When you wake up in the morning, what goes on inside of your head?

Do wake up feeling refreshed? Happy?

Or is it that the moment you open your eyelids, there are a thousand things circling your brain, causing you to instantly begin to feel a sense of anticipation? If your answer is yes to that question, it is completely natural to feel this way. Everyone is anticipating something at some point or another on a daily basis, but by doing that, do you ever feel like it is hurting you more than it is helping when you let that situation be the only thing consuming your mind?

Whether it is looking for a new job, a deadline at work or school, or hearing from an old friend, we all do it. We all imagine the future. We picture it. We see it before us at the forefront of our minds. Many times, I don't even mean to do it. I don't even realize what I'm doing, and then over and over again I'll find myself negatively anticipating what is to come. If I am looking for a job, I'll give up hope, and feel defeated before ever giving time to hear something back from employers. I find myself instantly looking at the glass half-empty instead of looking at it half-full.

Ultimately, if you are doing that as well, you are not being fair to yourself. You are not giving yourself the opportunity to positively look at what is going on around you. You are choosing to allow your fears and insecurities to manipulate your ways of thinking. Especially reflecting back on being in school, I find that I did this to myself all of the time.

For example, if there was a big test coming up, and I wasn't confident with the content of it, I would envision myself doing badly on the test. I would picture the low or failing grade. I was already setting myself up for a failure that didn't exist yet. As a result of that, days leading up to the test, I would find myself struggling even more with studying. Sometimes, I would even feel so negative towards the test that I would end up scoring a lower grade just because I allowed the built up anticipation I had for it to get in the way of my concentration.

It is inevitable that life is unexpected. That idea is not something I like to hear nor did I ever really want to accept. I think that everyone wants to try and control the outcome of a situation going on in their lives. I believe the need to feel in control is completely natural, even though we all know it does not always work in our favor. That is why we find ourselves anticipating, fearing, and resorting to negative thinking when we are unsure of how something is going to work out.

So, the million dollar question is, how can we change our ways of thinking to better our perspective on the lives we live and the particular situations we experience?

I think the answer to this question will vary for us all. We lead different lives from one another. Though many circumstances may appear similar, we as individuals may not always react in the same manner. There is a lot of work that is to be done within ourselves when it comes to wanting to change what we choose to allow to "haunt" our very existence.

The upside to this dilemma is that the way we handle a situation depends on how we decide to deal with it. The fact of the matter is it is all up to YOU. In the morning, when you wake up, you hold the power in deciding how your day will go. If there is something coming up that you have been worrying about how it will turn out, choose to think about it in a positive light. It is okay to be aware of the potential negative outcome to your situation, but don't let it impact your mood.

Today, the ball is in YOUR court. How will you decide to live it?