Push Yourself to Be Happy Even When Life is Hard

 

 

When Life Punches You in the Gut

 

Do you ever notice how when life punches

you in the gut, your mind starts

attacking you, too? And suddenly, you're

not just stressed, but you're spiraling.

And now you're finding flaws in

everything in your life. In your job, in

your body, in your future, in your own

worth. But here's the truth that most

people never actually learn. Happiness

is not what happens after the pain is

 

Happiness During Hard Times

 

gone. It's what you practice during it.

When you only focus on what's going

wrong, your brain becomes a magnet for

misery. You find more things to be

miserable about. And that's a really,

really slippery slope. So, what if you

could actually rewire your brain to find

the good in everything, even if your

entire life is on fire? And if you can

train yourself to search for even a

sliver of good, your entire mindset and

even your brain chemistry and your brain

wiring will start to shift. And so let's

dive into it. Let's just call it like it

is, right? Most people, very good people

in this world, completely cave when

things go sideways in their lives. If

bills start to stack up, they shut down.

If their relationship starts to have a

little bit of stress, they spiral out of

control. If they get bad news, they

start finding everything that's wrong in

their life. Every single little teeny

tiny thing. It's kind of like as soon as

like one thing just goes wrong. The

brain is like, "See, I told you your

entire life was trash." It's like just

this, you know, it's like this little

teeny tiny house of cards and you just

give it one little flick and the entire

thing falls apart. Does that sound

familiar? Well, you have to understand

that if you don't actually start to work

on your mindset around this, it's only

going to get worse and worse and you're

going to start to develop patterns to

find the bad and everything. Like, you

probably know somebody I have somebody

in the top of my head right now that I

can think of that is negative all the

time. You could win the lottery and then

be like, "Oh my god, do you know how

much you're going to have to pay in

taxes?" Like, they can find the bad in

everything. And they're that way because

they have accidentally, I'm sure they

didn't do it on purpose, they've

accidentally wired themselves to find

the bad in everything. But people who

really actually become resilient and

develop a really resilient mindset are

different. The people who have done the

inner work and worked on themsel and

worked on their mindset and worked on

their trauma and worked on their past

and everything, they see life

differently than everybody else. Like

those who have spent time going and

finding the things that's going on like

in the trenches in their mind and in

their life, the ones that are doing the

real inner work, they don't collapse

when things get hard. Why is that?

Because they've trained their brain to

find the good, even if it's hidden under

layers and layers and layers of chaos.

Now, I want to be very clear. I'm not

talking about toxic positivity. I'm

talking about you finding good in

anything that's happening so that you

can become a better person thinking

better to work out of whatever negative

thing is happening in your life. This is

 

Finding Good Without Toxic Positivity

 

called neurological resilience. It's

like you learn to internalize the truth

behind the yin and the yang which is

within every hard thing there is

something good. And even if it's tiny,

if you search for it, you can find it.

You just have to be willing to look. And

so I want you to remember this phrase

the rest of your life. Happiness is a

choice. Now, that phrase when I put it

on Instagram or I talk about it on an

Instagram reel, pisses a lot of people

off. It triggers a lot of people because

they're like, "Well, you don't know my

life and you don't know what's happened

to me." It's, you have to understand,

not some like feel-good slogan. And I'm

not being all woo woo when I'm like,

"Hey, happiness is a choice. Your life

is on fire. Act like it's not on fire."

What I'm saying, it's not a feel-good

slogan. It's neuroscience. Your brain is

always rewiring itself. Always. And

every time that you try to find

something good, which means that you are

not being on autopilot anymore, but

you're actually taking time and energy

and intention to find something good.

 

How Your Brain Rewires for Positivity

 

you're actually strengthening the part

of your brain that is responsible for

positive pattern recognition. Now, on

the opposite side of that, if you are

actually looking for the bad in

something, you're strengthening the part

of your brain that's responsible for

negative pattern recognition. And so, in

neuroscience, there's a thing called

Heb's law. And they say neurons that

fire together wire together. Which means

at any time that you think something a

certain way, that wiring becomes

stronger. And if you decide that you

want to think differently, you're going

to actually start to wire together new

neurons that have never been together.

And so when you practice happiness and

gratitude and finding the good in

things, especially when you don't feel

like it, you're actually literally

reshaping your brain. You're doing three

different things. You're strengthening

your prefrontal cortex, which is where

your decision-m and your optimism comes

from. You're soothing your amygdala,

which is where your fear and your threat

detection comes from. And you're

building more dopamine receptors in your

brain, which is where motivation and

pleasure comes from. So over time, this

actually will become your new default

setting. So you don't even have to try

to find the good in things. You'll

actually just start living that way. And

I can tell you from 100% in my own

anecdotal

story, trust me, I was the definition of

a negative Nancy when I was younger. I

could find the negative in anything. And

I could give excuses and I could tell

you why I was screwed over all the time

and why life wasn't working out for me

and other people always had good luck

and I had bad luck. But now my default

setting is to find the good in

everything. But I also do, just so you

know, have the overall uh because now

that I've been living my life now for a

while and I've seen things happen for my

benefit, even when I didn't think they

were going to be in my benefit, I truly

believe and I have this like just

thought over my entire life that with

 

Everything Happens for You

 

all 40 trillion of my cells, I believe

it that everything that's happening in

my life is happening for me, not

happening to me. Because if it's

happening to me, I'm a victim. If it's

happening for me, then it's actually

happening for me to learn or grow or get

better or to have a better life. And I

believe that to my core. And so let's

actually tell you with research. So I I

gave you my anecdotal, oh yeah, this is

what happened in my life. But I don't

want to just give you fluff. I want to

actually talk real studies for those of

you guys that want proof, right? So

there was a study that was done at

Indiana University where they used fMRI

scans to show participants who practice

gratitude. And they showed that the

 

Science Behind Gratitude

 

people who practice gratitude showed

more activity in the medial prefrontal

cortex of their brain, which is the area

that's linked to learning and

decision-m. They studied them six months

later and they actually found that the

effects lasted over six months after the

study ended. Which means when you train

yourself to look for the good in

something, your brain eventually starts

doing it on autopilot. Now, I don't want

to give you just one study in case

you're very uh you need some a lot of

studies and really a lot of proof to

believe me. Uh there was actually a

study that was done by Dr. Martin

Segelman who is considered the the

father of positive psychology and showed

that people who practice optimistic

reframing. So whenever something happens

you find the optimism in that situation

were more likely to recover from

setbacks and experience less depression

in their lives over time. And then the

last one Harvard psychologist Dr. Sean

Aker found that five minutes a day of

positive journaling and finding the

positive in their life significantly

increased happiness and reduce stress

hormones like cortisol in somebody's

brain. So this isn't like I said toxic

positivity like oh my god the house is

on fire. I'm just going to act like it's

not on fire. It's not toxic positivity.

It's neurological facts that your brain

actually starts to change and rewire

itself for the good and finding the good

when you actually take time and

intention to find the good in anything

that's going bad. And you have to

understand that that the rewiring is not

something that just like happens

instantly. It's not like you do it one

time, but if you stay consistent, it

will be inevitable. The way you like to

think of the way you should think of

your brain is kind of like a big corn

field, right? Like think of your brain

like this giant corn field and this new

maybe you've been negative your entire

life and you're just trying to figure

out how to be more positive. Every time

 

Rewiring Takes Consistency

 

that you choose to find the good even

when it's buried, even when it's in the

middle of a bunch of chaos, it's like

walking a new path the very first time

in that cornfield. Is it going to be

hard to walk through a cornfield? If

it's a brand new path, yeah. But the

next time you do it, it's going to be a

little bit easier. And the next time you

do it, a little bit easier. the hundth

time you do it, it's going to be way

easier. Eventually, that path becomes

clearer. It becomes easier for you to

walk down, aka to start to think

through. And it becomes a road that you

actually will start to take in your

brain over time, even without thinking

after a while. But the truth that most

people avoid in this situation is you do

have to push yourself. Like you have to

push yourself sometimes to when you see

hitting the fan be like, "Okay,

I've got to I've got to get out of my

victim mindset. I've got to stop being

so sad and I've got to figure out what

is the good that could possibly come

from this. How could this be working out

in my favor? What lessons can I get from

this?" It's like happiness just doesn't

float down from the clouds and it's not

delivered to you by a unicorn, right?

Like you don't just wait for something

to make you feel happy. You have to

decide that my natural state will be

happiness.

So you have to sit there and say, "I'm

going to find one thing to be grateful

for today. I will shift my focus even

when if my brain wants to catastrophize

everything and think that my life is in

shambles. I'm going to stop feeding this

victim story in my head and I'm going to

find out how the world is working for

me." Because if you don't, your brain

will just keep collecting evidence that

your life sucks. And that's a natural

 

Push Yourself Out of Victim Mode

 

part of our brain. It's called the

negativity bias. It's like this way in

almost every single person. I've done

entire episodes on the negativity bias.

You can go back and listen to. So your

brain will always look for and collect

evidence that things are going wrong as

a protection mechanism for you. And so

you know who also collects evidence?

Your subconscious mind. And whatever you

think about a lot and whatever you

repeat the most, it will believe. So if

you say stuff like, "Oh, I'm stuck." Or,

"I don't have any good luck or nothing

ever works out for me or life is just

hard and I'm always screwed over." Guess

what? That is actually going to become

your truth. And so what you want to do

is this. When something becomes hard,

acknowledge it. Don't I'm not saying

don't be like, "Oh my god, no, this is

Yeah, no, it's completely fine." I'm not

saying I'm not saying that you need to,

you know, spray perfume on a turd. What

I'm saying is clean up the turd and then

make the make the floor that it was once

on shinier. Find the good in that thing.

So acknowledge, okay, yeah, this is

tough. This is really hard. I really do

feel it. Then you want to just breathe

through it, right? Because when stuff is

really hard, your brain's usually all

over the place. And when you're, you

know, your emotions are high, your logic

is low. So you breathe. Anchor yourself

in the present moment. It might be two

minutes you need to breathe or if shit's

really hitting the fan, it might be 10

minutes. And then just ask yourself to

try to see, you know, change your

perception in some sort of way from this

is so bad, this is so bad, this is so

bad and doom and gloom. Ask yourself,

what can this teach me? Like what's one

good thing that could come from this?

Like how can this circumstance possibly

make me stronger? or like if everything

is happening for me that must mean that

this thing is going to make me better.

So what lessons can I pull from this and

it might be like you know I'm actually

learning to ask for help or this pain

that's happening is showing me that I

need to figure out new boundaries or it

could be even I'm still here in that

something and you can find the good in

the fact that you're still here and that

 

Questions That Rewire Your Mind

 

becomes your access point for starting

to rewire. So, it's like, what good can

come from this? What lessons can I pull

from this? How can I make how can this

make me stronger? What can this teach

me? And you start to actually ask

yourself these questions because when

you ask yourself a question or ask

anybody a question, you're framing their

perception. And you're framing your own

perception from something's wrong, this

is not good to what can I learn from

this, how can I get better in this? And

so, I want you to understand in your

life, happiness is a choice. It really

is. And if you're going to have a great

life, if you're going to be happy in

your life, then you need to make the

choice that no matter what happens,

you're going to end up having a great

life. That everything in this universe

that happens around you is happening for

 

You’re the Narrator, Not the Victim

 

you, for your greater good. You're not

the story of your past. You're the

narrator of it. And you're the person

who gets to reframe everything that's

happened to you, to reinterpret

everything that's happened to you, to

rewrite everything that's happened to

you, and to see it from a different

perspective. And like, life gets hard.

You're not going to go through this life

without at least a decent amount of

pain. But when you're hardwired for

growth, you push yourself. You smile

through the tears. You laugh in the

middle of chaos. and you keep finding

the gold that's hidden inside of the

dirt. Because every single time that you

do, what you're doing is you're building

yourself and your brain neurologically

into a stronger, happier, and more

powerful version of you. Hey, thanks so

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