Here is a secret to an amazing life. Many people are so focused on ‘only thinking positive thoughts’. That is enough to drive you crazy. Stuff happens in life that will throw you. I do not care how positive you are, life can be tough at times. The secret is to have the tools and strategies to make sure the tough times are not that frequent and not that intense. One of the best ways that I have found to do this is to reserve my negative emotional energy for what really matters. If you spend days in bed upset because a person you considered a friend of yours spread negative gossip about you, what are you going to do when you lose a job or a loved one? That is not to say that all of these other things are not terrible, but they do not have to control our spirit.
That is the difference to real positivity and the kind that just glosses over life. Real positivity acknowledges that life sucks sometimes. Instead of crying, “Why me?” it says, “This bad thing happened. Now what?” Noticing you are feeling sad, irritable or angry is not necessarily bad. It is a learning opportunity. How did these feelings come about? What were the causes and what possible solutions can we try to use to change our emotional state? These questions can be better answered if you are in the habit of journaling. Trying to figure all of this out in your head can lead one to a state of insanity in a short amount of time.
Do your best to be an observer of your thoughts. Whether they are good or bad, ask yourself some of the questions we mentioned above. When you find things that trigger bad moods, try to avoid or eliminate those. When you find things that lift up your emotional state, do more of those. In this manner you will continue to move your life one step closer to amazing. Again, this does not mean there will not be rough patches. I think you can see by observing and understanding your thoughts and emotions, you can add more of what fills you with joy, and less of what takes away from your joy. That is the secret to an amazing life.
How many hours do you spend on video games in a week? How much time playing solitaire or doing crossword puzzles? What do you achieve by getting better at these? How about increasing your income? How about spending time to look better in comparison to others or for society at large? When you think about it, most of our lives are spent in one or more of these endeavors. While I am sure all of them have their redeeming qualities, we should be focused on winning a different game – the inner game.
What I mean by the inner game, is mastering our thoughts and our attitude. When you stop and think about it, life is truly an inner game. The quality of our life, is the quality of our thoughts and emotions. If you are someone who sees what is wrong in life and generally feels angry towards the world and you win the lottery what will happen? You will be rich and…angry. If you can maintain a positive attitude despite outside circumstances, you have true power. Life, or other people and circumstances, will not be able to bring you down.
As you can see, this is not a new thought. Controlling your mind means that you are taking back control of your life. Not being subject to the whim of outside circumstances. Life has it’s ups and downs. Your mind and emotions do not have to. This is a lifelong journey. Much like physical fitness, mental fitness requires daily maintenance. Unfortunately, you do not workout one time and stay in shape forever. Same with gaining control over your mind and emotions. We slip up and act and say things when we are angry that we later regret. Can you see how even doing that less would make your life better?
How can we improve the quality of our thoughts, and thus the quality of our life? There are many options. I am still learning some myself. One of them is to develop an attitude of gratitude. Finding reasons to be grateful even when it seems impossible to do so will make your life amazing. Finding the opportunities in challenges. Some people just see a pile of manure, some people see fertilizer. Next time your life seems like a pile of the stuff that comes out the backside of an animal, ask yourself, “How can I use this to grow from?” Countless musicians, authors and artists have used the worst pain in their lives to create some of their best work. Why can’t you do the same? Also, look for other meanings in life. We can find ourself looking for the worst on occasion. Begin to train your mind to look for the best!
All of these suggestions can dramatically improve the quality of your thoughts and your life. If you would like more ideas to improve your life, feel free to pick up one, or all, of my books! Just search “Neil Panosian” on Amazon. Feel free to share what makes the difference for you in your thoughts and emotions in the comments below.
Everyone seems to be looking for the magic secret to their best life. Even the name of this website is Secret2anamazinglife.com. This may sound rather cliche, but success is really an inner game. The most powerful thing you can do is control your mind and control your emotions. That may sound simple on the surface, but it is far from easy. Most of us were not told this was even an option growing up. We were taught we were at the mercy of both our thoughts and emotions. That may be the case, but it is because we gave up that control to them.
A powerful and successful life is one were we can put our thoughts and emotions to work for us. The million dollar question is how do we get control over our thoughts and emotions? It is the small habits we do daily. It takes time. You have lived your whole life believing that outside circumstances determine how you feel and what you think. This does not have to be the case. Look at the items listed in the photo above. Doing any one of these can help you regain control over your life. Being present is something that is truly missing. We either are worried about the future, regretting the past, or just have our heads buried in our phones being distracted. Then we wake up one day wondering where all the time has went.
Try using the items as a daily checklist. See how many you can get in one day. Do not stress over getting themall, but try to see how many you can get. Being grateful is one of the ones I would suggest starting with. It makes a huge difference. It is impossible to experience a negative emotion while being grateful at the same time. That is a version of ‘addition by subtraction’. The more time you spend being grateful, the less time you will spend in a negative emotional state. One way you can start to take control over your emotional state.
I would love to know how you take control over your thoughts and feelings. Can you see the power in remaining calm when everything else is in chaos? Share your answers in the comments below.
During a conversation with my boss about a supervisor we have had for 2 years, but has never actually set foot in the building (this is something that could only happen at the Post Office) she exploded with emotion. Yelling about how much the situation is stressing her out and how much it upsets her. I explained the quote above. Far too many of us have the same reaction to many things in life that are beyond our control. As I watched her get angry and yell, I couldn’t help but think of what this was doing to her physically. When we put ourselves into constant states of stress, the physical outcome can be nothing short of lethal. Everything from an upset stomach to a heart attack.
Many of you might be tempted to say that the situation was actually to blame. That is not so. Our emotions are one of the things that we can control. This is something that most of us are never taught. We assume it is just an action/reaction world. Yes, it is a lot easier to be happy after winning the lottery than when you discover that you accidentally took two laxatives instead of allergy medicine, but we still have a great deal of control over our reactions. Our mind, where our emotions actually come from, is a muscle to be exercised. Like starting to exercise any muscle, it will be difficult at first, but will get easier the more we try.
Why bother with all this effort to train our emotions? For starters, not having a heart attack would be a good thing. You may be saying to yourself, “That could never happen to me!” The number one risk factor for a heart attack is high blood pressure. It is called the silent killer because it has no symptoms. Guess what raises your blood pressure? Stress! One of the greatest ways we can reduce our stress is through gaining control over our emotions. There are many ways in which this can be done. One of my favorites is to change what things mean. Bullying, at both the adult and child level, is a huge problem since Covid and getting worse. We can let the emotional, verbal attacks really stress us out, or we can understand that these are really people who are usually suffering from a poor self-esteem themselves. Nobody who is completely happy with themselves will attack another.
Another way is to change our perception about the event. When we are constantly in reaction mode, we become slaves to our emotions. They control us instead of the other way around. Are you really going to be anger’s slave? In addition to being a slave to the emotion, you are letting the person or event that caused your reaction control you and your emotional well-being. Nobody deserves to have that power other than you! That person who insulted you might have made you angry. That person who broke your heart may have made you sad. That is understandable. To stay in that emotional state is to let them continue to hurt you over and over again. You deserve better.
Lastly, you can mine your emotions. What I mean by that is to find the lesson in why you find yourself reacting and feeling that way. Is it telling you something about yourself? Is it telling you something about the people you have in your life or the situations you put yourself in? These are all things that we have some control over. Let your emotions give you the gift of improving your life. Stop being victim to them and put them to work for you. It will save you stress. It may even save your life!
Today we are going to talk about the huge difference between two different words, reactive and proactive. Let us look at reactive first. When we put ‘re’ in front of a word, it means to do something again. If you think of what it means to reclaim something, it means you had it once, then you did not have it, now you have it again. In terms of our lives, when we react it is the same thing. There was an action and then it caused our action, or our reaction. That means our actions or behaviors, are predicated on the actions or behaviors of others. How would you like to live your life when how you feel, or how you act, is determined by others? I can’t imagine that you would feel in control of your life. In fact, you wouldn’t be. You would be at the mercy of outside circumstances.
What does it mean to be proactive? It means that we take action in advance of the upcoming situation. If you know you have an early morning, you may be proactive in your actions by putting your clothes out the night before, or getting the coffee maker ready. When you show up the next day you will be well-rested, well-dressed and on time. In short, you will look like, and act like, a pro. This not only works for getting up early. One of the best ways to be proactive is to work on controlling your thoughts, emotions and focus. Eventually, you will be faced with challenges to all of the above. If you are proactive when it comes to your self-control, you will be less likely to be reactive when the situation arises. This means if someone were to treat you unkindly, you would not have to react by feeling anger towards them or sadness based on their treatment of you. If you are able to control your thoughts, emotions and actions regardless of outside circumstances, that will make you a pro.
Invest in being proactive when it comes to improving yourself today. The result of such preparation will be more control over your life and less stress about it. Ask yourself, do you want to be at the mercy of the world around you and controlled by others, or do you want to be a pro?
Last post we discussed the importance of having fortifications of positivity in your life. If you did not read that post, I cannot stress enough the importance of doing so. In this post we are going to talk about winning the toughest war you have, the one in your own head. It is composed of many different battles. It is also a war without end. This may sound rather fatalistic, but that does not make it any less true. As with so many things in life, such as our diet and our fitness, we do not ever have them ‘handled’. Even if we get to a state of satisfaction with these areas, if we stop working on them they will not stay the same. If you get your body into great physical shape and then cease going to the gym or being physically active, your body will not stay in that state. After my heart surgery I can attest to that.
Here is the good news. Once you reach a state of accomplishment, it is easier to maintain than it was to get there. It his great book, The Art of War, Sun Tzu reminds us of the advantages of fighting from a higher elevation than our enemies. When you are climbing the hill in any journey it is difficult. That could be trying to get your weight under control. It could be reducing your stress. Climbing that hill is hard. Here is the good part, when you are on top of the hill, staying there is a lot easier than getting there.
You may be wondering what exactly is he getting at with all of this talk about fighting and wars. My life is not that bad. Les Brown, one of my favorite speakers, said “Life is a fight for territory.” If you do not control your life and what it consists of, someone will be more than happy to do that for you. There is no greater example of this than what is in your own head. I am often asked, “How can you be so positive all of the time?” or “What can I do to be more positive like you?” Two great items to get to here.
First, if you want to be ‘positive like me’, know it is something that will take years and years of effort. Before you say to yourself, “That sounds way too difficult.” Ask yourself what is the alternative? Your thoughts create your emotions. Do you know what your emotions are? They are your life. In short, how you feel is your life. Can you have a good run of luck and still feel sad and lonely? Sure can. How many celebrities have all of the fame, fortune and followers you can imagine, yet commit suicide? Have you ever seen some of the poorest people in third world countries who seem to have a grin permanently affixed to their face? Of course we have. Life is truly an inner game. Without mastering your mind and emotions, you will be at the mercy of them, and of life in general.
I fought the uphill battle against my emotions. I fought against the negativity. I fought against the seasonal depression I suffer from. I fought against the sadness of losing loved ones. I fought against defeats in business and my career. Want to fight uphill? Become an independent author trying to sell as many books so you can reach as many souls as you can. When I started, I was fighting uphill. These emotions had a strategic advantage. They had been there my whole life and had established themselves. They were at the top of the mountain. Many times, they won the battle. I slipped into depression. I lost my temper. I felt defeated. I kept fighting. With every loss, I learned. Eventually, I found myself winning battles and climbing that mountain.
Now I find myself at the top of the mountain in this area, so to speak. Does that mean I am positive all of the time? No. If you do not believe that, ask my lovely lady Margie. She will definitely tell you I have my dark moments. What it does mean is that those moments are now fighting uphill to defeat me, instead of the other way around. With the tools and strategies I have learned climbing the hill, I can usually fend them off with little or no damage. Do they knock me off the top every now and again? You bet. They say the wolf on top of the hill is never as hungry as the wolf climbing the hill. Sorry to use all of these cliches, but they do help paint a more accurate picture. These negative emotions, the depressing thoughts, the anger, they used to rule me. Now they want that power back.
It is said that those who lack power will fight to achieve it, and those who have power will fight to maintain it. The same holds true for the battle for your mind. Those negative emotions will be ever fighting to overpower you. Make sure they are fighting uphill. Last year, I released my third book and it was a flop. As an author, I had two successful books up to that point and felt like I was on the top of the mountain. I thought for sure the sharing of my recent health struggles and brief flirtation with death would really connect with people. I was wrong. What did those voices in my head start to tell me? “You are not a very good author.” “Nobody wants to hear what you have to say.” “Nobody really cares about your journey.” For a while it knocked me off the top of the mountain. What it didn’t do was keep me there.
If you are fighting uphill at anything in life right now, know that you will have to take some defeats along the way. That doesn’t mean you failed. It means you are climbing the hill. It means you have more to learn. Also know, when you get to the top of the hill it will be easier, but it will not be over. In the example of my third book failing to connect as I had hoped, I had tools and strategies that picked me up and helped me continue to fight. I had friends that encouraged me with what they enjoyed about my writing. I had my beautiful lady who not only literally picked me up when I was down, but fights along side of me. I have the very tools and strategies I wrote about in my first two books and talk about in the third that helped me survive death. They certainly can help me get back to the top of the mountain again.
In your own life, the time to prepare and conquer your mindset is now. Fight those inner demons. It is not easy, but it is worth it. Once you are on the top of the mountain, it will be easier. You will be able to not become stressed when things do not go your way. You will be able to maintain an attitude of gratitude (which is a great tool by the way) even in times of struggle. You will become your own hero.
It can be so frustrating when you are doing your best to live a calmer and more loving life and people do their best to challenge that. You can bite your tongue one time, but the next time you just remember how much it hurt. Not only that, but people can be so thoughtless and really push us. You may even ask yourself, “What is the point of trying to resist acting on my anger when I can’t do it all of the time?” That is a fair question. One, every time that you do manage to do it, you end up with less hurt feelings on the other side and less to apologize for later. As the picture above says, you are also working on rewiring your brain.
If you take the same path in the woods everyday, and then you choose to change it up for a week, the second path will not be nearly as worn in as the first. Similarly, if you have been a slave to your emotions for years of your life, and now you are trying to take control of them, the path in your brain for reaction will be a lot more worn in than the one for intelligently responding. It takes practice and, on occasion, we may slip and go down the more familiar path. Give yourself some compassion. It takes a long time to rewire a house. Can you imagine rewiring a machine with over 86 billion connections? That is how many neurons are in the average brain. They make up our ‘wiring’.
Doing your best to rewire 86 billion connections not enough motivation for you? Think of this – those people disturbing your peace would love to see you lose control. In fact, sometimes that is all they are after. By maintaining control and responding instead of reacting will infuriate them like nothing else. Done enough times and they might give up trying to upset you all together. What if you fail and let them get to you? Just remember, they may have won the battle, but the war is still yours to win. Use that feeling of frustration and failure to motivate you to keep control next time. As the picture above says, “Someone out there is holding their breath waiting for you to fail. Make sure they suffocate.” You don’t actually want to kill anyone, but killing off their desire to upset you would certainly help you live a more calm and peaceful life.
Keep doing your best to resist giving into anger. You are not at the mercy of your emotions, you are their master. That does not mean you should turn into a cold and unfeeling person. It means you should learn how to use and channel every emotion you experience. Both the good and the seemingly bad. I used the word seemingly because you can use them as well. Have a lot of anger? Go to the gym and get a great workout in. Feeling sad or down? Use that to reach out and connect with friends. Feeling lonely? Perhaps you could make friends with a stranger who could also use some company. Feel your emotions, just remember to master them as well.
Here is one of the secrets to an amazing life. This may seem like an obvious conclusion, and for the most part it is. Here is the tricky bit, try remembering it in an emotionally charged situation. Reacting, as easy as it is to do, makes you a slave to outside circumstances. They control your emotional state, they control you. This is true whether that is a rude driver or a flat tire. Mindful acting, as difficult as it can be, puts you back in control.
Would you like to control your life, or would you like others to? Again, that sounds like a foolish question, but one that could serve you when you are tempted to react. Here is another thing that reacting to outside circumstances steals from you, in addition to control, it steals a feeling of security. If your emotional state is determined by things outside of your control, you will never be certain how you will feel. Can you imagine trying to plan anything not knowing what kind of mood you will be in? This can be demonstrated at work the day before you leave for vacation. Nothing seems to bother you. Boss upset? It is alright old chap. Project you were working on fell apart? That is a problem for another day. You walk through life unfazed! What if I told you that you could go through life this way? It is true. Unless you are my boss reading this, in which case I do need to go on more vacations to demonstrate.
Gaining control over your emotional state not only provides you a feeling of security, it also helps add a great deal of inner peace. Knowing that you are not going to let outside circumstances influence your emotional well-being gives us a sense of calm and inner peace that those who react will never have. I have been on both sides, trust me on this one. You decide how you want to feel. Look at outside obstacles for what they are, challenges to test and strengthen your resolve. With each test, you will gain greater control over your emotions and gain a greater sense of inner peace and security. Try it this weekend!
When asked to describe me, I always find it interesting to hear what words people choose. I am always hoping for dashing, handsome, charming. Instead, I often hear words like calm, laid back and relaxed. Not the description of the gent on the cover of a romance novel, but not bad either. Usually, after giving such a review, I am asked the same question. It is usually some version of, “How do you remain that calm?” The answer is a simple one – I only give my emotions to that which is truly important to me. This is easy to understand, but to many, almost impossible to do.
This usually generates the follow up question, “How can you do that?” One of the ways I do that is to remind myself of how I used to be. Those who let other people and situations control them are putting control of their life at the mercy of others. You must ask yourself, “Do you want to control your life, or do you want others to?” If you are reading a blog dedicated to living an amazing life, my guess is you want to be in control over your own life. When we live in reaction, that is the opposite of what we are doing. I know. I used to live that way. It can leave you feeling like a ship in the ocean without a rudder. There is no way to steer your life and you are at the mercy of the wind and the waves.
It is important to understand that the same holds true of your own emotions. When you let yourself react to life and those in it, you are a slave to your emotions. They own you. People often tell me things like, “Neil, I can’t help if that is how things/people make me feel.” I get it. Life, and the people in it, are often less than ideal. That is an eloquent way of saying they can sometimes suck. While they have the freedom to act as awful as they please, what they don’t have the power to do is to make you feel any way other than how you choose to let them. This may sound difficult, but it really isn’t. Controlling our emotions can be done by understanding how they are formulated in the first place. What you feel is determined primarily by 2 factors. What you focus on, and what you decide it means.
Yes that person may have called you a racial slur or some insulting name. Are you going to focus on their ignorance or your truth? What does it mean to you? Does it mean the world is full of hatred? Does it mean you are less than? Does it mean that you have an opportunity to demonstrate a positive example for your race and make this person look foolish? Does it mean this person is serving as an emotional trainer to help you strengthen your compassion for the less-enlightened? That is also an eloquent way of saying having pity for the ignorant and stupid. There is nothing that infuriates someone trying to upset you than not allowing it. Not to mention, not getting upset about that which does not matter greatly reduces your own stress.
You will certainly be faced with situations in which you need to be emotionally involved. There are situations that disrupt your spirit and upset you. I was once told that the most important decision in fighting a battle, is whether it is worth fighting in the first place. You must ask yourself the same thing when you find yourself at the mercy of your own emotions. It is a fool who wastes his time trying to master others. The true power is learning to master yourself and your own emotions. That is the secret to my calm. That is a secret to an amazing life.
It is important to remember not to let outside influences override or inner character. Yes, this is easier said than done. We must remember that if we respond emotionally to every person and situation, we are in effect, allowing those people and situations to control us. Are you the type of person who wants to be controlled by everything and everyone around you? That does not lend itself to an amazing life.
This week, when some less-enlightened person does something to aggravate your emotions, remember to respond from who you are and not who they are. One secret to an amazing life is not letting ourselves be controlled.
SECRET 2 AN AMAZING LIFE 