You’ve seen it, right? When accused of something like, “You’re so messy (lazy, self-centered, disorganized….whatever) the person responds with, “Yes, well. That’s just the way I am.” As if somehow, that makes it okay.
Doesn’t that make you crazy? Don’t you want to fire back, “Really? You have a ‘messy’ DNA encoding?”
But, if we are really honest, I think we would all admit that there is something about us that we really do believe is “just the way we are.” And while it feels like WE are justified in our thinking, we know that it’s no more attractive when we do it than when THEY do it. Here’s a way to get past this unattractive, self-limiting mindset and exponentially improve our lives.
In the moment that you hear yourself think or say, “That’s just the way I am” – stop and immediately change it to, “No, that’s the way I am choosing to be.”
BAM! That will smack you upside the head like a frying pan! Because it’s true! That is exactly what you are doing. You are CHOOSING to be like that. Now you can also choose to continue the behavior if you want to (and suffer the same limitations), but you can no longer blame it on those unseen forces that MAKE you behave a certain way. You’ll be taking ownership of the problem – which means you can take ownership of the solution.
Please know that I’m not talking about things like nationality, gender, sexual orientation, etc. Clearly if you are, let’s say, Italian, you could say, “I’m Italian. And that’s just the way I am!”
From your Italian motivational speaker Linda Larsen
