When going through life, there are always times where it ends up seeming pointless.
We can reach these moments which feel like brick walls. Sadly, sometimes we get these feelings quickly after being highly motivated and pushing our self to new heights. Because, after a while the momentum starts to die down.
These are what I like to call – the rainy days.
Those days when sleep is more attractive then another hour working at your craft. Those days when Netflix is just a click away to help you escape the lack of enthusiasm.
These are the days when we search for motivation in our soul and come up empty handed, so we turn to searching Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Youtube for anything to draw us away. We ultimately end up finding nothing but solitude.
These are the rainy days of life.
Not Everyday Is Exciting
It’s not glorious or what everyone wants to hear but not everyday can be exciting.
There, I said it. Not everyday for anyone is exciting. No matter how rich, famous, powerful, or determined, there is just a limited amount of things in this world that will spark our soul, ignite our curiosity.
There’s a limited amount of things in this world for a reason though. It is because that feeling of “inner fire” and drive is supposed to be a natural reaction to certain situations. Those feels are a prescribed human conditions that we try to control.
It is a feeling that we long for, push for, and end up abusing substances for. That high, that affinity of life. Can you feel it?
It’s better than a million dollars, it’s better than winning an award, it’s better than anything in this world that you can physically obtain. That feel is a blessing, and sadly, it is also a curse.
So much so that the lack of that feeling drives people into what we call depressions.
What is Depression
When someone is going through depression, they are really living without a inner fire.
They are living without that inner motivational fire that only exists with those who believe in themselves.
You see depression has an easy definition – It’s ones acceptance of giving up.
It’s not ones acceptance of giving up on life or a job or a relationship, it is definitively the act of giving up on one’s self.
You probably didn’t realize it, but right now if you are happy, driven, or even just content then a part of you believes in yourself. You believe in your actions, your intentions, your mental state, and most importantly you believe in your life. Your life has meaning.
Depressed people do not feel that their life has meaning anymore. They fundamentally lack the ability to believe in their selves.
Every super villain knows what the best way to conquer a country or a population is. The best way to conquer is to remove – what from the population?
The best way is to remove their hope and belief in them selves.
Once you do that, you have won. There is no coming back after someone truly loses to their inner being. Once you lose your inner fight, the world doesn’t have to keep hitting you. You’ll do that yourself.
Even better, the Devil can retire! His work here is done he says. His mark is placed,
and you are no longer in his way. Most of the time the Devil doesn’t want you to do anything bad in life, he just wants you to give up…
He wants you to give up and…
stop trying to help the world, you’re not good enough.
Stop trying to love people, they don’t like you.
Don’t fight for your well being, just let people walk over you and take it.
Find Your Triggers
You see, the Devil knows better.
He doesn’t need to beat you, he wants you to beat yourself. It is the ultimate victory.
That is why you need to be able to climb out of the depths of your inner recesses. If your mind slips into this state of desolate isolation of your own self, then you need to know how to get out.
But how?
How do you fight when you’re own hands are against you? How do you try and run your feet won’t move.
That is where somethings greater than our capabilities come in. That is where our inner mental triggers need to be primed.
A very easy trick to use, and I suggest using it, is to find your triggers. The things above all else that will reset you.
For some people, these might be repetitive actions they do everyday to get their mind right. Similar to doing yoga or meditating. Others might have a prayer they recite, while others might blare a song that reminds them of who they are and why they’re there.
We’re not alone. You’re not alone. Use your resources, use the people around you, find your triggers to bring your mind into it’s present state of here and now, AND THERE you make your stand. Use your triggers to fight your inner doubts, use them to battle your demons, and use them to escape your own mental undoing.
What Are Mental Triggers
You might think this is silly.
What a joke right? – How could a song or a phrase, or an action reset my mind into a present state?
I’ll give you two examples. One from a famous author/speaker, and another from my personal journey as an elite gymnast.
First from the speaker.
3…2…1.. Lift Off
This speaker was a lady that had struggled all of her life to do just about anything with it. She had cheated on her husband and caused her divorce, been laid off several times, and failed several start ups. At this point in her life, she was depressed beyond a measure of doubt.
She was so depressed that she could not even get out of bed anymore in the mornings. It got so bad, she would just plan to stay in bed and tried to work out of bed instead of leaving it.
Finally, she said enough as she cried out in prayer clawing anything to help her. I will find my mental trigger to get out of bed whatever it is, whatever it takes.
One day as she woke up, she paused. She breathed slowly and closed her eyes.
She started to count out loud.
10………………………….
9………………………
8…………………
7…………….
6…………
5………
4……
3…
2..
1.
“Lift off”, she said.
At once she rose up as quickly as possible pretending she herself was a spaceship taking off from Earth. Fighting the forces of gravity, the atmosphere, being propelled through space and sky, through her depression, through her doubts.
Something about putting herself in another situation all together allowed her to execute the most difficult task in her life at the time – getting out of bed.
She found her mental trigger. She still does this to this day to get out of bed every morning. The woman is now a successful person that goes around the world preaching and teaching about the goodness of God and life.
3, 2, 1, lift off.
Personal Mental Blocks
In my own journey, I was faced with extreme mental blocks in my sport of gymnastics. There was never a day in the gym when this was not a problem for me.
These mental blocks would drive me absolutely crazy, keep me from performing certain skills, and ultimately held me back from accomplishing my full potential. There were many days I went home crying because I felt I could not overcome these fears.
Nevertheless, there was a time when I figured my own mental triggers to enabled myself to overcome these blocks.
My Mental Trigger
Ironically, in a competition the gloves came off. Never in my life did I step back from a competition, and when that hand raised to step onto the floor, the fears were no where to be found. It was game time.
It was a gift really, the art of competing near my full potential regardless of the the fears that held me back in practice. The problem was, I was never getting the proper amount of training to push my abilities further because practice was terrible. Even so, I was one of the top gymnasts in my state with hardly ever trained most of my skills.
it one day became too much for me to handle. I wanted to push to the next level. I needed a mental trigger to overcome these fears.
Luckily, I found it.
Compete Everyday
From reflecting on my situation I realized that if I would not practice my skills – then I needed everyday to be a competition.
Stupid as it sounds, it worked.
Instead of doing just a few skills in practice to train things in sections or parts, I would do full routines every single day – nearly non stop.
I would treat them as if I was stepping onto the floor in front of a thousand people, raising my hand to a real judge, and putting my mind set in the place of what took me to my next level – game time.
Shortly after figuring this out and executing it daily in the gym, I went from a top gymnast in my state to one of the top in the nation for a while.
Using a simple, and honestly stupid, mental trigger changed my entire career for a while. It changed my life and my understanding of how the mind really works. Sometimes, we need mental triggers to overcome mental barriers. We need the things that force us into a present state of mind, game time.
Use This Skill To Overcome Mental Barriers
This skill is ultimately invaluable.
Imagine being able to work every single day at your peak. Imagine being able to overcome your greatest fears, not once, but daily. This is the power of using a mental trigger effectively. Mental triggers can change everything.
No one’s triggers are the same though. You have to know yourself well enough and try enough things, to find what really works for you. It could be something as simple as counting down from 10 every morning.
You never know until you try.
Go find your mental triggers. Go take back the world that is yours to conquer. And go overcome your mental barriers preventing you from happiness, success, and the life you want.
Tell the Devil he can suck it while you’re at it. This is your life.
3..2..1.. lift off.
