As much as I have to confess to Black Widow sitting alongside my real life HERo and role model, Emmeline Pankhurst, I do recognise that SuperHERoes don’t in fact exist. Yet what history and life teaches us, is that ordinary people are capable of extraordinary things. People like you. People like me. Be that breaking a world recording or achieving a personal victory, stepping in to our fear and out of our comfort zone in pursuit of growth and change. Being brave to achieve more will be as personal and unique to each of us as our finger prints are.
Our minds however are most extraordinary things of all. They can often work as much against us as they do for us. Yet, what so many of us don’t recognise, is the mind can be re-programmed to better serve us. We can design the thinking we need to shape and achieve our goals, dreams and ambitions. Much like the way we have developed the ability to reprogramme apps and software when technology becomes out dated and we identify the bits that need to be optimised and improved, we can reprogramme our minds in the same way.
Sadly for most of us, we don’t have a programme developer sitting in our unconscious mind, where most of the ineffective instructions are at work. No one told us in school either that we would need to work on updating parts of our brain every once in a while to keep it working for us in tip top condition. So, unless we know how to bring to consciousness and are able to identify the limiting beliefs, the fears, the conditioned lens through which we view the world to the fore, the programmes running in our brains will continue to operate from a state which is no longer fit for purpose.
What a gift though, as Eckhart Tolle so clearly writes about in ‘The Power or Now’ to realise that “You are not your thoughts”. With that understanding comes the first step in the transformation journey, knowing that you have the power over your own mind and the ability to ensure it works to serve your purpose.
Both the fictional character of Black Widow and the very real HERo Emmeline Pankhurst had 3 key things in common.
1. Clarity. They both had a mission. They had absolutely clarity about their purpose, values and mission in life and were driven by a passion to realise it no matter what.
2. Confidence. They both had knew their power. They had a growth mindset, they failed forwards, had belief in their ability, knowledge about their skills, had resources where they had knowledge or skills gaps all of which enabled them to achieve the seemingly impossible.
3. Courage. They faced their fears. They chose to walk in to the path of fear, to be less fearful, and had resilience when they came up against adversity.
Fear holds a lot of people back from not only achieving seemingly impossible ambitions and goals, but from even daring to dream them in the first place. Limiting beliefs stop leaders and teams from realising their full potential. Out dated lenses skew our view of the world impacting performance and hindering growth.
Are the programmes in your subconscious mind (the one you listen to) that deliver your conscious mind the Clarity, Confidence and Courage you need to be your own HERo best serving you at the moment? Do you have the tools and the knowledge to update the software in your brain and lead your team to do the same?
If you’ve invested in a phone or laptop you are receiving automatic software updates to keep it operating at its peak performance level, I encourage you to consider doing the same with the programmes running in your own mind. After all, what is a more valuable investment than the your ability to achieve seemingly impossible dreams?