Hi guys! Welcome to Episode 427 of The Wildly Successful Lifestyle podcast! How are you? Thanks for hanging with me today…
I was talking with a friend the other day and she had been doing some work for her good friend as a favor. She loves to do things for other people, it brings her joy. What she had done for this friend was actually a lot of work, its not something I would want to do but anyway she did it and happily.
She was showing me the end product and I was so impressed. It always amazes me the ability of people to be creative. Anyway she was happy with the end product and went along her way.
A few days later I got a text that said “Well my husband pointed out to me that my friend doesn’t appreciate the things I do for her and after giving it some thought, he’s right and now that’s all I can think about. Now she’s remembering all the nice things she has done in the past and how unappreciative she was then too.
I laughed out loud when I got the text because I can SOOOO relate! This friend tends to be like me, we love people and things tend to roll right off our back, meaning we do not get easily annoyed. It takes a lot but when some well meaning person, who may not be as light hearted about things points something out, all of a sudden I’ll be like, you know what? Yeah, you’re right that is a problem. But it wasn’t a problem before so why is it a problem now? Well, because before we weren’t looking for it, it never occurred to us but now we see it everywhere..
My friend and her experience reminded me of a little experiment that Tony Robbins used to do at his seminars. He would have us all look around the room and really search the room and try hard to remember all of the things we see that are red, so how many red shirts are in the room, is there red in the art, is there red in the furniture, he had us really study looking for red and then he asked us to close our eyes and tell him all of the things we noticed that were green. LOL! What???? How could I notice green when all you had me focused on was red, silly? AH HA! Now you get it. When you’re looking for red, you’re gonna see red. You probably aren’t even going to notice green even if it’s on the person standing right next to you. That’s how the brain works. You get what you’re looking for. What you focus on is what ultimately makes you happy or well miserable.
But it’s not just what you focus on, it’s also what you expect. Have you ever been around people that things just always seem to work out for them? Often times it’s because they expect for things to work out for them, that they do.
Eric and I have really good friends that are so much fun, we just really enjoy them. Things just always seem to work out for them, it’s really fun to watch. The more time I spend with her, the more I realize why, it’s because she just automatically expects that things are going to work out even if there doesn’t even seem to be a clear path to it. So they recently were looking at boats for their home that they plan to move into when they retire. They have been on a waiting list for a while (a couple years actually) to get a boat slip for their community because they are hard to come by and very expensive, but they knew that going into it, it was part of the deal. But they also knew it would work out fine, they were actually on a waiting list for a slip a little farther away because all of the boat slips right next to their home were taken and it seemed no-one was letting them go. So they have been patient just knowing it would work out, well our friend is retiring in the next year and so he decides to run in and ask about the wait list, now this wait list was for renting a boat slip not owning it. But, While he was in there talking to the guy, it just so happened that a man had just left that was selling his boat slip in the spot exactly where they had originally wanted it, he hadn’t put it on the market yet and if you want his number here it is. Turns out he was selling it for what he paid for it and they agreed right then and there they would buy it. Life works out when you know it will. And it doesn’t always work out in the way you think it will, but it’s always working in your favor.
The things you expect and the things you focus on, those are what you can guarantee are heading your way. In one way or another.
So the question I have for myself and anyone listening…what are you expecting to happen in your life? Do you expect good stuff to happen or do you just know things aren’t gonna work out because they never do? Are you focused on all the negative things or are you focused on all the positive things we have to choose from? They are both out there and you get to decide which one you want to look for.
It’s when we focus on the bad stuff or expect the worst that we make ourselves miserable…. We are more in control of our happiness than we were ever taught.
We’re miserable because we have a habit of allowing less than we deserve because we don’t expect anything better. We are miserable because we focus on things that make us miserable. And yes it really is that simple.
In the last few years I’ve dedicated myself to becoming aware of what I’m giving my attention to. I found that when I was unhappy, when I was feeling miserable it was because of one of the following things…I was focused on something that was real but out of my control, I was focused on a scenario I had created in my head of an imagined slight to me or an imagined conversation with someone else that was not serving me, or I was stressed because I didn’t think something was going to work in my favor, in fact creating scenarios in the way in which it might go when it turned out bad. Focus and Expectation. Those two things have more power in predicting your future and your happiness than any other two things that I can think of. I’m pretty aware of my thoughts anymore, it’s not perfect but it’s never going to be and I’m glad because that’s what keeps me growing. Unequivocally I credit my awareness to my meditation practice every morning. It’s a practice that seems in the moment like it’s not doing anything but the real benefit comes in the form of noticing throughout the day when you’re focus is making you miserable. When you’re aware of that, you’re able to fix it. And slowly but surely you recognize that even though you’re never going to be able to control the things that happen in life, you can control your response to them.
My challenge to you is to note the times when you feel miserable…what are you watching, what are you reading, what are you thinking about, what are you expecting out of your life? So often input from the environment around us is what’s tripping us up. True happiness comes from within, but you gotta be willing to quiet your mind to find it and that is when you realize a lot of your miserableness is coming more from your mind than anything that’s going on in reality. Share this with 3 people you would love to see happy. I love you guys, I’ll talk to you in a few days.
