Going back to work after a long break can be tough, and it’s easy to let yourself become down and out. Does this happen every year to you? What other regular events are there in your life where even just the thought of them gets you down?
I used to struggle with Sundays. It was the day to get prepared for the full-on work starting the next day. It was the furthest day away from Saturday, which was my favourite day. Build yourself enough of these negative feeling inducing events and life becomes miserable.
Do not fret, in fact, you can now worry much less about everything from now on… In a world that often seems to have gone crazy, you have access to an incredibly ability... a superpower to help you out. YOU get to choose how you respond.
You, and every other human being on the planet, has this enormously powerful special ability. You have control of your own consciousness. No one can control or decide what goes on in your head, it’s completely your own domain. You are in charge. It’s a power that not even the most ruthless aggressor has been able to take away from the most tortured prisoner.
After any adrenaline driven initial instinctive reaction, to duck or dive, fight or flight, we choose how we react. Coming to terms with that gives you control over how you respond to different scenarios and situations. This ‘superpower’ is the key component that makes military special forces so effective. Sure they train and train, but arguably it’s their ability to calmly process incoming information under extreme conditions that makes them so effective.
Things don’t need to get you so wound up or to get you down. Decide that they won’t. Ditch the bad things wherever possible and consciously decide to improve the immoveable ones. The kids may be driving you nuts, decide not to get snappy. Smile and keep calm. They'll be grown up and gone before you know it.
Don’t get wound up by those comments on social media, why worry about one person’s opinion in a planet with 8 billion souls. Stop worrying about all those things in the media that you have no control over.
I’m sure you all have a friend who’s always anxious or angry or eternally negative. If you’re lucky you also have a friend who is positive and always calm. Think about it for a minute. You know it’s true. Once you come to terms with this internal power, your life gets better. You become the positive calm one.
So, get out there and be calm and positive. You know you can do it.
By Glenn Hughes.
Glenn Hughes is Co-Founder of New Zealand company Kiwi Superfoods, which supplies the dietary supplements Blackcurrant Skin Extract and Broccoli Sprout Powder.