Actions and Perceptions - The only two things you need to focus on to improve your life.

At risk of oversimplifying life, what if I told you that the pursuit of self-improvement and reducing negative emotions came down primarily to two things?

What if through all of the complicated thoughts, emotions and feelings that run through your brain every second of every day, you had a way to simplify, organize, break down and address the areas of which you wanted to feel better about or improve?

While everybody’s process and challenges through life look different, there are two areas of focus that encompass so much more then we often give credit to.

Actions and Perceptions.

To explain: A good way to start with the process of addressing actions and perceptions is to take a step back and ask yourself, why you’re feeling the way you are today. What’s holding you back from being the best, happiest version of yourself?

This process of articulating why you’re not exactly where you want to be might take some self-exploration and introspection or it might be a no-brainer for you. Either way, the idea is to break down the thoughts, situations and emotions that are holding you back or making you feel a certain kind of way into two categories, Actions and Perceptions.

Actions = What is one step I can take to improve this situation?

Perceptions = Why does this make me feel the way it does?

Now it goes without saying that each of these areas of your life can be layered with various factors and circumstances that are more intricate than can be covered in this post, but the bottom line is, a lot of what you’re feeling can either be addressed by taking a proactive, positive action in the right direction, or learning to reprocess, re-frame or challenge your perception.

Breaking down the areas of your life into a plan of action or plan of perception is a simple, but often effective tool for making progress with self-improvement.

Some areas of your life may require both! but even identifying that can be a positive step in figuring out how to feel better.

For example, let’s say you’ve lost your job and have found that you’re struggling with depressive symptoms.

Let’s break that down:

How much of what you’re feeling is going to require a tangible, physical action to feel better about it? If you’re feeling financial stress due to losing your job, it’s time to identify some steps you can take to finding a new one.

How much of what you’re feeling is due to how you’re perceiving the situation? Do you feel like a failure? Like you’ve let people down? It might be time to challenge or re-framed how you’re looking at the situation.

The point here is not to oversimplify or undermine the complications and emotions that are involved with these types of circumstances. Of course finding a job can be a treacherous process, and yes, feeling sad about losing a job is a healthy albeit, uncomfortable reaction.

Rather, the goal here is to understand how easy it is for our brains to take us for a ride by making us a feel a certain way about ourselves and our situations without offering us a more organized, practical solution or perspective. While not always an easy process, the idea of recognizing that A) You can take proactive, tangible steps to improve your situation and B) You have the ability to develop a healthier, more objective perception about your situation, can be two simple, yet powerful tools in feeling better and working towards self-improvement.