Hi guys! Welcome to Episode 446 of the Wildly Successful Lifestyle podcast! I hope you’re all out there living your best most wildly successful life possible! I know you’re working on it because here you are hanging out with me and that’s what we do…we do the work. A really big part of that work is mindset work. It’s not enough anymore to leave our mindset to chance. The mental health of a lot of people is declining. There’s a million reasons I could give for that, but victim hood is not a game I’m interested in. I work really hard to maintain my mental health and I know you’re doing the same, you wouldn’t be here if you weren’t. Just always remember that You are the power behind your thoughts, you are not your thoughts. I was talking to a friend in the gym today and he told me I needed to make the episodes longer so they would last through his workout, I laughed, but he said you know yours is the only podcast I listen to because all the others seem to just say the same thing over and over. I feel like in a round about way message is pretty consistent being intentional thinking and controlling your thoughts is everything…but I was honored that he said that and I’m thankful for him and each and every one of you listening. Together we are making the world a better place by flipping our negative thoughts into positive which raises the vibration of not only us but everyone that comes in contact with us…so let’s keep it up.
Eric and I were listening to a podcast with Tony Robbins and his wife Sage. She was saying that whenever there is something that happens that’s not how she hoped or something bad happens she always asks herself “where’s the good in this?”
Just the thought of that question, I feel a shift in my mindset. I actually have used a version of this…For the last year or so, I have intentionally been asking “what good is coming from this?” Anytime something happens that is hard or maybe something stressful is going on. I’ve seen time and again, something that goes on backorder and Im super bummed only to find something in stock I like even better. Every time I look for how this is working in my favor or what good is coming from this, I find it.
Often as humans we need proof that something will work before we will believe that it will work right? It’s easier to believe when we have done it once or we have a formula that has been proven to work for someone else. That’s what makes believing we can achieve something before we achieve it kind of hard, because we don’t have proof that we can achieve it so how do we believe it, right?
Proof for me that the idea of something good coming from even the worst things that happen, I need to look only at my own history. I can pull up some of the things that were honestly the hardest times in my life and I can see in hindsight that yep, because of that awful time this good thing happened. I can come up with story after story of that. And I bet if you honestly thought about it, you could find at least one thing good that came from that hard stuff you went through. So we do have proof that there is something good that is going to come even when things are really hard because we can see it in our own history, our own life.
And it’s not that Im saying be glad bad things happen or it’s good that we go through hard times, what I am saying is when we are going through hard times, we have lots of options of how we can go through them. Some of those options make it harder than it needs to be. And it doesn’t have to be bad times, it could simply be living through life’s changes. One thought that I find I have recurring that I constantly am having to flip around is the thought that things will never be the same. Maybe around family changing or friends changing or life in general changing. I think sometimes I thing change means I’m losing something or I’ve lost something. But when we look at change from the light of “where’s the good in this?” it’s a totally different mindset. First of all, it’s ok that things change, it’s normal even. The saying that the only constant we have in life is that things change is true. So fighting change is silly because everything changes and we want it to, we want our children to grow up, because the alternative is not great. We want our friends to build their dream house on the beach even when it means they’re moving away because of course you want them to have that. And here’s the thing when you live from a place of where’s the good in this or what good is coming because of this….change isn’t so scary. Because instead of dwelling on what you’re losing from the change, you look at what you’re gaining or what’s new and adventurous about the change. When you come from that place, you might be sad for a moment, which is normal and ok, but ultimately when you’re searching for the good, you can’t stay sad for long. You see people who only dwell on what they’re losing and that sadness lingers and sometimes it hangs around forever, finding the good in it let’s us feel our feelings of sadness because our kid is going off to college but then focusing on the advenures and new friends they will make and you too because you get to go tailgate at their college football games. And so from the momentary sadness of the change to the focus on all the new and exciting things that are coming from it. That’s a real mindset shift.
And we can do it with anything. If we allow ourselves to calm down and not be so dramatic, Im talking to myself here….we can see that we make things waaaaaaay worse in our heads. We don’t have to attach labels to everything in life. Oh this horrible thing happened or oh this fabulous thing happened. I love this fable of a Chinese farmer….I’ve told it before but it seems applicable here…
A farmer and his son had a beloved horse who helped the family earn a living. One day, the horse ran away and their neighbors exclaimed, “Your horse ran away, what terrible luck!” The farmer replied, “Maybe so, maybe not.”
A few days later, the horse returned home, leading a few wild horses back to the farm as well. The neighbors shouted out, “Your horse has returned, and brought several horses home with him. What great luck!” The farmer replied, “Maybe so, maybe not.”
Later that week, the farmer’s son was trying to break one of the horses and she threw him to the ground, breaking his leg. The neighbors cried, “Your son broke his leg, what terrible luck!” The farmer replied, “Maybe so, maybe not.”
A few weeks later, soldiers from the national army marched through town, recruiting all boys for the army. They did not take the farmer’s son, because he had a broken leg. The neighbors shouted, “Your boy is spared, what tremendous luck!” To which the farmer replied, “Maybe so, maybe not. We’ll see.”
It is really impossible to tell whether anything that happens is good or bad.
Things may look great at the start, but over time it may not be so great, or you feel bad about something that turns out to be one of the best things that happened to you.
Knowing this….helps us live in the present moment and not be so quick to judge or be so focused on what could go wrong. That’s where our natural mind wants to go. Left to it’s own devices our brain isn’t going to naturally ask where’s the good in this, or what good is coming because of this. That’s not how it is wired, but we control our brain, we control our mind. We are not our thoughts and when we are present and we are thinking on purpose we get to decide how we look at anything. That’s a lot of power to have over whether we are going to be happy or miserable. Most people don’t decide how to think, they think their thoughts are automatic and therefore out of their control, but being conscious of your thoughts and thinking on purpose is one of the biggest gifts you can give yourself moving forward. You don’t have to get stuck
My challenge to you this week is not to judge situations too quickly as good or bad and when things aren’t going your way, ask yourself “where’s the good in this”. And if you cant come up with something dig deeper and ask if there was some good in this, what would it possibly be? Remember we are telling ourselves stories all day long, we might as well tell them in a way that serves us. We are not victims of our circumstances unless we allow it, and you and me, we don’t do victim hood. So take back control of your life by taking control of where your thoughts go and any time you’re struggling, any time you’re having a rough go and it’s gonna happen, be responsible for your mindset even in those times by asking yourself where’s the good in this? Watch for your mind to tell you there’s nothing, sometimes vehemently so, but that’s just an old hardwired habit trying to stay awake and you have the ability to put it to bed with just one thought of how you’re going to allow something good to come from this. You have that power. So use it. Share this with 3 people who bring good into your life, I love you guys, I’ll talk to you in a few days!
