Grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change; The courage to change the things I can.
‘The Serenity Prayer’ by Reinhold Niebuhr
We saw this quote at the start of Chapter 3, where we started to look at how to change the things you can. Chapter 3 was about how to change your environment, Chapter 4 was about how to change the way you use your time, and Chapter 5 was about how to change your attitudes. This chapter will address the other part of the quote: how to accept the things you cannot change. We will concentrate on how to control the way you respond mentally and emotionally to stress.
Perhaps the most influential researcher in this area is Barbara Frederickson. She is widely credited with being one of the key thinkers in the establishment of ‘Positive Psychology’. Whilst this name may sound a little self-help/new-age, this became a respected part of psychology in 1998, when President of the American Psychological Association, Martin Seligman, officially launched Positive Psychology as a distinct branch of psychology, and lifted it from the level of pop psychology to a topic of serious scientific research.
Frederickson showed how positive thoughts and experiences can undo negative emotions, make us more resilient to stress, and give us more choices both behaviourally and emotionally. When psychologists are talking of resilience, they mean pretty much what common usage would lead us to expect: that we can withstand and recover from harmful forces.
This chapter will highlight five mental approaches to building your resilience:
- Focus. In any situation, we focus on one or a few aspects, because our brains are not capable of giving complete attention to everything. Our choice of which aspects can dictate how we interpret and therefore respond to the situation.
- Optimism. Perhaps the fundamental attitude that resilient people have is the optimism that things will get better. We’ll see why this is not just a blind faith in events, but a positive strategy for coping.
- Determination, flexibility and persistence. This may be three things in one section, but they are intimately linked. Watch a healthy toddler trying to figure out how to build a tower from blocks, and then disrupt their play. They will show all three of these.
- Gratitude. Some of the most astonishing yet unsurprising research shows the power of gratitude to help us to cope with adversity and feel better. We’ll look at how to build this into your daily routine.
- Self-talk. Yes, I know you talk to yourself; we all do. But what do you say when you are under stress? By making changes here, you can get a huge boost in your outlook, emotions and resilience.
Focus
A truism in life is that ‘you get what you look for’. It is certainly true that our prejudices predispose us to see in people or events the things that we expect, because they cause our brains to filter out contrary evidence. So, what you focus on is vital.
If you expect a meeting or interview to go badly and to put you under pressure, then you brain will spot every expression, every choice of words and every action that could be interpreted as hostile and bring it to your attention, drowning out all of the neutral and positive comments or acts. If, on the other hand, you have prepared well, are confident, and expect the meeting to go well, then the first smile you get will reinforce this and odd choices of words will go unnoticed or be attributed to momentary lapses.
In a very real sense, our brains create our own reality for us, which may or may not correspond with what an objective observer might describe.
Meaning
‘Take nothing on its looks; take everything on evidence. There’s no better rule.’The lawyer, Jaggers, in Charles Dickens’s Great Expectations
Jaggers’s injunction is an ideal. Yet, for most of the time we do exactly the opposite and interpret things as they seem. External events don’t have any ‘meaning’. They are what they are, and any meaning comes from the interpretations that you or I attach to them. How often have you heard yourself saying something like:
- ‘When she says that, she doesn’t think I’m good enough for …’
- ‘When he does that, it means he thinks …’
- ‘Did you see what she just did? She’s a complete …’
- ‘He didn’t need to do that, he must want …’
- ‘When that happens, it happens because …’
All of these sorts of thoughts involve either reading someone’s mind, ascribing meaning to an action or event, or assuming a reason that may be completely false. When we get stressed, objectivity and reason easily give way to this kind of thinking.
Recover your perspective
When you hear your inner voice making statements like these, SCOPE the situation:
| Stop | Listen to the voice and stop it. |
| Clarify | What exactly are you thinking? What interpretation are you putting on the events around you? |
| Options | What alternative interpretations are available to you? Compare each one with the real evidence. Don’t be afraid to acknowledge (and this is often the case) that you really do not have enough evidence to know what the underlying truth is. |
| Proceed | Act not on your first instinct, but on your best considered instinct. |
| Evaluate | Constantly reassess new information and test it against possible interpretations. As the evidence changes, then change your interpretation accordingly. |
Choose to accept or choose to reject
One of the clearest examples of our tendency to put our focus in the wrong place is when somebody’s chance remark (or even a spiteful comment) makes us feel bad for the rest of the day.
‘No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.’Eleanor Roosevelt
The possibility that I can make you feel good or bad, just by what I say, is a myth. But it is true that you can make yourself feel good or bad by how you choose to deal with what I say. The importance of making a conscious choice was best captured two and a half thousand years ago, by Buddha’s problem of the gift. Buddha asked: ‘If I offer you a gift and you refuse to accept it, who owns the gift?’
Lead the mind: lead the body
Imagine you are holding a big, ripe, juicy, gorgeous orange. Hold out your hand and picture the orange in your hand. Feel its weight, see the shine and texture of its skin, smell the sharp sweetness. Now imagine that, in your other hand, you are taking a sharp knife. Bring it up to the orange, and just let it touch the skin. As it does so, imagine that tiny spray of zest and smell the sharp, intensely orange aroma of it. Now imagine cutting carefully into the flesh. The juices start to run, and they smell really sweet. When they touch your hand, they feel cold and sticky, and you know that this is going to be a lovely, juicy, sweet orange. Imagine you have cut it carefully right in half. Put the knife down safely and bring your orange up to your mouth. Imagine you are just about to take a bite and suck on the gorgeous sweet juices. The smell is intense now and you can feel the cool fresh juice running down your arm. Get ready to put the orange to your lips and STOP.
Is your mouth watering?
There is no orange. Yet most people who immerse themselves in the paragraph in the box above will experience their mouth water, as if there were. Your brain is the most powerful tool you have – and it controls your whole being. If your brain can do that with a fantasy orange, just think of all that it can do to control your response to stress if you let it.
So, focus on the good things that happen, rather than on the bad things. Focus on your points of control and your successes, and attach no more significance to events than they really deserve. What you focus on will influence your whole response to stressful events.
One of my Aikido teachers used to say: ‘Lead the mind: lead the body.’ In martial arts, if you can direct your opponent’s attention, you can easily control their body.
For example, the fundamental source of our stress-inducing fight-or-flight response is fear. In our modern context, one of the commonest forms of fear, whether we acknowledge it or not, is fear of failure. However, if we focus on all our advantages, the benefits of success, the resources we have and how we can plan and manage our success, we find our confidence grows and our fear diminishes – your stress response along with it.
Here is an exercise that harnesses your brain’s ability to change how you feel, which we saw at the start of this section with the orange.
This exercise will help you to reduce the impact of stressors and regain a sense of calm control. This is an exercise to come back to whenever you need it, so practise it so that you can do it quickly and easily whenever you want to.
Think of something that you associate with stress. Picture it in your mind, as if it is an image on a television screen. Close your eyes and watch it on TV and, as you watch, imagine the TV starts to move further and further away from you, and the image gets dimmer and less distinct. Keep the TV moving away slowly and steadily, and the image getting fuzzier and dimmer, until, gradually, you can barely make out the image at all. Then, in your mind, get up and walk away.
Now open your eyes and think about your next meal. Yum.
When you are ready, next think of a time when you felt calm, confident and relaxed; and visualise that in your mind’s eye. Put it on a TV screen as before and close your eyes. This time, imagine the TV is coming towards you and the image is getting bigger, clearer, brighter and more real. The colours are getting sharper and more vivid and it starts to feel like 3D TV. As the image gets bigger, feel it start to wrap around you so that you are immersed in it. When you feel ready, imagine yourself step into the image and take a deep breath. Aaahh.
Dealing with rage
Rage is like falling off a cliff. If stress moves you, step by step, towards the edge, it can take only one tiny shove to push you over the edge. Fortunately, we can usually detect the upwelling of anger that signals impending rage, so here are five things you can do when you sense your cork is about to pop.
1. Breathe
As we get tense and feel enraged, our bodies breathe more quickly and less deeply. This deprives you of oxygen, reducing your ability to think clearly. Deliberately reverse this by taking several deep breaths. Not only will this refill your lungs with fresh oxygen, but the action will send calming signals to your brain.
2. Smile
The world may not always smile with you, but your brain will. The act of smiling sends happy signals to your brain that will damp down your fight-or-flight response and so start to defuse your rage.
3. Get perspective
Mentally step away from the situation and see it objectively. When you try to analyse something, you will activate the logical front part of your brain, stealing some of the energy from your emotional brain centre. What is the real situation? How much does it really matter? How would you view it in a week’s time, or in a year? Use the SCOPE process.
4. Step into their shoes
If it is someone else that has angered you, take a moment to step back and see the situation from their perspective. In their mind, what they did was totally reasonable. When you see things from their point of view, they will seem more reasonable and less enraging.
5. Make it absurd
If all else fails, activate your Monty Python organ – your ability to see the absurdity in any situation. Imagine the person who is annoying you is wearing ridiculous underwear, that their hair is just a wig, covering green hair, or that they are being unreasonable because they are desperate for the toilet. If it’s an object that’s causing you to explode, like a tangled ball of string, a part of your DIY project that’s going wrong, or your computer playing up, imagine it has a voice, and speaks like a cartoon character; picture yourself painting it in a stupid colour for retribution; or imagine how it would look if you put it in the oven for an hour.
Optimism
An optimistic outlook is a huge asset. This is not about blindly believing that things will work out. This is about looking for opportunities that will create a good outcome, and about recognising your strengths and resources, and building on them.
Glass half full
‘Glass-half-full’ optimism is about seeing the bright side of everything and, by extension, ignoring the problems. ‘An optimist,’ some say, ‘differs from a pessimist because they are not in possession of all of the facts.’ Glass-half-full optimism is shallow; it is not enough.
Three real differences distinguish optimists from pessimists: their attitudes to fault, to permanence, and to responsibility.
Fault
A pessimist, prone to stress, will assume that whatever goes wrong is somehow their fault. An optimist will recognise that most events or failures are not their fault and, indeed, many are nobody’s fault at all. Where something is their fault, rather than dwell on the failing, they seek to learn from it, put it right, and move on.
Permanence
Another distinction is in how optimists and pessimists take a long view of setbacks. An optimist will see any setback as temporary; something that, with the right effort and enough support and time, can be reversed. Pessimists see setbacks as part of an inevitable pattern that will persist indefinitely – or at least until their luck changes.
Responsibility
This is the big one. The optimist accepts responsibilities for their actions, but thereby takes responsibility for their future. This is the reason why optimism is such a powerful component of stress management: by taking responsibility, you give yourself the power to control your future; you seize control. A pessimist believes some outside agency – luck, other people, the establishment, or a god – has it in for them and that anything that goes wrong is outside their control.
Tune your antennae
If you know what you want, and you tune up your senses to be aware of your surroundings, you will be astonished at how often you will spot opportunities to change your life for the better. An optimist is someone who believes this is true – not only because they have experienced it but because they know that this gives them the best chances in life.
Yes, things will go wrong for you from time to time. On average, it will be no more than for the next person. If you focus on your problems, however, it will always seem more, whether it is or not. An optimistic frame of mind will allow you to focus not on the problem, but on the aspects of your situation that you can actively manage.
Real optimists do not ignore risk; they embrace it. They identify risks, but instead of fearing them, they assess those risks realistically. Where the risks seem serious in terms of outcome or likelihood of occurring, they focus on how they can manage the risk, by reducing its impact, or making it less likely to occur. Or, at the very least, they think through how they can deal with the situation, should the risk manifest itself.
Choose the people you associate with
The last way to boost your optimism is to choose the people you associate with. If you habitually spend time with pessimists, you won’t be able to help it: some of their attitudes will rub off. On the other hand, select optimistic colleagues, friends and contacts to spend more time with, and you will find it much easier to share their optimistic outlook.
This does not mean you have to abandon valued friends just because of their attitudes. What it does suggest is that, if you hear me moaning about how bad it is and that it will be bound to get worse, you will be better off finding an excuse to move on from the conversation: ‘I’d like to think you’re wrong and that we can find ways to thrive as things change around us. Let’s agree to differ and talk about something else.’
Determination, flexibility and persistence
We talked about the value of setting goals in Chapter 4. Resilient people are those who know their goals, understand their value, and take determined steps to achieve them. They also know how to cope with setbacks.
Determination
Determination is about having a measure of single-mindedness, without being blinkered to other opportunities or events. The behaviours that characterise it are planning and prioritisation, setting aside time and resources to pursue your goals, reviewing progress, and incorporating the lessons you learn along the way. If you are determined, you will see obstacles as challenges to overcome, and setbacks as temporary.
Flexibility
If two people experience the same setback, and they want the same thing, then the one who is more flexible in their thinking will usually find the solution first; the one who is most flexible in their behaviour will get what they want; and the one who is most flexible in their response to change will feel that they are in control. Flexibility is about creating choices and is what stops determination becoming obsession. To be flexible, you need to be able to step back from a challenge, see it objectively, and then find a wide range of options. The process to SCOPE a problem that you read in Chapter 5 will help you to step back, but sometimes you need more resources. Give yourself time, refresh yourself with a walk in the open air, consult friends or colleagues, or pick up some random books or magazines for stimulus.
Persistence
‘If at first you don’t succeed, try something else.’
We saw this in Chapter 3, but the key here is to keep trying. Once again, know the boundary between determination and obsession, but also know that failure is rarely inevitable.
Gratitude
Prayer has been a part of human life and public ritual for as long as recorded history. Only now are we finding out why it is so powerful in bringing about change and a sense of wellbeing. And it need not have anything to do with religion: if you have a faith, you can believe what you choose about how prayer works, and if you have none at all, you can reflect on what modern science is learning.
Maximisers and satisficers
The psychology of decision-making divides us neatly into two groups, the maximisers and the satisficers. Which are you?
- If you are a maximiser, you usually want the best product, solution or deal. You will examine every option very carefully and will agonise over details. Missing information can lead you to get stuck and not feel able to decide.
- If you are a satisficer, then you know what you want and will happily decide on the first product, solution or deal that meets your needs. ‘Good enough’ is good enough for you.
Not surprisingly, maximisers do better in life; they achieve more and get better stuff. But, and this is important, satisficers are happier. They feel better because they do not constantly worry that they didn’t get the best; they are simply grateful for what they got, and move on. Maximisers, however, spend a lot of time regretting decisions that did not turn out to be optimal, and wanting ever more than they already have. This leads to a lot of wasted time and a lot of self-recrimination.
So, be grateful for what you have and avoid making comparisons with what other people have. You didn’t need a bigger TV when you bought that one, so why do you need it now, just because Chris and Stevie bought one that’s 15 cm bigger? Too much choice can stifle decision-making, so only consider a small number of options and don’t expand your range, unless none of them meets your essential criteria.
Past positive
Some people focus on the here and now, and can lose themselves in the moment. Others focus on the future and what they can do tomorrow, so losing the joy of today. But the people who have the greatest sense of wellbeing are those who look back on their past with affection. They can see the mistakes and the pain, but do not dwell on it. They are grateful for everything that has come into their lives, learning from adversity and cherishing the pleasures.
Make a list of ten key events or moments in your past – good and bad.
For each one, spend a few minutes reflecting on what good things came out of it: what you enjoyed, what you learned, how it has made you better. Work hardest on the events that are most painful. What resources did they give you, what did you discover about yourself or the people around you? With the most joyous events, take a few minutes to savour the memories and make them even more a part of who you are now.
Being grateful
‘Polo: the mint with a hole.’ It is very easy to focus on what we don’t have. Research shows that people feel better and make better decisions when they focus on what they have and when they feel a sense of gratitude for the good things in their lives.
If you make a habit of just taking a moment to be grateful when something goes well, you will start to boost your sense of wellbeing. To get a head start, take some time to jot down all of the things in your life that you can be grateful for. For example: family, friends, colleagues, sunshine, small successes, a favourite book or TV programme, your education, a kindness somebody did you, your health … The list could be endless.
When you feel really down and stressed out, there is an industrial-strength approach that certainly got me out of a hole when stressed by a combination of events: a move to a new home in a new area, the inevitable late nights of unpacking, shifting and cleaning, the birth of my daughter, the illness of a close relative, a heavy workload, and finally a slipped disc. If you want a fresh perspective on your life, you need a gratitude journal.
Gratitude journal
Get yourself a fresh notebook and pen – nice ones are ideal – and on the first page write the date and the words ‘Gratitude Journal’.
Each night, before bed (or maybe in bed before you turn out the light), write the date and write down what you feel grateful for there and then. It will often be for something that happened during the day. It can also be something bigger in your life that you are grateful for. You may write about one thing or several. You may write at length or briefly. You may write prose or just notes – you may even write verse. It does not matter what you write, as long as you write something.
Keep this up for at least a month, but feel free to keep going longer. Many people find it so valuable that it becomes a habit, and their gratitude journal becomes their form of daily journal. What you will notice is how different you start to feel about your life, as your troubles are set back into perspective among the many, once forgotten, things that you have to be grateful for.
Self-talk
Most of us say things to ourselves that we would never dare say to the people around us; things that would offend, demean and belittle. Are these the sorts of things you say to yourself when you feel under stress and things are not going your way? If so, this is strange, as it is the one conversation you have total control over.
This is important because a well-chosen word can give you a massive boost. Consider the difference between: ‘I’m rubbish’ and ‘That did not go well … this time.’
A 24-hour motivation coach … for free
Now, if you could say motivating, empowering things, what would you say to yourself now? And you can say these things to yourself, can’t you? Of course you can. Also think about how you say things. Consider the difference between: ‘I got really lucky,’ which credits your success to luck, and ‘I really grabbed that opportunity and made a huge success of it,’ which gives you the credit. Words are important. Start to notice the words you choose and make the choices that give you a real boost. They offer flattery, motivation, confidence building and a mental boost – all for free!
Make yourself your own motivational coach. Don’t worry about being over-the-top and cheesy, because nobody can hear you. It’s time someone loved and believed in you, and you can have their voice with you all the time, telling you that setbacks are temporary, problems are there to resolve, and your successes are triumphs. Whenever you do something good, or things go well for you, tell yourself: ‘Well done’ or ‘That was good.’
Victim talk and survivor talk
We saw earlier in this chapter how important it is to take control of the meaning you attach to events. Events are what they are. What impacts upon us is the interpretation we put on them. You can control your sense of the meaning of events and how they affect you by choosing the questions you ask yourself. No longer see yourself as a victim: start to see yourself as a survivor. For example:
| A victim will ask: | ‘Why is life so unfair?’ | |
| A survivor will ask: | ‘What is really happening here?’ | |
| A victim will ask: | ‘Why will nobody listen to me?’ | |
| A survivor will ask: | ‘What is there that I can do?’ | |
| A victim will ask: | ‘Why me?’ | |
| A survivor will ask: | ‘What opportunities are there for me?’ | |
| A victim will ask: | ‘Whose fault is it?’ | |
| A survivor will ask: | ‘What can I learn from this?’ | |
| A victim will ask: | ‘When is it all going to end?’ | |
| A survivor will ask: | ‘Where do I want to be in six months?’ |
The questions you ask dictate the answers you get. If you want good answers, you have to ask good questions.
Who are you?
One of the things we all do is put all sorts of labels on ourselves. Few are genuinely neutral with respect to our self-esteem and mental self-talk, because of the associations we attach to them. Some, however, can be genuinely destructive, while others can be life-enhancing. A lot of them arose early in our lives when we were too naïve to question them.
‘I’m an idiot.’
‘I’m clumsy.’
‘I’m born unlucky.’
‘I’m uneducated.’
‘I’m a failure.’
You must get rid of these labels and any like them. Instead, replace them with honest labels that describe the best in you; and use positive adjectives too. If you value your role as a husband or wife, then ‘I’m a husband’ or ‘I’m a wife.’ But go further: ‘I’m a husband who does everything he can to be a good one’ or ‘I’m a wife who loves my husband.’ If you value learning but had little education: ‘I’m someone who will take any opportunity to learn something new’ or, if you once knocked over the crockery at a department store, how about: ‘I’m someone who makes an effort to be aware of what’s around me’?
Breaking the cycle
So far, all of the attitudes and tools we have discussed have given you individual ways to improve your mental response to stress, but you may need a systematic way to regain total control. This final section offers you a powerful four-step process.
Step 1: Mature reflection
The basis of one of the most popular forms of therapy, CBT or Cognitive Behavioural Therapy, is Albert Ellis’s ABC Model. This shows you the three components of a situation that you need to understand before you can gain control over it.
A: Activating event
… or Adversity; this is the objective event that causes you concern. Sometimes it is not clear, when you are stressed, what has triggered your emotions, so reflect on everything that has happened, and how you feel about it.
B: Beliefs
Next, examine the beliefs you have (rational or not) about the event, which set off your stress, fears and subsequent responses.
C: Consequences
Ultimately, what consequences do those beliefs have for you in terms of what you do and how that changes your options and opportunities?
Step 2: Honour your emotions
It is okay to feel emotions – they are a part of what makes us all human. You cannot control your stress unless you recognise those emotions and accept them as yours. The process of reviewing how you feel at times of stress, anger, grief or fear is the first step in defusing the emotions and robbing them of their power over you.
Step 3: Look for the evidence
Now you are ready to challenge your beliefs about yourself and your environment, and how they affect your interpretations of the events that triggered your stress. In Chapter 10, you will learn a whole host of ways to challenge them by focusing on the evidence you have been blind to: the evidence that contradicts your faulty thinking.
Step 4: Choose your behaviour
With your new perspectives, you are ready to start changing your behaviour. Start to seize control and do something different: control your physical responses to stress, control your environment, control your time, and control your attitudes
If the stress cycle is too strong for you, you may not be able to do it on your own. Find someone to help you: an advisor, a coach, a mentor or a friend. Choose someone whose life is in balance, who has the time to listen and the wisdom to advise you well. If the stress cycle is too strong for them, choose a professional counsellor. Above all, find someone whom you trust – implicitly.
- You get what you focus on, so, in times of stress, focus on your resources and your options, rather than on your troubles and constraints.
- Take an optimistic outlook, by being aware of what you want and scanning your environment for opportunities to move in the right direction.
- Knowing what you want, be prepared to work hard to get it, changing your approach if what you try does not work.
- Take stock of all the things that you can be grateful for. A gratitude journal is one of the best ways to see your way through your woes.
- Be your own motivational coach – tell yourself you are in control, give good advice, and congratulate yourself on every success.