Mindful & Driven | Jordan Gross
How Treating Life Like A Story Can Help You Find Balance
Bad days happen to the best of us
Life sucks sometimes.
I’ve spent a lot of time focusing on improving my mindset but I won’t lie to you about the realities of life. Not every day is great and sometimes I wonder why I bother trying best when things go wrong. Then I get over it and continue with my day.
Yet Jordan Gross has a healthier way to react to these scenarios than my occasional catastrophizing. He views life through the lens of a story and it gives him the optimism he needs to take on the world.
It doesn’t matter what the negative emotion is. Pain. Fear. Nervousness. Whether it’s an acute bad event or a string of them. He considers it all as part of his life story. It’s happened but it doesn’t mean everything can’t change for the better in the next chapter.
He asks himself a simple question:
What would make my story the most exciting from here?
This article is based on the Mindful & Driven episode with Jordan. You can listen here or find the YouTube video at the bottom of this article.
The lows give the highs meaning
Something I ponder when I have too much time on my hands is whether I would actually want to attain enlightenment. A state of contentment where I’m never happy or sad.
I’m not sure I would.
The variance in life is what makes things exciting and gives us the memories in life that matter. While it would be nice to never have any negative experiences again, I don’t want to sacrifice the positive side for it.
Ice cream as a treat tastes great but ice cream as breakfast, lunch, and dinner is nauseating.
It’s a way you can spin things in a positive light. The fact you feel upset shows you have the emotional range to feel great in another day. Ending bad days isn’t necessarily the goal as much as reducing the damage it does to us.
Be the hero of your own story
There are two different ways of thinking about life. Either you drive the story or you let the story happen to you.
Jordan believes you are an active participant in your life and the choices you make matter. Not everything is under control but there will always be something you can do. You can choose whether you see the world as half empty or half full.
It doesn’t mean you have to do it all alone as sometimes asking for help is the most courageous thing you can do. It can be the step that brings joy back to your life.
Dr. Edith Eger summed up this superpower in her book, The Gift. She lived in unimaginably traumatic conditions during the Holocaust yet still managed to keep her mind sharp. No matter what they did, they couldn’t control her thoughts and this gave her power.
Find a reason to giggle
One of the strange things about Marvel blockbusters is how much humor is embedded in stories literally about the end of civilization. Yet we watch and smile even in such serious situations. It’s rare to find someone who complains about the momentary reduction in tension.
Humor in the face of difficulty is a sign of strong mental health. Sigmund Freud argued humor is our best defense against the anxiety in Jokes and Their Relation to the Unconscious.
It might seem strange or inappropriate to laugh when times are bad but it’s normal. If your life is like a Marvel movie then it’s ok to slip a joke in to break up the doom and gloom.
I hope you found these tips useful and can see ways you can apply them to your own life. If you’d like to hear Jordan talk about it with me in more detail, check out our conversation in the video below.