How to Unlock Your Power to Improve Any Situation
I’ll be happy when…
Do you sometimes suffer from the “I’ll be happy when…” syndrome?
You’re in good company, as most of us do! I’ll be happy when I have more money… I’ll be happy when I can get a better job… I’ll be happy when my partner is more considerate… I’ll be happy when I lose this extra weight… I’ll be happy when “this person” is voted out of office. 😊
Most of us operate from the premise that we feel the way we do because of the circumstances we find ourselves in. In my previous blogpost, The Most Important Thing to Know About Happiness, I challenged that mistaken notion and introduced the concept that – in midst of any experience – there is a POINT OF PERSONAL POWER where we have the ability to exercise some control over how that experience will play out for us. In this post, I am sharing how you can find that point of power and use it to put your “I’ll be happy when…” syndrome in the rearview mirror.
How experiences play out
In the previous post I introduced the cognitive model, which relays the four distinct components that occur in any experience and how they are connected to each other. These components are as follows:
First, a CIRCUMSTANCE occurs.
Next, we have a THOUGHT about that circumstance.
Next, we experience a FEELING as a result of our thought.
Lastly, whatever we are feeling fuels our BEHAVIOR.
A visual depiction of this sequence of events is as follows.
With each experience we have, these four components play out in a rapid-fire manner, exactly in that order, and usually without our conscious knowledge of what’s happening. Again, the chain reaction that occurs with each and every experience is that a circumstance triggers a thought, that thought produces a feeling, and that feeling fuels our behavior.
Let’s look at an example to better understand the reaction that occurs. Let’s say that you’re having an experience that you don’t like of weighing more than you want to. And let’s say that you feel discouraged about that and haven’t been able to make any progress in losing the weight.
The CIRCUMSTANCE (facts of the situation) is that you weigh ___# of pounds.
This circumstance of weighing whatever amount you do triggers your THOUGHTS; these thoughts may be very obvious to you or they may be flying under the radar. In this example, let’s not identify exactly what thoughts you are thinking at this point. Instead, let’s just acknowledge that you are having distinct thoughts (whether consciously or unconsciously) about your weight.
Your thoughts produce FEELINGS, which we’ve previously identified as feelings of being discouraged.
Your feelings of discouragement fuel your BEHAVIOR, which is a demonstrated inability to lose the weight.
From this example, two things immediately stand out:
The thoughts that you have been thinking are thoughts that are not serving you, as they have produced feelings of discouragement. And your discouraged feeling has naturally led to apathetic behavior that has kept you stuck.
Your personal point of power in this situation (and in all situations) is located with component #2: your THOUGHTS!
Thoughts
Our thoughts are powerful, as they literally create our reality. And that is where all of our power lies!
Yet, we don’t pay much attention to ALL of the thoughts we have because it is overwhelming to do so. Thoughts show up by the thousands and pass through the mind with huge speed, seemingly uninvited. They are magnetic: once we find ourselves on a “thought train” about a particular topic, similar thoughts to that show up and attach themselves just like train cars!
If we were able to pay close attention to each and every thought we have, we would likely be surprised to discover that most of them are useless, much of the time they are not true, and an overwhelming number of them simply do not serve us.
Our thoughts can make us feel terrible. In fact, knowing what we now know, every single time we do feel terrible, it is as a result of something we’ve been thinking, whether we are consciously aware of it or not. And therein lies our power!
Personal point of power and how to leverage it
We have a personal point of power in every single experience we have, and we can access and leverage that power to positively influence how that experience will play out for us. This point of power is depicted in the diagram above (component #2: our THOUGHTS). With so many thoughts coursing through our mind, they can be hard to monitor, so here is a very doable and reliable shortcut for leveraging their power:
Pay attention to how you are feeling,
and when you don’t feel good,
determine which emotions you want to feel instead.
What are some thoughts you could think
that would lead you to feel those improved emotions?
Reach for and practice those thoughts!
To demonstrate this shortcut, let’s revisit the example of having the experience of weighing more than you want to.
The circumstance is that you weigh ___# of pounds.
You’ve been feeling very discouraged about that, which has resulted in your inability to take significant action towards losing the weight. Feeling discouraged feels terrible, so how would you like to feel instead? You’d like to feel hopeful. You want to feel good about yourself. You want to feel eager and excited about the good-feeling body of yours that is in progress.
What thoughts could you entertain that, once truly believed, will inspire those better feelings? Identify those thoughts and make a plan to practice them.
That’s the work! This is a skill that can be learned and developed. Your point of power is in all the subtle little things you tell yourself or let yourself think (consciously or unconsciously) all day long. It’s a given that you haven’t meant to squander your personal power by letting your brain run rampant with thoughts that are on autopilot and don’t serve you. And now you know how you can take your power back!
What’s required is a strong desire to feel better than you do and an understanding of the technique involved, along with focus and practice. Simply pay attention to how you feel, and reach for thoughts that feel good when you think them. Once you begin to genuinely feel better from your better-feeling story, you’ll find yourself inspired to behavior that will give you the results you seek.
You now have the key for unlocking your personal power in any situation. You can bring an end to any suffering caused by the “I’ll be happy when…” syndrome and live a life that is not dependent on someone or something else changing before it can be really good!
Note: if you don’t already have a copy of my Genuinely Feel Good and Always Know What to do Next, which more fully explains the process for managing emotions, you can download a copy here.