If Youre Sweating the Small Stuff, Youre Not Alone

Our mind gets caught up in trivial things, but understanding how this happens can free us

Bailey Jean Matheson recently died of cancer at age 35, touching people all over the world by writing her own obituary. Matheson expressed gratitude for her loving family and friends and for her beautiful, but short, life.

She closed her obituary with this advice: “Dont take the small stuff so seriously and live a little.”

Some will be transformed by her story. But what about the rest of us? Our resolve to approach the world with a lighter touch may carry us for a few days. Then the gravity of old entrenched mindsets takes hold, and we go right back to sweating the small stuff. Inspiration seems to have a short half-life.

Fortunately, there is a better way. Greater awareness of our mindset allows us to make permanent changes. The work of Nobel laureate in economics, Daniel Kahneman, along with others helps us see how sweating the small stuff leads us to make poor decisions that undermine our well-being.

Dont Sweat the Small Stuff

Like Matheson, psychologist Dr. Richard Carlson died young. Carlsons 10th book, the pop psychology mega best-seller, “Dont Sweat the Small Stuff … and Its All Small Stuff,” has perennial appeal.

Carlsons breezy style belies the sound principles behind his guidance. In his book, “You Can Feel Good Again,” Carlson succinctly summarized one of the principles: Your thoughts always create your emotions.

In “Dont Sweat the Small Stuff With Your Family,” Carlson elaborated. For a moment, remember the last time you felt dismayed at a mess in your home. Did you blame your partner or your children? Carlson writes:

“If were having angry thoughts, we feel angry. If were having resentful thoughts, we feel resentful … Dont believe me? Just try to get angry right now without thinking about something that makes you angry! You cant do it. In fact, your feelings follow your thoughts just as surely as a lamb follows its mother.”

In other words, you are 100 percent responsible for your emotions. No matter how messy your partner is, you couldnt feel angry without first indulging in angry thoughts about the mess.

One day, you are irritated by the small stuff—perhaps the dishwasher wasnt loaded correctly.

The next day, you adore your partner and feel like the luckiest person in the world. You might be convinced you are reacting to changes in your partner. What if you are really responding to changes in your thinking?

How We Supercharge the Small Stuff

Kahneman, in his book “Thinking, Fast and Slow,” explains the mindset that causes us to give our dysfunctional thinking such relevance. Kahneman points us to the focusing illusion: “Nothing in life is as important as you think it is while you are thinking about it.”

How is your life going? “Any aspect of life to which attention is directed will loom large in a global evaluation,” writes Kahneman.

In our search for happiness, we often focus on the small stuff because we think we need more of this and less of that. The research is clear: hedonic changes—a new car, a new house, etc.—in our life do little to increase happiness. Kahneman observes, “even permanent life circumstances have little effect on well-being.”

Kahneman observes that we will exaggerate “the effect of significant purchases or changed circumstances on our future well-being.” Better to practice the cello or improve your coding skills than researching the features of the newest iPad.

“The focusing illusion creates a bias in favor of goods and experiences that are initially exciting, even if they will eventually lose their appeal,” writes Kahneman. After you experience the wonders of the latest iPad, you may find it nice but really not that important.

When Kahneman studied college students in California, Ohio, and Michigan, he found, not surprisingly, that “Californians enjoyed their climate and the Midwesterners despised theirs.” Yet “there was no difference whatsoever in the life satisfaction of students in California and in the Midwest.”

Due to the focusing illusion, “All suffered an exaggerated belief in the importance of climate.”

Unaware that you are caught in a focusing illusion, your thoughts can multiply faster than rabbits; and soon, you have no mental bandwidth left to get on with your day. When your day seems like a tedious slog, you might be certain that other people and circumstances are causing your feelings of angst and oppression. You might think everyone, except yourself, has to change. You might demand that social and political views different than your own be silenced.

You are your own enslaver.

Negativity Bias

Our minds work against us in another critical way. Kahneman reports on research pointing to a negativity bias in humans. Simply, “bad information is processed more thoroughly than good.”

The combination of negativity bias and the focusing illusion can send us into an endless loop of worry and anxiety. We apply laser focus to thinking that has little or no significance.

When we dont understand how our thinking can work against us, miserable days stack up.

We cant change a mindset were not aware of. As you become more aware, you may be surprised by the number of thought storms you experience in a day. Since these storms are coming from you and not from the world, the only change possible is your willingness to restrain your grievances and thoughts of misery. Just because thoughts come to mind doesnt mean they are worthy of your attention.

Overcoming the Focusing Illusion

If you forget that you are wearing dark sunglasses at 6 p.m. on a summer day, you might believe the time is closer to 9 p.m. You can remove your sunglasses, or at least remind yourself that the glasses are giving you false information. Awareness is a powerful cure.

If we want to increase our well-being, Kahnemans work points us in a helpful direction. The more we are aware of what we choose to focus our thinking on, the more attention we can place on what we choose to experience. Instead of being trapped in thoughts about the small stuff, we have more capacity to experience life.

With awareness, we watch our thoughts drift to the past and the future. We notice how often we insist on carrying around grievances. Thoughts of an argument that happened last week are merely a memory we recreate via our thinking this moment. When our thinking is drifting to the past or futureRead More – Source