Five Tempting Things You Should Avoid

Mark Manson’s post inspired me:

1. It’s tempting to be a people-pleaser
It’s tempting to go with the flow, to give up a little here, a little there, just to make everyone else happy. Conflict makes us all uncomfortable. 
But conflict is also occasionally necessary, to stand up for what we need, to know who we are. 
Sometimes the most loving thing you can tell someone is “no.” 

2. It’s tempting to blame others for your situation
We all get screwed in life, one way or another. We all suffer unfairly or experience some injustice. 
And while we should never excuse that, we also have to realize that we’re the only ones in charge of our own lives. 
Your problems may not always be your fault. But they are always your responsibility. 

3. It’s tempting to believe you don’t have enough time
Everyone’s favorite excuse these days is, “I don’t have enough time!” We all feel overloaded at work, at home, too many shows, too many events, too many people to see, too much to do. 
But time is not the problem. There’s always enough time. The problem is priorities. If it feels as though you never have enough time to do the things you want to do, the problem is that you are not prioritizing the things you want to do (see: people-pleasing above). 

4. It’s tempting to play it safe
Generally, in life, rewards are proportional to risks. The smaller the risks, the smaller the rewards. 
Accomplishing anything requires some degree of risk. And the more you want to accomplish, the more you will have to risk to get there.
Put another way: if you do what everyone else does, you will get the results everyone else has gotten. 

5. It’s tempting to judge yourself
When things go wrong—when we fail, get rejected, or come up short—it’s easy to assume that there’s something fundamentally wrong with us. That we’ll never change. That we shouldn’t feel this way or be that way. 
But that judgment doesn’t help us. It merely cements us in our pain. Everyone fails. Everyone has insecurities. Everyone feels like shit from time to time. 
The quicker you learn to see this as a normal part of life, the quicker you move on with your life.