"What's happened to us all?"

Did anyone notice when it was that we turned into a country of doom merchants, why is it that whenever a bus load of woe stops outside we all have to jump on board? Even worse still is when we celebrate something we feel good about and then allow someone else to tell us that it’s wrong. We’ve got a few problems to overcome, that’s for sure, but it’s not all bad and there’s a lot that we can change if we want to. So why do we even allow ourselves to listen to the constant doom and gloom.

Foreign companies are buying up all of our businesses, house prices are falling and young people will never ever get a chance to own their own home. There’s too many unemployed, schools are rubbish, the NHS is rubbish, I’ve got too many bins and not enough collections, the roads are full of potholes, the winters too cold, the summers too hot, etc, etc, etc.

There’s something really wrong with us as a nation when we can only see what’s wrong with life rather than celebrate success and try to change or manage what isn’t right. Even worse still is the fact that when we believe something to be good and positive, we let someone else influence us and change our minds. It’s true to say that there are some natural human traits at work here which cause us to be very fickle at times. We all love an underdog it seems and will suffer personally for a good cause but then just one tiny grain of doubt, from any source, will have us hounding it to its demise.

Remember when we won the bid to host the Olympics, we believed that we could do it justice, we told the world we could and we won the bid based on that positive, confident and professional entry. The problem was that someone somewhere suggested that we might not be able to pull it off, then suddenly the whole world is waiting for us to fail and we’re all expecting a disaster. What happened to being proud and confident in our ability to stage this international event and celebrate the achievement? What about the Olympic logo remember how much stick that got? Because someone didn’t like it and not enough people who did had the confidence to say so, it became laughable over night. In reality it doesn’t matter how good or bad it is, it was designed for a purpose and as long as it’s recognised as that, what more could you want, it does what it’s meant to do.

Then there’s the tower that’s been commissioned to be erected near the Olympic stadium, suddenly because of some negative feedback we’re all embarrassed about how it compares with other structures around the world. Why? It wasn’t designed for anywhere else, it was designed to do exactly what it’s going to do regardless of what it looks like, so why not be positive, proud, celebrate and enjoy it for what it is.

Life is very simple but for some reason we make it very complicated, now I’m not suggesting that it’s always easy, because it’s not, so why do we allow others to influence our decisions and sow seeds of doubt. We can’t be responsible for what others are doing or saying, but we are responsible for ourselves and being positive is something that we can control regardless of others. Life’s a bit like a hurdle race, you jump one and then there’s another and for as long as you lack confidence and feel negative, the hurdles get tougher. If you can celebrate the achievement of getting over the hurdle you’ll feel better and your confidence will grow and prepare you for the next one. It doesn’t matter how fast or slow you were in getting over it or whether you did it in style even, what matters is that you did it. Now you can plan your next one, you know you can do it but what will you do if the spectators don’t like your style and plant the seed of doubt. Will you let their negative thoughts put you off or stop you from trying, or will you remain positive about your ability and finish the race to the cheers of the crowd.

The views expressed in this article are those of the author. All articles published on Life Coach Directory are reviewed by our editorial team.

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