Welcome back to my Mindset 101 Series! Throughout this series I will be sharing the fundamentals of mindset work. In this episode, we’re going to chat about:

• What a circumstance is
• What a circumstance is not
• The HUGE misunderstanding about circumstances that has you interpreting your life in a way that probably doesn’t serve you
• This single concept blew my mind when I first started learning about mindset and personal development

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Circumstances are things that happen in the world that are factual and we cannot control. They are NOT the story, meaning, or interpretation we assign to the things that happen in the world, (those are our thoughts.)

What circumstances are/are not:

• They are things we cannot directly change
• A circumstance is something all people can agree is true
• Circumstances also include other people’s behavior, things others do, or say, or how they act
• They also include our own past and things that have happened to us or around us
• They are the plain and simple facts, without any judgement, interpretation, meaning assigned…
• Which means…All circumstances are neutral – They are NOT good or bad

The giant misunderstanding about circumstances is that we tend to believe our circumstances are innately good or bad. This leaves us feeling completely out of control in our own lives and blaming all of our emotions on our external circumstances. But the reality is that great, amazing, wonderful things don’t happen to you. Terrible, awful, stressful things don’t happen to you either.

The truth is that neutral things happen to you that you choose to then interpret as bad, good, or somewhere in between. Most people have trouble seeing the difference between FACT (Circumstances) and STORY (Thoughts.) While the fact or circumstance is something we cannot typically change, we DO have full control over changing the story or thoughts we have about our circumstances, which is the most empowering realization I had when first learning about mindset work.

The most basic example is the weather:

• Neutral Circumstance: It is 65 degrees outside
• Thought of person A: It’s pretty chilly out, I’d rather be inside
• Thought of person B: It’s perfectly warm out, great weather to be outside

The circumstance is a fact that everyone can agree upon, it is 65 degrees. However, each individual may interpret the 65 degrees in a different way, assign different meaning, feel differently about it, and take different action and have a different experience because of their own story they’ve created around the 65 degree circumstance.

I’m sure you’ve heard the saying “shit happens.” This follows our typical societal belief which implies bad things just fall in our lap and all we can do is to do our best to roll with it. However, shitty things don’t happen to you – Things happen to you that you choose to interpret as shitty. When you assign the meaning of “shitty” to a situation, you feel shitty, you end up showing up kinda shitty, and the end result…probably pretty shitty.

Now, this 100% does NOT mean you have to give every situation a positive spin or think everything that happens in life is rainbows and butterflies and that you have to just love and accept all things or people in the world. You are NOT wrong for feeling bad or negative about things that happen in your life. Of course there are going to be circumstances you will WANT to feel badly about.

• Someone you care about dies, you will want to feel sad
• You get fired from a job, you may want to feel upset
• Your kid is doing certain things, you might want to worry about them

However, what it DOES show you when you believe all circumstances are neutral until you assign them your given meaning, is that you ALWAYS HAVE A CHOICE. This is completely empowering. You are not a victim of your circumstances unless you choose to view them in that way. You ALWAYS have the option of assigning whatever judgement, meaning, belief, thoughts to any circumstance. Knowing this, you can accept responsibility that that meaning you choose to give the circumstance is what is making you feel however you feel.

• You aren’t sad because someone died, you are sad because you are thinking, I loved this person with all my heart and I’ll never get to spend another day with them
• You aren’t upset because you got fired, you are upset because you are thinking, that was unjustified, I was great at my job, this is unfair
• You aren’t worried because of what your kids are doing, you feel worried because you believe, it’s your job as a good mom to keep them safe and protected at all times

You could choose to interpret those circumstances in an infinite number of ways, all of which would make you feel differently, act differently, and create different end results for yourself. But it’s never the fault of the circumstance. Things happen and YOU GET TO CHOOSE how you show up after that.

Being able to separate your story (thoughts) from the facts (circumstance) is the beginning of mindset work that leads you to so much more freedom and control in your life!

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