Every stimulus begs a response.
- Your phone rings from every call—and “likely spam” is your bff. You must decide if you’ll look, not look, answer, or ignore—every time.
- An app sends a notification. You must decide if you’ll clear it, check it (and likely go down the rabbit hole), or ignore it (and wonder about it on and off until you check it).
- A company emails you about a sale. You must decide if you’ll read it, click it, trash it, or ignore it.
- A friend asks you to do something you don’t want to. You must decide if you’ll say yes, say no, or come up with some kind of excuse or delay.
- The social media accounts you follow show hyper fit and popular people doing incredible and hilarious things that make you feel bad about yourself. You must decide if you’ll leave it and keep opening and scrolling, if you’ll unfollow/mute/block, or if you’ll ignore.
It’s one thing to work really hard to train your responses. To understand that the gap between stimulus and response is your destiny. To learn to control anger, to calm yourself after getting triggered, to manage your impulses to indulge, to have the confidence to stand up for yourself, to teach yourself to love yourself and not compare yourself to others…
…And it’s a whole ‘nother thing to design your lifestyle in a way that those types of stimuli that illicit those types of undesirable responses don’t even exist.
P.s. If you enjoy getting these types of morning stimuli, you can support my future work by filling up my cup with that hot, brown goodness here.