Managing your Mind
May 6, 2018
Don’t forget to join in the 5 day mindset mastery challenge – startsing 7th May but you can catch up later as it will all be in the fabeook group Steps4success
Managing Your Mind-set
As a coach, and earlier as a teacher, I am aware of the very powerful influence our mind-set can have on our health, wellbeing and success. But before looking at some of the important mind-sets that can lead to happiness and fulfilment let me explain what I mean by a mind-set.
In essence it is a set of beliefs, some are conscious but some may operate on a subconscious level. I’ve worked with many people who are not happy at work for example and during coaching what comes out is that they don’t believe that they should be happy at work that somehow work and happiness just don’t go together. Clearly I know that some jobs are hard work and almost every job has some aspects we won’t enjoy but however good the job is, if you inner belief is that it’ll never be fun then chances are no job ever will be.
So if you want to feel happy, successful and fulfilled these are the mind-sets you need to develop.
You deserve to be happy
This might sound silly but coaching and working with individuals and groups over the years has shown me that there are a number of people who for a whole variety of reasons don’t actually believe they should be happy because somehow they don’t deserve to be. Sometimes the root lies in specific events or other times it might be ‘picked up’ from parents who perhaps had tough lives and passed on the view that life is a struggle and happiness is not deserved or likely to happen.
You can have financial security
Many people have grown up with parents who may have had financial worries and as children we often soak up attitudes and beliefs without analysing them. It is not unusual to come across people who are worried by debt and financial insecurity and when we start discussing this it becomes obvious that their internal belief system, their mind-set, tells them they will always struggle. Again this is not straight forward and there are numerous variations but until the mind-set is sorted life probably won’t change.
You do matter
This is perhaps one of the mind-sets that can be most damaging. People come for coaching with all sorts of different problems but many of them have a root in low self-esteem. The impact on all sorts of areas of life can be immense. It will lead people to put themselves down, always put their own needs to the bottom of the list and generally never be really happy or fulfilled.
You can be successful
Success means all sorts of different things to different people – but whatever success means to you the chances are that if your underlying belief is that you won’t be successful, or that good things don’t happen to people like you, then success in any area is unlikely.
How can you spot your damaging mind-sets?
The easiest way is probably to start to tune into your internal chatter. The voice that tells you ‘you are no good’ or ‘you’ll never make it’ or whatever. Yes, it does come from inside your head but the good news is that these limiting mind-sets and beliefs can be challenged and the first step is recognising that they exist.
What to do next
Once you recognise that you have some negative mind-sets then it’s time to start re-framing these. So when you tune into that chatter, start by affirming some truth rather than accepting that negative voice. You do deserve happiness and success, you do matter and you can have financial security. That is the truth for each and every one of us. Of course they aren’t going to disappear overnight and it certainly won’t help if you start to beat yourself up over it, but with effort and persistence they will. Taking action also helps – as in the words of Vincent van Gogh,
“If you hear a voice within you saying ‘you cannot paint’ by all means paint and that voice will be silenced.”
However and whenever the negative mind-sets developed now would be a good time to start challenging them and developing a more positive belief system.
