Happy Mindset Monday!
My coaching practice has been pretty full these days and I’m seeing a theme. Many of my clients are feeling tired, depleted, overwhelmed, and anxious from living through the ups and downs of the past two years.
It’s important to know that there is still no right way to feel right now. Experts say the coronavirus crisis has taken a greater toll on women, and it’s okay if all you have been doing is surviving.
I’ll repeat that again. It’s okay if all you have been doing is surviving.
These have been REALLY hard times. So, try to offer yourself some compassion. You are doing the best that you can at any given moment and that is enough. There is no “right” way to experience a global pandemic.
If you’ve been living with a scarcity mindset, as we embark upon spring renewal, let’s try and get you to open to moving towards an abundance mindset.
A person with an abundance mindset focuses on the limitless opportunities available for them in life (and business). They choose to focus on the positive things in their life rather than the negative things. People with an abundance mindset are more grateful, more creative and more focused on collaboration. Abundance energy is what opens doors and makes people and things show up for you.
A simple example of the differences between a fixed and abundant mindset is:
- A Fixed Mindset often plays “the victim,” with a “Why is this happening to me?” mentality.
- The Abundance Mindset is ‘In the drivers seat” with a “What is this trying to teach me?” mentality.
See the difference?
If you are struggling right now with your mindset, it’s important to look for what you CAN do. Because sometimes we just cannot change our situations – so we have to change or shift our mindset. We have to change our attitude about our situation. It helps a lot.
Labeling Negative Thoughts
The key is to start by labeling our negative thoughts. Thoughts like, “I have no energy,” or “I have no money,” or “I don’t deserve happiness.” We want to declare our limiting beliefs to ourself and then overcome the negative bias.
But what is the negative bias, you might ask? The negative bias is our tendency to dwell on the negative. Dr. Rick Hansen says, “Our mind is like Velcro for negative experiences, and Teflon for positive ones.” We let negative experiences stick to us, and we let the good moments roll off of us.
Alright, so how do we overcome these limiting beliefs?
One strategy is thought challenging. Thought challenging is about challenging our negative thoughts, some of which we sometimes take as fact, even when they’re not necessarily true. Thought challenging will allow you to consider things from a more objective perspective, rather than just assuming what you are feeling is fact or truth.
Let’s get clearer. Thought challenging is finding out how we can balance a negative thought with a more healthy one.
Let’s look at a real example:
- “I am never going to get this done on time!” A challenge to that thought might be something like, “Maybe if I take unnecessary things off my to-do list, I can finish by my deadline. What can I put off to the spring that ins’t a MUST-DO right now?”
To have a more abundant mindset, we have to purposefully challenge and balance the negative thoughts.
Believing in yourself is so much about getting good at recognizing when your self-doubt is about to kick in.
I invite you to also pay attention to the ways you react to situations, this way you can work to reframe your self-doubt. Limitations like, “I can’t” or “I don’t know how” can be replaced with, “I can’t do that YET, but I’m working on it,” or “I don’t know how to now, but I will learn.”
These are the ways we change our inner dialogue with ourselves slowly over time to a more abundant mindset.
Let’s start the week with mindset in mind.
Sending you love,
