3 Totally Unorthodox Ways to Win at Life
By: Lisa M. Hayes – Confluence Daily is your daily news source for women in the know.
DOING THE SAME THINGS AND EXPECTING DIFFERENT RESULTS PROBABLY WON’T WORK.
Unfortunately, life doesn’t come with a manual, and yet we’re all playing by a set of rules we are programmed with. A lot of the time we aren’t even fully aware of the programming that shapes almost all of our choices, behaviors, and experiences.
We learn most of the rules we live by early in childhood. We accept those things as if they are true whether they are or aren’t. Most of the time we don’t question whether or not they’re even effective.
Because we can rarely see our programming, we spend all of our time playing the same game by the same rules. Doing the same thing over and over again will naturally produce the same result.
If you want different results in your life, you might want to change the game and the rules. The good news is you can. It’s your life. You get to do it however you’d like.
When your program is hidden and very fixed sometimes the easiest way to shift it is to be extreme intentionally, and then over time you settle into a more productive mid-point.
Here are three ways you might turn the traditional rules upside down and start playing by a more subversive set of rules to yield better results.
1. Assume no one likes you and be totally alright with that.
We spend way too much time and energy trying to be liked. It’s a primal response. Your reptilian brain tells you that being liked increases your chances of survival. Most of our reptilian behaviors are outdated. The driving drumbeat for tribal approval is probably one of them.
The vast majority of the time the deep desire to be liked causes you to be a little or lot less bold, creative, or confronting. It leaves you trying to be a little less you, so there is less chance you will offend.
We mold ourselves into versions of ourselves we will think make us more acceptable. We turn ourselves down, or completely off to avoid being too difficult or too loud.
Radical self-acceptance is the path to freedom. However, you can’t be radically self-accepting if you’re pandering to anyone for approval.
If you start with a baseline assumption that no one is going to like you anyway, you can be free to bring your genius into the light without reservation. You can do, say, or be anything you want because you’re not going to lose the one thing most people are clamoring for – approval.
You don’t need to be liked to be powerful. Most of history’s greatest thought leaders and change agents probably weren’t innately likable people.
There’s nothing intrinsically wrong with being liked. However, being loved for who you really are is the sweet spot.
2. Decide that fitting in is a sure path to failure and set yourself up to stick out at all costs.
We put children in school at a very young age, and the first thing we teach them is how to fit in. Unless they do it in just the right way, they get punished or shunned for standing out.
Women spend billions of dollars every year to fix their flaws, cover up their faces, trying to dress and look like everyone else. When they can’t, they feel like they aren’t good enough because they don’t fit the beauty standards or social norms. The problem is there is no “normal” and the women we tend to think our most beautiful are unusually unique.
We want to show off our best stuff on social media, so no one notices what might not be perfect, and by perfect I mean, normal. We tend to judge people who are off the norm because we’re afraid we’re going to get found out for not being like everyone else.
This sounds like high school. However, unfortunately, it’s high school and adulthood until death for most people.
Here’s the thing, anyone who’s extraordinary at anything, stands out. Anyone who accomplishes great things stands out. Anyone who’s wildly creative stands out. Anyone who changes the world is definitely going to stand out.
Aiming to fit in means setting your trajectory straight for the middle of the status quo. Not much magic is happening in the status quo. If you fit in too well, chances are very high you’re not living up to your potential. Potential always pushes the edges of what’s normal.
3. Use rejection as a compass point, not to avoid but to aim for.
Most people treat rejection like the plague. Rejection usually doesn’t feel good. However, with the way people avoid it, you’d think it was a matter of life and death. It’s not. Often rejection is a bumper that keeps you on the right path instead of a sign you’re going wrong.
We tend to take rejection personally as if it’s innately about our value when it very rarely is. Rejection is almost always about circumstance more than worth. Sometimes rejection is more of a not now, than a not ever. However, most people won’t risk taking another shot at something because they felt like the rejection was personal.
When we aim for rejection, it can miraculously lead us to our purpose and a life with deep meaning. If you knock on one hundred doors looking for a miracle and only one door opens, you still got your miracle. However, if you were offended and dejected after ten doors, you might think you spared yourself ninety rejections when really you cost yourself a miracle. Life has a tendency to open the right doors for those who keep knocking.
Fear of rejection creates a fence between you and what’s possible. However, shooting for what’s beyond the walls by aiming for rejection takes that wall down very quickly. When someone rejects you, you are one step closer to finding the person who won’t. Winning is a numbers game. It’s hard to play the numbers if you’re afraid of losing.
Luck tends to favor those who make the big asks and take the scary risks. Massive wins live in the margins, and the margins can feel very vulnerable. However, if you let go of taking rejection personally, the risks become very small very quickly no matter how far you’re reaching.
A pile of rejections almost always sits on the desk of the best-selling author or chart-topping musician.
Every leading lady or leading man can wallpaper a house with rejection letters.
Any candidate who won an office was probably rejected by millions of voters getting there – even if they won. Almost everyone who’s found great love has walked through the mucky waters of being vulnerable to rejection.
If you set your compass by the number of risks you take instead of the number of rejections you might get, rejection loses its sting. It’s a more productive way to keep score.
Greatness is usually buried under a mountain of rejection, and most people won’t dig there. However, if you make it your mission to rejection-proof yourself, you’ll have no problem mining through that mountain the gold under the surface. Usually, it’s not as far down as you think it might be.
More by Lisa:
Everything You Need to Know About that Asshole You Should Avoid
Lisa is an LOA Relationship Coach. She helps clients leverage Law of Attraction to get the relationships they dream about and build the lives they want. Lisa is the author of the newly released hit book, Score Your Soulmate and How to Escape from Relationship Hell and The Passion Plan.
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