You practice mindful change. You focus on the positives. You work through past issues and limiting beliefs. But every now and then, something catches you off guard. And despite all the work you’ve done, for at least a little while, life sucks.
There is no amount of preparation that makes you ready for the sudden death of someone you love. Even if you knew it was coming, how you feel in the moments and days afterward can leave you shaken.
And sometimes, even when you think you don’t care about someone because they repeatedly hurt you in the past, when they die, it suddenly hits you that there could have been so much more.
Other times, the thing that sucks isn’t quite as significant. It can be as simple as trusting a person or a company that doesn’t deliver on their promises. And you get frustrated, or maybe even angry, about it.
The examples of these situations and circumstances are endless, but they all have something in common: for a little while, at least, life kinda sucks.
So, what can you do during those times?
Learn from those moments. It may take everything inside you to stop focusing on loss, broken trust, or disappointment, but make the effort to shift your perspective.
Mindful Change might bring about changes that make your life even better and a lot easier, but that doesn’t mean that the process is always easy.
Take a breath, let it out, relax your body, and find the good in the situation. There’s something for you to learn from every experience in your life.
What if there absolutely isn’t anything positive about the situation?
That’s not very common. It’s downright rare. But if you can find nothing about the situation that’s positive, and there is no way to make your life better right now, take actions that make someone else’s life better.
You might be wondering how that will improve your life or make anything better. The simple truth of it is that it’ll shift your focus away from the bad stuff and toward good stuff.
And the things you focus on are the things you’ll draw into your life.
Don’t believe me? Go outside, look at a tree in the distance, keep your eyes focused on it — literally don’t let yourself look at anything else — and try going anywhere other than toward the tree. Unless you have a friend there with you to guide you, not only will you likely hurt yourself from stumbling over things not in your focus, you’ll find it very hard to move where you’re not looking.
We are drawn toward the things we focus on.
So when life sucks, focus on something positive. Find a lesson to learn from the situation, change your perspective to see the positives about it or, if all else fails, do good things for other people.
You’ll be surprised at how quickly you’ll feel better. And if you keep at it, even if the thing that sucks doesn’t go completely away, the improvements in the rest of your life will dwarf it.
Redirecting yourself like that is a skill, and it can take time to learn. So, if you’re in the middle of something right now and you can’t see how you can do any of these suggestions, contact me at heather@mindfulchange.com or call me at 613.601.1083, and we’ll set up a 30-minute discovery session.
I love this week’s quote for its motivation, and also for how practical it is:
“Trust yourself. Create the kind of self that you will be happy to live with all your life. Make the most of yourself by fanning the tiny, inner sparks of possibility into flames of achievement.”
~Golda Meir
Next time we’ll talk about taking the ‘next step’ in your life. If you want something in your life to change, you have to change. We’ll talk about the keys that make the process easier so your success comes faster.
Until then, have a great week!