How to Be More Easy Going

We all want to be more easy going.  No one wants to be easily annoyed or uptight.  We all want to be able to just roll with it when unexpected problems come our way.  And yet, for most of us, being easy going is a challenge!

Realize that to be easy going, you don’t have to have a perfect, easy life.  No one has a perfect life.  On any given day, we all face problems, both large and small.  Rather, being easy going is about how we respond to life’s inevitable problems. 

Of course, being easy going doesn’t mean that you spend your days lying on the couch, eating chips without a care in the world. You can be easy going and yet also be highly organized and “serious.” Rather being easy going means that you are able to “roll with the punches,” as they say.  In short, being easy going is about being OK with the imperfections of life.

Below are ways to become a more easy going person.  Try applying them in your own life and see how much happier you become!

To Become More Easy Going, Follow the Serenity Prayer

The Serenity Prayer reflects what I wish I could be.  It is a long prayer, but the short, seminal part is this:

“God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.”

If you want to become a more easy going person, you need to focus on accepting what you cannot change.  Admittedly, that isn’t easy.  For example, many of us drive ourselves up a wall trying to change other people. 

But the Serenity Prayer effectively says, “Accept that you don’t have the power to change anyone.”  It has taken me a long time to let that fact sink in.  Over the years, I’ve tried to change people who I found to be unpleasant, rude or just plain unkind.  And here is what I found: You can’t change other people by reasoning with them.  You also can’t change people by merely setting a good example.  And if you expend a lot of energy trying to change other people, you’ll do nothing more than aggravate yourself.

Once I came to this realization, I decided to just be easy going about unpleasant people.  I figured that as long as I am living according to my ethics and values, other people can do as they please.  I may choose not to deal with unpleasant people, but I won’t expend my energy being annoyed with them. 

So, if you want to be truly easy going, stop banging your head against the wall trying to change people or situations over which you have no control.  Instead, accept what you cannot change.  And then focus on changing the one thing over which you do have control – YOU. 

Apply the 10/10/10 Rule to Every Problem

Sometimes our problems upset us because we wrongly focus on how they are making us feel in this moment.  However, the key to being easy going in the face of problems is to ask yourself this: Will this problem matter in the next ten days?  The next ten months?  Or the next ten years?

Some problems will matter, and some won’t.  The problems that will still affect you in the next 10 years are few and far between.  For instance, a traumatic childhood experience will affect you 10 years from now.  And sadly, one cruel comment can stick with you for decades. 

But for the most part, the minor problems that we face on a daily basis are soon forgotten.  So, don’t let them get under your skin!  If someone cuts you off in traffic, you will not remember that incident next week.  A mistake that you made at work will be forgotten in the next ten months.  So, don’t give small matters much thought. 

Learn to be easy going by not letting your feathers get ruffled over small matters.  If you are facing a problem that will soon be forgotten, simply handle the problem with equanimity.  And then forget about it! 

Be More Forgiving of Others

One thing I have learned over the years is this: If you don’t find a way to forgive someone, the bad thing that they did will have power over you.  It will make you angry and bitter. But once you forgive that person and let go of your anger, that bad thing they did will now be properly in the past.  It will no longer affect your present.

The key to understanding forgiveness is this: Forgiveness isn’t about the other person.  If I forgive someone who was cruel to me, my forgiveness doesn’t make their life any better.  My absolution isn’t going to lift some weight off their shoulders.  We each have to live with the moral and spiritual consequences of our own bad acts.

Instead, forgiveness heals me.  When I forgive someone, I decide I am no longer going to be angry or upset by someone’s past behavior.  Instead, I declare, “What is done, is done.  The past is the past.”  And I decide that unfortunate incident of the past is not going to impact my present.

The good news is that once you forgive someone else, you immediately become more relaxed.  The tension leaves you.  And you automatically become easier going because you aren’t going through the day with a cloud of bitterness hanging over you.

Be More Forgiving of Yourself

The same holds true with forgiving ourselves.  Most of us are harder on ourselves than on those around us.  We tend to demand perfection of ourselves, and we mostly turn a blind eye to the imperfections of others.

But if you can’t forgive yourself, you’ll go through life with tension.  That is because you can’t be happy and at the same time beat yourself up over the mistakes you’ve made.  So, to forgive yourself, you just have to say, “I made a mistake.  I wish I hadn’t done so, but I can’t change the past.  All I can do is to try to do better in the future.”  That is the essence of self-forgiveness.

When you become the kind of person who can easily forgive yourself and others, you automatically will become more relaxed and easy going.  That is because you won’t be filled with the tension, bitterness and frustration that go hand in hand with an unforgiving spirit.   

Meditate

If you struggle to be easy going, I strongly suggest taking up meditation.  When we meditate, we essentially clear our minds, and we focus purely on the present for a period of time.  To keep our minds in the present during meditation, we may focus on our breath, or we may focus on a particular object.  The goal is to clear our minds by focusing on one particular thing in our immediate experience. 

I don’t purport to be great at meditation.  But it is a practice that I am working on.  And the reason why I give part of my day to meditation is that it reminds me of how my mind should be operating.  My mind ideally should be in a calm, focused state.  I should be aware of what is going on around me, but I shouldn’t be irritated or annoyed by what is going on around me.  Rather, I simply should be observing.  And when I meditate, I get to practice in being in that ideal state.

A meditation practice will help you to be calmer and more easy going.  That is because a mind that practices meditation is like a still pond.  You can toss a stone into the pond, and there may be a small ripple.  But the pond quickly will return to its still state.

In the same way, a mind which practices meditation is like that still pond.  Problems may arise which initially upset or perturb the mind.  But a well-trained mind quickly will revert back to its original calm state.

That steady calmness is a key quality of easy going people.  While even the most easy going person may get upset on occasion, their default position is a state of calm.

If you are seeking to be a truly easy going person, consider following the above approaches.  If you do, you’ll find yourself to be calmer and more relaxed.  And you’ll end up being the easy going person that you desire to be! (To read about finding serenity in the midst of stress, click here.)