By: James Delrojo

How a person acts under pressure tells a lot about what that person is like. A valuable strategy is to observe yourself when the pressure is off and when the pressure is on, notice the differences and see if you can learn something that may help you become successful.

If you put a grape into a press and turn up the pressure what happens? Well of course the grape gets squashed but what do you get? You only get 4 things; grape juice, grape pulp, grape seeds and grape skins. Why? Because no matter how great the pressure you can only ever get what the grape is truly made of.

This is exactly the same with human beings and mental pressure.

When people are under pressure they often act in ways that they would not necessarily be proud of but they justify this by blaming it on the pressure or the supposed creator of the pressure. They say things like “he made me angry” or “work is stressing me” or “my spouse is making me unhappy”.

Just like the grape you can only give out what you have inside you. If you become angry it is because you are carrying the seeds of anger, if you become stressed it is because you already have the seeds of stress inside you, if you are becoming unhappy it is because you have already planted within you the seeds of unhappiness.

Most people carry some negativity inside them but when things are calm it is easy to keep the negativity under control. But as the pressure increases the self control decreases until eventually that negativity is released.

The greater the negativity stored inside the easier it is to release it. If you are full of stress and negativity then you are like a fat, ripe, juicy grape just waiting for the slightest amount of pressure so that you can burst open and let it all ooze out.

How little pressure does it take to anger you, or make you unhappy, or stressed, or depressed, or feel defeated and give up, or become impatient, or bitter or resentful or mean to others, and so on? The easier a negativity is to bring out the more important it is for you to work on ridding yourself of that negativity.

The first step is to accept that the negativity is not being caused by your circumstances, or others in your life, or by the government, or your family, or your responsibilities, or bad luck or anything else external to you. Only you can put negativity into yourself and you do it by what you choose to think and by the internal model of the world that you have chosen to create.

Equally, only you can remove those negative emotions and replace them with positive emotions that will empower you, allow you to function well under any circumstances and help you create a rewarding and enjoyable life.

It is your mind. what you allow into your mind is your choice and your choice alone. The next time you find yourself cracking under pressure and allowing the negativity to come out, think of that grape and make a decision to change what is inside of you once and for all.

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