“You may not be able to change your circumstance but you can change how you react to it”- Beautifully Insane Diaries
This is one of the best lessons I have learned. There are so many things in life that you have absolutely no control over, so why worry yourself about things you can’t control?
Doing a master’s and living in a different country is so much fun but there are times more often than not that it can be very tough. As I’ve said before if you have passion for something it can really help to keep you on track and motivated although passion doesn’t get you all the way, you need to push through all the challenges you face and come out the other side all the better for your struggles.
These struggles that we all face are unfortunately part of life, everyone has struggles of their own and you never know what someone is going through just by looking at them. Getting yourself bogged down by looking at others and comparing yourself to them is never helpful and it creates a viscous cycle.
Life has its ups and down’s. When you’re in bad place or having trouble just keeping your head above water the smallest of inconveniences can send you in to a spiral or negative thinking. This is where being aware of the way you react is very important.
For a real life example: today I checked my survey for farmers in Ireland that I will be using for my thesis, and to my surprise, only two people have filled it out. Now anyone who has done a thesis knows that it can consume you and become the most important thing in your life, so when I seen that one of the things I need for my thesis not going to plan there was a split second where I thought to myself “f*ck this, f*ck that and f*ck my life”. Thankfully those thoughts were short-lived because I have taught myself to stop and think about how I react to problems. Instead of going into meltdown mode, I stopped and thought to myself “Ok, what do I need to do now in order to fix this problem?” I reacted to the situation ina different way.
When you google the word ‘reaction’ the results are: something done, felt, or thought in response to a situation or event’.
My response to a setbacks in my life were initially negative, they were negative automatic thought’s or NAT’s for short. My mind automatically went to the negative as does many people’s, I like to call this a chain reaction. One negative thought will always lead to another and another… Being able to recognize these NAT’s is a lot easier than done but if you become aware of it, it becomes a lot easier to do.
So what I’m trying to say is that you don’t have to be a Positive Patricia all the time because that most definitely would be utterly unbearable for others around you. You just have to be able to recognize when you are being a Negative Nelly, stop for a moment and think to yourself “how can I fix this problem?”. Trust me it works.
Love Shauna xoxo
P.S. I didn’t learn these skills overnight it took me a long time to train myself to react differently to problems in my life. I had some help and guidance. For more inspirational quotes and genuine advice I highly recommend that you go follow Beautifully Insane Diaries on Instagram! Click the icon below to visit their page!
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