Step 2 – Change Your Thinking
I recently wrote about change and how to make it happen. It will not happen without one crucial thing, though – that is, changing your thinking. This is an absolute must for everything else to fall into the right place. A change in thinking can happen only through training: not physical workout, but by actually training your brain.
It begins with a simple thing: how do you start your day? If you begin it angry, frustrated and stressed out, it’s time to change your routine. Even if you get up in a bad mood, you can change it within a few seconds. If you wake up thinking: “Life sucks”, just hit yourself over the head. Life doesn’t suck, it’s your attitude that does. Think of how much you already have. Think of how privileged you already are – you have a roof above your head, food in your fridge; you probably have a job and a circle of friends and a family you can count on. It’s really enough to realize that life doesn’t suck and that the opposite is true – life is amazing. You are the one who gives meaning to it.
And what about the fact that you can breathe, laugh, walk and run? Do you think I’m getting carried away? Remember my words when there is a day in your life when you’re missing one of these things. Do you know this feeling? You wake up complaining about your boss, about the weather, etc. and suddenly something unexpected and unwelcome happens. What’s on your mind then? Don’t you realize that it hadn’t been that bad overall? Every time you catch yourself wanting to complain, take a deep breath and realize how much you already have and how grateful you should be. The more often you do it, the more natural it will be for you and changing your state will take you a second. It will be like hitting the light switch.
Why it’s so important? Because if we don’t maintain proper “mood hygiene”, we start to wrap up ourselves in a weird reality of our own making. We all have a tendency to whine, or make stories up about who we are and what we want, who are the people around us and “how life is totally unfair”. Maybe it is, maybe it isn’t, but that certainly doesn’t obligate you to fight life every day as if it were your enemy. If you look at every single day as a burden and all you think about is stuff you don’t have, your life will eventually suck. Anything the on the negative foundation cannot last. And it won’t bring happiness, that’s for damn sure.
Ps. You should practice mood switching every day, or even a few times a day. After a few weeks, you will notice how it benefits and changes you in every way.
