When life doesn't go as planned.

Hello everyone, hope you're having a good day.

Let me remind you of a priceless life lesson ...

Imagine having a ripe, juicy tangerine on the table in front of you. You eagerly pick it up, take a bite and begin to taste it. You already know what a ripe, juicy tangerine should taste like, and if it's a little bit tart than expected, you pull a face, feel a sense of disappointment and swallow it, feeling cheated out of the expected experience.

Or maybe the tangerine tastes normal, nothing special at all. So you swallow them without stopping to appreciate their taste as you move on to the next unworthy bite and the next.

In the first scenario, the tangerine let you down because it did not meet your expectations. In the second, it was too clear because it met your expectations to a T. Do you see the irony here?

It's either not good or not good enough. So many of us live our lives unhappy, we feel disappointed, disappointed and unexcited in almost everything. Because nothing really meets our expectations.

Now imagine you try it instead: remove your expectations of how you want the tangerine to taste. You don't know or expect it because you haven't even tried it. Instead, you are genuinely curious, impartial, and open to a variety of possible flavors. They try and really pay attention to it.

You will notice the juiciness, the texture of the pulp, the spicy, tart and sweet flavors swirling around on your tongue, and all the other complex sensations that arise in your consciousness while chewing. You didn't know what this tangerine would taste like, but now you realize that it is different from the others and remarkable in its own way. It's a whole new experience, a rewarding experience because you've never tried THIS tangerine.

Mindfulness professionals often refer to this as the beginner's mind, but in reality it's just the result of a mindset devoid of unnecessary, stifling expectations. The tangerine can, of course, be substituted for almost anything in your life: every event, every situation, every relationship, every person, every thought that comes to mind. If you approach one of these with expectations of how it should or must be to be good enough for you, they will almost always disappoint you in some way or be too plain and unexciting to even remember. And you will just move on to the next disappointment or unworthy life experience and the next and the next and so on and so on ...

Until you've spent most of your life in an endless cycle of experiences that you hardly like or even notice. But I have good news, there is a mentally stronger way of thinking and living ... Marc and I have a lot of experience worth of individual coaching with students and the annual Think Better, Live Better Live events that we host it's about helping people through the pain points that have been holding them back. And one of the most common pain points we've seen over the years is what I described above, expectations went wrong.

In fact, most of our biggest problems are a direct result of how we react to life on an average day. Yes, sometimes there are major tragedies to deal with, but most of the time the only real tragedy is our weak thinking and resulting behavior in the present moment. Exercising Your Mental Strength-Your inner resilience is key! This really is the hardest and most necessary thing to do when life does not go as planned. And you don't have to be born mentally strong either. You can develop this important trait with a little guidance and practice.

Love you all.