Here’s a useful frame I didn’t believe in: your focus is like a torch.

Choosing to believe you can control the torch requires mental fortitude.

It requires breaking the habit of being yourself.

When you figure it out, the path becomes much less confusing because you direct where the light goes, rather than having it directed by random forces of emotional chaos.

Your belief system, the way your self talk operates, how present you can be, all these things and more lead to how you operate the torch of your focus.

Reading Learned Optimism showed me how my pessimistic beliefs were simply left-over programs installed by others when I was young. I got given these ways of thinking from good intentions, but after soul searching I learned a hard truth…

I’d rather be an incorrect optimist, than a correct pessimist.

Reading Learned Optimism humbled me. I realised I needed to find other people who could show me how to improve my thinking, otherwise I’d continue to get the same results I always got.

Your focus is like a torch, who’s helping you direct it?