Feel the difference between saying:
this happened TO me
And
this happened FOR me
When saying something happened TO you:
you already give all your power away,
you’re a victim of circumstances,
it is out of your hands,
it is something you can’t do anything about.
When saying something happened FOR you:
you claim power over the situation,
you act upon what is thrown at you,
you decide how you will react,
you take what is given and
look for ways to create an opportunity
to become better because of it,
to grow,
to learn:
you embrace it.
You may think this is absurd.
You may think you could never grow from a horrible situation.
You may think there are only 2 options:
Either you just surrender, do nothing, think it is beyond your control.
Or
You may think that hitting back, getting angry, blaming and complaining, giving them a taste of their own medicine, is the way to handle a situation, is the way to change people, ‘make’ people respect you, love you.
But is it?
Is it really?
Are those the only possible reactions?
I don’t think so,
to me, those options are absurd.
They don’t get you anywhere, it’s like a dog chasing its own tail.
Here is what can bring you closer to a solution, to an improvement:
take a step back from the situation,
take yourself out of the equation
and look at what is happening from a more detached perspective.
Make a conscious choice:
to look for other points of view,
to look for other possibilities.
If you want to change the way you feel about it,
if you want to feel the gain and not the gap,
(cfr Gap or Gain by Dan Sullivan),
you’ll have to take steps to start feeling that gain.
Because if you keep comparing your situation to a perfect situation, to an ideal, you’ll always feel the gap, because you can never reach perfection. (If you want to do something perfectly, you’ve already made your first mistake…)
But when you put your ego on hold,
when you start looking for tiny steps you can take to move forward,
to go beyond the negative,
you’ll notice yourself changing,
you’ll feel yourself shifting from a person something happened to,
to a person something happened for.
You’ll take the situation as an opportunity to learn,
to grow, to become a better person.
And then when you look back and you notice the progress,
the change in your behavior,
you’ll feel the gain!
My invitation to you all is:
Get out of the gap.
Look at how you can take steps to create a positive outcome.
Know it is up to you to take those steps.
Don’t wait for something or someone to change.
Create your own present.
You’ll benefit more from it than you can ever imagine!
Because it is your present mood, it is how you feel right now,
that will determine how your memories will look like, how you’ll look at what happened.
We reinterpret our memories in light of how we feel right now.
If you look at what you’ve achieved, you will ‘remember’ the same past differently than if you focus on where you failed.
If you focus on the good in a relationship, you’ll see it as a fine relationship.
If you focus on the bad in that same relationship, you’ll experience it as a toxic relationship.
Remember where focus goes, energy flows.
Therefore, always look for the positive, create opportunities and the situation will improve!
Thank you all for reading me!
Namaste
Katrien
www.lifecoachwomen.be