Always Believe Something Wonderful Is Happening! - Bruce Van Horn
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I believe we are hope shaped creatures–meaning our hope in the future determines how we behave in the present. If we believe our future is going filled with happiness and abundance, we will behave, today, in ways that reflect that belief.
I’m also a fan of the quote “Always believe that something wonderful is about to happen!” In fact, I regularly post a graphic of that quote to my social media accounts.
However, I think the quote has the potential to foster the “I’ll be happy when…” syndrome.
You see, your life will not be wonderful until you decide that your life is wonderful.
If you have set a goal with the idea that you will be happy, fulfilled, loved, successful, etc., once you achieve the goal, that is a potentially toxic goal. It is toxic because you have linked feeling those feelings to the achievement of the goal. In reality, they are linked to you making the decision to feel those feelings.
If you achieve the goal and don’t magically feel successful, you will say to yourself “I guess that wasn’t what I needed” and you’ll set a different goal and continue on the toxic treadmill of goal setting.
If, however, you achieve the goal and you do feel fulfilled (or one of those other feelings), it is because you made a decision to feel that feeling.
Another thing to consider is that you can make the decision to feel fulfilled, loved, or successful, right now, without having achieved the goal. If you do that, you will find it much easier to achieve your goals because you’ll already have that positive energy working in your favor. Goal setting, then, just becomes part of your natural growth process, not a requirement for your happiness.
Each day of your life contributes to who and what you are. The actions you took yesterday contribute to the actions you will take or not take today. Same with your thoughts.
If something wonderful happens today, it is not an isolated event. It is because of something that happened yesterday, and the day before that, and each day since you were born!
Consider a woman about to give birth to a child. Someone might say “you are about to experience the miracle of childbirth.” This is a true statement and in keeping with the “always believe something wonderful is about to happen” concept.
What is equally true is she is currently experiencing the miracle of a baby forming in her womb. She also experienced the wonderful miracle of conception. She also perfectly traveled through time and space in her life experience to meet someone with whom she conceived the child.
I do believe it is a very healthy mindset to believe in a wonderful future. However, I think it is much more powerful to believe in a wonderful present and past.
Also, if you believe that what you are experiencing now is simply the path you need to travel to get to your wonderful future, you will move through your present situation with a more positive outlook and energy.
So, I propose a slight modification to the quote “always believe something wonderful is about to happen.” I propose we adopt the mindset of “always believe that something wonderful IS happening, and will always continue to happen!”
I talk about this in more detail on my Life Is A Marathon podcast
