“What you focus on you create more of. This is such a simple concept but it bears repeating over and over… because it’s so damn powerful and so immediately flung out the window because we’re so attached to ‘the way things are.’ We don’t want to believe that things could be that easy, to give up our right to feel sorry for ourselves, to relinquish the comfort we take in knowing a thing or two based on our past experiences, and to, erm, take responsibility for our lives instead of being like, ‘I can barely afford to buy a bag of Fritos, how am I supposed to hire someone to get my web site up and running?’

“Meanwhile, we use our mighty power of focus all the time and we don’t even realize it—we use it to create unhappiness in our lives via our dear pal worry.

“Because you’re focused on the worst possible scenario and all the reasons you can’t possibly have what you want, and there are lots of emotions and specifics and faith involved, you create more of what you don’t want over and over with expert precision. But the beautiful news is, if you’re one of those people who are particularly skilled at worrying, this means your focus muscle is in great shape, and all you have to do is choose to focus in a different direction.

“Changing your focus to the positives of what you have and what you desire changes your attitude and raises your frequency so you can align your energy with, and open yourself up to, everything you need to change your life: the moneymaking opportunities you didn’t notice before, the people you can help and the people who can help you, and the ability to visualize a bigger life for yourself. It also sends thoughts of what you desire, not what you fear, out to Universal Intelligence, so it can start moving it toward you.

“Here’s another important aspect of focus: It’s impossible to focus on one thing and see another. Which is why when you’re trapped in worry, you not only keep creating more of it, you literally can’t see all the other possibilities that are surrounding you.”

This is from one of my favorite books, You Are a Badass at Making Money, by one of my favorite authors and someone I hella respect, Jen Sincero.

Thoughts become things.

Whatever we surround ourselves with, mentally and physically, we create more of. We have the power to shape our reality, and unfortunately, we’ve trained ourselves to wield this power very irresponsibly.

For example, few years ago, I was experiencing a lot of anxiety. I was miserably unhappy at my job, but instead of expressing gratitude for the life lesson, leaning into the change I was about to make, and waiting for clues from the Universe, I felt like I had to figure out a solution immediately.

To make matters worse, not only was my job toxic, my living situation was, too. I left one toxic environment every day to arrive at another. Wake up, repeat.

I was so focused on my unhappiness and worried that it wasn’t going to change, that I decided to do something about it. I decided to go look at a room for rent in a two-bedroom apartment so I could get out of my current situation.

It was a hasty decision and I knew it was not a good fit (I wanted a dog and the girl I’d be living with didn’t like them, plus we were going to have to move out for a month or so while the landlord renovated the floors and the bathroom).

I flew back from I-don’t-even-remember-where, and after a terrible cab ride home on a -1 degree day in a cab that didn’t have heat and only took cash (which I didn’t have), I was late getting to see the apartment. I was filled with worry and I was hard set in victim mode. I felt like everything was spinning out of control and I had no say in it.

It took me 20 minutes to clean the snow and ice off of my car, and after the detour to the ATM to get cash for my crabby cabby, I was running super late.

I hustled across town, and while my car had 4WD, I wasn’t using it because most of the snow had been cleared from the roads. But not the ice.

Approaching a stop sign, I hit a patch of black ice and starting sliding. I braked but nothing happened. Before I could throw the 4WD on or pull the parking break, I was fully in the rear end of a early 2000s model Toyota sedan.

All this feeling like I was spinning out of control and sliding… well, look how well that manifested for me.

It was a good lesson to slow down, take a moment to be grateful for all that I had (my health, my safety, my barely damaged car, my car insurance, my friends and family, a roof over my head, a paycheck, an idea for my next chapter, and a support system to get it) and the future blessings I would soon receive… To have a little (okay, a lot) of faith that everything was going to be okay.

A few months later, I got a dog, quit my job and started my own business, and moved into a two-bedroom apartment by myself.

What can you stop focusing on this week that is causing you to worry? How can you reframe it into something positive? What will you visualize creating for yourself right now?

You got this. I believe in you!

XO,

meredith