What is the secret to having a problem-free life? This is a common question that I get asked every day. Unfortunately, as a Psychologist I don’t have access to a secret supply of magic wands!  However, what I do have are simple reflections that will help you wipe away worries getting you closer to the happiness you deserve.

One reality to accept is that no amount of worrying, guilt or negative emotion will prevent or cure your life’s problems.  Before we explore a simple strategy it is fundamental to understand the point above.

The first step is to stop in your tracks and analyse the way you look at the world.  Quite simply are you an optimist or pessimist.  The key is that you are not more of one then the other, but rather you are a realist.  When we are too far on the pessimistic side we can fall into a trap of magnifying our problems.  This creates big hurdles to jump over then to top that we may also add bouts of emotion and judgement and before we know it we are faced with a mountain to jump over not a molehill!

Negative people constantly use their circumstances as a justification for why they can’t do something.  They waste energy discussing how hard life is and do not realise that this pushes them even further away from achieving their goals.  Do you complain too much?

Successful people (CEO’s, Directors and Leaders) have problems like us, I have worked with them and seen this repeatedly.  The difference is, they refuse to be defeated by keeping their eye on the goal and refuse to allow any obstacles to impede them from what they want.  They detach any emotion and refrain from negatively judging the situation or people involved as they know that this is unhelpful to them achieving their goal.

Remember that you create your own experience of things in life.  You are the screenwriter.  You are the producer, and you are the director of the film called ‘your life’.  You write this screenplay every moment of your life with your thoughts, your words, and your behaviour.  If you want lots of drama you can have it, if you want an inspiring story with a happy ending, you can have that too.  Tap into your power to be stronger than your problems, if you do that you are a winner.  The choice is yours.