You get dumped by someone you’re in love with. The world may as well end, right? But then you find out that he or she was a psychopath who killed their last three partners. Still feel sad? Not so much. So “getting dumped” wasn’t the most important factor. What changed? Your beliefs.
If you lose your job and you believe it was a lousy position and that it won’t be hard for you to get a better one, you’re unfazed. If you believe it was the greatest job in the world and that you’ll never get another one quite as good — you’re devastated. Again, same event, different reactions.
Emotions follow from beliefs. And at times from irrational beliefs Shakespeare encapsulated it well: “Nothing either good nor bad but thinking makes it so.”
As Ryan Holiday, author of the Daily Stoic points out “this happened to me”, is not the same as “this happened to me and that’s bad”. If you stop at the first part, you will be more resilient and better able to take some good out of what’s happened.
So next time you’re feeling negative emotions, don’t focus on the event that you believe caused them. Instead ask yourself what belief you hold about the event. Then ask yourself if it’s rational: “If my partner dumps me, I’ll never get over it.” “If I lose my job, my life is over.” “If I don’t finish reading this the writer will find out and hate me forever.”
Only the last of these is true. The other two are irrational.
Revise your beliefs and you can change your feelings. Sound too simple? Why? If you lost your job, why wouldn’t you find another one? Who’s to say you won’t be better off in the long run?