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You Can Control Happiness By Controlling Expectation
We all want to be happy. Divorce and happy sometimes don't seem to go together. Actually, though, you can control happiness if you'll watch your expectations.
There isn’t an individual alive today who does not want happiness. But how do you get there from “I’m divorced and I’m not happy?” I know you’ve got a picture in your mind and I know that you are trying to get that. If that picture looks like Ozzie and Harriet’s perfect TV life, you are doomed to be disappointed.
We have to be realistic. Now that you have gotten a divorce, who you once saw yourself as is changed forever. If you talk to someone that is truly happy you will find that they have realistic expectations. Being married can make you very happy or very miserable depending upon who you are married to. If you think your shot at happiness is over because you are now divorced, you are wrong. You need to have realistic expectations.
When I saw you need to have realistic expectations, I don’t mean that you have to lower your standards. If you believe that having a family will make you happy, don’t tell yourself, “it will never happen, or , “I’ve already had my chance.” Try setting smaller goals. When divorce makes enormous changes in your life mandatory, you need to slow yourself down. Maybe even day by day. Set your expectations a little lower for now. Tell yourself, “I do have a family; I have my kids, my parents, etc.” Don’t expect that your pain from the divorce and all that goes with it will disappear in a day or a week or a month.
Have an “attitude of gratitude.” It may sound cliché but examine your world and see the good that’s there now. So you aren’t married anymore, be thankful for what’s there and who’s there.
You now have one less person to think about, (your ex), so take all that extra time that you would have spent on that person and spread it around to those you are thankful for.
Be positive. If you’ll affirm that everything will work out alright, it will. Tell yourself things are awful and will never get better, and they won’t. Whatever your internal monologue is telling you, it will come true. Make short term goals that you can achieve to get through this tough time and when you see what you are capable of, it will reinforce the positive thinking.
Everything is temporary. This pain will pass and joy will come. Then the joy will pass because something else painful will come up. That’s the beauty of life. Not knowing what will happen, but expecting that things will work out in the end! And have you noticed that, in the end, most of your expectations appear, so it’s most wise to expect happiness. It’s a great way to control being happy in your life.