What you see and focus on is what you become!

What do you see going on in the world?  As you’re probably aware, there are so many things happening – difficult things. We see nations collapsing, earthquakes, fires and floods. We also know that there’s political division, vaccine issues, economic concerns, social unrest and possibly family discord. All these, along with the pandemic, can easily add up to a lot of stress. So we want to know, where do you find the mental strength to meet the challenges and overcome your stress?

We get busy and distracted by so many things that it’s easy to forget to take good care of ourselves. It’s also easy to get accustomed to the amount of stress we have in life, but acute or chronic stress can take its’ toll on us. Research reveals that acute or chronic stress can have a deleterious effect on body, mind and spirit.

The American Psychological Association states that “Stress affects all systems of the body.” Unfortunately, stress effects can creep up on us and we might not notice them until they give us a “wake up call”. It could be feeling exhausted, burned-out and hopeless or a heart attack or some other serious physical illness.

Let’s be proactive to notice how stress is affecting us. Then let’s do something to avoid experiencing that “wake up call”. Charles R. Swindoll said, “Life is 10% what happens to you and 90% how you react to it.” So what can we do to change how we react to life stressors?

What we’ve found is that ‘What you see and focus on is what you become’. Wayne Dyer said, “Attitude is everything, so pick a good one.”

In other words, when you look at life and you see all the negatives, it can influence your attitude. You can become sad, cynical and feel defeated. A loss of motivation can creep in. It’s not easy to change your thinking, but it can be done and it’s worth doing. As Norman Vincent Peale said, “A positive thinker does not refuse to recognize the negative, he refuses to dwell on it.” So instead of taking on the attitude and mindset that all the world is negative and bad, let’s look at another way to see things.

Take time to see things that are good, so you think, act and become more positive. We believe that over time, it can become a habit. As John Wooden said, “Things turn out best for the people who make the best of the way things turn out.”

Neil Pasricha is someone who went through some very difficult times in his life. His job wasn’t going well, his wife divorced him and his best friend committed suicide. Pasricha felt miserable. He decided that he would try to heal, be more positive and look for things that were “awesome.” First he taught himself how to see things, even the everyday things in life, as “awesome”. He then went on to write a blog sharing lots of his awesome discoveries. People loved his positivity and he actually won a national best blog award for his writing. This encouraged him to write books, The Book of Awesome and The Happiness Equation.

Here are the 3 A’s of Awesome that Pasricha talks about as ways to be more positive.

1. Attitude. This is about having a positive mindset even though everything is not going to go as planned. You have many choices on how you will handle your life.
2. Awareness. Being aware means seeing things like a little child with wonder and curiosity. Renew that childlike interest to be entranced by, and open to, experiencing life in new ways.
3. Authenticity. To be authentic is to show uniqueness. Maybe you worry what others will think of your hobbies, your dress or other choices, but all those choices make up the authentic you. Pasricha points out that former NFL player, Roosevelt (Rosey) Grier, wrote a book, Needlepoint for Men. Grier is being authentic.

What about you? What are you seeing in life? What we realize is that there’s both good and bad happening in this world. When we focus on the bad, we can become negative. When we focus on the good, we can become more positive. As Tony Robbins says, “Where our focus goes, energy flows.” The circumstances remain the same, it’s what you focus on that changes. Then what you see and focus on is what you will become!

Chanhassen MN residents, Doug and Lynn Nodland are success coaches and owners of The Balance Center in Excelsior. Contact them at WeCare@SharingLifesLessons.com

© Doug and Lynn Nodland 2021 Articles and videos may be shared in their entirety with attribution.