Change This 1 Thing (And You’ll Change Your Entire Life)
It all starts with this.
I once left a job because the person I worked with had such a bad attitude and I couldn’t deal with it.
“Woah is me. Everything goes wrong for me. When it rains, it pours.”
Every.
Single.
Day.
This victim mindset put me in a state of constant stress. I absorbed that energy and it completely drained me.
Don’t get me wrong.
I get dark thoughts and feelings sometimes too. (Because I’m human.) But I can bounce back quickly.
And since I’ve learned to do this, my whole perspective on life has changed.
I learned how to change my attitude, and you can too. It’s simple once you get in the habit of it.
“If you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change.”- Wayne Dyer
We all see the world through our own lens, our own perspective. Therefore, we’re all living in our uniquely crafted worlds.
If you see the world as bad with evil, corrupt people running the show, you’ll be shown more evidence of that because that’s what you’re focused on seeing.
What if you could turn that off and focus on more of the good in the world? (And there’s plenty of it! You just need to focus to see it.)
Like many people around the world, when COVID hit, I was stranded at home with not much to do. So I used my time (not wisely) and got caught up in the happenings on Twitter, the news cycle, and the 2020 election.
I could see all the bad going on and because I focused on it, the bad seemed to get worse and worse.
Once I decided to turn all that off, I felt much better.
I walked outside and enjoyed the trees and the birds. The world right in front of me was beautiful and serene.
I understand people want to keep up with the news and want to know what’s going on in the world. I still check in from time to time.
But it also causes a lot of worry and panic for no reason.
I have a brother-in-law who constantly talks about Russia and how they’re going to start a nuclear war.
“Why waste your time worrying about that?”, I always ask him.
My strategy is this…
If I can’t do anything about it, I don’t worry about it. Most things are not in our control, and if you can let those things go, you’ll be much better off.
(If there’s a problem, and you can do something about it, then you should. But most stuff on the news is not solvable by any of us.)
“You cannot control what happens to you, but you can control your attitude toward what happens to you, and in that, you will be mastering change rather than allowing it to master you.” — Brian Tracy
Sucky things happen to all of us. It’s part of living in this world.
But…
You can take something that happens to you that you immediately think of as “bad” and find a way to make it into a positive experience. It could be as simple as saying, “That sucked. And now I know I don’t want that.”
Sometimes it can be much bigger than that…
I worked with someone whose baby died in his sleep at just a couple of months old.
He and his wife found out he had a heart condition that could have been prevented with testing.
Instead of letting this terrible situation take control of their lives, they used it for good and started an organization called Simon’s Heart.
They now go around the country and talk about how important it is for kids to have their hearts checked in case they have this particular heart disorder that Simon had.
They have saved countless lives through their organization.
They didn’t let their nightmare circumstance control their attitude. Instead, they turned their tragedy into something beautiful and meaningful.
“Nothing can stop the man with the right mental attitude from achieving his goal; nothing on earth can help the man with the wrong mental attitude.” — Thomas Jefferson
With the right mental attitude, you can accomplish anything.
Think about Thomas Edison who failed 2,774 times before finally reaching a lightbulb design that worked.
Can you imagine what would have happened if he had a poor mental attitude?
“Ah, screw this. This will never work. I don’t even know why I tried.”
But many of us have attitudes like this when anything remotely challenging comes our way.
If you can have a mental attitude of:
“I’m going to keep going until I get it,” you will be unstoppable. It will be impossible to fail.
Because eventually, the goal you set your sights on will come to fruition. It has to. There is no other way!
What usually ends up happening is a series of thoughts like this:
I’m excited because I have this thing I want to do! (Make money online, become a life coach, open a yoga studio, lose weight…)
This isn’t as easy as I thought. What was I thinking?
Maybe I’ll try again another time.
A little while later…
I’m so excited because I have this thing I want to do!
Then the cycle starts again.
And every time you start over, you’re just wasting more time.
Instead, pick a goal, and then see it through. If the goal isn’t working out, adjust it slightly. Don’t just give up.
Starting all over again is so much harder!
Change your attitude and tell yourself, “I’ll figure this out.” And you will!
The #1 trick to instantly change your attitude
There is one trick I use to change my attitude instantly that always works.
Do not roll your eyes at this because it’s so freaking powerful.
It’s gratitude.
As soon as you wake up in the morning, before getting out of bed, find a few things to be grateful for.
(Having a nice, cozy bed would be one.)
Throughout the day, find more things.
Soon the things will start finding you. Because like the Wayne Dyer quote above said:
“When you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change.”
(That quote was worth repeating!)
When you seek out things to be grateful for, more things to be grateful for will be shown to you.
You’ll have better luck, be more creative, “see” your partner in a better light...
Through the Mirror Principle, your entire world shifts.
Everything in your life gets better and easier.
And doesn’t that sound like fun?
Change your attitude, and you can change your entire life.
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I remember another version of this:
“If you change the way you look at the world, the world itself will change.“
I have a friend like that as well, the victim mentality, being around that kind of behaviour can be incredibly draining. Such a difficult mentality to shift! And we can all get caught up in it sometimes.