Mindset Controls Mood Set.

Greetings Ladies and Gents,

I hope this finds you in positive spirits and in excellent health! Over in my neck of the woods, it is yet another April day full of steady rain and underwhelming temperatures. Yet, May is literally right around the corner and we're keeping our fingers crossed for some bright sunny days. That brightness sort of flows right into today's topic of maintaining a peaceful/calm mindset and the benefits this can provide to one's overall mood. I won't take up too much of your time today, but hopefully some helpful words can be received via this conversation.

I think it's safe to say that the mind is the most powerful tool a person can possess. It's capable of taking you out of difficult situations, placing you around the right people, and separating you from the pack as a whole. The mind is in fact what makes each of us who we are and such unique individuals. But this can act as a positive or a negative, depending all upon how one chooses to utilize the brain. For instance, if in your mind on a Sunday evening you're telling yourself how hard and impossible the upcoming work week is going to be, chances are that's exactly what you're going to deal with. You've essentially convinced your entire being through your mindset that you will not be able to conquer the week and it has one feeling miserable/defeated before even giving Monday a fair shake.

Another example of a meh mindset getting in the way could be you being invited to a party or gathering by a friend, and you've already concluded in your head that this isn't going to go well, you don't know enough people that will be there, these events all turn out the same, etc... Well, guess what? You have already pooped on the party before the first song has been selected on the playlist. Even if you did decide to surprisingly show up, attitude and mindset can be strongly reflected on one's face, and so you think anyone is going to realistically want to engage with someone who looks like their favorite hoodie just got stolen without consent? Nope, probably not. Again, that mindset is dictating the whole vibe for you, and not in the best of ways.

Now let's take both of the above scenarios and place a positive spin on them. For the Sunday evening example, how about trying for an optimistic mindset and attitude. Focus on the various tasks you can get accomplished, the connections that could potentially be made, and the new opportunity to showcase what you're capable of as a whole. No one is saying that the week won't come with its own set of challenges and tests, but give yourself a little credit. You were placed in that particular position for a reason and built for it. Show the world, and more importantly show yourself, that this is the case.

With the party scenario, no one is expecting you to be at every single function and turnt all the way up on the regular. I can speak from my own experience...that's simply not my personality to always be up in the mix. My ideal type of evening is spent at my house hanging with my dog Alfred and either watching sports or playing video games. We can throw in reading a book these days, since I am still going strong with my new reading streak! But on those blue moon occasions where I do find myself outside and hanging out, I'm not going to have the "woe is me" face on when I'm doing it. I've found that making the most of a situation, even when it's not really your comfort zone, tends to make things go that much easier and time fly much faster. You just have to breathe a little bit, don't get too much in your head, and let your persona speak for itself minus the pessimism.

There's countless situations we could run through that show the impact of having a positive mindset versus a negative one. It really comes down to making that personal decision in one's own mind about whether making the best of one's reality is going to happen or if choosing to lose the day is going to prevail before the day can even play out. I obviously can't keep folks from deciding on door one or door two, but I will say the peace of mind from just letting things play out as they will rather than letting overthinking and headaches dominate...well it's been a relatively easy decision for me. Start with a simple choice of making the most out of the day you're reading this, and take things from there.