The first thing to do to in a frustrating situation is this

How you choose to think and speak about something makes a difference.

Your thoughts and words are POWERFUL.

Sometimes, the best thing you can do in a frustrating situation (especially if it involves other people and their behavior), is evaluate your own focus and where you are directing it when it comes to that situation. Take a look at the thoughts you’re keeping and the words you’re speaking and bringing to life.

I get that you might want answers, tangible things to do, but problems and solutions “live” in two different places.

If you are focused on complaining and grumbling and continuing to talk about on how frustrating or exhausting or hard or annoyingly long a situation is lasting, even while people are giving you suggestions or solutions you asked for, then often times, the BEST first change to make is within your own mind, within your own thoughts, and within the way you’re choosing to look at a situation. All of which are evidenced by how you speak and by how you respond to ideas, solutions, and suggestions others share with you.

If you keep calling something hard and a struggle and difficult and annoying it will continue to be so. If you keep arguing for your limitations, you’ll keep bumping up against them.

Focus on the problem and all the things that are wrong.

Yes, there may be a problem, there. That’s already been established, but where you see this big, huge, “I have no answers” ordeal, others see an opportunity for growth. Especially when you feel stuck or when you feel like there are no simple solutions, take time to take a good hard look at the way you’re choosing to think about and talk about this issue.

You may have really amazing and wonderful solutions all around you, but if you’re only looking at all the things that are wrong, all the reasons something sucks, you won’t ever see those solutions and possibilities! Because you’re looking “left” and the solutions are “right.” You wouldn’t even notice them if they standing right next to you with a big, flashing neon sign on ’em. You’re looking in the wrong place. The lenses you’re choosing to look through are distorting what you perceive.

It doesn’t even help you to get answers when you’re focus is out of whack or when you’re looking in all the wrong places. Get your mind right FIRST, then seek answers. Chances are, if you do that, you won’t even feel like you need to “seek” them. When you make the necessary mental shifts, answer and solutions and possibilities and opportunities just seem to appear “out of nowhere,” or you finally see something that’s “been there all along.”

And all it took, was a small adjustment on YOUR part to change your own experience. You may never get someone else to be different, to make changes, to be exactly the way you wish they would be. But that doesn’t mean you need to KEEP being annoyed and irritated and frustrated about them or what they do. They are not in your control. You are. Control your controllables.

The fact that you have those frustrated and irritated feelings is not “wrong.” Your feelings are ALWAYS valid, even if they don’t make much sense to anyone else. Your feelings are valid even when they’re based upon false assumptions and beliefs.

If your feelings are negative, however, know that’s usually a sign that there’s something YOU can do/think/say/see differently to positively impact YOUR experience even if other people never do make the changes they need to make. It means that YOU have changes to make, areas in which you can improve, things you can think, say, or do differently. Take care of that and you’ll save yourself a lot of time and energy, not to mention grief.

Trying to control things you can’t control IS going to be frustrating and annoying. Stop doing that. Stop putting your own peace of mind in someone else’s hands 😉

Take control of your own experience by getting super intentional about the thoughts and words you choose. Thinking positive and working toward solutions doesn’t happen on accident. Direct your focus vs just getting “distracted” by the circumstances around you. Positivity is a choice, but your ability to make that choice when it matters most? That’s a SKILL that can be further strengthened and developed in just about everyone. Yours truly included 🙂

This year, I’m working with committed athletes on exactly this skill. Join us in the Think Like a Champ Club.

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change your thoughts and you change your world
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