The art of ignoring your own advice

As the New Year is finally here, I found it fitting to set higher ambitions for myself. Personally, I'm not one for new years resolutions... but since my ambitions aid in my overall mental being I am all in.

My plan was simple, to detox my mind. A ridding of negativity that I felt clouding over my days in 2017. This negativity was my choice and I was now choosing not to let it rule my being.

I would take in situations; digest them in a manner that made me think bitter about other people, the world and sometimes myself. It took me so long to realize that it wasn't my environment that was making me bitter, it was me.

The only way to reach my goal was to ask myself one simple question,

"What advice do I most often give but am least likely to follow?"

It is a question that rattled me to my core. In fact, it never even occurred to me until I became complacent to my own unhappiness, but was able to readily offer picture perfect advice to those in my life that needed it.

So I began thinking, what was I always projecting but not following myself. And then I had an "ah-ha" moment. A light bulb went off.

No matter the situation, my closing line in meaningful conversations where advice was being offered was, "do not worry. Everything will be okay."

Somehow,  I was projecting those words that I believed were true for everyone else, but their was an invisible shield that made it not applicable to myself. I was completely genuine when I said them too. It was my cocoon I would wrap around my loved ones. A warm blanket of words that eased their minds. A blanket I was ripping off of myself and placing on them. Their worries were now on my shoulders, along with my own.

This is not how I should have been handeling the situation at all. I should have output the advice and followed it religiously myself like I had asked others to do. The funny thing was, I never realized it until I asked myself that shocking question.

Why do we tell others things that we do not believe true to us? In the end, we are the only ones locking away our happiness and preventing ourselves from ridding toxicity from our lives. So I challenge you to ask yourself, "What advice do I most often give but am least likely to follow?"