I am a firm believer in mindset, and us having the ability to choose our mindset. Whether we have a positive mindset or a negative mindset is up to us. Not everyone has a naturally positive mindset, but we can put work into it… sometimes we have to!
Choosing to be happy is something that we can all do (though if you’ve got depression or another form of mental illness, please see your GP or a psychologist and get some advice).
If we’re choosing to be a victim, that’s going to be what we get back from the universe. I strongly believed that what we put in is what we get out. So to change our mindset, we really need to put some work in to start changing our thinking.
We exercise to look after our bodies and we need to do the same for our minds; we cannot expect our mindset to just change by itself. It doesn’t happen instantly. If we want to change, we need to put the work in. Our brains are so used to thinking in the same way; they’ve been thinking that way often our whole lives… it could be decades. So thinking in new ways is not something that we’re used to; our habits of thought are very ingrained. And this can make us a bit stuck. But we can really work on that and we can feel happy and we can feel motivated, and we can feel optimistic about the future and we can feel really positive.
In this article, I am sharing one mindset tool that you can implement into your life to help make you feel happier.
Mindset Tool – Helping Others
Helping others is a really great way to make you happy and to make you feel positive – shifting your focus away from yourself and on to doing something kind for someone else. Helping someone who is in a situation that’s worse than yours, or helping someone that’s struggling, makes you feel really good about yourself. And that makes you feel happier. This is something that we can really teach our children as well.
Last year, an elderly lady on the footpath was waving us down. When I got out of our car, it turns out she was injured. She’d had a fall, there was blood everywhere, and she had a big gash in her hand and head. Her name was Carol. Do you want to know what the really sad thing is? Carol said she’d been standing there for quite some time and no one had stopped for her. And it made me feel devastated that we can’t take some time to slow down and just check on each other and see if the people in our community are okay.
The other issue is a term I learned when I was studying psychology, and it’s what is known as the bystander effect. This term came about after the Kitty Genovese case in 1964 where it was reported that 38 bystanders watched or heard Kitty being attacked but instead relied on others, or assumed others would intervene or call the police. She died, and not one of the witnesses helped her.
Back to Carol – I felt relieved we had a first aid kit in the car. Because using that I was able to stop the bleeding by putting pressure on her head and also on her hand. My daughter was also really helpful and followed my instructions. I was really grateful to be able to teach my daughter the lesson that it’s important to help others and to stop and to check if people are okay. It made us feel good, and it really boosted our mindset; it was made us feel really happy.
Another thing that we do every year is organising Christmas presents for kids of single mothers who wouldn’t otherwise receive gifts. These mothers have left abusive relationships. Most of them just don’t have the funds, or access to the funds, to get presents for their kids.
I liaise with a friend of mine who runs a charity and get a list of names and ages of kids (usually around 40). And then I do a call out to my family and friends, and they (very!) generously donate gifts.
I’ve been doing this for five years now and it’s something my friends look forward to – they want to contribute. It’s a special time of year and it makes us all feel really good. When you help someone, it also makes you feel really grateful for what you have.
So where to from here…?
Think of something that you can do to help someone else. It doesn’t have to be a financial contribution; you don’t have to go and buy something for someone or take someone somewhere that’s going to cost you lots of money. It can be a small, simple gesture to just help someone feel less alone and cared for. It could be checking in on your elderly neighbour. Or it could be helping out a mum at school who always seems a little frazzled, and getting the kids over for a playdate. It could be helping one of your friends with a skill that you have. It can be anything.
But what I’d love for you to do is to challenge yourself with something. And then let me know what you did and how it made you feel.
I really believe that this will make a really positive difference in not only the life of the person that you’re helping but also in your own.
P.S DID YOU KNOW?
Thrive Tribe – the global membership experience for single mothers – will be opening again for enrolment soon. Join the waitlist here.
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