Hello my friend,
If you can be in a bad mood for no reason you can be in a good mood for no reason.
We never need an excuse for being in a low mood.
We just do it and people accept it.
Yet we often look for a reason to be in a good mood.
Others will even ask us why we are so cheerful.
The fact is our brain doesn’t understand what is positive or negative.
As William Shakespeare said “Nothing is good or bad, but thinking makes it so”.
If we rely on circumstances or things to go our way in order to feel good we will be heavily lopsided towards feeling bad.
How can we be in a good mood more often?
The human brain is programmed towards one outcome.
Survival, at all costs.
Therefore it is constantly seeking out threats to our life.
This wiring is so deep that neuroscientists have found it takes about five positive experiences to outweigh just one negative one.
By identifying the thoughts we want to reframe and the new path we would like to create we’ll be pushing back against this negativity.
Our brains have developed to be negative.
In the past (evolutionarily) our brains had to learn how to quickly pick up things that were dangerous, threatening or wrong because our survival depended on it. Our brains ended up being pre wired for negativity.
Fast forward thousands of years and our brains still default to negativity.
This is confusing right? Because our survival doesn’t really depend on it anymore.
Knowing this gives us power and choice.
We don’t have to succumb to our ancient brains bias.
In fact we owe it to ourselves to fight against it.
We can always find reasons not to be happy or content.
But we can also always find reasons on the contrary.
It just takes a little more training and practice.
To look for the good before the bad, or to seek a positive over a negative.
To choose a good mood over a bad one, at least more often.
We don’t need a reason to be in a good mood.
We can always find an excuse not to be.
Things I’m learning
Jingle all the way.
The popular Christmas song ‘Jingle Bells’ was written by James Pierpont in 1850.
Yes you may have just learned who actually wrote it - me too.
Pierpont lived a pretty miserable profesional life, writing and composing music for most of his life with zero reward or success. He didn’t give up yet everyone around him told him to. It was embarrassing for them. Then right at the back of his career he released one more track. No-one held any hope per usual. The track was Jingle bells.
The song quickly boomed and went on to become the number one christmas song of all time, dramatically turning Pierpont’s fortunes.
All the countless times he was written off and endless times he failed, that single piece of work made up for all of them. All the struggle was worth it.
The lesson? It doesn’t matter how many times you fail, you only need to win once.
Wanting less.
“Not wanting something is as good as having it.” - Naval
Failure leaves a clues.
“Treat failure like a scientist. Each attempt is an experiment. Each mistake is a clue. You’re not failing. You’re refining.” - James Clear
Question
If it’s impossible to know what will happen in the future why do you spend so much time there?
That’s all for this week.
P.s. my new intensive public speaking workshop for business success is now live - click here to see it!
A huge thank you to Kimberley Bailey (friend and amazing copywriter) who has been working super hard on this for me (If you need any copywrite you can reach her here!) If you have a business or know someone who may be interested in this workshop or any other training I offer please get in touch.
Thank you for reading and until next time.
With love, Nick x