14 mantras to adjust your attitude when you can’t adjust anything else

During a lecture, a psychology professor held up a glass of water at arm’s length and asked the audience: “How much do you think this glass of water weighs?” People started calling out different weights while the professor shook his head.

After a few moments, he answered:

“From where I stand, the weight of this glass is irrelevant. It all depends on how long I hold it. If I hold it for a couple of minutes, it feels quite light. If I hold it for an hour straight, its weight may start to tire my arm. If I hold it for a whole day, I’ll probably start getting cramps and may even injure my arm. In every case the absolute weight of the glass doesn’t change, but the longer I hold it, the heavier it becomes for me.”

That is how Marc Chernoff opens his latest post on Marc and Angel, in which he explains how worries and stressful thoughts are a product of our own making. It is in the same vein as our earlier article in which Tony Robbins explained that “our brain isn’t designed to make us happy, but to survive”: this software we come with as standard is something we have to reprogram.

Your worries, frustrations and stressful thoughts are like the glass of water you hold at arm’s length. Think about them for a while and nothing drastic happens. Think about them a bit longer and they start to hurt. Think about them all day long and your mind ends up numb and paralysed, unable to think clearly until you make some adjustments. Until you put the glass down.

Let’s start from the premise that life is not a bed of roses. The point is not to avoid every problem that comes your way (which is impossible), but to live with the hardest situations (they will always come) while adjusting your attitude, replacing those negative thoughts with more positive alternatives.

Viktor Frankl’s idea, in a paraphrase: you cannot stop situations that cause you pain from coming into your life, but the attitude with which you face them is in your hands.

Here is a selection of the mantras that have to do with readjusting your attitude. If you are going through a bad patch, or you feel that certain situations are starting to get the better of you, remember them.

See also: 5 things to remember when you feel trapped, stuck, empty and lost

1. Most people become unhappy simply because they find it hard to accept life as it presents itself right now, in this very moment.

2. You can find happiness in many of the everyday things you miss because you are busy looking for happiness. Happiness is not a better job or more money. It is a state of mind and a way of thinking.

3. You may not be able to control everything that happens, but you can decide not to be diminished by it.

4. When you can no longer change a situation, you face the challenge of changing yourself. And if you change yourself, you change everything.

5. Only you can choose what matters and what doesn’t. Everything in your life means exactly what you decide it means.

6. Worrying never changes the outcome. Breathe more and worry less. Train your mind to see the lesson in every situation, and then make the most of that lesson.

7. You won’t win every battle. So choose very carefully the ones you are willing to fight to the end.

8. Be selective about your battles. You don’t have to show up to every conflict you are invited to.

9. Happiness and a negative way of thinking cannot coexist. Those who keep moving forward with a positive attitude will find that things always turn out better for them.

10. Truth be told, whether we feel miserable or feel stronger, in the end the amount of work is the same.

11. When you really pay attention, everyone and everything is your teacher. Take the time to watch and listen. Take the time to learn something new.

12. We learn the way as we walk it. Let go of everything from the past that doesn’t serve you, and set out grateful for whatever brought you to where you are now: this new beginning.

13. Some things and some people have to be let go. It is the only way forward. If you don’t let go of parts of your past, you can’t move on. That’s all there is to it.

14. Letting go is not about being able to forget the past. It is about having the wisdom to gather its lessons so you don’t repeat the same mistakes. It is about having the wisdom to embrace the present and the strength to keep going in search of a better future.

See also: 8 hard truths you will learn sooner or later in life

Featured image: gromgull, CC BY 2.0, via Flickr.