Episode 9: Defeatist Mentality

[00:00:00] I can't do this. This is too hard. I would have to make major changes in my life to achieve that.

[00:00:05] I'm too old to do that. I'm too young to do that. Nobody cares about me. No one understands me.

[00:00:12] I'm not important. Nothing is ever good enough. Why even bother? Does any of this sound familiar?

[00:00:18] Can any of y'all relate to that? Well, if you can, keep listening to this episode and prepare

[00:00:24] yourself for a life that's worth living.

[00:01:01] What's goodie? What's goodie? I'm your host J-Smoove and welcome to The Life Unexamined

[00:01:06] Is Not Worth Living and we are on episode 9, Defeatous Mentality. Now before I get started,

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[00:02:17] Alright, so let's get back to business. So now let's look to Marian Webster's for the definition

[00:02:23] of defeatism. Now defeatism is the attitude of accepting, expecting or being resigned to defeat.

[00:02:30] So having a defeatist mentality is the acceptance of defeat without struggle.

[00:02:34] And there's also negative connotations and pessimism that's attached to that.

[00:02:38] So a defeatist mentality can attack you in many ways. Every goal that you go after

[00:02:43] is sabotaged, the repetitive thought process continuously drags you down and convinces you

[00:02:48] that nothing is worth the effort. It's that thing that keeps you from trying to change in the first

[00:02:53] place. Making you afraid and it scares you and the thought of putting in that much effort for

[00:02:59] it all to be for naught, you'll end up thinking that you're just wasting your time. So with every

[00:03:03] thought that we have, it continues to grow stronger. And with every action that we attempt,

[00:03:09] it results in no action. Yeah, y'all know everything that I'm talking about. And you're not alone.

[00:03:15] This is common among many of us. And I'm going to get into all of that. But before I get into

[00:03:20] the steps that you could use to combat this type of mentality, I want to say that everything

[00:03:25] that I talked about in episodes one through four on my podcast, foundation, who am I,

[00:03:31] conditional versus unconditional core values, I want to make it very clear that before you

[00:03:38] can even combat this type of mentality, you have to make sure that you figured out all of the

[00:03:43] guiding principles that I talked about before, or you're in the process of determining that.

[00:03:47] Because if you try to combat defeatism, and you don't have a strong foundation,

[00:03:52] you don't know who you are, you don't know if you're conditional or unconditional,

[00:03:56] you don't know what your core values are, then I'm going to be honest with y'all,

[00:04:00] you are going to make things extremely difficult for yourself. I told y'all before,

[00:04:06] there's no skipping steps. Seriously, there's no skipping steps. You could hear some advice,

[00:04:11] you could be given some steps to help you combat defeatism. You can, and you can make progress

[00:04:17] with that. That's a fact. But I am a firm believer. And like I said, these are just one man's thoughts.

[00:04:23] That's all. But I believe that if you don't have a strong foundation and you do not know

[00:04:28] who you are, then a lot of that progress that you have is not going to be consistent.

[00:04:34] And it's not going to last long. And we also have to remember that steps and ideas and helpful tips

[00:04:42] are only helpful if we know exactly what we're combating or if we know exactly who we are,

[00:04:48] if we know exactly what we're triggered by, if we know exactly what bothers us personally.

[00:04:54] So if you don't know any of that, then what type of progress do we think that we're really

[00:04:58] making, yo? Not a lot. Because I want all of y'all to understand that self-help is very specific to

[00:05:05] the individual. They're not just generalized statements or generalized thoughts. Those can be

[00:05:11] helpful and that's dope. But how do we know what works for us if we actually haven't put in the

[00:05:15] work to know who we are? And I just wanted to say all of that before I got started.

[00:05:20] Because it is paramount that we do all that requisite work before we start thinking about

[00:05:26] everything that we struggle with. I need help in this area. I'm lacking in this area.

[00:05:31] So if you haven't already, please go listen to episodes one through four of my podcast.

[00:05:36] Alright, so I know some of y'all are probably saying, yo, can we get to the steps? Can you

[00:05:41] start talking about how to conquer this defeatist mentality? Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know. I know.

[00:05:46] I understand. I understand. But sometimes we need to pump our brakes. We're not running away

[00:05:52] from the fundamentals. We're not looking at the groundwork as an afterthought. We're not doing that

[00:05:57] on this podcast. Nah, that's not gonna happen. But I digress. So the first step to combat

[00:06:05] end of defeatist mentality is having self-awareness and knowing what your triggers are.

[00:06:11] What are the pessimistic thoughts that come up when you try to take action to change your

[00:06:14] life? Do you feel stupid? Do you feel like you have no self worth? Do you feel scared

[00:06:19] that people will look at you differently or they'll judge you? Or maybe you're just terrified by the

[00:06:23] possibility that you may fail. We have to start becoming aware of those recurrent negative thoughts

[00:06:28] that pop up when things get tough, when things are difficult, when we feel uncomfortable. And let

[00:06:34] me know if this sounds familiar to y'all. You start with the belief that you can't do anything

[00:06:38] before you even try it. You make up all these scenarios in your head as to why you won't

[00:06:41] succeed. You put all this time and effort into creating all these different situations that

[00:06:48] involve you failing, that involve you not getting to your goal. So let's say that you have family or

[00:06:54] friends or someone close to you that tells you to try because they've heard your aspirations,

[00:06:59] your ideas, your thoughts and they're trying to push you to do something. So you give them

[00:07:04] pushback but over time you get tired of them nagging you and you just want to shut them

[00:07:09] up. But because you have such a deep-rooted belief that you will fail, your work ethic in

[00:07:14] your effort is trash. It's piss-poor and when you end up failing it basically just reinforces

[00:07:20] yourself defeating behavior from the beginning. And that's the point. You tell yourself that

[00:07:25] oh yeah I was right, see? I knew that I was gonna fail. It is what it is. But again it's like a

[00:07:30] self-fulfilling prophecy because you don't really have a true belief in yourself to do it anyway

[00:07:36] but that quote unquote trying that you're doing is nothing but self-sabotage. You're sabotaging

[00:07:41] yourself with the intent to prove yourself right. And once we understand that that's what we're doing,

[00:07:47] then that's when we can make real progress. We all have that inner voice within ourselves at times

[00:07:53] that has doubt. That voice that tells us that we're not good enough, that we can't do this,

[00:07:59] it's too hard. That stuff is natural. We all have that to different degrees right? They vary

[00:08:05] but we all have that and we all struggle with that. You could be the most confident person in

[00:08:09] the world and you still are going to have that inner voice, that inner critic within you

[00:08:15] that talks like that. But again once you acknowledge that, once you have a real understanding of your

[00:08:22] triggers then now you have an advantage. And there are many triggers that we all feel but

[00:08:27] let's use fear as an example. And fear is one of those examples that are very prevalent.

[00:08:34] I mean we all have fears of different things right? Fear is something that is natural. Fear is something

[00:08:41] that is helpful as well in ways because fear is something that keeps us away from danger right?

[00:08:47] When you know that something is about to pop off or something is about to go on,

[00:08:51] there's something within you that may cause you to stay away from that and I categorize that

[00:08:57] as a healthy fear. But fear is also something that keeps us away from our full potential. It keeps

[00:09:04] us away from attaining our goals. So if fear is something that is a trigger for you and it's

[00:09:11] something that really bothers you and it stops you from completing tasks, completing a goal,

[00:09:17] reaching your full potential as I stated earlier then you have to ask yourself why are you

[00:09:23] scared? What do you fear? And when I say ask yourself that, I literally mean ask yourself that,

[00:09:29] talk to yourself. And I repeat, talk to yourself. Self-talk is very healthy and it's something

[00:09:38] that we all should be making a regular part of our lives. I'm serious though like I'm not

[00:09:43] trying to be funny I'm dead serious. Weed 100% need to talk to ourselves a lot more if we're

[00:09:48] not already and I'm not saying that you need to be going around every day and everything that

[00:09:54] you do just talking to yourself. No, I'm not saying that but I am saying when you were triggered by

[00:09:59] something, when something bothers you and it affects how you operate, you really need to

[00:10:04] examine reflect and ask yourself why that is the case. You can also take notes and write

[00:10:11] it down if you're a visual person write it down so that you could always go back to your

[00:10:16] thoughts and maybe the next day or next week or next month you're reading it with a fresh pair

[00:10:22] of eyes and understanding. We're not going to make progress doing the same things over and over again

[00:10:27] we know that right? That's insanity. We got to challenge ourselves even if it makes us feel

[00:10:32] uncomfortable and I don't want you all to lose sight of what you actually have accomplished in

[00:10:37] your life. I don't want you to lose sight of that because I think that that's very important

[00:10:43] very important. Sometimes people have a bad habit of thinking about what their shortcomings are,

[00:10:49] thinking about what they don't have, thinking about what they struggle with, dwelling on negativity,

[00:10:55] dwelling on things that continue to keep them down but they don't think about what they actually

[00:11:00] have. They don't always appreciate what they actually have. They don't always appreciate the

[00:11:06] process. They don't know how to appreciate this skill set, what they do well and that's a

[00:11:11] problem. We have to reflect on the progress where we have succeeded in our lives when we were able

[00:11:18] to push past uncomfortable situations, difficult situations. I want you all to understand that

[00:11:23] that is very important and don't take that lightly. Don't sweep that under the rug.

[00:11:29] For an example like myself, I use all of my loss, all of the tragedies that I've had in my

[00:11:35] life, the pain, the suffering, the trauma. I use all of that to continue to carry me through my life.

[00:11:43] That's a part of my journey and I don't lose sight of that ever. Now that doesn't mean that

[00:11:50] for the rest of my life I'm going to continue to go through loss and all that. No,

[00:11:53] but I have to be intelligent and I use that same mental fortitude and that fight that I had.

[00:11:59] I use that for all aspects of my life because that mindset that I had, that I have to this day,

[00:12:06] it can be applied to all situations in my life. So if I feel fear, if I feel uncomfortable,

[00:12:12] if I'm thinking like, dang, this is difficult yo, I got to put a lot of work in to get through

[00:12:18] this one. I got to learn a lot. This is going to be tough. I look within to continue to

[00:12:23] push myself. And that's what we have to do, really think about our lives, really think about the

[00:12:29] progress that we have made and appreciate it. Because even if you have a defeatist mentality

[00:12:35] when it comes to certain aspects of your lives, act yourself if you have a defeatist mentality

[00:12:40] when it comes to everything. Because if you don't, then that's evidence right there that

[00:12:45] you do have the fortitude and the mindset to accomplish your tasks, your goals, you do.

[00:12:53] And when we're setting up goals, we want to make sure that those goals align with our personality,

[00:12:59] they align with our skill set. And we have to know what our strengths and our weaknesses are

[00:13:04] because we all have them. None of us are perfect. And this goes back to what I was talking

[00:13:08] about earlier. We have to know who we are because if we're setting unrealistic

[00:13:13] expectations on ourselves or goals on ourselves that don't align with who we are, then again,

[00:13:19] we're setting ourselves up for failure. So we want to make sure that we're putting in the proper

[00:13:24] work before we even think about certain goals or combatting defeatism. And I also want to

[00:13:31] stress that there is nothing wrong with being cynical. There's nothing wrong with saying,

[00:13:38] you know what, this doesn't fit my personality. This doesn't match my skill set. This is not

[00:13:43] something that I'm going to attain. This is not something that is going to work for me based on

[00:13:48] logic, right? Based on who I am, based on the fact that no, I'm not going to do that. No,

[00:13:55] that's not going to work for me. Because in my opinion, there's a fine line between

[00:14:01] defeatism and knowing who you are and knowing what you want. They're not the same thing.

[00:14:08] So if you are cynical at times and you do think about life in a certain way that may be

[00:14:15] negative to other people, there's nothing wrong with that. There's nothing wrong with that at all

[00:14:20] because I don't want to put the impression out there that this is about, oh yeah, anything

[00:14:25] that we put out there, we can accomplish everything. And look, that sounds good. It does.

[00:14:30] It sounds great. It sounds amazing. But no, I don't believe that every person that works this

[00:14:36] earth can achieve every single thing in life. No, yo, there's some things that are just not for all

[00:14:41] of us show seriously. And that doesn't make you an idiot for saying that to someone. It's the truth.

[00:14:49] It's the truth. It's the reality. But things that are within reason, things that are attainable

[00:14:54] within our grasp, but we need to understand how to get there. And now this brings me to

[00:15:00] success and failure. Now, success is very subjective. What you may deem to be success

[00:15:08] may not be what I deem to be success. It is subjective to the individual. It is very imperative

[00:15:14] that we understand what success is to each and every one of us and not what success is to

[00:15:21] your friends or your family or whomever. They don't matter. What they may think success is

[00:15:27] may not alarm what you think success is. And please be aware that if we have one very narrow

[00:15:34] view of success, then we are more likely going to fail. And I will say it again, if we have

[00:15:39] one very narrow view of success, we are more than likely going to fail. Nevertheless, there is also

[00:15:47] nothing wrong with us not attaining our goal and being successful. There's nothing wrong with

[00:15:53] that because when we fail, there's learning that comes from that if we allow ourselves to

[00:16:00] learn from that. That's our choice. But we have to be reflective because what if you had a goal

[00:16:06] and you didn't actually attain that goal? You didn't quite get there, but you put a lot of work in

[00:16:11] and you build different skill sets. You attain knowledge. You attain wisdom. You grew.

[00:16:20] That's dope. You're winning. You understand what I'm saying? You are. So when we fail, that's not

[00:16:27] always a bad thing. Failure is a part of life. There's not one person that has been born

[00:16:34] that hasn't failed. We all fail and there is beauty and failure. Once again, if you allow yourself

[00:16:41] to partake in that beauty, all of us don't know how to do that because we get so fixated

[00:16:48] on I got to succeed. I have to succeed. I have to win. I have to attain my goal. Yeah, that mindset

[00:16:54] is great and you should try to do that. But if you don't, there's lessons learned in everything.

[00:17:00] So if you're an all or nothing type of person, understand that they're major drawbacks to that

[00:17:05] and I can kind of relate to it because I'm a very task driven person, a very results driven

[00:17:11] person. So if the result isn't attained, sometimes I'm like, all right, well, I ain't

[00:17:15] get the result. So that is what it is. But what I've learned through my journey, and I've said this

[00:17:20] before, appreciate the process, appreciate your failures, appreciate your success, appreciate

[00:17:29] everything. Don't take anything for granted whatsoever. I'm telling y'all, it pays dividends.

[00:17:38] So I'm sure many of y'all have heard or are familiar with positive affirmations,

[00:17:43] having positive thoughts. And I believe in that. I do believe in having positive thoughts 100%.

[00:17:48] I believe in having positive affirmations 100%. And that also ties into when I was talking about us

[00:17:55] engaging in self talk, having conversations with ourselves talking to ourselves, positive

[00:18:01] affirmations go hand in hand with that. But me personally, I take it a step further.

[00:18:08] And I believe that the positive affirmations and the words that we use shouldn't just be

[00:18:13] idle words, but should have real meaning. I think that we should have a true understanding

[00:18:18] of what we're saying to ourselves and have confidence in those same words. And having the

[00:18:24] understanding that believing in these affirmations doesn't take away from struggle. Not at all.

[00:18:31] Struggle is always going to be there. But I am just a proponent of believing what you say.

[00:18:37] Everybody has their own philosophies and that's cool. But I'm personally not a fan of using words

[00:18:42] and saying things that we don't actually believe in. That's not my cup of tea. If it helps you,

[00:18:48] that's dope. That's dope. There's nothing wrong with that, whatever helps you. But me personally,

[00:18:53] I believe in going a little bit deeper than that and having a true understanding of the

[00:18:57] affirmations that we're using and actually asking ourselves, does this work for me? Saying

[00:19:05] something along the lines of, oh, I can accomplish anything. Nothing will ever get in my way.

[00:19:10] That stuff is like filler to me because there's going to be a lot of things that may get in your

[00:19:16] way and you're going to struggle. But I digress. Now with all that being said though, the more

[00:19:22] that you have these positive thoughts and these positive affirmations, it is going to become

[00:19:28] second nature to you. It 100% will because you got to think about it. When defeatism

[00:19:34] is inside you and you continue to let it run rampant, that becomes your everyday life. That's

[00:19:41] a part of who you are. It's attached to you. So once you try to eliminate those thoughts

[00:19:47] and you come up with reasonable goals and you continue to have positive energy in your life,

[00:19:52] it makes a world of a difference. And remember that your problems are not going to be

[00:19:58] solved with the same level of thinking that you have currently. It's not going to happen.

[00:20:04] We have to attain a higher level of mindfulness. We do and we have to pretty much rewire our brain

[00:20:12] and teach our brain to process this new information that we're learning and teach our

[00:20:17] brain how to process this new mindset that we have. That's really what we have to do.

[00:20:22] And our brain is going to fight us because what we are used to is always going to be easier.

[00:20:29] What we're teaching that's new, that's challenging our brain and it's a fight. It's going to be a

[00:20:35] struggle. But this is the importance of continuously doing this on a daily basis.

[00:20:41] It's about discipline. It's about repetition. So I use an example for myself. I work out

[00:20:48] multiple times a week. And I've been doing this for years. I don't miss any days. Now there's

[00:20:54] definitely times when I don't feel like working out and it's difficult. I'm hurting. I have

[00:21:01] injuries from playing basketball. With that being said, I have the discipline and I have

[00:21:07] the longevity to repetition where it becomes second nature to me. So even when I don't feel

[00:21:13] like doing it, because remember the struggle and the triggers that we have, they're never going to go

[00:21:20] away. They're always going to be there at a certain point. They will even for me. Like I said,

[00:21:27] I've been working out for years over a decade for years consistently. I still feel the same

[00:21:34] things that other people feel when they're like, man, I ain't going to the gym today.

[00:21:38] Man, I ain't working out today. Nah, it's too much. It's too difficult. We all go through that.

[00:21:44] We all go through that. We're all people with human beings. But it's about teaching yourself

[00:21:51] how to be disciplined and creating that higher level of mindfulness.

[00:21:57] So before I get out of here, I want you to join me on this figurative language journey

[00:22:01] that I'm about to embark on. It's a first person narrative from the perspective of defeatist.

[00:22:07] Defeatist is a parasite and parasitism is a close relationship between species where

[00:22:13] one organism, the parasite lives on or inside another organism, the host, causing it damage

[00:22:19] and harm. Parasites increase their own fitness by exploiting hosts for resources necessary for

[00:22:25] their survival, in particular by feeding on them and by using secondary hosts to assist in

[00:22:30] their transmission from one definitive host to another. So as I said before, defeatist is a parasite

[00:22:37] that looks for a host to attach yourself to. And when it attaches itself to that host,

[00:22:43] it creates a symbiotic relationship and it feeds on that host. So for the most part,

[00:22:48] a parasite is not looking to kill its host. And if it does, it's a process that takes a long

[00:22:53] time. Defeatist looks to attach itself to a community of individuals who exhibit

[00:22:59] low self-esteem, laziness, poor work ethic, individuals who have no self-worth and fold under

[00:23:06] pressure, those who lack discipline, etc. So defeatist feeds off of this negative energy

[00:23:15] and reaps all the benefits while harming its host. And it will essentially be active within

[00:23:20] this person until the day that they die. On the other hand, you have a community of individuals

[00:23:26] who are confident, have high self-esteem, individuals with self-worth, those who are disciplined,

[00:23:33] those that don't fold under pressure. Defeatist treads lightly when it comes to these types of

[00:23:39] hosts because they understand that the lifespan of their attachment to these people is not going

[00:23:45] to be long. They come and go. Defeatist has the ability to attach itself to any host. It

[00:23:51] doesn't matter who they are. It doesn't matter if they exhibit positive energy. But the difference

[00:23:56] between the hosts that have these types of treats is that they're able to rid themselves of these

[00:24:01] parasites and continue to go on with their life. See, defeatist is a parasite that comes in many

[00:24:07] forms. It's our mindset. It's the negative thoughts. It's the comments that may come

[00:24:12] from people externally that affect us. It's all it owes and more. But these parasites that

[00:24:18] are defeatists are never going to go anywhere. It's a part of life. They're a part of our world.

[00:24:24] And the point of the story isn't to tell you about some happy ending and how everybody

[00:24:28] overcame defeatists. Nah, they're always going to be a host for a parasite to attach itself to.

[00:24:36] That will never change. But what can change is our mentality. We all are going to have

[00:24:41] our moments of being defeated. That's natural. But don't let those moments define and shape

[00:24:46] you. Always remember to reflect on your progress and appreciate where you are. Don't dwell on where

[00:24:53] you aren't. It doesn't matter how insignificant or small that you think that your progress is,

[00:24:59] examine and reflect on it. So I started this episode with a plethora of defeatist comments.

[00:25:04] So now I'm going to end this episode with the complete opposite of that. I can do this.

[00:25:10] This isn't too hard. I would have to make major changes in my life to achieve that.

[00:25:14] And that's dope. I'm older and I'm wiser. I'm young and I bring a lot to the table

[00:25:20] and I'm willing to learn. There may be people in my life that care and don't care about me

[00:25:25] and that's okay. There may be people in my life that understand me and don't understand me

[00:25:30] and that's okay too. Oh, I know I'm important to me and those who love me.

[00:25:35] I determine what is good enough and satisfactory for my life.

[00:25:39] So this is what everything is about y'all and remember don't defeat yourself. Stop being your

[00:25:45] worst enemy and realize that you are your greatest asset. Period. No one else. You. And when defeated

[00:25:54] starts to creep up on you, tell it to shut up. No, I'm serious. Tell it to shut up. Tell it

[00:26:01] to mind its business. I ain't trying to hear all that and kick rocks. And I don't know

[00:26:05] about y'all but being able to dominate a defeatist mentality and put it in its place. Well, that's

[00:26:12] just another path to a life that's worth living. I'm your host Jay Smoove and you just listened

[00:26:18] to the life unexamined is not worth living and I'm out of here. Peace.