“If you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change.”
— Wayne Dyer
One of my favourite writers online is Kyle Shepard, who is an expert on resilience (I highly recommend you have a look at his work here!) and he specifically talks a lot about mental states.
A mental state is a person’s current state of mind, encompassing things like thoughts, feelings, beliefs, and perceptions at a given moment. It’s how we think and feel about things, and the beliefs we hold.
Now, thoughts and feelings can arise — unbidden at times.
But our perception of things?
This is something that we actually have a lot more control over!
We can choose to see things in a new way.
Research shows that it’s the way you think about stress that impacts your health — more so than the actual stress itself. It helps to focus on how we interpret the stressful experiences that inevitably arise in life.
We can’t avoid the situations that show up in our lives, but we can focus on seeing them differently.
Perception is our brain’s most powerful filter.
It’s not the event itself that determines our stress level, but how we interpret that event.
🚀 Not All Stress is Bad
While it may seem like stress is always negative, that’s totally a myth!
In fact, this is the difference between eustress and distress:
✨ Eustress is positive stress that motivates and excites.
⚡️ Distress is negative stress that can cause anxiety and overwhelm, impacting performance and well-being.
Think: Excited to get on stage → eustress
vs
Terrified of public speaking → distress
The difference? Our perception!
And good stress is amazing for us — it actually improves resilience, boosts motivation, sharpens focus, and even enhances performance.
Imagine two people facing the same challenge:
- Person A sees a deadline as a threat, feeling overwhelmed and anxious
- Person B views the same deadline as an opportunity to showcase their skills
The external situation is identical.
The internal experience? Completely different.
So… Can We Stop Stress Before It Starts?
The answer is yes!
We can develop a mindset that supports us to be able to see more challenges as opportunities for growth.
Does that mean we have a Pollyanna attitude and pretend everything is fine?
No, not at all.
It means we start listening to the stories we tell ourselves, and begin to unlearn the unhelpful ones — and replace them with something more empowering.
Lucky for us, perception is a skill that can be developed!
Thanks to neuroplasticity, our brain is malleable, and we can make small changes that lead to big results.
🥄 The Recipe
Here are the key ingredients to help you shift your perception in a way that boosts resilience and makes stress feel more manageable, meaningful, and even motivating.
🎶 Soundtracks
You can’t change what you can’t see.
Mindfulness is key here to start listening to the stories that you tell yourself — the soundtracks you play over and over again in your mind, either consciously or unconsciously.
You will see pretty quickly if you are sabotaging yourself or telling yourself stories that stress you out.
“Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate.”
— C.G. Jung
✅ Mental Checklist
When you’re listening to those thoughts, here’s a little checklist you can go through to challenge them:
Is it true?
Is it kind?
Is it helpful?
If the answer is no — those thoughts need to be kicked to the curb.
✨ Affirmations
Here’s where we start the old switcheroo.
Now that you’ve identified those thoughts that are holding you back, it’s time to change them with something more useful and empowering.
For example:
“Things never work out for me” → “Everything is figureoutable.”
Now, I know that affirmations can have big-time woo-woo vibes — but really, you can just think of it as thought substitution.
What do you want to be thinking?
Ideally, something:
- Positive
- Present tense
- Believable & realistic (because if it feels fake, your brain will reject it)
This is how we shift perception, by choosing to see things differently.
💛 Gratitude
Gratitude literally shifts your stress response.
Gratitude isn’t just good vibes — it activates the parasympathetic nervous system (the calming system) and reduces cortisol levels. When you’re focused on what’s good, your brain stops scanning for threats.
Gratitude helps you shift from:
“Why is this happening to me?” → “What can I learn from this?”
When you practice gratitude regularly, even stressful situations can feel like opportunities instead of obstacles.
See what’s good now.
🎯 Locus of Control
Do you believe you control your life (internal locus) — or that life just happens to you (external locus)?
People with an internal locus tend to feel more empowered and less stressed because they believe their actions make a difference.
When you feel like you have no control, stress skyrockets — because your brain thinks there’s nothing you can do to fix, change, or manage the situation.
Shifting toward an internal locus helps you feel more capable and calm under pressure, even when things are hard.
Focus on what you can control.
🌍 Friendly Universe
Pronoia is basically the opposite of paranoia — it is the belief that the universe is conspiring in your favour.
If you expect to experience a world that is working with you and that you encounter people who want to help you, then you will find plenty to support that worldview.
You get more of what you focus on.
“The most important decision we make is whether we believe we live in a friendly or a hostile universe.”
— Albert Einstein
🌱 Synergistic Mindset
A synergistic mindset is the belief that:
Stress + Challenge = Growth
It’s the idea that struggle and effort can actually make you stronger, smarter, and more resilient — that stress isn’t the enemy, it’s the fuel for progress when you work with it, not against it.
🧘♀️ Physical State Affects Mental State
Your body and brain are in constant conversation — meaning, your physical state can directly influence how you think and feel.
The cool part?
You can hack this loop.
When your body is tense, slouched, shallow-breathing, or under-rested, your brain reads that as a signal of danger, stress, or threat → cue anxiety, overthinking, negative mindset.
But when you shift your physical state — even a little — you send your brain the message:
We’re safe, we’ve got this.
Growth vs. Fixed Mindset
At the heart of all these mindset shifts is this: Do you believe you can grow and change? A fixed mindset says, “This is just how I am” — which can leave you feeling stuck and powerless. A growth mindset says, “I can learn, adapt, and get better” — which opens the door to resilience and stress mastery.
The way you think about your own abilities matters more than you realize.
On the path to change, it’s our ability to say: I’m not good at this, yet.
🌟 Your Shift Starts Here
Ultimately, managing stress is an art of inner alchemy.
It’s not about creating a life without challenges, but about developing the internal resilience to to rise up and roll with them.
By consciously reshaping our perception, we transform stress from a force that overwhelms us to a catalyst for growth, learning, and personal evolution.
Remember:
You’re not trying to eliminate stress, you’re learning to see it differently.
Stress management is an internal process — and you have more control than you realize.
The real secret?
Your mind is the most powerful tool you possess.
Ditch Stress 
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