“The secret of happiness is knowing that there are some things you can control and some things you cannot.” – Epictetus

It is empowering to know that there are some things we can change and very reassuring to know that there are others that we can not. Things that are within our control, open a world of ever-increasing possibilities to us. Things we can not change or control allow us to develop acceptance, patience, wisdom and flexibility.

The challenge as I see it, is to tell the difference between the two. How do you know when to persist and when to let go? What are the things that are worth changing and which ones are better left alone?

There are 3 Things on my list that were the biggest source of frustration, stress and misery for me until I accepted the fact that they are out of my control.

Here are my conclusions:

1. You can’t change your past

This sounds pretty obvious and yet we still dwell on things that we have not accomplished, imagine all the vindictive and ironic lines that we could have said to someone two days after an argument and beat ourselves up for the silly mistakes that we have made. I know that I am not immune to this. However, the bottom line is that neither you, nor I can change the past. We can learn from it, cherish it or, at least, accept it. But there is no sense on dwelling on it!

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This morning I walked in to the small café beside my house, smiled to the bartender named Tony, waved to a couple of old ladies, sitting in the corner and grabbed a freshly baked ‘brioche alla crema’. It felt so natural that I did not even have to think about it. Later when I was sipping my aromatic decaffeinated cappuccino and scanning the headlines of the morning paper left on the table it dawned on me that not so long ago Milan was a beautiful, yet absolutely foreign city to me. I could not understand a word of Italian and had no idea that it was considered bad form to order a cappuccino after midday.

In just 3 years of living in Italy I have come to love this country with its strange life rhythms, genial people and mouth-watering food. It has taught me the beauty of taking pleasure in tiny things, like a hearty plate of pasta or a purposeless stroll along the cobble streets of the old city. I have learned to cry at romantic movies and laugh at jokes in more than one language. And I have met so many wonderful friends who, it seems now, have always been a part of my life.

My life experience of living abroad has taught me how to push myself beyond my boundaries and lead my life without second-guessing. Here are the three lessons that I have learned:

Lesson #1. Life is meant to be lived bravely.

Do you remember the adrenalin rush when you had to talk in front of a big group of people? Or when you first put on skates and almost lost your balance? Or when you walked up to a person that you liked and offered to grab a cup of coffee together?

I have been there myself and every time I overcame my fear, my confidence grew and my skills improved.
Certain situations in life require us to take risks and act boldly. And deep down we know that it is better to try and fail than to spend years haunted by thoughts “ I should have done…”, “What If I had tried…”, “I wish I had the guts to explain my feelings…”

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While most of us believe that change takes time, world-renown motivational speaker Anthony Robbins does not agree with this. He is convinced that it is preparation to change that takes time. Change itself occurs in an instant.

This makes sense if you look at change not as a life-changing transformation, but as a number of tiny actions that bring us immediate results.

Of course, it takes weeks to get ready for a marathon, months to learn a new language and years to build strong happy relationships. I will be the first to tell you that there is no way of naturally losing 35 pounds in a day or writing a book overnight.

But!

Every lost ounce, every written word, every single compromise that you make (even when you do not feel like it), is already a small victory, a little step towards a much bigger and more noticeable change.

According to Anthony Robbins there are Three Main Beliefs that are crucial for any long-lasting transformation to take place:

1. Something must change.

When everything seems to be going fine in our lives we tend to relax and get lazy. It is only when our ‘comfort zone’ gets too uncomfortable that we become determined to change something about our current situation and readily take proactive steps to do this.

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