Hi guys! Welcome to Episode 471 of the Wildly Successful Lifestyle Podcast! How’s the day going? Have you reminded yourself today that happiness is just a thought away? Our thoughts create our world. Once you really start to wrap your brain around that idea, you start to notice that It’s your thoughts about anything that dictate your mood. I’ve started asking myself when I notice I am feeling sad or down or frustrated…I ask myself what thoughts are creating that feeling and then I get to the business of either changing my thoughts or if my thoughts are a bit strong about a topic, I get to the business of changing my focus. It has worked every time I actively try it. I’m strengthening my mind every single time I notice a thought that isn’t serving me and I purposefully and actively change it. This is really important especially during times of high stress, you know why? Because there can be no peace of mind without strength of mind. That’s a quote by Eric Gutkind.
“There can be no peace of mind without strength of mind”. Eric Gutkind
How do you strengthen your mind? Just like you strengthen your body, you work at it. You train it to think the way you want it to. You notice the thoughts that are not serving you and you change them and if you have trouble changing your thoughts about a certain thing then you change your focus. Sometimes things are too hot for you to be able to think rationally or positively about. Do you have any of those topics?
I have several design projects I’m working on at the moment which I love. Now every once in a while something will come up and I can feel that bubbling feeling of frustration growing inside of me and I know that when that is happening I can get pretty emotional about a design aspect not being the way I want it to be. This last week I noticed that a refrigerator that had been installed in one of my kitchen renovations was in my mind very obviously installed incorrectly. It’s a $10 thousand dollar refrigerator that is supposed to be flush with the cabinet and it was not only sitting about an inch and a half away from the cabinet but it was also a bit crooked. Clients were out of town thank goodness so I bring it to the attention of the contractor immediately and at first he didn’t notice what I was talking about and said that one is different from the others we installed, implying that it was installed correctly but was just different so we would get used to it. This felt very wrong to me, and I noticed I was quickly going from concerned to irritated in a very quick manner. Sidenote, my contractor has ALWAYS fixed anything big or small so I had no reason to be worried this would be any different. So noticing myself starting to get angry I simply stopped and said Ok, well I just want to go on record that that installation is not going to work, it’s not ok and then I moved on to other things. When we are in the midst of several big projects, things are going to come up of course and this week it seemed like we had several things coming up. This was just snowballing I heard myself saying in my head. So now I’m creating bigger problems in my own head. So, when I got back to my office which is in my house, I kept thinking about it and dwelling on it and worrying about it to the point to where I printed the installation instructions for that specific refrigerator and studied it even while I was laying in bed and discovered it was indeed installed incorrectly. I noticed my mind was going a little off the charts with the bad things that could come from this, would we have to replace the refrigerator? Would the installer be responsible or me or my contractor? Would we all be responsible? Our client trusts us, how could we let this happen….at one point I had a thought of too much is going wrong, I am not equipped to handle all of these problems. You see how quickly and easily your mind can make you absolutely miserable and crazy? Finally I stepped in and I stopped the madness and told myself, this is a situation that cannot be remedied while I am laying in bed so I am going to leave it to the Universe, I am going to let go and let God as the old adage goes. And that is what I did. As soon as I told myself that, I felt a weight lift off of me knowing it was out of my hands at this moment. I completely let it go.
The next day my contractor called and said ‘well you were right, it was installed wrong, all they have to do is remove the flange around it, push it back a little further and it will be flush and will be as it should be”.
In hindsight I could have let go and let God a little earlier and saved myself some anxiety but I am going to give myself grace and acknowledge that I did eventually come to that conclusion which allowed me to sleep peacefully.
Being able to control your thoughts when they start to spiral is a mind strengthening habit. I would have had no peace had I not done that. That’s why it’s so important to remember there can be no peace of mind without strength of mind.
Letting our mind continue to dwell on the difficulty of the situation or the problem is never going to allow the solution. They are on different vibrations. Allow yourself to focus on something other than the difficult problem and you put yourself in a better situation to come up with the solution. I couldn’t fix the refrigerator but I could stop dwelling on it and allow that others could and would fix it, which is exactly what I did and exactly what happened.
We want and expect for things to always be easy, to always work just exactly the way we want them to without any difficulty on our part. But that isn’t how life works, we wouldn’t want it to either. We would become soft and weak if we never ran up agains any challenges. Challenges build character, they strengthen us. They prepare us for what lies ahead, they strengthen us for our next phase, you don’t want to go to that next phase without the strength you gained in the one before.
When Molly my baby sister was in college and also working she decided to get a little yorkie. We told her it was a bad idea but she did it anyway, eventually she came to me crying because her little yorkie was home 12 hours a day alone and she felt so bad and what could she do? So I told her “here’s what you’re going to do, you are going to bring her over here in the morning and drop her off to me like it is daycare and then pick her up when you get off work, it will prepare you for when you have kids, so that is what she did. On the third day of her dropping her off, the sweet little yorkie decided she wasn’t leaving, she decided on her own she was absolutely not going back to that apartment to live when she was living like a little princess here. That little yorkie was our Kenzie who lived with us until she passed away at 14 just a few months ago. Molly learned a valuable lesson…it strengthened her to the point where when she graduated, got married and had time to get another dog she is now a better dog mom than anyone I have ever seen, and I know that will prepare her for when and if she decides to have children.
Viewing life’s challenges as hard is ok but remember they are preparing you for your next phase. You don’t have to be thankful for the problems but you can be thankful for the strength you gain from them.
Tony Robbins always says “The problem is not that you have problems, it’s that you think you shouldn’t have problems”.
Every problem you overcome makes you stronger. I believe we are better off for them. We are definitely stronger mentally when we overcome them. And remember….
Peace of mind is always possible when you have a strong mind.
My challenge to you today is when you have a problem that seems overwhelming, ask yourself how can I either change how I’m thinking about this or what can I do to change my focus? The solution and the problem are not on the same vibration so in order to allow the solution, you have to rise above the problem. Sometimes this comes from just giving yourself peace of mind to just let go of it for now and leave it to the universe to allow the answer. and remember the strength you gain from any challenge prepares you for your next phase, Life is like a video game in a way. You aren’t going to the next level until you learn what you need to learn to get there. Share this with 3 people who just keep getting stronger. I love you guys, I’ll talk to you in a few days!
