The single greatest thing you can do to create happiness in your life - and by happiness I mean for you to put the word that describes your mood when everything is just peachy. It could be content, or fulfilled, or satisfied, or at peace, or anything like that. It is your life so I don’t want to put words into your head…
When I saw this in action in myself I finally saw why I got upset and stressed and struggled. It really wasn’t about the situation, but all about my reaction to the situation.
Every single time.
The single greatest thing you can do to create more happiness, instantly, is work out which things you need to totally accept and which things you can do something about.
You could sum it up by asking yourself: “Right now, what can I do?”
All stress is underlined by the feeling of being out of control. It is caused by the focus on the things that you can’t control that brings you to a place of upset.
You focus so intently on what you want to be different you totally forget everything in your life that is good, and you are in control of.
You spend forever trying to tackle the problem that all your mental and emotional capacity is taken up by the problem. You can’t do anything but focus on the problem. You get more and more wound up. More and more upset.
That’s where acceptance comes in.
In the small things that could annoy you, just being able to shrug your shoulders is such a strength.
In the huge things that might derail someone, just being able to see it clearly - at arm’s length as it were - you give yourself the headspace to do what can do and let go of everything else. Acceptance gives you peace in all trying times.
Acceptance isn’t about not being emotional or not caring or not being concerned, it is simply a clarity to see what you can and can’t do.
Acceptance is shifting your focus from what you can’t do to what you can do. And sometimes what you can do is nothing at all.
Stress is all caused from a lack of acceptance. More accurately, all unhappiness is fighting, actively resisting, that which in this moment in time is a reality.
See what you can change and what, for this moment at least, you simply must accept.
It makes all of life so simple.
Give it a try - see if you can find the acceptance point in all difficulties. Don’t give up, just see clearly what you can and can’t do right now. Maybe it’ll be different soon…
Have a great, happy day. Make the most of it!