Life hands us lemons, so make lemonade, life might be a cactus, but that doesn’t mean you have to sit on it, and your attitude not your aptitude determines your altitude. These are just some quotes that we hear regularly. Basically it all comes down to accepting responsibility for yourself and your life.
A friend of mine once it explained it like this. A 3-year old is running around the house. He trips and falls and hits his head on the coffee table. A parent might say “Naughty coffee table for hurting Jimmy”. Even though it may make Jimmy feel better, it wasn’t the coffee tables fault for hurting Jimmy, it was Jimmy’s fault for running around the house. A better response would be “Jimmy, you need to be more careful when running around the house.”
We do this in life. We blame everyone else but ourselves for our misfortunes. We might say “Nobody likes me, I have no friends” and we blame others for not liking us the way we are, never looking deeper than the surface of the situation to try and find the reason nobody likes us.
When we have troubles, it usually means there is an underlying problem that we are not addressing, or we are not wanting to address. Instead of sulking about not having any friends, shouldn’t we rather be looking into ourselves and trying to figure out why? What am I doing that is causing people to hate me? Do I smell bad? Is it because I am always negative about everything? Is it because I am always unhappy?
Another example: “I hate how fat I am” – instead of sitting around all day, do something about it! Get checked out by a doctor if you think it is a medical problem. Eat fresh fruit and vegetables more regularly. Get some exercise.
My point is, stop complaining about everything that is bad in your life and figure out how you can fix it.
CHALLENGE: Write down everything you don’t like about yourself or the situation you are in where you feel it wasn’t your fault and take the responsibility for your own happiness. Pick one thing on the list and brainstorm ways to fix that problem. Even if that way is to forgive the person who wronged you and move on from it, then do it! Don’t hold onto problems.
Some might be more difficult than others to fix, “I want a boyfriend” for example. Try to figure out what can be improved about yourself to help find a boyfriend. In a case like this you need to become the right person to find the right person. So figure out what you want and learn to be that yourself. Do you want a confident, positive man? Then you need to be a confident, positive woman. How can someone else build you up if you can’t build yourself up. Do you want to date a hot athlete? Then you need to be a hot athlete yourself, start jogging! I can’t stress enough – you have to be the person you want to attract!
No matter what happens in your life, the one thing you can control is your attitude about it. Learn to control your attitude and you’ll ultimately live one of the happiest lives out there.
You really are a wise "old" owl Ashleigh. Great blog page, great posts. When are you going to write a book?
ReplyDeleteThank you Don - maybe I'll write a book when I eventually retire!
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