Have you ever had one of those moments?  Do you know the ones? When you have a bit of a reality check. When you realise that hell, I need to make some changes in my life.

I had one of those moments not so long ago.  My ah-ha moment came to me in a morbidly weird way.

I will go into what my ah-ha moment was and what I took from it. It wasn’t all bad and I believe we are always learning and growing.

What led me to my ah-ha moment

I have had some health scares over the last 12 months. All thanks to stress. Stress as I have mentioned in my previous post (5 Easy Self Care Ideas to Reduce Stress), can affect our bodies in a multitude of ways.

I was trying to go to sleep and my mind would not stop racing. It had been a particularly hard day. My shoulder was aching, and my heart was racing.  All signs that I was letting stress eat away at me.  Then the panic set. I was thinking, what if this is it and I die in my sleep? What if I don’t wake up tomorrow?

Who would I haunt?

If I didn’t wake up tomorrow, would my husband know the people who have done wrong to me? Would he be nice to them at my funeral or would he tell them to bugger off?

Then I thought about those people. Maybe I would have to haunt them.

I told you before it was morbidly weird. But stick with me here.

I went through my head who I would haunt. And I began to think wow I have a lot of people around me that I have an issue with.

Why would I haunt them?

Armed with this list of people I wanted to know why?

Why is one co-worker grinding my gears?  Why am I so worried about why one of my neighbours doesn’t stop to talk to me?

At this point, I got up out of bed and began to write down everything. I had a list of who I would haunt and why.

Don’t get me wrong there was some toxicity on this list. But what stood out to me was the fact that I need to make some changes. I had some toxic traits I needed to work on.

What I learned about myself

I am a negative person –

I was looking at everything and everyone negatively. I was starting each day with the expectation that it was going to be a bad day. If I was working with that co-worker, she was going to make it a bad day. Anything anyone said to me I always put a negative spin on it. They are only saying that because they want to make themselves look good etc.

I’m controlling –

I wanted someone else to step in and do things, but it needed to be done my way. If it wasn’t done the way I wanted them to do it, then I viewed it as a failure. 

Always thinking someone owed me –

Always thinking that I should be the first to go at something because I deserved it more than the other person. And if it didn’t go that way then of course the other person was automatically in the wrong.

What now?

Once I had this reality check, I knew I needed to make some changes in my life. Like they say the first step to change is realising that change needs to happen.

It was a hard wake-up call, I won’t lie. I went down that rabbit hole of thinking wow I am not a nice person.

I feel like I have hit that proverbial fork in the road. I want to choose that path where I am not negative all the time. That when I think about others it is not what they have done to me but what they have done for me. Not everyone is out to tear me down.

I have started a gratitude journal, which I write in at the end of each day.  It is a good way for me to reflect on what has happened in the day. What I am grateful for and who or what has made me smile.

I’m also making a conscious effort to stay away from negative conversations. Staying away from workplace gossip. I was finding it too easy to be sucked into the gossip and once I started, I didn’t know how to stop. And then all I could ever see was negativity at work. Instead, I am making a point to be kind to someone each day. Even if it is just making that one comment which makes someone smile.

Like I said before, I still have a lot to do in terms of my own personal growth. 

Think about yourself and what 3 negative mindsets you can learn from and change?

Until next time,

Maggie x