As Wright sums it up, many interviewees and course participants reported their own discomfort with the sound:
"While I was working in the study, I heard my wife turn on the online video. I was so annoyed by the noise of the talent show, I rushed in and broke her laptop!"

"The noise made by the plumber outside the door made me so angry that I couldn't bear it. I threw a bottle of Coke outside and then had a big fight with them."

"I love closing the door, plugging my earplugs, and being in total silence, only then do I feel disconnected from the world. When I re-enter the world, I find the stress is amazing and there's so much to deal with question, what should I do?"

Where is the way out?Stress can be triggered for many reasons.What matters is how we deal with them.It is impossible to have a completely stress-free environment, and we must learn how to cope.

Respondents in Washington told me that their stress levels in the past year ranged from moderate to high.In my interviews, I found that women were more likely than men to experience symptoms such as depression, irritability, lethargy, and binge eating.Both men and women have their own symptoms, and there are serious problems with stress management.

Stress manifests itself physiologically in people, causing the body to release cortisol and adrenaline, two hormones that prepare the body to fight or flee.Stress increases the heart rate, tenses the body's major muscle groups, and thickens the blood in the body.This is an intuitive physiological response.If this is the case for a long time, it will damage the health of the body and mind.Over time, cortisol can reduce the protective ability of genes.What's more, stress ages the immune system, increasing the risk of heart disease and other diseases.

No one can be spared under high-intensity pressure. The more successful people are, the better they are at finding and building stress-relieving channels for themselves, that is, "the way out".The key to calm and a healthier body is changing the way you respond to stress.

Finding external sources of stress is not difficult.Some female students who participated in self-control courses said that their stress order is: work, money, family responsibilities and emotions.Here is a sequential list of stressors.Of course, this list is too broad, so you need to break it down and analyze it for yourself: "Which reason am I?"

1. Job: Is it a job I like?Have I experienced happiness at work?

2. Money: Is the income satisfactory?What are the future income prospects?
3. Family responsibilities: What role do I play in the family?Am I comfortable with this role?
4. Emotion: What is the current state of my emotional life?

After carefully analyzing these four situations, you can also expand to your own interpersonal relationship, status in the customer base, and future key plans.People are usually afraid to accurately analyze the pressure, fearing that the pressure will swallow them-some cold facts will indeed magnify the pressure, making people who are escaping from the pressure unable to bear the reality and collapse.In fact, half the battle is won by facing the monster at the door.You have to face it, then dissect and resolve it calmly, otherwise it will never leave your body.

When you find a stressor, take a look at your own thinking and look at the negative thoughts: Why does this keep happening?In turn, think about the countermeasures, find a way calmly and actively, and then you will find that although this is not satisfactory, I can control it and find a way (unexpectedly so easy).If you're having a really bad day, when everything isn't going your way, and you're having a hard time sorting out your thoughts and figuring out what's wrong, let yourself breathe a sigh of relief and stop thinking about the headaches.You can do nothing and sleep with your head covered, you can do a crossword puzzle, or you can call a good friend and ask him to come over for a drink.Your mental state will be calmer and you will be able to handle things better.I also recommend that you do exercise classes in your own home (this is no different from what you do in our class centers), such as deep breathing, meditation, yoga, or other regular exercises.The longer you do these exercises, the more you will learn ways to bring about a more peaceful state of mind.You will learn how to relax, and when you relax, you won't feel the heavy pressure because it has been diluted during your exercise.

1. Embracing change positively The tendency to seek stability is human nature.It goes without saying that people generally don't like change.Because a stable, predictable world can bring people a sense of security.If stability is detrimental to your life, you must actively prepare for change and change the current pattern.For example, consider whether you need to change jobs, leave your home environment for a short-term trip, or temporarily separate from a conflicting partner for a period of time to give yourself room for calm thinking and adjustment.

2. Sports and leisure are very important methods. As I suggested earlier, our life is not just for work. If you exist only for work, you will become an "alienated person" instead of a normal person. "Alienated people" have three characteristics:

Always under a lot of pressure; no personal space; no ego.The correct attitude should be: work hard when you work, and live life to the fullest when you live.You must give yourself regular exercise and leisure time, such as health activities, leisure programs and entertainment gatherings, etc., they have a good decompression effect and are indispensable in your life.

3. Use various stress-relief tools Human is a very strange animal. Things that the brain has figured out may not necessarily be able to do it in behavior.At this time, it is necessary for us to resort to the help of specialized technology:

Catharsis method: venting in no one's place, shouting, roaring or crying are all effective strategies.

Self-hypnosis method: lower expectations, look at the prospects optimistically, and perform stress hypnosis appropriately to make the brain forget about stress.

Relaxation method: A sleep with no time limit, or ditching the work at hand altogether to go on an extended trip, can give yourself a pressure wash.

If you can "prescribe the right medicine", there must be one that can provide effective support for your decompression journey to varying degrees.

4. Seek help from social and network resources No matter how powerful you are, you will not be able to solve all the problems you encounter.In times of stress, you should seek out social support or connections.The first way is to talk to relatives and friends, and the second way is to find specialized consulting agencies and professionals, such as psychological clinics, mental health clinics, occupational stress management companies, psychiatrists, psychologists, EAP experts, etc. Can provide you with specialized services.

(End of this chapter)