What if we started thinking that the world is not against us, but working with us? for us?

Napoleon Hill said “Every negative event contains within it the seed of an equal or greater benefit”. Meaning that, not every bad that happens needs to have a negative outcome.

I thought about this a lot during lockdown. I cannot explain to you the amount of guilt and disappointment that I felt when I lost my job ( first time in my life ) and was forced to stay home for almost 4 months. I could not find an answer, I was upset at myself, at the world, at those who put me in the situation I was in…and it was a terrible rollercoaster of emotions. I was trying so hard to make it better, being online daily creating connections on Linkedin, reading, sending my CV to everyone I knew and beyond, because I just couldn’t take the taste of failure. I couldn’t stand still, I couldn’t accept this new situation I was in. As explained before, for me, work is important and a huge part of my life…and being without it, was like a part of me was missing.

I wish I would have been able to be more focused during that hard period and utilize all that free time more productively…I now want to do so many online courses to expand my knowledge and skills, which I should have done when I had the time. But to be honest, I stopped blaming myself as it was making me feel worse instead of better. I did what I could and it was enough at that point in time. Past is past, I made those decisions, I have no one to blame but me, so all I am left with, is making peace with myself and move on to what else I can do and achieve now.

Slowly but surely, the world presented to me a new opportunity and opened a different door for me. One that I never thought to consider before. And as a consequence of that, I also had the opportunity of having the time to sit here and write this blog. This experience took me to where I am today. I am taking advantage of it and making myself happy in the process. The old me would have thought of this as “not good enough”, “unimportant”, while now instead I try to enjoy every minute of it and see where it leads.

We are always afraid of change. As we discussed before, the mind is trained by us to think in a certain way and it won’t change, unless we make it.

It is so important to look for opportunities in everything, keeping the mind open to new thoughts and possibilities, because chances are you will be satisfied with the outcome. But if you don’t try, you will never know. “The more you begin to look for the good, the sooner and more often you will find it”. I have always been interested in people who proclaimed “positive thinking” as a game changer, but they are right, it works, and it’s powerful. You may not get what you wanted or achieve exactly what you set out to do, but if you keep your thoughts in a positive direction, it will enable you to take failure as an opportunity, pick yourself up again and move on to the next thing on the list.

Try it, it works.