Some days we all feel like our own worst enemy. We know the vital importance of having a healthy mindset, and creating and sticking to goals. It’s easy to fall into a pattern of feeling mentally ‘stuck’ at times and it can be difficult and paralyzing if we let ourselves fall into the quicksand of negative patterns, apathy and ambivalence.
We all feel the wage of battle in our minds for control of it on a daily basis. One part of you wants to do what’s easy and familiar and the other part knows that you need to have a strategy that can help you to get into the right mindset for success as you are building your business, sorting through more challenging areas of life and tasks and pushing yourself into new arenas that might be brand new to you.
The battle might start for no apparent reason or maybe you just allow self doubts to creep in and undermine your confidence. Whatever the cause, you have to know success is a battle hugely fought in the mind. If you believe those doubts, if you focus on your failings, success is going to be a long way off.
It’s time to take charge of the way you think and take some steps to move towards your goals.
The following 6 things are what you need to be doing to make sure that not a day is wasted, that the potential of your life and business can be realized as you take the time to get your mindset right.
It’s simply a matter of training your mind. For your mind will only get stronger if you approach it as you do a body’s fitness.
#1 – Get Clear
Knowing yourself can sometimes be the hardest thing of all. It’s hard to take a good hard look at yourself in the mirror. It’s easier to look at others and offer your opinion about who they are and what they should be doing, but when it comes to yourself things are often a bit more murky.
Depending on your self-esteem levels you can either tear yourself apart, or be so puffed up with self-importance that you don’t truly see the reality.
It helps to take time to sit down with a pen and paper, write down some things about yourself. Start to really recognize or decide what matters to you in life, in business and in your heart. There is no judgement in this process, it’s simply a fact-finding mission so that you can start to realize what really drives you.
It’s possible you might need to gather up some courage and ask friends or members of your family what they think of when they think of you. You never know what you’ll learn.
As you start to realize who you are at heart, what it is that motivates you, what you are passionate about then you can start to refine what it is you can help other people with.
Maybe you really love helping others with parenting advice, or ways help your friend leave that toxic relationship, or how to get out of debt and eliminate financial trouble.
These thoughts and passions can potentially become a business for you.
Gaining clarity about your purpose in life is so fundamentally beneficial you should at least start thinking and writing about it now.
#2 – Set Goals
There is a power saying that goes; If you don’t believe in something you’ll fall for anything. While this is not actually talking about goal setting it does speak about the power of conviction.
For some people setting goals is easy. They are goal driven people and always strive to achieve what they’ve set out for. Serious athletes would never make it to the Olympics without setting goals, Doctors would never get qualified without setting goals, and you will never get where you’re going, if you haven’t even decided where it is you’re going!
I’ve always loved to-do lists and setting hard and fast goals on paper. It makes me feel great at the time that I set them. Think about how you feel when you make New Years Resolutions, lose weight or start a finally get out of debt
However, my personality is more suited to a ‘go with the flow’ mentality. The problem is that this can often end up with me not getting anything done, procrastinating over what I do have to do and then realizing a year later that I still haven’t changed that thing.
I find it really helps to write down your expectations about any goal. Because when you know what your expectations are you can really focus on achieving them. Is it really important to you and if so why? What will it ultimately achieve for you and how will it ultimately benefit you?
And I’m not speaking generally about ‘I want to make a lot of money’, ‘I want to travel the world’. Your goal has to be specific. Ok, ‘I want to make 50K by next year’ or ‘I want to visit the Great Barrier Reef in May of 2019’. Or, ‘I want to attain 130K page views on Pinterest by next month’. Yes! Be super specific.
Because after all, it doesn’t help to go into having a goal without having a realistic, actual possibility of attaining it. Which brings me to this…
We can set goals that are too big for us initially and that overwhelms us. I want to lose 20lbs in 10 days!!
Once overwhelmed it’s easy to be hard on yourself and think you’re a failure so you give up and think crappy thoughts about yourself. Not good.
The best way to start today is just to have bite sized goals. Maybe even divide them up into ‘Easily Achievable’, ‘Harder’ and it ‘I could totally do this if I really focus’. Hey, dreams are a good thing! Dreams are what we used to have as kids! Remember that?
#3 Check your attitude
You are human – it’s a fact. You have feelings that change frequently. Heck, I have feelings that change every second! To have a successful mindset you cannot afford to live by your feelings. Repeat after me: YOU CANNOT AFFORD TO LIVE BY YOUR FEELINGS.
Feelings are simply Feelings and are often unreliable and lead you astray so that you don’t fulfil your goals, complain about things, make excuses for what we do and don’t do. Remember! Feelings PASS!! Just like Gas! Feelings PASS!
YOU! Yes YOU!! need to decide what kind of attitude you are going to have then make it happen.
Decide you are not going to be negative, you’re not going to complain, not going to bitch and whine.
Write down your decisions so that when your feelings start to change you can remind yourself of where and why you started.
I once had a Psychologist friend tell me when I wanted to change my negative feelings, to dunk my head in a sink full of water and ice cubes and the bad feelings (or any feeling for that matter) would instantly go away. She was spot on. (Of course it helps to have the sink ready:)
Be generous of yourself, helpful to those around you and be happy! Do you realize how contagious that is?
Your influence will naturally grow when you start to focus on what you can do for others.
You can change someones whole day, life or mind just by what they get from your attitude.
#4 Assumptions can lead to failure
Your brain is amazing in so many ways, how it processes information and delivers your thoughts or impressions.
Sometimes however it can let you down. You can let something be assumed about a situation or someone or something become a reality in your mind, and it can become a stumbling block where all you do is focus on this improbable thing that isn’t even a reality except in your mind and then it completely shuts down all positive creation.
Challenge every assumption, replace it with evidence. Don’t just say ‘people won’t listen to me when I say that’, or ‘people are ignorant’ give them a chance, test your idea. You have to be bigger than your inklings.
#5 Just take ACTION!
Action is the most powerful motivator to keep going. It’s better to start something and adjust as you go than it is to keep taking notes, planning and never starting at all. I’ve been so guilty of this myself.
Years of jumping from idea to idea and never taking it past the initial excitement and a few hand written notes. Taking action actually makes you feel good about yourself. Don’t worry if you make mistakes, pick yourself up, readjust, try again, learn from them, try something different.. but move forward, always move forward.
Don’t look back. What is the point of that anyway? Thinking about what you could of done better? Every situation is different. You can do better next time. There’s always a next time. And if there isn’t? Well, you did the best you could under those particular circumstances. That’s all. Forgive yourself, take action and move on.
Don’t look back, you’re not going in that direction.
Set a timer and just GO! Grab a pen and paper, set the timer for 30 minutes and just write an article, or dump all your ideas onto paper that you can build out later, or set up those budget apps you’ve been meaning to put into place, do those push ups and planks, make those 3 calls you’ve been putting off and just cross them off your list.
#6 Training, Mentoring and Masterminding
Without a doubt the most successful people you know of in business were trained, mentored or spent time with other like-minded entrepreneurs to gain their success. Nobody can really do it alone.
There are lots of ways that you can develop and create an abundant future for free online, it’s true.
With YouTube and blogs, and numerous other types of reports and downloads, you can definitely make your way to business and personal success.
The following people and courses I highly recommend:
Mastin Kipp – Live Your Purpose From Now On
Tony Robbins – Transform Your Life
Marianne Williamson – A Return To Love
It’s so valuable to invest in your learning, mental training and growth. This is especially vital if you’ve had a rocky emotional start in childhood and youth.
I really would like to encourage you not to try to do everything alone – there are people around that can help you, share your journey with you, encourage you when you get stuck, and just be there. In your community and everywhere.
If you know of any other strategies that help you to get you unstuck and out of a mental rut I’d love to hear about them! Feel free to comment!:)