Don't let so many "buts" ruin your big "ambition"

Don't let so many "buts" ruin your big "ambition"

　　01

　　A student came to me for advice.

　　Student: "Teacher, I feel very confused about the future, can you help me?"

　　Me: "Well, you feel very confused because you do not have a clear goal for the future?"

　　Student: "I have a goal. I want to learn programming and then go into game development. Eventually, I want to develop a super awesome handheld game."

　　Me: "Oh, good, very ambitious! So if you have a goal, why do you still feel lost?"

　　Student: "But students like us, who graduated from a second-year school, don't have a chance to get into a good company! If we don't get into a good company, there's no way to develop games with a good team."

　　Me: "Oh, then let's discuss together, is it true that second-year students have no way to enter excellent game production companies? How did you come to this conclusion? Were you able to find exceptions to the rule?"

　　The students began to fall into silence. I didn't deliberately try to break this silence, because I knew that silence meant that thinking and transformation were slowly happening.

　　After a short while, the student broke the silence: "Maybe a second-year student will have a chance to enter a good game company, but the chance is too small."

　　Me: "It's not easy to take any path if you want to achieve something. You already have a clear goal, and you have surpassed many people in this point. How about next, let's discuss specifically how you can gradually achieve your life goals and how you can become a good game software developer?"

　　Student: "But, teacher, I'm not a computer science major at all!"

　　Me: "Oh, as far as I know, the school has a policy on changing majors, so you can consider changing your major, right?"

　　Student: "But, teacher, it's hard to change majors, you need to take a test to change majors, and there are also high requirements for your first-year academic record.

　　Me: "If you can't change your major, you can still take the relevant training or get the corresponding qualification without delaying your major."

　　Student: "But, teacher, this kind of training usually costs a lot of money, and I'm just a poor student!"

　　Faced with so many "buts", I was at a loss for words and felt my heart was so tired.

　　02

　　The other day, someone asked me a question on the Internet.

　　The questioner: "Teacher, I'm an elementary school teacher in a township, and I've been doing it for five years. I feel that the environment around me is too closed and there is no challenge. I am not interested in teaching anymore, so I would like to find a new job in the city, do you think it is feasible?"

　　Me: "You have an ambition to pursue a better life, which means you are not willing to be ordinary, that's good. Since you have been struggling for five years, I believe you should be more mature in all aspects of consideration. And compared with the freshly graduated college students, you must have a certain economic base after five years of work, even if you can not find a suitable job, life will not be too hard. If this is the case, you can make a bold decision to find a job in the city, start slowly and live the life you want."

　　Questioner: "But, teacher, I don't have much confidence in my abilities. I'm worried that if I don't have a skill, I won't be able to support myself after I go downtown, so what should I do?"

　　Me: "Oh, then you should give yourself more time to ride a donkey. Use your spare time to learn or polish one of your core skills, wait until you have a skill, and then go job-hopping."

　　Questioner: "But, teacher, I don't know which skill I should polish. I've considered becoming a counselor, but I don't know if I'm really cut out for it, so what should I do?"

　　Me: "Oh, the suitability to be a counselor depends on your personal situation. I suggest you read some books on counseling and then see if you are really interested before making a decision. Of course, you can also enroll in a counselor training course to receive some professional guidance and build some contacts in this area. This method is perhaps a little more direct and can solve some of your doubts more quickly."

　　Questioner: "But, teacher, I've heard that counselor training courses are usually very expensive. If I'm not suitable to be a counselor, won't the training fee be wasted!"

　　Faced with so many "buts", I was at a loss for words and felt so tired.

　　03

　　Dear friends, I wonder if reading this, you will have the same feelings as me?

　　When I talk to these "buts", I feel a sense of powerlessness or a deep sense of exhaustion every time the visitor finishes a "but".

　　I felt that all my positive attempts were rejected by so many "buts" from the visitors.

　　This feeling is not new to me after a long career in counseling. There are two deep-seated psychological reasons behind this behavior of saying "but".

　　First of all, behind the good at saying "but" is a kind of inferiority complex in play.

　　Those who are good at making excuses are often a person with low self-esteem in their bones. So many "but" behind, in fact, is a low self-esteem of people in the way to maintain their fragile self-esteem by making excuses.

　　The subtext of making excuses is: you can't blame me for not being able to achieve my goals, I can't achieve my goals because of some objective constraints caused by.

　　Some may say that those who are good at making excuses seem to have great ambition and do not seem to have low self-esteem ah?

　　In fact, we can look at ambition as a manifestation of conceit. Conceit and low self-esteem is like the obverse side of a coin, their common denominator is - no way to objectively understand themselves. And conceit is just an overcompensation for low self-esteem.

　　Secondly, the "but" behind the good is "avoiding the problem" way of thinking at work.

　　As long as careful observation, you will find that those who are always saying "but", constantly looking for reasons for themselves, simply do not want to really solve the problem, they are always running away from the problem.

　　No matter how good the problem-solving strategies in front of them, they can always quickly find reasons to deny these strategies. They refuse to take any real action to change reality.

　　The "problem avoidance" mindset is actually the root of many psychological problems. Scott Peck In his book "The Road Less Traveled", Scott Peck states.

　　"The tendency to avoid problems and pain is the root cause of human mental illness. Everyone has a tendency to avoid problems, so most people's mental health is flawed, and few are truly healthy. Some problem avoiders prefer to hide in the illusory world created by their minds, even completely disconnected from reality, which is tantamount to cocooning themselves."

　　04

　　Let's look at how to get rid of the way of thinking that always likes to say "but".

　　The answer is hidden in the following multiple choice question: there are two kinds of pain in life - "the pain of avoiding problems" and "the pain of facing challenges". In the journey of life, each of us must choose between these two kinds of pain to suffer.

　　Which one will you choose? Let's take a look at each of these two types of pain.

　　The first type of suffering is "the suffering caused by avoiding problems", which is a negative suffering.

　　Why is it a negative pain? Because when you avoid the problem, the problem will remain there and cannot be solved. Although you can keep saying "but", find all kinds of reasons, and refuse to make changes. But the end result is that you retreat to no way back, life's path is narrower and narrower, and the probability that this pain will become a psychological problem is very high.

　　The second kind of pain is "the pain of facing challenges", which is a positive pain.

　　Why is it a positive pain? Because you have started to solve problems, although in the process of solving problems will encounter a lot of difficulties and setbacks, but in the process of solving problems, your potential has been brought into play, your ability to grow, you become stronger and stronger, and eventually become a strong person in life.

　　To summarize: there are two kinds of pain in life, you can choose the negative pain - keep saying "but", retreat until there is no way back, and eventually develop into serious psychological problems. You can also choose the positive pain - bravely face the various challenges in life, through a variety of trials and tribulations, and ultimately make yourself stronger.

　　I believe the answer is obvious. It's all in your hands.