Page 80 - 100 Ways to Motivate Yourself

to take the next step. (This first step is crucial, though. As Nathaniel Branden

teaches, “You can’t leave a place you’ve never been.”) The second step is to
build a case for the optimistic view.

Start to argue against your first line of reasoning. Pretend you’re an attorney
whose job is to prove the pessimist in you wrong. Start off on building your case
for what’s possible. You’ll surprise yourself. Optimism is by nature expansive—
it opens door after door to what’s possible. Pessimism is just the opposite—it is
constrictive. It shuts the door on possibility. If you really want to open up your
life and motivate yourself to succeed, become an optimistic thinker.

55. Make trouble work for you

One evening, many years ago, my then 14-year-old daughter Stephanie went
for a walk with a friend, promising me she would be back home before 10 p.m. I
didn’t pay much attention to the clock until the 10 o’clock news ended and I
realized that she hadn’t come home yet. I started to get nervous and irritated. I
began pacing the house, wondering what to do. At 11:30, I got in my car and
started cruising the neighborhood looking for her. My thoughts were
understandably anxious, part fear and part anger. Finally, at 11:45, I drove back
past my own house and saw her silhouette in the window. She was home and
safe.

But I kept driving. I realized that I was thinking completely pessimistically
about the entire incident and I needed to keep thinking before I talked to her. As
I drove along I observed all the pessimism I was wallowing in: She doesn’t
respect me. She can’t keep a promise. My rules and requests mean nothing. This
is the tip of the iceberg. I’m going to have problems with her for the next four
years at least. Who knows where she went and what she was doing? Were drugs
involved? Sex? Crime? I’m losing sleep over this. This is ruining my peace of
mind and my life.

By recognizing how pessimistic my thoughts were, I was able to let the
thoughts play completely out before taking a deep breath and telling myself,
Okay. That’s one side of the argument. Now it’s time to explore the other side.
One of my favorite tricks for flipping my mind over to the optimistic side is to
ask myself the question: How can I use this?

How could I use this incident to improve my relationship with my daughter?