Focusing on the Daily Stoic Meditation for June 25, as outlined by Ryan Holiday in the bestseller 366 Meditations on Wisdom, Perseverance and the Art Of Living.
“This is why we say that nothing happens to the wise person contrary to their expectations.”
— SENECA, ON TRANQUILITY OF MIND, 13.3b
The wise don’t have problems.
They are prepared. They are unfazed. They are in control of their emotions.
Be Prepared
The wise are prepared.
The wise person doesn’t have problems, because they are prepared.
They have prepared for all ranges of circumstances — they have prepared for the worst and the best, and all the situations in the middle, too.
Nothing occurs in their life that they have not planned for or already previously experienced.
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If you want to prevent massive problems in your life, you need to be prepared.
You need to have trained yourself so that if a problem arises, you know how to deal with it. You need to push yourself, train and work hard, so that you can deal with any turmoil and problem that occurs.
How?
One of the best ways to prepare yourself is to simply dive straight in.
Do not fear the problem, but dive straight into it.
Eat the frog, as many say.
Dive straight into the problem;
- If you have a big, work related task to do, dive straight into it and tackle the problem. Don’t procrastinate or put it off.
- If you’re training for a marathon, take the big leap and try and run as best and far as you can. This makes the real marathon less daunting! (it’s important to make sure that you are physically fit and prepared to do this, however)
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Another great way to prepare yourself is to re-inact the same situation, as best as you can. Throw yourself into a situation that mirrors the problem.
Prepare by doing the exact same thing you’d be doing if the situation occurred in your life.
This means that nothing is unexpected, because you’ve dealt with it before.
When I have an important exam, for example, I do two things;
- I do practice questions that are incredibly similar (sometimes even the exact same) as the questions on the real exam. This means that when I’m actually in the exam, I know the layout of the questions and I know the type of things they’ll ask me — this means that there’s less of a chance for something to shock me.
- I visualise the exam. Just before walking into the exam, I sit and visualise a great exam — I visualise good questions, I visualise the good topics that I want to come up, etc. Through visualising myself pushing through a great exam, it takes away any fear and potential stress beforehand.
Push Yourself
To prepare, you’ve gotta push yourself.
You’ve gotta push yourself further than you ever have before.
Deal with the hardships, deal with the pain — it’s all worth it to become great in the end.
Control Your Emotions
What?
Controlling your emotions is the process of ensuring that you, and only you, are in full control of your emotional reactions and responses.
Controlling your emotions means that you don’t react out of anger and do something you’d regret.
Controlling your emotions means that you do not allow yourself to be plagued by sadness.
Controlling your emotions allows you to be a level headed, calm and tranquil person.
Why?
There’s a great deal of benefits to controlling your emotions;
- It allows you to remain calm and collected, even in difficult, stressful and arduous circumstances.
- It allows you to stay productive and stay on your grind, for you’re not allowing external stressors and negative situations to disrupt your flow
- It allows you to be a happier person in general!
If you can master your emotions, nothing can plague you.
If you can carefully learn to both understand your emotions and correctly deal with them, you’ll be unstoppable!
How?
There isn’t one perfect way to control or master your emotions.
One of the most important points is that it takes practice.
- It takes practice to control the urge to overindulge in food or alcohol.
- It takes practice to ignore the urge to stay in bed.
- It takes practice to develop the emotion of discipline.
You will not become a master of your emotions instantly.
Your emotions are strong, fierce and powerful — it will take time, alongside a great deal of mistakes, to fully master your emotions.
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A great way that I’ve found to help me control emotions is the act of doing the opposite of what your mind tells you to do.
If your mind tells you to sleep in for a few more hours, wake up and get started with your day.
If your mind tells you to skip the gym, go straight to the gym and push through a great workout.
If your mind tells you to scroll through social media rather than getting started on an important task, turn your phone off and get to work.
Through doing the opposite of what your emotional, primitive mind desires, you become the one in control.
Link to the Meditation
This stoic meditation is all about learning to control your emotions.
This meditation is all about preparing so that nothing fazes you, but it’s also about mastering your emotions so that if a problem occurs, you do not become stressed or overwhelmed.
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When a problem arises, do you start to become stressed, overwhelmed and anxious? When something unplanned occurs, do you lose your cool and allow stress to take over?
Or, do you control your emotions?
Do you control your emotions so that you actively prevent any feelings of stress and anxiety taking over?
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When something unplanned occurs, when something you didn’t expect occurs, you have to control your emotions.
You cannot afford to allow yourself to become suffocated with stress and anxiety — you have to control it.
In Conclusion
- Prepare for problems
- Control your emotions
