Image via Complex Original
There’s nothing wrong with wanting to better yourself, but there’s an often fine line between wanting to be better and simply making a problem out of everything.
We’re all guilty of this—of being self-aware to the point of neurosis. Of analyzing to the point of staying stuck. Sometimes we don’t even realize when we’re circling the same drain, wondering why our life hasn’t changed. And, one of the ways we can delay our own healing and not move forward in our lives is to become addicted to advice, to think that someone else has all the answers. It’s a way of self-preservation, of disconnecting from ourselves and empowering others to change our own lives.
Here are some signs to be aware of that could indicate you are addicted to advice (and are stuck on the hamster wheel of self-analysis).
1. You are anxious for what feels like no reason.
When you don’t feel like you have control over your present life, you’re usually living in the past or living in the future. Anxiety is a stark and immediate reminder that you’re not being present and jolts you back to the current moment where you can take control of your own life.
2. You’ve stopped trusting yourself.
Do you go into total paralysis when you need to make a decision? Being indecisive isn’t a character flaw or personality trait. It’s the result of distrusting yourself. People who trust themselves implicitly can easily make decisions, because they know quickly if something vibes with them or not based on how they feel and what they know of themselves.
3. You don’t know what your intuition sounds like.
There’s a little voice in all of us (not a crazy voice, but a little whisper) and we all know what it feels like when we follow it. We feel aligned, empowered, and in complete ownership of our decisions. If you’ve disconnected from that voice, it’s likely time to find it again, to clear the mind of clutter and get real with yourself.
4. You think someone else knows better than you.
If you’re being honest with yourself, you can see clearly why you’re doing certain things on a day to day basis. Maybe you read that x and y helped productivity. Or you incorporated an aspect of someone morning routine into yours thinking that their success would rub off on you. There’s a difference between learning and growing from other people’s stories versus usurping their life in place of our own. One is empowering. The other is truly disempowering.
5. You consider almost every challenge or negative emotion to be a problem that needs fixing.
There’s a big difference between understanding your past experiences as a way to chart your current emotional state as opposed to staying stuck in the past, paralyzing yourself with constant analysis. Sometimes the only thing to do to move forward is to release the past, accept it happened, and create a new story for yourself. Friendly reminder: You’re not perpetually broken. Not every problem is something to be fixed. You can process it and move on without staying stuck.
6. Instead of taking action, you click on another post that ensures the secret to success in 10 easy steps.
Every person who has experienced even a brief moment of success will write a detailed list of what led them to that point. The problem is that everyone is different and to take one person’s experience as the general rule is to completely ignore that the best path to success (or love or healing or inner peace) is to forge it yourself. Your best ideas lie on the other side of trusting yourself.
7. While procrastinating, you’ll read yet another post about productivity.
I don’t think there’s a corner of the internet I despise more than "50 PRODUCTIVITY TIPS FOR MAXIMUM PRODUCTIVITY!" Seriously, if you trust yourself and know yourself—and spend more time trusting and knowing yourself than trying to find the quickest way to get more shit done—then you’ll find your optimum routine and your optimum productivity.
8. You feel stuck in your own life and burnt outc
If all you’re doing is consuming advice, then you’re putting your fate into other people’s hands whether you realize it or not. You are saying to yourself that other people know better than you, that someone has the magical answer to being more successful or happier or more productive.
So, what can you do?
The best thing is to do a strict detox. No more clicking on those enticing links. Find the stillness. Get your zen back. Listen to that little whisper that tells you your best ideas. Or, you know, don’t listen to me at all and do whatever the hell you want, because you know yourself better than I know you and maybe the answer to empowering yourself again is like eating froyo with a bunch of mini M&M’s on top. Just find a way to get back to yourself. You have all the answers. You’re not broken. You got this, boo.
