Feeling like you have no control over your life? Does it make you feel powerless and miserable? When you change your mindset from a perspective that life is happening to you to, to life happening for you, you will become more positive and happy and your life will improve in measurable ways.
Learn why it’s so powerful to think of life happening for you instead of to you.
I’ve been listening to the book Personality Isn’t Permanent by Benjamin Hardy and one of the most powerful things he says in the book is that life happens FOR you, not TO you.
As someone who loves motivational life quotes, this was a new one, even for me.
Think about it for a moment.
Life happens FOR you.
It happens to teach you something, to help you grow, to become more successful or happy.
Let’s face it, life can be hard and unfair!
Very often it sucks!
In my own life I have very often felt stuck, that no matter how hard I worked or how smart and goal oriented my choices were I was just always trailing behind me colleagues or friends as far as success, love, finance or family went.
They just always seemed to be a few years ahead of me in achieving the things I was striving to achieve.
I felt that life was just unfair and cruel and that I had no control over my past, my present of my future.
I was miserable.
Luckily I have since learned how to let go and trust and embrace my higher self, the universe, or if you prefer, god!
My attitude towards life changed.
I realized that I can either get stressed about things, or I can simply accept that everything will work out for the best.
What I do know for a 100% fact is that stressing or worrying over something will NOT in the slightest change the outcome of something. It is nothing but wasted energy!
So I might as well relax, let go, and trust that there is something greater at work here.
Whether I worry about something or not, the outcome will be the same so I might as well spend my energy in a more productive way.
In other words, my mental attitude, my mindset, has changed and as a result my life seems so much better and happier now.
What happens is not as important as how you react to what happens
There’s a brilliant Captain Jack Sparrow meme doing the rounds: The problem is not the problem. The problem is your attitude about the problem. (I don’t know who really said it, so leave a comment below if you know who it was so I can give credit.)
When something happens, it’s how you see it that makes it a negative or positive event.
In other words, it’s your attitude on life that sets the tone for how you perceive a situation.
Don’t underestimate the impact of attitude on what we can achieve in life.
Think about the Paralympic Games.
All athletes who compete in the games have what most of us would consider some physical disability.
Yet instead of letting it hold them back, they use it to fuel themselves to achieve greatness.
Their attitude on life is that they can do anything they want.
If we take charge of our attitudes we can control the world around us.
I once read a great story about Oprah, who had said that a friend once upset her and so she spent a whole week being very miserable, frustrated and angry.
Then she ran into that person in the street only to realize that this person had no clue she was upset and was instead having a great week.
In other words, she had reacted to something in a negative way and then she let it influence her thoughts and emotions for a whole week.
She had made herself miserable for no reason. What’s worse, the other person was having a great old time of it.
She could have chosen to react in a 100 different ways that would not have made her miserable. But at that point in her life she didn’t have the right mental attitude to deal with the situation in a more healthy way.
How do you change the way you react to something?
Taking charge of our attitudes is crucial if we want to achieve anything in life, even if that is simply to live a peaceful and happy life.
The longer I live the more I understand the impact of my mindset over everything in my life.
I realised a while ago that my attitude towards life is far more important than the past or what has happened to me.
We cannot change our past, but we can make the right choice everyday regarding how we want our future to look.
First you must change your mindset.
A positive mindset will make life so much easier.
Having a mindset which allows you to see the world as a positive place full of good people directly influences how you react to situations that come your way.
If you want to learn more about how to build a positive attitude, then check out this article I’ve written in the past about how to become more positive.
My attitude these days is that everything is figure-out-able.
Very little happens these days that makes me feel crushed.
I have learned from the past that I really can get through anything, no matter how bad it seems at the time.
I have also learned that I am capable of far more than I think, that I can achieve great things in life as long as I continue to believe in myself and set high goals, then work hard to achieve them.
What does the quote by Charles R Swindoll “Life is 10% what happens to you and 90% how you react to it” mean?
The longer I live, the more I realize the impact of attitude on life. Attitude, to me, is more important than facts. It is more important than the past, the education, the money, than circumstances, than failure, than successes, than what other people think or say or do. It is more important than appearance, giftedness or skill. It will make or break a company…a church…a home. The remarkable thing is we have a choice everyday regarding the attitude we will embrace for that day. We cannot change our past…we cannot change the fact that people will act in a certain way. We cannot change the inevitable. The only thing we can do is play on the one string we have, and that is our attitude. I am convinced that life is 10% what happens to me and 90% of how I react to it. And so it is with you. We are in charge of our attitudes. – Charles R Swindoll
Every life event or situation is neutral.
It’s what you make of it that makes it a positive or negative event.
I once got made redundant, and honestly it was one of the best things to happen to me. I was a terrible employee. But losing my job really made me want to be better and work harder.
The same thing happened when a colleague got promoted over me.
At first I was upset. It seemed like just another example of life being unjust.
Then I used to let it fuel me, so that I too could get promoted.
Most people would have viewed those situations as negative, and a younger me would have done the same.
We cannot change our past, but how we can use it to fuel our actions for a better future.
Conclusion
Change your attitude, change your life
So in conclusion, if you can change your attitude towards life, you will change your perspective on situations that happen to you.
You will go from thinking only BAD things happen TO YOU, to feeling that only GOOD things happen FOR YOU.
But first you must change your attitude and build a positive mindset.
Or put another way, your thoughts create your world!
