Monday Motivation: You Miss A Lot of the Shots You Shoot in the Same (Unhelpful) Way …

So this is my baby cousin, Vernon.

And Vernon loves to play basketball. When I went home back in August, I got to witness his obsession first hand, as his parents bought him a giant basketball hoop for him to play with.

And I wish that I could show you all the way in which he would light up every time he got to play.

So of course every time that I got a spare moment to hang out with him and his twin sister, we always had to play basketball for at least a portion of the time.

And he's actually pretty good for a one-and-a-half-year-old. One of the things that I noticed about when he would shoot is that he was always trying new positions -- sometimes he'd shoot really close, sometimes he shoot far away. Sometimes he'd underhand shoot, and sometimes each shoot with both hands over his head. Sometimes he would even try and shoot into the basket the opposite way-- but there was no shortage of creativity in how he got the ball to go through the net.

He was exploratory, unapologetically determined, and relentless to reach his goal, and his efforts usually paid off. There was one point in time in which we saw him shoot at least 10 baskets in a row from his high chair, which was about 2 ft away, without missing.

So I bring up his efforts this week because I know a lot of us have subconsciously been using the same methods with no results for many years. We've been hating ourselves, or bullying ourselves, or speaking so poorly to ourselves for many years (I know I have).

But it was in this moment of watching Vernon play basketball that I had this sudden epiphany of clarity; why am I continuing treat myself so horribly when it has done absolutely nothing for me?

Talking negatively to myself has never helped me get the outcome I wanted-- it has never gotten me the date that I wanted, the job position I wanted, the overall life I wanted. So why did I continue to still do it? Why is talking negatively to ourselves so addicting, especially when it never gives us the outcome we want?

So as we go forth to reimagine our Monday, and take time to have clarity about the ways in which we can do better for ourselves, I encourage you to meditate over these questions. How can we give ourselves the lives that we want if we keep repeating the actions that continue to not provide us that life? Maybe like Vernon, we need to switch up our strategy. Maybe we should try to be a little kinder to ourselves; to be more exploratory, and unapologetically determined to change our lives around.