Which wolf are you feeding? Your level of success is quite determined by how you see the world. Your brain can be directed to focus on certain patterns; this is the so-called Tetris effect. In a study, people who played that old game called Tetris for hours began to see how the blocks fit in all aspects of their lives, from brick walls to urban landscapes.
They had granted that pattern in their brains by repeating the game. This can happen with anything in life that we focus on. If our work is based on finding mistakes, it is not difficult to fall into that habit when you get home. It is not right, because we start to focus only on the negative, leaving aside the good things.
The good news is that you can also focus on productive and positive patterns. Learn to look on the bright side and see more good things, including opportunities to improve. (As side effects, you will not be a bitter shower anymore.) With your lifting objectives or physical, the Tetris effect can be very positive. Are you here looking for excuses or opportunities? Are you looking for reasons to justify those thoughts that keep you standing still (“I cannot with that weight in a squat” or “I deserve a cheat”) or are you looking for ways to improve your diet and training? Both can become habits. The only difference, one will accelerate your progress, the other will always keep you on the site.
What is your way of facing a challenge? Are you looking instantly for a reason to surpass it? Or are you automatically looking for an excuse which is a justification for not addressing it? I like to think that most lifters opt for the good. We understand that on the other side of each challenge there is an opportunity. We have learned this in the gym and we apply it to real life too. You probably know people who are going in the other direction, and maybe you think they are pathetic and annoying. (Probably because they really are, so do not worry).
All of us to a greater or lesser extent have all those emotions inside us, and we can all manage them based on our greater or lesser awareness of them and our willingness to do so. We have the ability to choose which one we are going to feed, and we have that capacity to the extent that we are aware that we can handle our emotions.
Emotions, thoughts arise unconsciously, but it is up to us to give them balls, choose to chew them, that is, feed them or let them go. That choice defines who we are, and defines us as victims or protagonists. A victim complains, is prey to fear, blames others for their situation and does nothing to remedy their luck, the protagonist goes to what he wants, does not stop to blame the other because he is aware that his luck she can create it herself with her work, her tenacity and her effort, she thinks she has options and goes for them with optimism and hope. In other words, what wolf are you feeding?