Its Going To Be Great
  • Home
  • Great Challenge
  • Great Resources
  • Great Blog

Faced With a Life Changing Decision - How to Turn Your Negative Head Chatter Into a "Yes" . . .

12/29/2017

0 Comments

 
Picture
One year ago I was sitting at my kitchen table at our house in Seatoun, Wellington. In front of me were a pile of bills and correspondence to deal with – not such a bad job on a wet Saturday afternoon, but not exactly heart pumping. One more day off, I thought, before work on Monday at the New Zealand Government’s Department of Conservation. A pretty good job – interesting, meaningful and full of good people doing things that matter. 

All in all I felt my life was pretty peachy. I had a lot to be grateful for. Enough money, without being rich. Healthy (well most of the time). Two amazing daughters and a solid and deep relationship with my wife of 25 years. Decent house, good friends . . . not much to complain about really.

Except something was definitely missing. My life felt a little bit “the same”. I woke up and (when I wasn’t on my four week holiday each year) went to work, came home – a beer, chat, dinner, and bed. I know – I am generalising hugely and there were of course weekends – but that’s what I felt like. Happy on the outside, but a little unfulfilled on the inside.

​My wife had, for a long time, been talking about taking some serious time off. A year of travelling – how about it!? Well if I am honest I did try to sound keen but really I was scared. A whole year . . . how would that work, what about our house and my job, what would we do, where would we go, where would the money come from . . . ?

And that is a great example of the negative “chatter” which goes on in all our heads. All the reasons why something can’t work and why its OK to stay in our safe and known zones . . . 

Steve Taylor, in an excellent article in Psychology Today, talks about thought chatter as creating a constant disturbance within us. Taylor says “Perhaps the biggest problem with thought-chatter though is that it’s often tinged with negativity. Thoughts about the future are tinged with worry and anxiety, thoughts about the past are tinged with regret or bitterness and thoughts about your present life situation are tinged with dissatisfaction.”

​The only way to combat the negative thought chatter, in my view anyway, is not to give in to it. Instead of thinking why things can’t work, turn your mind to how they can. We can rent the house out – it’s a good rental market at the moment and that will give us an income. It’s about time for a change in job and this will force me into thinking differently. It will work and will be great.
Picture
​And so here we are, twelve months on, having just had Christmas day in Bariloche in the Lake District of Argentina. We have hung out in Australia, Indonesia, Sri Lanka, the Netherlands, Scotland, Spain, Portugal, Peru and Chile. We have swam in the beautiful beach coves of Ibiza, meditated on the top of Machu Picchu, tramped in Scotland, detoxed in Sri Lanka, practiced yoga in Portugal and learned Spanish in Peru. Our daughters have joined us for parts of the journey and we have kept a regular blog.

I am so happy we made the decision to take this time off. By using the income from renting our house and staying in simple, but cosy, places we haven’t spent nearly as much as I thought we would have (and by the way we met heaps of people who managed to travel and live for next to nothing). Instead of waiting until we retired to see the world, we are experiencing travel while in our prime. We have learned so much about the world we live in – people, practices and cultures. 
​I think of our time off as one of the best investments we have ever made. And, for me, the investment is still going as if I am already thinking about how I will apply what I have learned to my life back home in New Zealand at the end of this big adventure. I want this feeling to continue.

So my advice is that whenever somebody asks you something like “wouldn’t it be great if . . .”, try and ignore that negative chatter in your head and ask yourself how you can say “yes” rather than “no” or “maybe”.  You won’t always be in the position to drop everything and take off round the world – but just maybe you will . . .
0 Comments



Leave a Reply.

    Archives

    April 2020
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    February 2019
    October 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    April 2017
    October 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015

    Author

    Hi I'm Richard Norris. I live in Wellington, New Zealand, with my wife Jolanda.

    After many years or working and observing human nature I decided to launch www.itsgoingtobegreat.org - all about happiness, mindfulness and feeling great. 
    ​

    Much of the material is taken from everyday life experiences. My motivation is to give something back to a world that has given me so much - and the hope is that someone, somewhere reading this just might realise some of their dreams.

    Categories

    All

    RSS Feed

Proudly powered by Weebly
Photos used under Creative Commons from Miles.Wolstenholme, torbakhopper, fabbio, KSpyroglou, Matthew Paul Argall, wuestenigel, symphony of love, darraghoconnor12, mikecogh, Fibonacci Blue, susivinh, www.tiket2.com, symphony of love, samsaundersleeds, @bastique, CJS*64 "Man with a camera", Tabsinthe, Christopher.Michel, lorenkerns, CJS*64 A man with a camera, Rorals, symphony of love, Nano Taboada, Anne Worner