Think like an optimist

Many experts will tell you that when you change the way you look at things, you will change your life – and it’s true. If you’re sitting around expecting the worst of things, you’ll be certain to find the worst of things. You’ll find all of your mistakes along the way to your goals. You’ll notice all of the problems with your plan. And then you’ll stop trying because you’ve noticed that everything is going wrong.

Optimists look at the world as though it only has good things to offer and in that thinking, they see the opportunities for learning and growth, rather than the obstacles in their way. Instead of getting upset about the car that cut them off in traffic, they hope that there wasn’t an emergency that caused the driver to need to go so fast.

Optimism takes practice. What you might want to do is start thinking about your life as though it were the life of a good friend that you have.

When you start treating yourself and your life the way that you would treat a good friend, you start to see possibility in life, rather than problems. An optimist is simply someone that strives to look for the good in everything. Just for today, you can try to do the same. Is it a realistic way to be every day?

Don’t have any expectations

How many times have you been disappointed? Probably hundreds of times, right? However, if you think back to your times of pain and loss, many of these instances were the direct result of having some goal in mind that wasn’t reached or some expectation that wasn’t met. What if you gave up your expectations for a day? For one day, what if you said that you don’t really care about what happens?

There’s nothing wrong with having goals and wanting certain things, but when you start relying on the outcome to derive any happiness from it, you can actually be stifling change and growth in your life. In truth, expectations are just wishes and hopes.

The point of eliminating expectations is to start focusing on what’s happening right now – what you can control and what you can’t. If you’re in a bad situation at work and your boss is yelling at you, you can’t control that. However, you can control how good of a job you do – though your boss might still yell at you anyways.

Just for today, try to remember that all that you have in your life is what is right in front of you. Step back and recognize that true change can only come when you stop making it the end all, be all of your existence.