Escaping Negativity
How To Escape From Negative Thoughts And Be Productive Again
Negativity happens to everybody, but it doesn’t mean we give up and let it consumes us. Here are some tips to help you unstuck.
Since I graduated from design college, I’m very much active looking for a job through LinkedIn. Despite still being able to make decent money as a freelance graphic designer, it is not my main career goal. I have so many things I want to achieve by working for a company or institution, and I want to be a part of an inspiring team and meet exciting co-workers.
Whenever I log on to LinkedIn, I see heaps of achievements that people are having on their careers and random announcements about them being admitted to a prestigious university through a scholarship. That’s where my insecurities and slight depression began to consume me.
It’s not that I’m jealous of them; it’s more about me questioning myself that ended up pitying my life. I broke down and blamed everything on myself for being too determined about changing my career. The thoughts like “if only I could stick with my law school background maybe I could get a scholarship easier because it’s aligned with my education” or “if only I didn’t change my career and stayed in the previous company, maybe I already got promoted to the managerial level.”
This whole pandemic situation has got me quite depressed, and it’s not okay. Not that I miss hanging out, I’m quite an introverted person so staying at home is -typically- not so bad, but I miss getting distractions for sure. Every time negative thoughts hit me, I often go outside to a cafe or a park, and suddenly I feel better and get inspired.
I don’t like being negative (well… no one does) because it hinders me from productivity, and from my experience, I know that every problem that I faced would eventually lead me to the bright side. Yet, these days all the positive thoughts I had seems diminished. Nowhere to be found a.k.a error 404.
I tried to gain my positivity back, it’s not easy, because the negative thoughts I had are already becoming the mental burden that I tried to ignore since it was started a month ago. I’m not an expert in self-reflection, mental-healing, or whatever hipster-name of self-motivation method exists in the world, but this is what I’m currently doing, and I hope it can help you too.
Admit That You Are Not Okay
It’s okay to not be okay. As a human, we tend to feel various kinds of emotions. Even the happiest, kindest, and most positive person on earth may experience negative thoughts crossing through their mind.
I never encourage myself (and maybe you as the reader) to stay unrealistically positive. I’m not going to lecture about, “hide your feelings when you feel sad or negative” or “you are lucky, you should count your blessings”. I want you and me to admit that we are not okay.
My method of relieving the “not okay” feeling is by jotting down my negative thoughts, my jealousy, my anger, whatever negativity I had. I have to admit that I unconsciously started to shed a tear when I wrote down bout my feeling. It’s hard for me to not be emotional when I read every single word that comes out of the paper from my raw emotion.
While writing, please be honest to yourself, just say whatever you wanna say. Be harsh if you need to. You can do it by writing or simply talking to yourself alone as if you are consulting with another ‘you’. You can cry if you want to. Crying is not a sign of weakness, in fact, there are many benefits from crying.
Find The Reason Behind Why It Happened
After jotting down or speaking it out, I hope you feel better so you’re calm enough to reflect and understand the root of the problems. I don’t think that it’s necessary to make this reflection session last more than an hour, I did it five to ten minutes before bed.
I figured out the three reasons why I got depressed: my age, not having a career yet, and worrying about my future. From the big three problems I have, I can only solve the “career” problem. While “age” is a fact that I can’t change, and “future” is the uncertainty that keeps going on and no one can avoid it, so… just embrace it. I have to allocate my energy for something solvable not like “age” and “future”.
To solve my “career” problem, I need to know what solution I can propose to deal with it. It’s obvious that applying for a job is the most suitable solution to this matter. How to do it? Get my resume and portfolio ready, then have a target to apply at least to 3–5 companies per week. What if I don’t get a job yet? Taking a virtual class related to the intended field or reading a book or executing a personal project. Why do I still feel depressed? Maybe I need to straight-up click the “job” section button instead of browsing through other people’s LinkedIn updates. 😅
Reality Check
Now you probably have figured out your problems and how to solve them, time to tick the boxes on how you will execute your solution. No, you don’t have to put the list of what you want to do and tick it when you’re done. You can, but it’s not necessary, especially if the steps you need to take is less than four.
In my case, since my solvable problem is “career” I need to tick the boxes of these following steps:
- Preparing my job application then apply to 3–5 companies per week;
- Taking online courses related to the field;
- Executing a personal project.
Then I can make a reality check, what I have done previously and what I will do this following week. I’m done with the job application, and I still have an ongoing online course, but I haven’t started my personal project. I need to allocate the time to work on my personal project with a regular schedule. It is going to be better if I also give myself a deadline to finish this project to avoid me from slacking off.
Don’t Be Too Hard On Yourself
Congratulation, you (I hope) finally escape the negativity in your head. You have to congratulate yourself too because you have successfully managed your depression and negative thoughts (that’s not easy!).
It’s okay to take a break from your routine and put less pressure on yourself for a while. When I woke up in the morning after the night I contemplated, the first thing I did was eat a lavish breakfast (sounds like a good excuse from not dieting). I had a good meal in the morning to boost my mood, and then I took a shower while listening to my favourite song from the portable speaker.
I did nothing related to the job application or self-development. I just wanted to relax and enjoyed my time. That day, I read a novel, doodled, and took a language lesson that used to be untouched for nearly two months since I got busy with the job application.
Get Ready, Set Go!
A break from routine is essential to restart your energy and mood. After that, you can start doing whatever things you wanna do to achieve your goal or to work on the solution to your problems.
Don’t forget to give a pat on the back and of course a timeout when you have completed your mission or mini tasks. For example, every time I have finished applying for jobs in a week or attending virtual courses, I give myself a timeout. I watch an episode of a serial that I’m currently watching or just chilling while listening to music for an hour per day.
Here’s a tip: whenever you give yourself a timeout, please stay away from social media if your feeling is still sensitive. It’s not a good distraction, but it can be useful if you browse social media to follow certain updates from some informative accounts.
Whenever you wanna start doing anything again, break down your goal into smaller tasks. You can start making a series of goals that you can achieve daily or weekly, so you won’t get overwhelmed. I suddenly remembered what my mum used to say to me: “don’t do everything all at once, you can’t eat a mango without cutting it to pieces.” I don’t know why she chose mango but maybe because mango is one of my favourite fruits.
Also, every time you got stuck with what you do, don’t push yourself to do it immediately, 5 to 10 mins break is enough for you to gain your focus back. So chill. Don’t stress. I say it as if I did that before, actually no, I just applied this method recently 🙃 and it worked.
Maybe I, I can never fly
I can’t fly like the flower petals over there
Or as though I have wings
Maybe I, I can’t touch the sky
Still, I want to stretch my hand out
I want to run, just a bit more— Awake by Kim Seok Jin
