How to Stop Holding Yourself Back

For No Money Down, No Money Later.

The only person who is holding you back from your own potential and happiness is yourself.

You are the voice – voices if you here more than one – in your head that says you aren’t good enough, that you woulda coulda shoulda and worse, that you won’t, can’t or oughtn’t do something.

It is this voice that is your unhappiness and there is a simple way to jettison the voice – but, it will take a lot of effort and willingness on your part. I can only tell you what the process it and that is it worth it.

An existential crisis is the opportunity for each person to understand why life matters.

Existential crisis is usually thought of as a crisis in which you obsessively think about your own mortality – what’s the point of life when we all die anyway.

Now, it’s more than merely being depressed and mulling – anyone can do that – and to some degree, this is largely what SADs (Seasonal Affected Disorder) is about – a lower level – life sucks after weeks of gray gloomy cold and damp weather. SADs is best dealt with by full spectrum lighting and some vitamin D.

Anyone who only gets depressed during long periods of bad weather are essentially amateurs at being depressed. It’s easy when it’s gloomy or life is unpleasant – a professionally depressed person gets depressed when life seems good and glorious because we know the rain will return and flowers will rots and birds go south.

There’s even a whole whole of English poets who wrote all out it.

Part One: What Makes Life Worth Living

The Process is to have an Existential Existentialist Crisis. This isn’t something you can just trigger; you really do have to be at the end of your rope – and I mean the end of the is life worth living rope.

You can put yourself there by determining what it is that keep you getting up each morning and continuing on with life. Not your hopes, goals and dreams – but, what is the belief that allows you to pursue those hopes, goals and dreams.

It is to know what the deal breaker is for continuing to live – it’s not other people or things, it is what is it that makes life living for you.

For me, it is the belief that things will be okay. I can cope through anything – and have coped through a lot – but, I can cope as long as I know things will be better – life is a process, a continual march towards neutrality. Life is good sometimes and bad others, but it will never be one or the other all of the time. Life is okay.

When life becomes not okay and it will never be okay, then, I’m out of it – done, finished – there is no point to carrying on.

For other people, it may be that life will get better, or that life is a drudgery march towards death. Whatever gets you up in the day and care taking yourself so that whatever belief carries you through continues to serve to carry you through, then, life is worth living.

This is how people like Nelson Mandela survived long term and seemingly unending imprisonment – because it didn’t matter where he was or what he was doing – he know that no matter what he was suffering that in the end, life would be better, gave him the strength to carry on, the fortitude to not break no matter what was done to him, to his body, to his freedom and sheer existence.

Even if Mr. Mandela had been murdered in prison – he would not have been defeated because he was right – life did get better for him, for his people, for his nation.

So, what gets you up and plodding through your existence – why is life worth living for you?

Not the details, not minutia, not external factors which make life better or worse – but what is it that is your basic assumption of what make life worth living no matter what circumstances you are in.