Life is…
Hard, unfair and challenging, but also beautiful, wonderful and fulfilling
So what?
Accepting that life is hard and making incremental improvements will allow you to:
- Live a more fulfilling and satisfying life;
- Be accepting of your circumstances and what happens in your life; and
- Propel you to learn and grow.
What makes life hard?
Bad things. Life is hard because bad things happen. They happen, no matter what you do to avoid or prevent them. They don’t happen “to you”. They just happen. The sooner you accept that, the sooner you can get to work in making life less hard on you. You know the saying bad things happen to good people. Bad things happen all the time. Good people think that it’s happening to them. Bad people ignore them. Good things happen as much. Good people think they don’t deserve them. Bad people take hold of it and make it their own.
What makes life harder?
Are you any of the below? You are making it harder for yourself.
- Selfish
- You don’t realise how good your life is until you focus on others’ lives.
- There are those that have better lives and there are those that don’t.
- Focusing in those that don’t will help you practice gratitude and be thankful for all you have.
- Be intentional with your focus.
- Hypocrite
- You make your life harder by setting yourself up to fail.
- You say things and backtrack, causing you to feel like a failure.
- Be intentional with what you say. Don’t say it at all if you can’t follow through.
- Irresponsible
- Are you a victim of your own life?
- Blaming others and not taking responsibility is making you miserable.
- Be intentional with what you think. Start by owning your own life.
The common theme of these things are signs that you’re not present and self aware. You are letting your mind wonder off and make it’s own decisions. For example, does it make sense to blame someone else other than yourself that you decided to not fill up the car and it runs out petrol on the way to work? Nope!
What can you do to feel better?
Okay, I know. These things don’t come easy. What practical thing can you do to feel better at this moment?
Not trying to be lazy here but there are plenty of resources out there on what you can do. I will give you one simple method that you can do right at this moment.
5-4-3-2-1 approach by Lee Chaix McDonough
Take a few breaths
Count 5 things you can see
Count 4 things you can hear
Count 3 things you can feel
Count 2 things you can smell
Count 1 thing you can taste
My experience
Wife to talk about her moments when walking from work at night.
What now?
Be present.
Try the 5-4-3-2-1 approach.