Thanks to the geomagnetic storm last week, we saw the Northern Lights for the first time ever!

I say “saw” loosely because what our eyes could see simply looked like wispy clouds, but apparently our phones can pick up light that our eyeballs can’t. So we took pictures to see all the incredible purples and greens.

It was pretty spectacular!

Hope you enjoy today’s habit example 😄 

.

.

.

Friday night, I was ticked.

Saturday morning, even more livid.

Ask anyone close to me, they’ll tell you it’s not easy to upset me.

But in that moment… I honestly wanted to punch a wall.

I turned to my wife and said “I don’t want to feel like this all weekend. What do I do?”

Just then, my mind flashed back to 2015, when I was living in Comayagua, Honduras.

I was there on a 2-year service mission for my church.

While my time spent as a voluntary proselytizing service missionary were 2 of the greatest years of my life, they were also full of:

• Long days

• Constant rejection

• Physical Labor

• Language learning challenges

• Big scary goals with high accountability

And on top of all that, the missionary companion I’d been assigned to seemed to despise my very existence for no apparent reason.

One day we had “exchanges”, where we swapped companions with a group of missionaries from another sector for the day.

My 24-hour companion was a fantastic human. Kind. Humble. A great listener.

He let me vent about everything I was struggling with… then, when I asked him what to do, he simple said this:

“Imagine for a moment you’ve got a pebble, and it’s right in front of your eyeball.”

“This pebble contains all your problems.

When you focus on it like this, it’s all you can see.

Now imagine tossing that pebble out in front of you.”

“Did the pebble change size?

Obviously not.

But did your perception of it’s size change?”

Maybe I’m simple minded, but this changed everything for me.

It all made sense.

This simple visualization didn’t change a single thing about the actual reality of the challenges I was facing.

But what it did do was change how I saw them — how they really are — as a teeny-tiny piece of a much, MUCH larger picture.

What if whether your “life sucks” just depends on how you choose to crop the picture?

This is what a bad day looks like, from 5 different perspectives:

You probably can’t even remember specifically 1% of the things you cried about as a child, despite those reasons feeling like the weight of the entire world was crushing you in the moment.

By the time you hit 50, most of the day-to-day struggles from your 20s will be long forgotten.

The fact is, the things you think are a huge deal today, 99% of the time simply aren’t.

Whether it’s anger, fear, embarrassment, sadness, or any other unpleasant emotion, watching this video will help you quickly see how small the things are that occupy your mind:

T.

.

Sometimes all it takes is taking a step back and seeing the bigger picture to realize we don’t need to be so worked up about things.

The thing I was mad about on Saturday? It was resolved today.

Remembering this perspective Saturday morning allowed me to enjoy my weekend knowing how ridiculously insignificant this problem was in the grand scheme of my life, let alone in the world as a whole.

Making this mindset a habit is one of the most effective ways to build steadfast resilience to not just survive, but thrive through life’s unavoidable obstacles.

So next time you feel like I did, don’t punch a wall.

Toss a pebble, instead.

S.

.

Try it

Watch the video linked above, and then ask yourself:

“Will it matter 1 year from now? 5 years? 10 years?”

Build a habit of asking questions like this, and doing the visualization exercise imagining your problem as a pebble that can simple be tossed out in front of you so you can see the bigger picture.

What ideas popped in your head while reading? Hit reply and let me know!

.

.

.

- Kody

.

.

P.S. These take 5 hours to research, write, and design. It only takes you 5 seconds to share.