Rigidity of Thinking

I've been thinking a lot about my thought processes lately and wanted to get it all out in a blog post. This is not directly related to my goals for this month (which are coming and going in terms of my adherence to them), but I wanted to hash this out on "paper".

The most important thing I've learned over the past few months has been how my way of thinking has affected my perception of things around me, and my overall happiness/satisfaction. Specifically, the rigidity of my thoughts has greatly influenced my personal satisfaction with where my life is, and where it is going.

As my personality is somewhat rigid and tense, I have the tendency to think in black and white. I am either fully pleased or fully unhappy in the sense that it is easy for me to let a small unhappiness seep it's way into positive occurrences and dull their happy effects. Rigid thinking has also set me up for failure and disappointment, which has not contributed any happy feelings to my life. At the age of 24, I can say that I am not where I thought I would be by now, and I used to feel terrible about it. But I am not going to let myself feel bad about it anymore.

The most recent example of this type of thinking negatively impacting my happiness is the "life plan" I had drawn up for myself. Masters degree completed by age 26. Go right into my PhD program. Have my PhD completed by 30-31. By 31 I am a practicing/registered clinical psychologist. Somewhere between there I have met my life partner, am married, and/or am about to get married, and will start having children ASAP. I will have also saved up enough to have bought a nice car and house, will be financially stable, healthy, etc. By setting up these strict age limits on my life progress, I set myself up for disappointment if something doesn't come through on that timeline. This timeline was a source of frequent pressure and worry that I will not achieve (my operational definition of) success. A significant source of anxiety that I will become a failure.

After some weeks of counselling and taking the time to think things through, I have recently decided to let this timeline go. While still 100% motivated to reach the aforementioned goals at some point in my life, I have dropped the "age of completion" limits to which they were attached. The most tangible evidence of this change of thinking is that I am not applying to PhD programmes next year. I am taking a year off and hoping to move to Quebec City to teach ESL in the public school system. I am looking forward to living on my own, and to the change of scenery from (the beautiful but predictable) Newfoundland. By allowing myself to see the grey areas of life, I have (hopefully) opened myself to new opportunities.

Susan