Good Parenting

When things are going less than stellar, how often do you think “if only things were different” rather than accepting the circumstances and determining how to make things better? How many times have you thought:

“If only my child had more friends.”

“If only I didn’t yell at my kids so much.”

“If only I could spend more time with my kids.”

“If only my child let me into her world.”

“If only my child were more self-motivated.”

…..the list goes on and on.

It is all too easy to fall into what I call the “if only” trap. In fact, “if only” is just another way of complaining about what isn’t working, or focusing on what went wrong.

And this mindset, when repeated enough, creates a self-fulfilling prophecy. When you focus on what’s not working or what went wrong, you are in a vibration of things going wrong. And life brings us circumstances that match our vibration. This is Law of Attraction in action.

Another problem with the “if only” trap, is that there is no power in this phrase. When my neighbor talked to me about some damage created by a water tank burst in her home, her repeated statements of “if only we had caught this earlier” wasn’t getting the floors and walls dried off!

The power is in the mindset of “okay, this is what happened, so let’s make a plan and go fix it!” Your power is only now, and “if only” statements refer to the past. You cannot make a change if your mind is in the past.

So, how do you move past the habit of “if only” thinking, and use your power to create real change now? Let’s look at 4 tips you can implement right away:

1) Start noticing yourself using “if only” thinking.
We can’t change something if we’re not aware of it. Becoming aware of how and when you use “if only” thinking will pave the way for permanently changing this habit.

2) Once you are aware of your own use of “if only” thinking, you can use the “Cancel Cancel” strategy. When you catch yourself having an “if only” thought, immediately say to yourself “cancel cancel”. This sends a powerful signal to your subconscious mind to eliminate the thought and its corresponding vibration. The more you catch yourself and use this strategy, the less often you will have the “if only” thoughts over time.

3) If you do have “if only” thoughts, after you say to yourself “cancel cancel”, your next thought should be something along the lines of “Okay, this is how it is. Now, how can we deal with it?”

This is a powerful way of thinking that holds no resistance. It allows you to use your full energy in the present moment to direct a powerful plan of action to create change and improvement. You can’t expect to have a different experience if you don’t take action to make a change.

4) After you have taken action to create a change, spend a few moments in gratitude.

Things can always be worse. When we dealt with the water damage resulting from a burst water tank in our neighbor’s home (we were affected too), I remembered thinking “at least my son slept through the whole thing!” And “thank God we were in town and able to catch it now rather than days later.”

By being thankful and seeing the bright side of things, you not only feel better, but you get yourself into the habit of seeing the cup “half full” – and this is the way that all happy and successful people think. What a great message we can send to our kids so that they can grow up to be one of the happy and successful people themselves.

Creating awareness of when you fall into “if only” thinking, catching and canceling the thought when it occurs, replacing it with an acceptance and action thought, and then finding the silver lining in the situation, not only allows you to claim your power, but through your actions it also teaches your kids to do the same.