28 Sep A simple way to make your problems feel small
Do you have any problems in your life? Do you face challenges? Is there anything in your life that’s not perfect?
I’m assuming the answer is yes, probably to all 3, because let’s face it … who wouldn’t say “yes” to all these questions.
Life ISN’T perfect and challenges ARE normal. But they don’t need to impact our lives nearly as much as they often do.
I know from personal experience that I definitely allow difficulties, ones that are almost always temporary and relatively minor, to upset me far more and for much longer than is really necessary or healthy.
But the good news is there’s a relatively simple strategy I’ve been using for a while now that can pay massive dividends. And today, I’m happy to share it with you here …
To begin with, start with a foundation of gratitude and appreciation, with positivity and pride.
That is, begin by acknowledging all that’s good in your life, all that’s going well, all that you’ve achieved and …. well, I think you probably get the idea.
Next, acknowledge what’s not going well.
Happiness isn’t about pretending everything’s perfect, we’ve just agreed that it’s not. But happiness is about noting what is good and then facing up to the cold hard realities of imperfection and adversity. So, note what’s not going well, acknowledge and accept it, but then, approach it with what we psychologists call solution-focused thinking which is basically, asking yourself something like … “what can I do about this?”
One thing you can do, one thing we can all do, is to keep things in perspective. What this means is that we don’t deny the reality of problems, we note the reality of problems, but we keep them in their place. We don’t make them more or bigger than they are.
How?
Well, try this …
Imagine all your problems and frustrations.
Now imagine all that’s great in your life, all the good things (and good people), all of that for which your grateful and proud.
Right, now, get yourself a blank sheet of paper and write down all the negatives. But, and this is an important but, write them in perspective or, that is, at the size they deserve to be IN THE CONTEXT of your life overall. To help with this, ask yourself, how bad will this seem in 5 days or 5 weeks or 5 months time? How bad are they really?
Next, do something similar but this time with ALL THE POSITIVES. Again, write them as large as they should be in perspective. And so, ask yourself, how good are they really? How long will they be good for?
More often than not, for me, the good stuff MASSIVELY outweighs or is outsized compared to the bad stuff. More often than not, for me anyway, the good stuff makes the bad stuff mostly insignificant.
More often than not, for me, life seems so much better when my problems seem so much smaller!