Personal development isn’t about changing someone else.

Or manipulating them. Or controlling them. It isn’t so much about being able to control your circumstances or what happens to you. Sometimes you just can’t do that. It’s about changing how you react to them.

Some People Feel Differently About Our Situation

Most of us don’t want our significant other to leave us. We would be devastated. If our spouse or other important person to us wanted a divorce or to leave us it would be terrible. But there was one woman who wasn’t happy in her marriage. She found a lover who she cared more about. Her lover kept pressuring her to let her husband know that she wanted a divorce. She kept  promising him she would but she was having a hard time getting around to it. She knew it would hurt her husband and she still loved him and didn’t want to make him feel that way. She agonized over it every time she thought of telling him and how it would go. Then one day her husband told her he wanted a divorce. She felt so relieved because then she didn’t have to tell him after all. In this instance, this person did want their spouse to leave them.

You wouldn’t want some one to walk up and hit you, would you? Most of us don’t. But when I was a teenager, we used to go to dances at the Women’s Club every weekend. There were three brothers that went there and they were mean. Always looking for a fight. If they couldn’t find some one to fight they’d end up fighting each other. If you walked up to one of them and hit them they’d be happy. You just saved them the trouble of finding a fight.

Would you like to be on a boat in the middle of the ocean during a big storm? Probably not. You don’t ever want that to happen. But, if you were on a boat in the middle of the ocean during a big storm, maybe you’d be wishing that it had happened before. Then you’d know what to expect. What to do. So what am I trying to say? That if you’d been through it before it wouldn’t be nearly as bad. Or, generally speaking, all the trials and tribulations you’ve been through before make you better able to handle the new ones that pop up.

We Can View Things Differently With A Little Understanding

So change your mind about what’s happened to you. And what is happening. And what will happen. Somethings you see as a terrible thing others will see as a good thing (like the three mean brothers or the cheating wife). It’s all about perspective. Bored because there’s nothing on tv? Ask any prison inmate how they’d like to be sitting at home channel surfing even when there’s nothing good on.

Sure, there’s nothing wrong about getting upset or down when something bad happens to you. But what if it’s not something really bad. Just an inconvenience more than any thing else. Don’t get riled up over just any little thing.

Personal Development Really Is Personal

You can’t always control your circumstances or others around you. But you can control yourself and how you think about and react to things or people. I’m not saying “just change your mind”. Or “You go, girl! You can change your mind”. Not trying to cheer you on. But change your mind for a good reason. And there are good reasons.

Think about these things. Keep coming back to them. Visit them often. Don’t feel helpless. You’re capable of understanding what works and what doesn’t. You’ve probably realized at some point before that these things are true. You just need to remind yourself of what you have always known.