It's easy to get down, especially when the world seems like its tipping sideways and there's mayhem on every street corner.
It's easy to get down when your Twitter feed is chalked full of ream after ream of doomsday headlines, heart-wrenching photos, and videos of hostility, pain, and tragedy.
It's easy to get down when there's that pressure beating down your neck to succeed beyond everyone's wildest expectation, even if the only thing pressing down on you is your own ambition and fear of failure.
It's easy to get down when you feel you don't quite have enough, even though when you're real honest with yourself you realize you have just way too much.
It's easy to get down when being human means becoming more robotic, and there doesn't seem to be a way to reverse (trans)evolution.
These are thoughts we all have, especially in the 21st Century--but they don't have to define you or your day. Neuroscience continues to reveal links between thinking positively and personal growth. And as Carol Dweck states in her book, Mindset, the difference between those who live well and those who don't is simply a difference in how they think.
What are some things you can do when you wake up and you want to get up instead of down?
1. Avoid bad thoughts: Ok--so we all have thoughts rushing through our heads (try to think about nothing for 10 seconds--it's next to impossible); but you don't have to engage them. Simply let the thoughts go. Or, think of training a dog: when the dog wants to go somewhere it shouldn't, you say "No," and lead it to where it can go. Same with our thoughts: when the negative ones come, we can simply say "No," and lead our mind elsewhere.
2. You are not your thoughts: Your thoughts don't define you. If you have bad thoughts or negative thoughts, it's just your mind processing the infinite amount of information you're receiving every second--but it doesn't define you. Again, you can simply turn your mind toward something more practical or positive or good.
3. Avoid negative stuff: It's important to be informed, but it's another to enter the abyss of 24-7 news feeds every day without coming up for air. One great humanitarian I read about upon hearing of 9/11 stayed away from all the 'breaking news' out of concern that it would bring himself to despair. It doesn't mean we don't engage in tragedy and feel for those who suffer, but there is a point at which we can drive ourselves into despair through our watching of such tragedies to no end.
4. Persist through failure: We all fail--simple enough. Yet accepting failure and moving on is one of the most difficult things for people to do. Do you know the secret to juggling? When people learn how to juggle, one of the things they are assigned to do is throw the balls in the air and let them fall to the ground--eventually all the fear of failure is removed, and the person can begin to learn to catch them. If you've failed at a project or a major life decision, you've just entered the ranks of every great creative or inventor or artist. The key is to keep moving forward.
5. Try new things: If you're in a funk, try something new. Don't be afraid to fail. Often new ways of seeing or thinking come out of moments when we try something we haven't before--it could be switching to poached eggs from scrambled, or taking a different route to work, or biking there instead of taking the bus.
6. Laugh: This is a tremendous form of therapy that springs from looking at the world out of vulnerability and a place of being fine with not having the answers. It takes a certain kind of breaking point for it to happen; a certain kind of failure or set back. When you've lost and have no other answers, and let go of trying to control everything, laughter can come. This is joy in suffering; and it's a wonderful thing.
7. Avoid trying to know everything: Socrates said, "A wise man admits he knows nothing." We live in a world in which the intellect is everything--but what of the heart? I heard one person say, "It's nice to be important, but it's more important to be nice." When you don't try to have all the answers, when you enter your day as a beginner, you'll live more from your heart, and thus will be kinder to yourself and those around you.
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