Graduation? Now What?

• Being Perfect. Do you look at yourself in the mirror and say, “Gross!”? Do you consider a pimple a terminal illness? Do you hate your voice, face, body, hair, knees, feet? Is here nothing about you that’s “right”? If you feel this way, you have a bad case of “The Perfections.” To get rid of “the perfections,” realize that you’re HUMAN. Sometimes you smell, have bad breath, or sweat. Flaws are normal and natural, not terminal. Learn to love those parts of you that are different and unique. They make you YOU.

• Judging (The Critic Within). When you judge yourself, you stop yourself from being magnificent. The voice in your head says things like: “If I try to solve that problem at the board, I’ll do it wrong.” “If I tell the teacher I don’t understand the question, everyone will think I’m stupid.” (Most likely someone else in the classroom will have the same question and be thankful that you asked it!)

•  Catastrophisizing.“If I ask Tim for a date, he’ll say no, and I’ll die.” Thoughts like this stop us from doing what we want. They make us into zombies, paralyzed with fear. “If I speak up in class my voice’ll crack and I’ll feel like an idiot.” Don’t worry! Most people are too busy working on their own perfectness to bother with yours or even to notice your voice cracking.

• Expectations can ruin a good relationship: Sarah and Jim love each other. Sarah thinks, “If Jim loved me, he’d know how to make me happy.” (A crystal ball isn’t given to every lover!) Sarah will never be happy with Jim until she realizes that he can’t read her mind — she’s got to learn to ask for what she wants. If people or situations are not exactly as you expect them to be, you’re upset, depressed, or angry. But YOU are the one who’s feeling bad. You create unhappiness for yourself. You don’t have to go through life being unhappy and disappointed. Just give up putting expectations on people and things in your life. By letting your expectations go, you’ll find a heavy burden removed.

• Blaming is another bad habit that keeps you from enjoying life and being happy. You spend your life as a helpless victim when you blame. Some people spend their entire lives playing “poor me.” Even when they can help themselves, they don’t.

• Living in the Past and the Future. Many of us make our lives into nightmares. We collect bad things that happened to us and hug them to ourselves. “I forgot my lines in a play three years ago — and I still feel sick when I think about it.”  We hold on to old guilts. “I lost my best friend in the 7th grade just because I was mad and told her she was ugly.” The healthy way to deal with this is to forgive yourself, learn the lesson (you learned to respect other people’s feelings) and let go of the past. Move on! Anger, resentment and guilt are heavy burdens that make your life one long pain. They are in the past and no longer exist except in your mind.

Teen Esteem

Price: $11.95

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