What if You Felt Your Life Works for You, Not Against You?

Source: Ryan McGuire/Pixabay

It’s easy to feel like you can’t get a break, that life is one problem after another. You feel more like a victim than a doer.

We all live within the story we create about our lives. Not just memories of events—the Christmases, the arguments, the harrowing vacations—but a summary, a perspective about ourselves, the bigger world, our life’s journey and message. For plenty of good reasons, too many of us have a story of sadness, trauma, or unpredictability. And once we create our story, our minds find ways to validate it: the flat tire, the deadlines at work, and your argument with your partner all add fuel to the story that you can’t get a break, that your life is working against you.

But what if you changed the story and looked at your life through a different lens? What if your life was not working against you but for you?

Here are four ways to experiment with this different perspective:

1. Realize that problems are self-defined.

You wake up and see that flat tire. One response is Here we go again! I can’t get a break. But you can also see this as not about you but as something that sometimes happens in life, a first-world problem. Or better yet, if you were dreading that morning staff meeting, you now have a good excuse to miss it.

Events in your life are neutral. What you label as a problem is all about you. You can change the label.

2. Problems are lessons; life is about learning skills.

Your life is a series of breakups, or your jobs involve quitting or getting fired—all fuel for your story. But what if you keep having breakups or job problems because there’s something you need to learn—perhaps to be assertive and manage your emotions to better deal with frustration or boredom?

Every problem contains a lesson, whether it's learning how to change a tire, be less angry, or stand up for yourself and not sweep problems under the rug. If you learn the lesson and the skills that the problem requires, the problems go away.

3. Life is about upgrading your childhood software.

As children, we all have to figure out how to be, and often how to survive: be good and not make waves; be hyperalert and stay on guard; be passive and accept what is happening or shut down when overwhelmed. While these coping skills worked when you were a child, they usually do not in the bigger, more complicated adult world. You use the same skills but feel overworked and a martyr; you stay alert but are constantly anxious; you become passive, but you’re living others’ lives and not your own.

These old coping skills are like old computer software. To stop feeling like a 10-year-old and be an adult, you need to upgrade the software. And that means acting differently: Not being good and walking on eggshells but speaking up and being assertive; not always being hyperalert and living in the future but living in the present and trying with your rational adult brain not to anticipate the worst; step up and initiate, and not take what you get. By doing this, by replacing your childhood behaviors with adult ones, you stop feeling like a little kid and become more like the adult you are.

4. Realize you have choices.

All of the above is about you taking more control of your life by not running on autopilot but realizing that you have choices—how to respond, see problems as self-defined, and stop following your old story, assumptions, and old ways of coping. If you can do this, you truly become the creator of your life, give up feeling like a victim, and, in the process, heal those old wounds.

It’s not easy; it’s about skills and focus, determination and belief, doing now what you couldn’t do as a child. Rather than seeing life as endless problems coming at you, see life as helping you learn to become the person you truly want and need to be.

You can start today, take baby steps, and rewire your brain and perspective.

If not now, when?