You can’t change the circumstances in your life — at least not as quickly as you would like to. You can’t avoid every traffic jam or have your own personal space in the subway while getting to work, and you can’t change someone against his or her will, or erase the past.
The only thing you can do is to change your perception about of your circumstances: try to see the good in everything instead of being frustrated or desperate. In reality, it’s not an easy task to accomplish, but it’s certainly worth a try!
1. Silence your mind.
In order to control what’s going on in your mind, you need to understand how to silence it first. Let’s have a try! Take a deep breath and free your mind from all the chatter that’s going on in your mind. In this way, you can make room for something new and extraordinary to enter you mind. Now, let’s take a break!
Don’t say that you can’t or you don’t have enough time for it. You have little battles to fight every day. The breaks are an essential part of this training: if you don’t take them periodically, you’ll burn yourself out soon.
Give yourself a regular break: find a suitable time for some solitude, focus your attention inward, and understand what thoughts are swirling in your mind. The most important thing is to make a clear distinction between your ’’inner’’ and ’’outer’’ thoughts. Take your time — it’s not a big deal if you are not able to figure it out at first. Just do it!
2. Change your focus from bad thoughts to good ones; slowly, but firmly.
Once you learn to understand your thoughts and emotions, you are able to consciously redirect your thoughts: find the thought that drags you down and replace it with the one that inspires you.
There are no hopeless situations- there are only people who believe that those situations are hopeless. Don’t let gloomy thoughts take over you. Change your thoughts — change your reality!
Your thoughts make your mood. Of course you want to make your wildest dreams come true, that’s why you should sort out your thoughts carefully and focus consciously on positive ones. It probably won’t work right away, but you will get used to this process little by little.
3. Drop all your worries for a minute
There does exist another ’’self’’ somewhere within all of us, who is always at peace. It pops up when you drop all your worries.
Your inner peace doesn’t depend on external conditions. Peace can be found at any time and at any place- just be there where you are now — physically and emotionally.
It won’t be easy to manage. Nevertheless, don’t give up; take a moment in the middle of the day or during household chores to achieve your inner harmony.
4. Be grateful
We have more than enough to make our life easy and comfortable. If you’re reading this on a computer or cell phone, you’re richer than over half the population in the world. Be thankful for what you have now and for what hasn’t yet come to you. There are tons of possibilities, but you should realize that no one can ever have or know everything.
You have always been just a fraction of the whole, but have preserved your unique nature at the same time. Value what you know, and also value the things you don’t yet understand. Value the tremendous possibilities you have in life.
Life isn’t always a bed of roses — realize it, and embrace it!
5. Acknowledge that difficulties make you stronger.
There is hardly any happiness, passion, or success without a struggle. If the road is easy, you are probably going the wrong way. Difficulties help you to grow, although you probably curse them now. They direct you, correct you, and perfect you over time.
Sometimes it seems that everything is going wrong, but in reality, it’s the true essence of life: you have to go through the worst, to arrive at your best.
They say ’’It’s always darkest just before the dawn’’ and that’s true: it is always difficult just before you are the closest to your biggest breakthrough.
6. Look for the beginning in every ending.
It’s important to realize that everything in life has to come to an end.
You should close the door, turn the page, and move on in time. It doesn’t matter what you call it — it is important to leave the past in the past and enjoy the present.
Actually, the ending of something is not THE END, it’s just the beginning of something new.
7. When everything fails, use your body.
Your mind depends on your body. It responds to your muscle tension, rate of breath, and heartbeat. Likewise, your body reflects your thoughts, feelings, state of mind, and even the words you articulate. Thus, it means you can control one of them through the other. In case everything else fails, and you are not able to concentrate, use your body.
Imagine for a moment what you look like when you are in a bad mood: shoulders hunched forward, heavy breathing, and frowning. Sit there and do this right now. Doesn’t it affect you?
Now, do the opposite: sit up straight and put a big smile on your face, take some deep breaths, and stretch your arms into the air. You feel better, don’t you?
Your body is a tricky tool to help you to change your attitude towards life in an instant. Maybe it won’t work for a long time, but it will help you to buck up!
Afterthoughts
I’ve talked about it before and I’ll say it again — your MIND is the place of all the conflicts that are NEVER going to happen. If you allow these thoughts to dwell in your mind, they will ’’steal’’ your peace, joy, and whole life. Thereafter, you can fall into a mental breakdown, and then slowly into depression. I know how it feels, I’ve been there.
Truthfully, there are so many things you can control. You can decide how to spend your time, whom to socialize and share your life with. You can pick your words and the tone of your voice while speaking to others. You can choose what to eat, read, study, and how to behave in unfortunate situations.
And the most important thing that you can choose is your attitude, which will dictate everything else in your life.
