The worst time to have to make a decision is when your judgement is impaired due to a crisis. This crisis can be of any sort that would break down your ability to thoughtfully and carefully decide upon you response. One crisis state I will highlight in this post is the bend-crisis. This crisis is the most common of all and many of us do not know we are experiencing it. It occurs when something is “off” in our lives Of course, most of us are susceptible to making rash and unskilled decisions when in this crisis state. Nothing is broken, everything is more or less working, but there is great strain and trouble is around the corner and building. Naturally, any acute crisis creates the greatest negative effect of all.
Regardless of the magnitude of the destabilizing event in your life, if large enough to cause damage, you owe it to yourself to offer up some protection. The worst thing you could do would be to leave yourself to the mercy of the crisis and to suffer the fate of any subsequent bad decisions you made. That would be doubly bad.
Often you can set guidelines for yourself, and your future behavior that can guide you in a crisis moment (and we will all have them in our lives). This technique works best if your trust your own judgement and have a degree of self-belief, but can still be somewhat effective for others, too. Essentially, you will be telling your future self that you are the boss, being the one of sound mind, who also had unlimited time to carefully formulate strategy, with due care for your own well-being and ultimate success. All true, no? You will look out for your future self’s best interests better than anyone, in most cases. When that moment of crisis strikes or when that slow wearing crisis impairs your judgement and you are about to do something that you logically know is stupid, you cannot rely upon the willpower of your depleted mental and emotional state to do the best thing. It is much more risky for you than when you have all the time you need in a safe and stable environment. If you have faith in this safe and sound you, which should be easy even for those of you who have trouble listening to others, you can protect your future self. You will not have to rely upon the moment and whatever condition you happen to be in and whatever willpower you have at your disposal. The very thing that will pull you back from the brink of temptation, or even having to struggle with it is the fact that you have felt the sincerity of your own mind, looking out for yourself, helping you right then.
Even if your tortured future self rejects all others who try to offer support or advice, you will still have a direct pure line of trust to yourself. You will not question your motives since you know your own thinking. You can remove an option from the table in advance, so that that option can no longer even exist in your reality as an option that can be considered.
Protect your future self by deciding upon the limits of your behavior today. Decide upon what lines you will never cross and think in detail about your true desires to ensure there is no cognitive dissonance and that you completely feel this choice is right. Think about your future self in general, and actually address him or her. Feel the sincerity and express out loud or in your journal your desires. You can expand this technique to even include actions that you will take, in the same way, because the psychology will be the same. My primary reason for writing this post is as a recommendation for protective benefit, however, so I will not go into detail about the larger psychological implications of communicating with yourself for personal development purposes.
Build well,
Crc
