4 Negative Mindsets I’m Giving Up in 2018

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Psychologists like to say that a big portion of how we approach our lives comes from our internal monologues. So, in other words, our internal voice can be helping us to go in positive directions or holding us back in negative patterns. Is it possible that I could be less negative and more positive in my head? Definitely.

As always with the beginning of a new year, I have been thinking about ways to live a better a life and find more happiness in 2018. With some careful consideration (and some very enthusiastic input from my husband), I’ve come up with four negative mindsets that I will be actively working to change about myself this year.

negative mindsets

“No One Cares”

Over the last several years of raising children and being yelled at by said children who want their needs met first, I have developed the attitude of, “No one cares about Mom,” across various situations. No one cares when Mom is hungry/sick/has to pee/has put together a very delicious dinner for everyone to enjoy. Based on all of my negative feedback from tiny people, I’ve allowed my own needs to become marginalized.

This mindset is only breeding bad feelings in poor downtrodden Mom’s mind, so it’s time that I ditch it and start standing up for myself. Sometimes we have to wait a few minutes because Mom has to do something for herself! And I’m not going to feel bad about it anymore! And since I DO care about my delicious dinners, I’m going to start employing a more optimistic attitude…instead of my usual negative: “It’s chicken and you probably won’t eat it,” I’m going to to start exclaiming: “It’s chicken and you’re going to love it!” Watch them turn their tiny noses up in the face of my optimism!

“There’s Not Enough Time”

I seem to always find myself saying that there isn’t enough time in the day. But the reality of the situation is that I am in charge of how I am choosing to spend my time. I need to take better ownership of my decisions. My youngest child is in preschool for nine hours a week and I am generally trying to fit about 90 hours of things into that brief period of time. This leaves me quite frustrated when I can’t get it all done.

Maybe I need to stop trying to do so much? No one is telling me how to spend my time. It’s completely up to me to decide if I am running errands, working out, attending to appointments, volunteering, being crafty, answering emails, cleaning up the house, or just enjoying some quiet time with a book. But at the end of the day, I should feel good about how I decided to spend my time. It is up to me to be more honest about how I really want to spend my time and not apologize or feel bad about what decisions I make.

“What I Want Doesn’t Matter”

As a Mom, you are not often asked what you want in any situation. You watch kids shows. You read the books they choose. You listen to kids music. And when was the last time that you got to pick the game or the puzzle? Don’t even get me started on running errands, because children have WAY too many opinions about what they believe to be acceptable errands. I work my butt off to have fun weekend outings to please the whole family, yet there’s always at least one complainer.

These are pretty general examples, but I tend to find myself getting upset with the kids opinions trumping mine. I’m a person too! Maybe I just can’t handle THAT particular museum/park/diner one more time and would really like to try a new one! Learning to accept other people’s opinions is part of life, and my kids are going to start learning more about Mom’s opinions. Sorry folks, Mom is tired of being ignored and walked all over.

“I Am Not In Control of this Situation” 

Sure, there are situations that will be out of your control, but the majority of situations that you will come across in every day life can be under your control. I can’t control how my children will respond to me, but I sure as heck can control how I respond to them. When they are yelling at me at bedtime because I did the toothpaste wrong, I am in control of either diffusing the situation or ramping it up with my own yelling.

I can’t control what fights the children will choose while getting ready for school and us eventually being late for school…but I can control how much I prepare for the morning fight the night before, and how early I decide to get up in the morning to be ready for the fight. Again, these are general examples, but you get the idea. And it ties back into what I was saying about taking more ownership of my time and my decisions. If I need more time to prepare for the morning chaos, then I am in charge of making it happen. 

What negative mindsets can you change in 2018?

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