Daily Gratitude: This is another great way to say “control the controllables”. There are a few phrases I have learned which have positively impacted my life and that is one of them. I now stop, take a breath and ask if “this” is something I can do anything about. If it is, I move on to what I can do and then either take an action or make a plan of action. If I can’t, I consciously decide to focus on something else until the situation changes such that I can do something. Or if it’s never going to change, I find whatever means I can to toss it out of my mind. I recently had a health finding that could have potentially been bad news. I had to wait for several different things to happen before we would know any answers. Even a year ago I would have spent 95% of my time worrying about what it was and what would happen. This time, though, I sat myself down and reminded me that I couldn’t do squat until there was clarification. Could I hurry along any of the clarifying processes? No. So I deferred to my two favorite sayings (and primarily “everything always works out for me”) so that I would say that repeatedly to get my thoughts off anything about the issue. It took work but eventually I wasn’t even thinking about it and if I did, it didn’t take long to distract my active little mind. I enjoyed life. I am so grateful I learned and PRACTICED this. As with anything worthwhile, it takes work. But the results definitely are rewarding.