Don't Sweat The Small Stuff - Do This Instead

It's natural to sweat the small stuff but it costs us our happiness, damages our relationships and holds us back in every area of life. It's difficult to 'not do something' but it's easier to replace it and turn it around. In this short track I talk about how we can use small upsets to make us feel better and develop a practice that can get us excited about what used to get us frustrated.

Transcript

Today we're going to talk about not sweating the small stuff. And we've all heard it before, We've probably been told it before, Maybe you read the book Don't Sweat the Small Stuff, And the question is, Like, How? How do you not sweat the small stuff? And also, Why? Is it really a good thing not to sweat the small stuff? And it seems like it's a tongue twister, So I'm going to say it wrong every time, But that small stuff, So that's okay. It's my opinion that not sweating the small stuff is possibly the biggest opportunity to make changes in modern life, For the majority of us, And particularly in our relationships. And the reason this is so is because everywhere we look, Every moment, Pretty much, Every situation, There is small stuff, Right? That's by definition. However good things are going, However good things are, There are always going to be loose ends that are not tied. There are going to be messes around you, And within you, And within relationships. There are going to be disagreements. There are going to be any manner and any number of things that are just at least a little bit annoying, And that, If we're honest, At some point, Those things took away from our feeling grateful, Our feeling happy, Our feeling contented. All the things that we want in life have been affected by small stuff. It's kind of automatic. It's not something we're thinking of. No one thinking, Oh, How can I ruin my life now? How can I ruin my day? I'm going to get really annoyed about some stupid little thing that doesn't really matter. No one does that, Or no one thinks that, But we can tend to do that. We can tend to do that without actually noticing. The opportunity here is actually twofold. The first part is not sweating it. When you sweat it, As in when you get upset about this thing in some way or other, Upset, Angry, Whatever the emotion for you is, That removes from your overall well-being, Your overall happiness. If you stop doing that, You will improve your overall happiness. However, That's really only the beginning. The real game here is to turn around you're not sweating the small stuff. You can make it a game if you're a gamifier person, Or you could just make it a practice if you're into practices, But either way, You can celebrate every time you don't sweat the small stuff, Which means that every time something small comes up and you're about to sweat it, You're about to, I don't know, Curse or sigh or make out that this is a bad thing, You literally take a breath and say, Bring it on, Bring it on. I am proud of myself for not sweating this small thing. When you do that, This small thing suddenly becomes not only something that isn't negative, But it becomes something positive in your life. It becomes a group. You have power and agency over your own emotional state, How you're going to feel at the end of the day. It means that you can choose, It's demonstrating that you can choose, And over time, What this will do is it will actually change your identity as someone who doesn't sweat the small stuff and someone who, When things aren't going right or when small things come up, You have the power to change it. It's a practice at first, But the practice isn't not to sweat it. That's very hard to do if you just don't sweat it, Oh, I won't sweat it. But if you turn it around, If you actually take the proactive approach, Not only not to sweat it, But to use it to prove to yourself who you really are and what you're really capable of and that you have agency, Then what you're doing is you are alchemizing these small things that are always going to happen. Great you become, However happy you become, However wonderful your relationships are, However rich you are, However successful in whatever way you want to say it, There's always going to be small stuff. There's always going to be something that can get you down. Very often, Something very small, Often it's the small and often thing that do it for us. It's really a massive opportunity that each one of us has, Not just to not sweat this new stuff, But to turn it around and to celebrate the fact that this small stuff doesn't bother me anymore.