On a scale of 1 to 10, how happy are you with your life? Are you a 10, so happy that you honestly couldn?t see how life could get any better? Or maybe you?re closer to a 6 or 7, where you?re pretty satisfied with life most the time, but sometimes you wish for something more. Do you understand that you can change your life by changing your mind?
Perhaps you?d score your level of happiness even lower because it feels like you have so much going on right now. While it may seem like life satisfaction is dictated by what?s happening in the world around you, experts indicate that oftentimes we struggle because of our own mindset.
The Connection Between Struggles and Mindset
Happiness expert Gary van Warmerdam shares that whether you?re happy or unhappy depends on how you feel internally. In other words, it is your thoughts and beliefs about yourself and your situation that ultimately determine whether you?re satisfied with your life or if you feel as if something is lacking. Why?
Because your thoughts and beliefs are what creates your reality. For instance, if you believe something to be true, then it is, regardless of what anyone else says or thinks.
Harv, author of Secrets of the Millionaire Mind, agrees that most problems?even those beyond finances?are a result of how we think. Therefore, if you want to change your life to make it better, this begins with changing your mind. How?
How to Create a Mind Shift
If you want to create a mind shift, which will also create a life shift, one way to achieve this goal is to first realize that you have the power to change your life for the better. Or, as stated in one of T. Harv?s most inspirational quotes, ?If you want to make a permanent change, stop focusing on the size of your problems and focus on the size of you.?
In other words, when the problems you face look like a mountain, it?s easy to feel overwhelmed and like you?ll never reach the top. However, once you remind yourself that you have the power necessary to make the climb successfully, your problems become more like challenges than obstacles. This makes them easier to overcome.
Not sure you have the power necessary to be bigger than your struggles? Just think back to a time when you didn?t think you?d survive, but you did. Maybe it was a divorce that you went through or the loss of a loved one. Whatever the obstacle, you were able to move past it and still achieve some level of happiness or peace in your life.
Taking it to the Next Level
Now, use that point in time?something psychotherapist and Holistic Health Coach Angela Marchesani calls an “anchor” ? to remind you that you do have what it takes to get past whatever life throws your way. This will help create a mind shift in which you feel more empowered and less a victim of life.
Another option is, no matter how bad your situation, don?t forget that it could always be worse. Don?t have the best health? It could always be worse; you could be bedridden and completely unable to move. Tired of being single and just want someone to share your life with? It could always be worse; you could be in an abusive relationship where you?re beaten by the one you love.
Is life easy? Not in the least. There will always be challenges that test your resolve. But if you focus on changing your mindset, you?re also able to change your life. For the better. It all starts with you.
I agree. I’m a psychiatric nurse for a home health company and this is one of the ways I try to help people overcome their feelings of despair and depression. By helping them change the way they think, therefore changing their perspective, they are able to experience a sense of well being they didn’t have before. The brain is so powerful, we don’t even really understand the impact of our thoughts. I’ve seen people walk into the doctors office feeling good and then they receive the news they have cancer, they are told the symptoms such as nausea, headaches, seizures, and I have seen them leave the office feeling sick, I personally saw my own husband have his first seizure within an hour of leaving the brain surgeons office where he was told he had a brain tumor. No seizures prior to this day. It was crazy. The ears hear, the brain believes and the body reacted.
Hi Rhonda – I’ve noticed that myself. I have some health issues, and just the thought, plus the occasional WebMD read can start giving me symptoms. In fact, when I watch medical shows on TV, like Chicago Med or the Good Doctor, I’ll start feeling what people on the shows have. I have to be really careful about what I put into my head. I suppose we all do. For me the anti-dote is to keep busy with work and family, to take a walk or hit the gym. Writing is therapeutic because it forces me to concentrate and to focus on something beyond myself. I also like to listen to sermons, motivational speakers, read my Bible or count my blessings (that one’s huge!). We always have to focus on what’s beyond and what’s possible, otherwise it’s so easy to wrapped up in “us”.
I’ve sometimes been suspicious of motivational speakers and gurus, and yes, some are certified charlatans. But at the same time we do need to focus on the positive, otherwise it’s really easy to sink into the darker stuff. I think that also explains substance abuse and drug addiction, people looking for something to dull the pain. But those are probably easier to fall into if you spend too much time feeling bad.
I love this quote from Henry Ward Beecher: “Every tomorrow has two handles. We can take hold of it with the handle of anxiety or the handle of faith”. It’s a reminder that except in the most extreme situations, we usually have a choice as to which way to go.
I know several people who have dug themselves into a hole by refusing to change the way they think about themselves and the reality of their situation. In each case, the person has maintained the same frame of mind that they have had since childhood or adolescence and refuses to grow.
Right now, my partner and I are dealing with his screwed-up brother. The guy refuses to learn new skills, get any sort of meaningful job and can’t understand WHY he is having the problems he is having. He is over 65 yet he has no Social Security or Medicare to back him up during lean times because he never paid any taxes into it. For the last 12 years the guy lived in apartment with no hot water because he was pissed at the gas company.As of this coming Friday, he will be without a place to live and has no job or income. He does not know ho to go online and he refuses to learn, And I am NOT going to let him and his problems come crash at my place! That may sound unChristian, but he has made his own bed by refusing to change. The only help he will accept is handouts and offers to store his junk.
The above is an extreme example of what can happen to your life if your refuse to change your mind and your life accordingly.
Hi Mary – You’re pointing out something I’ve been wondering about a lot lately. That is, why do some people have an orientation toward bettering themselves, while others stay stuck in the same place, completely resistant to change or forward motion. Through most of my naive life I’d always believed everyone wants to better themselves. Now I realize there’s a fundamental difference between one who wants better for himself (which we all do) and one who’s willing to do what’s needed to get it.
There’s one school of thought – which I’m pretty sure is wrong – that some people are just happy being where they’re at. And while that may be true in rare cases, most of the people I know who are “where they’re at” are mostly miserable. They direct their hostility outward, like the guy you’re talking about ranting about the gas company. They never look in the mirror and say “I have to be better” or hold themselves to a higher level of performance. I even think the ranting against others is the cover, the moral justification for staying in one place.
I don’t think it’s un-Christian to turn away from such people. Matthew 7:6 says “Do not give what is holy to the dogs; nor cast your pearls before swine, lest they trample them under their feet, and turn and tear you in pieces.” I think that tells us to concentrate our efforts on those who appreciate it and use it for a benefit, and not to waste our time with those who won’t. With the person who doesn’t, you can easily become an enabler.
I love the quote by Harvey. Ive never heard that before. It’s so true. Im going to put that on my fridge so I can see it every day.