Your guide to a healthier perspective of life
If someone knows how to push your buttons, to get you worked up and out of sorts just by something little that they say or do, they can easily manipulate you. The less reactive you can be, the more power you can have. If you take a moment to pause, you can choose your response – to let things go, to address them calmly and respectfully, or to be stern and forceful. But the key here is you are making the decision on how to respond. That is strength. Reaction to an event is not.
“The world’s apparent chaos is only a reflection of our own inner turmoil.” – Michael Gerber
The problem isn’t the world. It’s us. Life is 10% what happens to you and 90% how you react to it. Are you going to react poorly? Are you going to let your emotions get the best of you? Control yourself. Control your responses. If you can’t do that, you are just a grown up, older child. Be mature and don’t act on impulse.
I saw this quote on LinkedIn and decided that I wanted to talk about it a little more. I completely agree with this sentiment…
If you allow other people’s words or actions determine if you are happy, sad, mad, or anything in between, you’re in for a roller coaster of emotions in life. You can’t control what they say or do, and if you react to everything, you’re giving them the power to “make” you feel a certain way.
But the truth is, only you get to decide whether or not you feel happy or not. Keep that power for yourself – do not give it away to others who may or may not be thinking about how their actions might affect you physically or psychologically.
Practice what Viktor Frankl (Holocaust survivor, neurologist, psychiatrist, philosopher, and author) called SPR – Stimulus, Pause, Response. He said, “Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.” Be free. Choose to be happy or choose to be mad. But make sure it is you who is making that choice, and not someone else choosing for you.
“Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms—to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.” – Viktor Franklin
Don’t play the victim in your life story. Things will always happen that are outside of your control, they won’t go according to how you’d like them to go, but you can always choose your response the what happens. You can always choose your attitude towards any set of circumstances.
Don’t give anybody else power over your feelings and attitude. Nobody can make you “feel” a certain way. Only you have that power…whether you relinquish that power to somebody else is up to you.
“Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms—to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.” – Viktor Franklin
Don’t play the victim in your life story. Things will always happen that are outside of your control, they won’t go according to how you’d like them to go, but you can always choose your response the what happens. You can always choose your attitude towards any set of circumstances.
Don’t give anybody else power over your feelings and attitude. Nobody can make you “feel” a certain way. Only you have that power…whether you relinquish that power to somebody else is up to you.