Did it ever happen to you to go peacefully through your day and them someone said some dumb sh*t that means something to you and that blew off your “peaceful day”? I’m sure it did, but how often does that happen? And why does it happen in the first place?
It’s mainly because of our core beliefs. When we’re convinced something is right or that it is important for us, then our senses get to be predisposed to pick up signals related to those beliefs. For example, if it’s important to you to be appreciated when you do something, then everything related to your appreciation (even the lack of it) can mess up your mood badly.
The core beliefs we have create expectations, but those expectations are only accurate for us, not for others because others have their own core beliefs that create their own expectations and they behave based on that. When we expect for someone to behave in a certain way based on our expectations and that won’t happen (because people are different), then our mood drops faster than Eminem’s words.
Our expectations won’t get limited to people. We create expectations related to some situations as well. Based on our core beliefs, we expect things to go in a certain way. If we expect to be promoted based on something we did or if we expect for traffic to be smooth or whatever else we expect, our mood goes to crap as soon as those expectations are not met.
But hold on, there is more of this. If we have a strong negative belief about ourselves, we’ll usually hope it’s not true. When someone or something proofs even slightly that it might be real, guess what happens with our mood? Yes, exactly! Basically, we’d like for the good things to be seen by others and the bad things to be noticed by no one. When the reality (or what we perceive as reality) doesn’t match that, we get grumpier than Grumpy Cat.
To summarize everything, our mood has the ability to change based on everything from our environment. Every person, cat, dog, situation, angry driver, cashier, butterfly, mosquito, noise and so on has the ability to change our mood based on what is important for us. The moment we change what’s important for us, we change who or what can influence our mood.
What is important for you?