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Dear fellow Gen Xers:
My recent blog about not setting goals in order to achieve them may have seemed a bit contradictory.
But let me explain:
We’ve been taught on one hand that you have to make S.M.A.R.T. goals and strategic choices to get where you wanna go AND that you need to relax, remove resistance, and let abundance flow to you.
We’ve also been told to invest in a mentor or a personal trainer - someone who’s already been-there, done-that and can teach us what they did to arrive at success AND that we need to completely turn away from all forms of comparison and forge our own path.
Point is: we’ve been inundated with contradictions our whole lives.
That’s partly why they call us the "lost generation."
Because what worked in the past, for our parents and their parents, doesn’t work anymore and what is working for kids growing up now doesn’t fully make sense to or resonate with us because it’s just so damn far off from what we were raised to believe.
So we see our parents, happily retired in their second or third home with the RV parked out front and we see the next generation with nicer cars than us talking about the two Air BnBs they rent out thanks to their multiple streams of passive income, and we want to scream at our $45,000 worth of debt, soul-crushing job, 11-year old car and a mortgage payment for a house that’s falling apart and forces us to live paycheck-to-paycheck.
Because we can’t quite figure out what the heck we’re doing wrong.
But that doesn’t mean we have to be lost.
It simply means we need to take the wisdom of our predecessors AND the insights of our successors…
And throw them both out the f’n window.
NEITHER. ONE. WILL. WORK.
…For us.
They won’t.
You cannot count on staying where you’re at for 15 years, living a good life, supporting your family and retiring in peace. Nor do you want to spend the next 2-3 years Googling “passive income” and learning the ins-and-outs of every single online platform (and the integrated applications, digital marketing skills and automated processes) you’ll need to run six businesses from your laptop while you lounge in a wicker chair in Bali… and film it so you can sell your next digital course through a “funnel” - which you’ll learn more about later.
So let's face it: we don’t have what they have because we don’t actually want what they want.
What we envy is their happiness.
Their casual comfort and reaping of rewards.
And we chalk it all up to opportunities that no longer exist or tools we didn’t have the privilege of growing up with.
So we sit at our desk, bitter and skeptical, idealizing the past or daydreaming about the future.
Not visualizing. Not manifesting. Just sulking in fantasy about the way it “should” be.
Because at the end of the day, we have to believe our own bullshit, right?
And you’re really not gonna fully and wholeheartedly convince anyone over the age of 35 that “creating space” is the key to success.
You’re not.
We “know” or are hard-wired to believe otherwise.
Resistance is in our DNA.
That’s why we’re the Star Wars generation and they have Harry Potter.
Don’t get me wrong - we want to believe we can “stand still” and witness glory but that’s just not how we were raised.
So let me explain how embracing the negativity bias and nurturing small, identity-based habits in order to end up where you want to go actually works in real-time.
First, we identify the source.
Instead of fantasizing about your ideal future on a beach somewhere, think about why you’re creating this fantasy.
Is it because you need a vacation?
Nah, vacations don’t last that long. I want that feeling all the time.
Second, figure out why this “fantasy” is not the same as a visualization you’re working toward.
Really? All day, every day? Wouldn’t you get bored?
Nope! …I don’t know. Maybe. After a while. A LONG while.
Next, figure out what the feelings are behind or associated with the images.
Ok, so you want the feeling of… adventure? Sunlight? Bikini babes? Because you could just take a drive somewhere, go outside or buy a Sports Illustrated calendar.
No… That’s not it. I don’t know, I guess I just want to relax. I want to enjoy life and feel like I earned it.
Then note the discrepancy between how you feel now and how you’d like to feel and find the root source of that.
So you’re not feeling relaxed right now.
Hell no! I’m overworked, underpaid, and completely unappreciated at this job.
For each of the feelings or sources of suffering you acknowledge, note what the opposite of that might look like.
So you wish you had a lighter workload, were paid more and had a more supportive environment with incentives, benefits and bonuses.
I guess. But everyone wants that. You’re not gonna find it.
Probe your resistance head on with questions about what’s possible, what you know and what you believe.
Could you possibly learn some new time management skills, or practice setting boundaries by having difficult conversations with superiors or maybe even accept that this might not be the best job for you?
No. It’s impossible to do this amount of work in the time they give you and if you try to talk to the boss, you get fired. That’s the way every job is. Besides, I don’t have time to look for another job.
Sometimes, you’ll see a root belief system in yourself that you can change by asking, “Is that really true? Are you sure?” (for more on this, check out Martha Beck's "The Way of Integrity" or grab the abbreviated "Reader's Guide" via Oprah Daily).
But oftentimes, stubborn Gen Xers will push back in the affirmative, either because that is what they believe in their heart of hearts, or, because they don’t want to face the fact that fear of the unknown is actually what’s holding them back.
Yes. I am positive that I will get fired, that every other job is like this, and that I do not have time to look for another job. That’s just the way it is.
This is our negativity bias at work. We viscerally know what it feels like to constantly feel like shit at work and are much more confident in the beliefs that stem from this ‘reality’ than what ‘could’ exist in another ‘possible’ scenario.
Past pain will always trump an unknown. Because what we experienced was hard and real and is now ingrained in us. The possibility of not feeling that way is vague, risky or attached to a million other unknown variables and therefore nowhere near as ‘real.’
Our ‘knowledge’ of the future is therefore wholly based on our physical experience of the past.
Our memory, projected forward.
But what if, instead of fighting that ‘belief,’ you accept that as your reality, and then: ADMIT IT’S WHAT YOU DON’T WANT.
I don’t want it. But that’s just the way it is.
So you want things to stay the same.
It doesn’t matter what I want! This is reality. I don’t have a choice.
…And this is where ACTION and ACCOUNTABILITY kicks in.
You have a choice, right now, at 5:38pm. To go home. To look up time management hacks. To seek out a mentor. To send your boss an email to discuss the state of things. To look for a new job. To talk to your spouse about your financial options. Or to stay. And do exactly what you’ve always done and get exactly what you always get.
And hey... guess what: At 5:39, you’ll get to choose again. And again. And again.
Those aren’t real choices. When the negative repercussions outweigh temporary relief, it is not a choice. It is your duty. To stay. Until the work is done. So you can pay your mortgage and feed your kids.
And can you? Pay your mortgage and feed your kids? Is your plan working?
It’s not my plan! It’s the way the world works!
But you just said it doesn’t work the way it used to; what worked in the past doesn’t work anymore and what’s working for future generations won’t work for you. So how can you keep doing what you’re doing and expect to get someone else’s results?
I don’t! I accept that I won’t have those results.
Then why were you daydreaming about the beach?
…Because. It would be nice.
So that is what you want.
It’s not going to happen.
Because you won’t change.
The world won’t change.
The world has changed. You just don’t want to. Because it’s more work.
Yes. Changing what I’ve done every day for 20 years would take a lot of work.
Maybe overall. But not everyday. Not if you’re willing to start small.
You could shave off one minute of overtime every single day. Or spend that one minute creating an Indeed account. Or, do exactly what you normally do at work, but once you get home, take one minute to learn something new. Or do something you enjoy. Or make some other small, incremental, one degree change each day that eventually, maybe years from now, could, maybe, possibly lead to something different than you’re used to, that you admit, isn’t currently working.
You could do that.
You could actively choose to do something different that seems, in the short term, insignificant, but is not what you did yesterday or are doing today that contributes to your current state of stagnation and dissatisfaction.
It’s not going to matter.
…Are you sure? Physicists will assure you that if you veer off a course even slightly and do not revert immediately, you will surely end up somewhere other than where you intended. And psychiatrists will agree.
Every. Second. Is a choice. To stay the course. Or to end up in the unknown.
You don’t need to know where you’re headed. You don’t need a plan to get there. And you don’t need to change what you believe.
The only thing you need to do is metaphorically look in the mirror, or the rearview, and admit what you don’t like or don’t want to happen again and commit to making minor but different choices so you don’t repeat the same mistakes.
Focus on the moments where the choices exist, and constantly bring your conscious awareness to those moments to hold yourself accountable.
“I am choosing this.”
Every second.
“I am choosing this.”
Eventually, you won’t need to keep bringing up the thing you don’t want because you’ll naturally gravitate towards making choices that feel good.
And I get it - not every second will feel like a choice.
“I have to go to work, Kim. I have to sit at that desk from 8am until 5pm whether I want to or not.”
Got it.
But hey, maybe you don’t have to sit there at 6:19. Maybe afterwards, you don’t have to pick up that fast food that makes you feel like shit. Maybe you don’t have to watch an entire movie after dinner. Maybe you don’t have to wear the same thing to bed.
Because YES. All of those little, seemingly insignificant choices add up.
And maybe, just maybe, who you want to be and how you want to feel is bigger than your job, the so-called source of all your problems.
And maybe making those one degree changes where the choices do exist will indirectly change the way you feel about yourself, which just so happens to change the way other people see you which oddly enough reshapes the way you interact with and view the world.
But hey, I won’t try to convince you of all that.
That choice is up to you.
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