How not to be controlled by people and circumstances around you.

Discover the powers people who solve their problems peacefully and successfully have.

Author: Ines Mbusa

So many times I have been asking myself how some people manage to overcome challenges while others fail. I realised that two different people can face the same problem but they won’t solve them the same way.

I understood that a problem is never a problem. It is the way you approach and solve it that matters.

At some point we should all know that problems are part of life and the only way to avoid them is to die. As long as we are in this world they will be coming our way. For instance, let's look at these two examples.

Sometimes back there was a certain lady in my home town who decided to kill herself because a man had promised to marry her after campus but that guy changed his mind and married someone else. She failed to accept that disappointment and her life ended like that.

In another scenario, this one lady, on the morning of the day of her wedding she was well prepared, well dressed waiting for her fiancé to get married. Unfortunately the man did not show up and decide to switch off his phone.

People looked for him but they could not find him. Then after some few days he called just to say that he changed his mind. He did not want to get married any more, up to now that lady is still alive and managed to move on.

If you look at these two examples properly you will agree with me that the situation of the lady who killed herself was not even as hard as the second one who was left at the very day of her wedding. Yet she is the one who managed to move on. So what could be the power that people who manage to solve their problems peacefully and successfully have?

I may not know everything about solving problems but I am very sure about one thing which never fails and that is being positive. Each day offers us 24 hours; and each day comes with its own challenges.

The things that we do every day require hard choices. A positive attitude helps you cope more easily with the daily challenges of life. You can choose to live consciously and intentionally, rather than letting the circumstances of your day dictate your destiny. You can take control of these circumstances by being positive.

It all starts from within

"If all of us could concentrate on changing ourselves rather than expecting someone else or things around us to change, we could live in a perfect world." Ines Mbusa

The biggest issue in humanity is looking for things which are within us out of us; it is only a happy soul that can see things with a positive attitude, but then what is happiness?

Happiness will never come as a result of something; happiness is a choice. Nothing can make you happy until you choose to be happy. No person can make you happy unless you decide to be happy. Your happiness will not come to you. It always comes from you.

Too many times happiness has been misunderstood; happiness is not simple pleasure. Happiness is the whole peace of mind and you can get it only by controlling your thoughts.

Happiness doesn’t depend on outside conditions, it depends on inner conditions. I believe that this world will never get something enough to satisfy the heart of a human being. So be happy with what you have. It is the inside world that commands the outside world.

If you don’t control your inner thoughts you will become a slave to your circumstances. Decide to take control of your thoughts in order to lead your life. Please don’t let life circumstances lead you because they have never been stable.

Why do I say that it all starts from within? Believe me or not, your attitude toward other people determines how far you will go in life and this does not have anything to do with society. Did you know that you achieve something only when your mind has conceived it?

"Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you were born I set you apart and appointed you a prophet to the nation." Jeremiah 1:5

Here, God was explaining to Jeremiah that before I manifested you to the world I had you in my mind. What you think you become and what you feel you attract, so before trying to attack all other things in your life first learn to control your mind. You cannot control anything in your life if you avoid responsibility.

I have realised that we are living in a society of irresponsible people. People always make excuses for what is not right in their lives. In my country you find guys over 30 years old still living with their parents without work and they all have a common song saying "in our country there are no jobs."

What they are saying is, if I am not working it’s not my problem that is the responsibility of the government. You find young ladies on campus who are not putting in any effort to study.

When they fail, they say that a lecturer failed them because they refused to have sex with him. A lot of women are crying everywhere saying that men are plying them but they are not seeing their responsibility in the game.

The moment you stop blaming the society, your family and other people around you for your failures is the moment you will start succeeding in life. It is only if we assume responsibility for our choices that we can give ourselves power of action to change what we wish to change.

Have a healthy relationship with yourself

We only give what we have. The relationship you have with yourself is the most complicated due to the fact that you cannot walk away from yourself. It is good for you to learn to love and to believe in yourself.

Maybe you don’t love yourself because you always concentrate on your failure. I would like you to know that you are not your failures. You should also stop seeing yourself through the eyes of others because most of the time they always put all their attention on what we can't do.

Now start seeing yourself with your own eyes. Take your time to discover what is good about you. It’s very important to know yourself because the more you know yourself, the more you love yourself.

Control your reality

There is a difference between the reality and the truth. While reality is limited to what you can see, the truth is more than what you can only see. Reality is formed by what we see, what we hear, and what we allow ourselves to believe in.

You can be educated by the best parents, be taught by the best teachers but if you don’t believe in yourself there is no way you can achieve great things.

Three years back I couldn't believe, I could speak English. I remember in my secondary school how I used to struggle with English courses and out of nowhere I just believed English was very hard and I could not make it.

So to avoid my responsibility I blamed my teacher that he was so bad and was making things harder, then I would blame the school saying that they shouldn’t offer English courses because we are in a French speaking country… so after finishing my secondary school for some reasons my parents did not want me to study in my home country (Congo).

Then I found myself in Uganda. That meant it was a must for me to learn English. I looked at myself and I was like Ines you know what, you can make it the same English I failed to learn in six good years I learned it in six months and everyone around me was surprised by how fast I learned.

The truth is since I was still in Congo I had that capacity of learning English but the reality I was living in made me believe that I was not good enough to learn English.

When you realise that the realities around you don’t agree with the things you believe for yourself, it’s time to wage war.

Deal with the buts of life

I hope all of us have seen people who are great in what they do. We usually call them superstars and we think they have made it in life. We think that life is so perfect with them. But the truth is that secretly they also go through a lot.

I once spoke to a celebrity who told me that sometimes he felt bad about his position and wished he could just be a normal person. He said yes it feels good to be a celebrity but…

There are so many types of BUT, some are big others small. Buts can be physical like those little insecurities in our appearance. No matter the size, it can make life unbearable.

The bad thing about BUTS is that they claim to elevate our failures over our accomplishments, our potential, and capacity.

Such buts will make you forget that you are dressed in your best and most expensive outfit and make you worry that your hair is not well placed. Today in most cases I am taken as a girl full of self-confidence but sometimes back when I went through those insecurities it really took me time to get the self-confidence I now have.

Buts can also be emotional or historical, something that you went through in the past that is still holding you from back. Look at some characteristics of BUTS:

• They are usually followed by a negative.

• They downplay positives in our lives.

• They highlight weaknesses and down play strength.

• They will define us if we let them.

• They make us admire what others have and despise what we have.

If the above points have become a common manifestation in your daily life, then it is time to identify your BUTS and deal with them. Deal with your BUTS by changing your focus.

Stop putting your attention on the things that you feel you can't do or don’t have. We all have strengths and weaknesses so it’s time to focus on our strengths and get the best out of them.

Dear reader, Instead of trying to control people and circumstances around you, learn to take control of yourself because you have power over yourself not on outside events. Self-control is the only possible road you go through to master anything. I hope this article has been useful to you, so don’t hesitate to share it with a friends.