The first thing that you must understand is that life happens FOR you, not TO you. What do I mean by this? This essentially means that life isn’t so much about what happens, but more about what you do about these things that happen. It is your choice on how to see life. What is your perception of life? You can choose to see events in a different light.
A good friend of mine, Peter Sage, really showed me the power of having a positive mindset when approaching any situation in life. When we had him on our podcast, Real Talk University, he told us about the time he went to maximum security prison for a financial crime that he did no wrong in. You’ll definitely want to check out that episode here.
Rather than being fearful, he was excited. He saw this as an opportunity for him to share his message and his teachings to people who didn’t have access to these things because they were locked up. In his own words, rather than going in as a prisoner or a criminal, he went in there as a “secret agent of change”. How badass is that?!
Through that experience, Peter won many awards, prevented many suicides, and even wrote a book about what was going on while he was there, titled The Inside Track. He had a great way to describe this situation and it applies to all uncomfortable situations in life. He says “Your environment doesn’t define you, it gives you the opportunity to define yourself. But if you have no ability to handle uncertainty, and you think the river of life should go straight, then you’re in dismay land. Every river bends, you have to learn how to sail with the bends rather than resist them or try to swim upstream.”.
Another thing I have to mention is to not be in the reactionary state of mind. You should be anticipating and expecting things in life to happen for you so that you have a plan or steps to execute on after this does happen for you. So, right now, I want you to drop the whole spiel about how all of these bad things have happened to you, because everything that has happened in your life has happened for you in some way.
Whatever higher power you believe in, I will use God for the sake of my own beliefs, you have to understand that they have bigger dreams and a path set for you that you can not yet see the full version of. This is what makes it the most challenging, is not being able to see what the master plan is. You just need to have a little bit of faith!
Positivity is so much more powerful than you might think. If you are always seeking out the positive rather than the negative, than your energy levels and happiness levels will rise rapidly. Rather than endure life, enjoy it! By thinking positive and always seeking out the good rather than the bad, your mind will start to filter out situations and scenarios that in the past, were detrimental to your life or mental health. Positive thoughts attract more positive thoughts and more positive happenings in the physical realm and the same thing goes for negative thoughts, so it’s your choice after all!
Now, how does one always think positive? There are many routines, both when you wake up and before you go to bed which will prime your mind to think and manifest these positive thoughts for you throughout the day. One great exercise that you can try is setting your phone away for the first hour of everyday. Rather than checking emails, text messages, sports outcomes, etc, set your phone away so that your mindset and day is not influenced by a negative result that you may have come across on your phone. Another great thing to practice is the Tony Robbins morning priming routine. If you are unfamiliar with Tony, Robbins, pause this book and go check him out right now. He is what I call the “Godfather” of all entrepreneurs and successful life coaches that are around today.
His routine is very very simple. All you have to do is ask yourself a set of seven questions when you wake up everyday and three questions before you go to bed every night. I’ve read this before many times, but again, like goal setting, it took me a longer time than it should have to actually start doing it. So in the morning, you will ask yourself these seven questions:
- What am I happy about in my life right now? What about that makes me happy? How does that make me feel?
- What am I excited about in my life right now? What about that makes me excited? How does that make me feel?
- What am I proud about in my life right now? What about that makes me proud? How does that make me feel?
- What am I grateful about in my life right now? What about that makes me grateful? How does that make me feel?
- What am I enjoying in my life right now? What about that do I enjoy? How does that make me feel?
- What am I committed to in my life right now? What about that makes me committed? How does that make me feel?
- Who do I love? Who loves me? What about that makes me loving? How does that make me feel?
Make sure that you write these down in a notepad or on your phone so that you remember them and eventually make this routine a habit or instinct when waking up. I was amazed on the change this brought upon me. I started to wake up earlier, but with more motivation and energy to get myself out of bed. Another neat thing about this is that it forces you to seek out these questions throughout the day, knowing that you’ll need some answers for when you ask yourself that next morning.
So, by thinking these questions to yourself throughout the day, you will constantly be seeking for happiness, excitement, something to be proud of, something to be grateful for, something to be excited about, and so on. And it will almost instantly change your life and your level of happiness. So, last but not least, here are the three questions to ask yourself before you go to bed every night:
- What have I given today?
- What did I learn today?
- How has today added to the quality of my life?
Again, very simple, but also very effective. By asking yourself these questions, it allows you to self examine your day and see what you did good, bad, etc. It also allows you to self reflect on some happenings from that day to see if you learned anything that really made an impact or change on your life. The last question adds value to everyday. It simply forces you to find value in everyday, no matter what has happened that day, because every day will contribute to our self growth or to our pursuit of happiness.
So, I want you to give these a try. The change they have had on my own life has been tremendous, and I’d love for it to do the same for you guys. But most importantly, remember to think positive. Rid yourself of negative thoughts. Life doesn’t happen to you, it happens for you. So, get on with it and get to work on yourself!