Last night I woke up and could not go back to sleep again.
Instead of sweet dreams, I was haunted by memories of failures, setbacks, and rejection. And all the bad decisions I ever made in my entire life. Sort of.
How painful it was. And how little I slept.
Not only did it ruin my night’s sleep, but it also ruined my day. Ill slept and ill tempered I growled around doing my absolute best to turn my husband into a miserable replica of myself.
How unnecessary since truth is that we never make bad mistakes.
We always make as good decisions as we can in that specific moment. It is only in hindsight that we realize that the decisions we once made was bad. Because NOW we know all the details and consequences that we could not at all see, or know about, when we made our decision from the beginning.
My experience is that everyone makes as good decisions as they can. If they are sane and sound. WHY on earth would anyone even decide on something that they are aware of is bad?!
Not happening ever. (NB I’m obviously talking about decisions affecting yourself only and you wanted it to be a good decision.)
But self – blaming and bad night’s sleep, that is happening all over the world!
Everyone has experienced setbacks in their life, everyone has reasons for regretting decisions. Life is a roller coaster for us all, up and down it goes. Sometimes we scream and laugh, sometimes we scream and cry.
It’s especially much so if we are ambitious and have high expectations for our life and career.
Now, at this point I should write something extremely inspiring about how you could easily solve this problem. That my lifelong experience has taught me some big secret that would save you from bad decisions and not sleeping very well.
Unfortunately, I have no secret trick. I know, far too well that life is hard from time to time. We will fall, there is no escape from that. The trick is not to avoid falling, it’s to learn how to get back up on your feet again.
But there are some things you can do that will help you through:
- Accept that your feelings, good and bad, are important keys for understanding yourself. They hide important stories about you, that will help you understand yourself and your path better.
- Find someone, like a coach, that can help you decode those stories and learn from them and make new, empowered, decisions.
- Make sure that you have a clear vision that is in line with your own life story, a strong vision is what will help you get up – over and over again!
Doing so, will help you get up on your feet quicker, reach your goals and sleep better.
Because you have now started to make use of your StoryPower!
/Åsa Rydhard
The author Åsa Rydhard, MACA, holds a master’s degree in Applied Cultural Analysis and is specialized in strategic storytelling as a tool for branding and pitching. She is a popular, award-winning public speaker and the founder of the Brand Elevator programme.
If you want to know more about strategic storytelling and get your free “Grow Your Brand with Storytelling” Roadmap here: Download Roadmap