The inflexibility of the demands you place on yourself can make you inadaptable.
Our thoughts and beliefs shape the world that we live in. The inflexibility of the demands you place on yourself, other people and the world around you mean you don’t adapt as well to reality as you could.
If our thoughts and beliefs contain firm words such as ‘must’, ‘need’, ‘have to’ or ‘should’ they leave little room for the ability to adapt to what life brings our way.
Do these sound familiar?
- I must have the approval of my friends and colleagues.
This thought may lead you to feel unnecessarily anxious in many social situations, leading you to put pressure on yourself by trying to get everyone to like you – often at a very high personal expense.
- You think that because you are kind and considerate to others they have to be equally kind and considerate to you.
You have to realise that your demand is not realistic, just because you feel this way unfortunately does not mean that others do too. Other people are governed by their own values and this may end up leaving you feeling hurt or betrayed, even by strangers.
- You should have a senior managerial position and earn a certain figure by the age of 30 in order to be successful.
Related: Is EQ more important in the business environment?
Creating goals for yourself and judging yourself and others by them creates mass pressure on you, as well as may cloud your vision of other factors that may be equally viewed as successful. There is nothing wrong with setting goals as long as you can be mindful of the fact that your goals are subjective and what the word success means to you may mean something completely different to someone else.
Therefore, having flexible preferences about yourself, others and the world in general will pave the way to a healthy and less rigid way of life.
Rather than making demands on yourself, the world and others. Try the following tips
Limit approval seeking
Acknowledge that you can have a fulfilled life, even without the approval you seek from others. Identify that you have a preference for approval rather than it being something youhaveto have. You will begin to feel more confident in social settings and begin to enjoy the people instead of being purely focused on receiving approval, as if it were an absolute need.
Pay attention to language
Replace words like ‘should’, ‘must’ and ‘need’ with ‘wish’, prefer’ and ‘want’. It will take a lot of pressure off.
Understand that the world does not play by your rules
We all have our own set of life rules, and as long as you try to judge other people’s actions by your own set of guidelines, you’ll most likely be setting yourself up for disappointment.
We have to acknowledge that we all have our own set of values, and those of friends or colleagues may differ greatly to ours. Give others the right to not live up to your standards and you’ll feel less hurt when they fail to do so.
Related: The importance of self-regard and your success
Preserve your standards, ideals and preferences and let go of your rigid demands about how you, others and the world have to be
Rather than becoming upset or depressed about things not being the way you believe they must be, keep acting consistently with how you would like things to be.
By holding onto rigid demands of how thingsought to be you leave no margin for deviation or error, which is completely unnatural to our human nature.