You’re Your Biggest Enemy…And Biggest Fan

If you don’t like something change it; if you can’t change it, change the way you think about it.
Mary Engelbreit

Are you your biggest enemy? I’m a failure. I’m never going to amount to anything. I’m going to fall flat on my face. Everyone will laugh. More often than not, this is how we talk to ourselves. But that might not be all that bad. Sometimes we need to hear the harshest things about ourselves to get to know our fears and explore our sensitivities.

What words ‘hurt’ the most is where we encounter our life’s biggest struggles.

When faced with those tough hurdles, what do you do? When the worst thing you could imagine happens to you, how do you react? Or on the flip side, when faced with life’s biggest triumphs, what do you do? When the best thing you could imagine happens to you, how do you react?

Once you’re aware of your sensitivities, how do you react immediately after they’re exposed? Do you continue reacting long after that initial introduction?

There are times when you prefer to wallow in self-pity or despair. And there are times when you linger in the sweetness of a moment. Staying in any emotion longer than a few minutes is a conscious decision to focus on the things prolonging said emotion. That means your reaction to an event is within your control even though it doesn’t always seem like it.

And like all things within our control, reactions rely on choice.

Life as We See It: Choosing An Attitude

Attitude also relies on choice. Attitude actually precedes a reactive moment. Perspective gives way to attitude, and your attitude provokes a complementary action or reaction. Familiar with change your attitude, change your life? Attitude, or how we see life, determines the quality of life. Powerful yet simple.

Attitude is merely your opinion of what happens to you and to those around you.

We’re on earth to maintain our true essence of feeling good, regardless of what happens to us. It’s our life purpose and so a deep-rooted desire. Admit it or not, in every moment you actually want to feel reasonably good. So we do what it takes to feel good. Whatever does that for you is your prerogative.

Within a nanosecond, you compare possible outcomes against what will ultimately result in the better feeling and you act accordingly. Sometimes feeling bad feels good. Weird, right? I know.

And sometimes playing small feels better or more comfortable than living large. You seek to serve yourself even when you self-sabotage. We induce pain or pleasure because we prefer more pain or pleasure.

What do you prefer? Take a look at your life. Your outward experience is merely a collection of your preferences.

Given whatever rationale, we seek to feel good now. Good and safe. Safe of course feels good. Safe might be staying home because it feels better than getting out there and facing the world. There’s nothing out there for me feels better to the more timid sort.

Your attitude about whether you’re convinced your life is good and you are safe now is another story. What have you conditioned your attitude to be?

Are you stuck in an attitude unbecoming of your true self just because it’s comfortable? Troubled and desperate become states of enjoyment just as surely as peaceful and content do. For instance, we focus on painful memories because we’ve become accustomed to fear and sadness.

Instead of seeking a new perspective on a situation, we choose to stay stuck in the old. So we compare our new experiences with the old; we compare new with the bad. We condition ourselves to like disorder and disharmony because it adds intrigue and interest to our lives and makes us feel significant. At least that’s what we tell ourselves.

What do you tell yourself?

Attitude is a direct reflection of your inner dialogue, or your thoughts, and how you condition yourself accordingly. Maybe being happy is just as easy as being sad? Maybe it doesn’t take more energy to smile than to frown, only a change in perspective. So, why is attitude so hard to manage? Because you tell yourself it is.

Life as We Hear It: Cheers and Jeers

Speaking of what we tell ourselves… The issue isn’t what your internal dialogue is, per se. It’s what you do with that information, those thoughts; if you recognize them for what they are. In other words, it’s how you react to them. They’re just thoughts—they’re not real until you make them real.

Only you give the thoughts permission to become you. You decide to identify with the story you tell about yourself. What emotions and stories do you perpetuate at the behest of your thoughts? Do you support or tear down? Do you cheer or jeer? Do you move toward acting as your own fan or your own enemy?

Your inner dialogue resounds only what you want to hear. Thoughts may be fleeting by nature, but you choose the ones that stick around when you focus on them. So, which dialogue is more incessant? Which dialogue sticks? Fan or enemy?

Empowerment and encouragement sound like fan worship. Disempowerment and discouragement sound like enemy assault. You’ll focus on the voice that rings truest according to your current perspective and belief system. It may not be the truth for you according to spirit, but what you believe sometimes won’t.

Because you’re always at choice, why not choose what to do with your thoughts and the even words of an outsider. Because you’re always at choice, why not turn all thoughts into empowering prompts? Because you’re always at choice, why not feel good in spite of distracting emotions?

Why not make any thought reason to get up and go after what you want—that is, if you truly want the opposite of those perceived limitations.

What you make of this lifetime is up to you. It’s your perspective, it’s your attitude…it’s your choice. Remember that selfish part of you? Put it to work. Your reaction, be it to respond in kind or not respond at all is contingent on your level of awareness about what serves you better in the long-run.

For example, you can react in anger because you’re protective over yourself and don’t want an experience like that again or you can react with calm reservation because you understand everything happens for the betterment of your spirit.

When dealing with another person, we act or react in a way that sends the message of how we want to be treated: treat others the way I want to be treated or I’ll give them a taste of their own medicine!

If you maintain a hovering perspective, fan and enemy thoughts can work hand-in-hand in creating a well-rounded scope. Together, both viewpoints offer an experience of contrast, growth and expansion. The advantage to being your biggest enemy provides a contrarian’s view to an idea you had while being your biggest fan.

Either way you slice it, you’re doing yourself a favor being your biggest fan and your biggest enemy. (But even more of a mindbender, because you’ve got ego as a sidekick, you inherently already are your biggest fan.) A fair warning? The enemy mindset, should it win a majority seat over fan, breeds a destructive attitude. And life will start to resemble such.

Notice the script that drones on in your mind. There you will hear the jeers of an enemy or the cheers of a fan. Now, see how that manifests on the screen of your life. If biggest enemy once felt like the most appropriate, most accessible, better feeling, it may not after reading this post. How’s it working out for you?

You might find you reprimand yourself all day long in the name of perfectionism, yet still find yourself in the same lowly position in life.

Whatever story you write with the ink of biggest enemy or biggest fan will be perpetuated by your actions…until you write a different story.

Life as You Create It: You as Your Biggest Fan

No one is going to motivate you better than you motivate yourself. If you don’t already have the gumption to chase your dreams, then nothing and no one will do it for you. The reason other people are inspiring or motivating for you is because you first sought to be inspired or motivated. It was a decision you made, aware or unaware, that attracted a result. It was you, acting as your biggest fan.

Listen to the lessons of your favorite motivational speaker. He or she may not say all the perfect things, but s/he says enough perfectly to light a fire under you to go after your personal and professional goals. Those speakers have a story just like you.

They had a dream and no ‘enemy’ (not even themselves) was going to stand in their way of achieving it. They heard all the naysayer views, greeted all opposition, and still strove to the top of their game.

They were their own biggest fan.

The first time you heard someone call you a failure, how did you react? Did you believe it? Did what you hear another say about you become what you started to say about yourself? If you accepted that you were a failure, then you proceeded to go on in life finding reasons why you’re a failure.

For you, failure became your attitude; expected, familiar, normal—and that felt good. You noticed more keenly outward experiences supporting that mentality.

On the other hand, if when you heard that you were a failure, you refused it because instinctively you believed greater for yourself than someone’s opinion (an opinion only reflecting that person’s own turmoil), then deep down what resonated as truth was contrary to that disparagement.

What is ‘failure’? Failure doesn’t exist for me, you heard. Or, even, what does he know? I’ll prove I’m no failure. And the comment bounced off your fan attitude. You then accepted all reasons to confirm you were not a failure.

There’s an idea. Why not turn criticism into a constructive opportunity on which to learn and thrive in the deepest, most eternal sense?

Maybe your mom applauded and praised your every move leading you to believe you’re unstoppable. What did that do for you? How did you use that input? Did you adopt that as your truth, or perhaps, inherently, you already knew it to be true? Upon receiving such encouragement, did you run with it and bestow the same fervor and optimism onto yourself?

In that moment, did you become your biggest fan?

Author’s note: Enemy is more a figure of speech in this context. I’m not sure I even believe there is such a thing anyway.