Stress-reducing thoughts successful people forget to tell you about

Modern culture often pushes an unrealistic image of success, making people feel like they should be able to perform perfectly in all aspects of life effortlessly. Television and social media are a lot to blame regarding this issue, for serving idealized lifestyle images.

Negative self-judgement is toxic. Love yourself

Most therapists agree that negative self-judgement is one of the most toxic emotions. It can lead to self-loathing, which is a very dangerous emotion. These kinds of negative empotions towards ourselves can harm us on all levels: health, work as well as relationships. The best way to fight these emotions is to choose to forgive yourself for not being able to meet your own high standards, and to admit you are expecting too much out of yourself. Think about your achievements, people around you who care about you and take a few minutes every day to think positive about yourself.

Think ‘success’, not ‘failure’

Everyone fails in some point in their lives. Be it marriage, work or parenting. But, the important thing is not to exaggerate every tiny failure in your life. If you find yourself talking more about your failures than you do about successes, that means you need to change. Take a few moments every day to congratulate yourself on each achievement you made, no matter how tiny.

If no one knows about your failure, it didn’t happen

Embarrassing incidents are a part of everyday life. Everyone embarrasses themselves at work at some point or make a mistake they need to acknowledge. But, if the mistake you made is not at all funny to you, for example, if you performed poorly at work or your partner pointed out something you are doing wrong in your relationship, you don’t necessarily need to talk about it. Especially if it makes you uncomfortable. No one says you should pretend to be someone you are not, but the more important thing is to learn from your mistakes, rather than beating yourself up. The right thing to do is to learn a lesson from your mistake and move on from the unfortunate incident.

You are not a machine. It’s ok to ask for help

Do you think it is possible for someone to work eight hours every day, clean and tidy their home, spend quality time with their partner and children and maintain a polished look and figure at the same time? Of course, it's not. It is completely ok to ask for help. It doesn’t make you look incompetent, it helps you to achieve higher goals. Ask or hire help for those everyday chores you feel are not important to do yourself, and leave more space to focus on more important things.

What truly fulfilled and successful people mention frequently is that they owe gratitude to people around them who have helped them achieve their goals. You will often hear authority figures saying: "Thank you, I couldn't have done this without you". And the truth is, they mean it.