2 Steps to Enjoy a Bad Experience
A small mindset shift to control your mind and reframe bad experiences
Before you understand this concept and implement these steps, you’ll have little control on your mood.
You’ll experience good things, and you’ll experience bad things — but you’ll have no control of how they make you feel.
You have a weapon so powerful it can bend your reality — you just don’t know how to use it yet.
So keep reading and gain that control — experience peace and optimism no matter what life throws your way.
Step 1. Control your context
"We can complain because rose bushes have thorns, or rejoice because thorns have roses."
- Alphonse Karr
When I walked into the clinic, I met Simon.
He was a strange guy, but upbeat and curious. I liked him — he was very knowledgeable about massage, and specifically how it intertwined with neuropsychology.
A sports massage can be painful — but the pain is somehow good. He kept saying:
“Is this pain comfortable?”
It was — but why was he asking it like that? I knew what he was asking, but I didn’t understand exactly what it meant.
Comfortable pain is probably the perfect way to describe a remedial massage though.
I asked him:
Why, when getting a massage, do we interpret this pain as comfortable?
He stopped the massage.
“Right now, you’re on the table in a towel getting a pleasant massage that you’ve booked because your muscles are tight and you have injuries.
But imagine you’re walking by me on the street.
I grab you, I take your clothes, and I lay you down — naked. I start to apply pressure to the exact spots in your muscles that I know are painful. I expertly navigate your nervous system.
Would that feel good? Of course not.
You’d probably be screaming for help.”
A strange, but effective, explanation.
It transformed how I thought about our lived experiences versus how we perceive them:
Maybe reality isn’t the event itself, but the event surrounded by all its context.
Luckily for us, we can manipulate the context through our perception.
We can’t control the events in our lives, but we can control how we perceive them.
And if all experiences are context-dependent — and you have total influence on the context — you have complete control of your life.
When you draw a gun on someone, they can disarm you if they’re skilled enough. But nobody can take your perception from you. It’s the weapon that’s uniquely yours.
You’re not “stuck” in traffic, you’ve been given extra time to listen to your audiobook.
You’re not “bored”, you’re blessed to have nothing alarming happening to you or your family at the moment.
You’re not “lost”, you’re just in a trial and error phase.
By taking a deep breath, pausing, and finding the silver lining in any situation, you can immediately control the event.
And control your mood.
Step 2. What have you gained from this situation?
"Every adversity, every failure, every heartache carries with it the seed of an equal or greater benefit."
- Napoleon Hill
After we’ve controlled the context, we should look how how the situation has benefitted us. Every negative situation gives us something.
The most intense storms end with a rainbow.
Instead of focusing on what you’ve lost, focus on what you’ve gained.
My friend George sadly lost his Dad to cancer, but he’s learned to manipulate this terrible situation to his advantage in two ways:
He says that in everything he does in life, he asks himself if it’s up to his father’s standards — he’s developed a new personal benchmark to strive toward
He says all problems in life are minuscule in comparison — as he’s already faced one of life’s most difficult challenges. He no longer fears failure or error.
He has taken the tragic loss of his father and turned it into his superpower — a guide that he carries with him at all times that fits in his pocket.
He views his Dad’s passing as a lesson in manhood. He’s become a better uncle, brother and son in his family.
He could’ve seen it as unfair and resented the world. He could’ve curled up in a ball and cried forever. And even though he did have days where he sat in the corner and cried and days where he didn’t know what to do — ultimately he realised that the clock doesn’t stop.
Nothing will change if he sits and wallows in negativity.
And that’s when he decided to view his bad experience as one that could positively experience his life — if he so chooses to view it that way.
Summary: Turning bad experiences into good
We may go through objectively horrible experiences in life — this I can’t deny.
But 99% of the things that happen to us in our daily lives can be more positive than they seem at face value. You have so much more control over your life than you once thought.
99% of the events are not good or bad, they just are — like being stuck in traffic.
And we can even slightly influence the 1% — just like George did.
When faced with a bad situation, remember to ask yourself:
How can I manipulate my perception to change the context?
What can I gain from this situation?
Best of luck,
Eren
Thank you for reading.
I’m just sharing the lessons learned on my path to building my Mental Fortress - an impenetrable and stable mind.
If you found it helpful, that’s great. I figured, why not share it with the world as I crystallise my own ideas.
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Sincerely,
Eren