Taking control of your life is essential to making it Fantastic. You get one shot–make it a good one. Live each day to your fullest potential and you can sleep well at night knowing you have done your best. Below in yellow is something that we should all remember day in and day out.
Rule #4 from my book The Fantastic Life: All of Life is Connected
Everything in life, from people, attitudes, habits, and more, are connected. When you make a change in one area, there are ripple effects that touch all other areas. Like the highlighted quote, simply changing your thoughts can alter your destiny. Take the time to focus on the things you can control and watch how your life follows in the same direction.
Curing Victimitis
by MICHAEL JOSEPHSON
MARCH 31, 2014
Watch your thoughts; they lead to attitudes.
Watch your attitudes; they lead to words.
Watch your words; they lead to actions.
Watch your actions; they lead to habits.
Watch your habits; they form your character.
Watch your character; it determines your destiny.
These words of unknown origin tell us that our silent and often subconscious choices shape our future. Every aspect of our lives, at home and at work, can be improved if we use our power to think, reflect, and make conscious choices about our thoughts, attitudes, words, actions, and habits.
Instead, many of us think of ourselves as victims. We complain about our circumstances and what others did to us. Whatever psychological comfort there is in feeling powerless and blameless when things aren’t going right, victims lead unsatisfied lives in the end.
We’re most vulnerable to victimitis when we’re under the influence of powerful emotions like fear, insecurity, anger, frustration, grief, and depression. These feelings can be so overwhelming that we believe our state of mind is inevitable. Our only hope is that they’ll go away on their own. Yet it’s during times of emotional tumult that using our power to choose our thoughts and attitudes is most important. We can’t make pain go away, but we can refuse to suffer.
Even when we don’t like any of our choices, we do have some – once we realize we can take control. It isn’t easy, but what we do and how we choose to feel about ourselves can have a profound impact on the quality of our lives. Victims may get sympathy for a while, but that isn’t nearly enough.
Taking personal responsibility for our happiness and success can be scary, but the payoff is enormous. Although we can’t make our lives perfect, we can make them better – usually a lot better.