12 Ways To Think That Can Change Your Life freedomiseverything.com /2016/06/20/12-ways-to-think-that-can-change-your-life/
12 Ways to think that can change your life I write all often about different freedom-related topics. Money, time and online business are all really important to building a free life in the modern world. Yet the one thing that will determine more than anything else what our lives look like is the way we think. In this post I have compiled some ways and methods of thinking which can transform all aspect of your life. These have been taken from my own experience of what works and does not work for creating a more fulfilling, enjoyable, free life. Some people will agree with these, others will heartily disagree. I welcome all points of view! So without further ado, here are 12 ways to think that can change your life.
Think creativity not competition Life is not a race nor is it a game of football. People believe that they have to compete in order to win. But my question would be: what are you trying to win? I love sporting competition as much as anyone, but even in the sporting world the competition is never really against another person, but against ourselves.
1/8
Constantly focusing on what others are doing shrinks our thinking. Is it not better think about what you want to provide to others, rather than trying to pick weaknesses in ‘competitors’? What is really noticeable about the online business world is that entrepreneurs are always helping each other. They appear on each other’s podcasts, write guest posts, answer questions on each other’s forums etc. If you always come from a competitive mindset you will not do these things because you will always be thinking ‘oh no, I’m giving a competitors some exposure here.’ But those who are wise understand the truth of the phrase ‘to get what you want, help others get what they want’. This statement comes from a mindset of growth, service and creativity. It comes from a realisation that there is room for everyone who is prepared to bring value to others. You don’t have to compete or win business at any expense in order to be successful. Do what you do to the best of your ability. Let the customer decide if it’s what they want.
Eliminate thoughts of lack or limitation Success is built on the back of thoughts of abundance. You can never get rich if you constantly think that you don’t have enough or aren’t good enough. This may sound counter-intuitive but it’s true. If your thoughts are dominated by limited thinking, how can you possibly open your mind to all of the endless possibilities in life. If you constantly complain that you can’t afford things, how do you expect to grow to a level where you can afford them? Limited thinking: “I could never do what he or she has done” Empowered thinking: “Anything they can do, I can do” Thought of lack: “I just don’t have enough money, I can’t afford that” Thought of abundance: “HOW can I afford that?” Remember you must ‘be’ before you can ‘have’. Therefore if you want to become successful you must have success in mind, not failure or fear. If you want to become a rich person, be rich in mind. Think abundance. If you are currently poor, consider that wealth is coming to you – you just have to clear the path for it to arrive.
Don’t expect to know exactly ‘how’ you will do something Let’s say you want to become a millionaire. The automatic thought after you decide to become a millionaire could be ‘but how can I do that?’. I have news for you: how you are going to become a millionaire is NOT just going to appear in your mind. It doesn’t work like that. This is where FAITH has a massive role to play. If you decide you want to achieve something, you can. That is the way you have to think. And you must have faith that the path will become apparent to you over time. Becoming a millionaire is not a 6-step roadmap. It is a huge journey full of doubt, pitfalls, reading, learning, optimism, action, failure, more learning, re-action, pro-action and self-discovery. 99,999999999 percent of us will not create the next Facebook. Therefore sometimes we have to play the percentages. If you want to become wealthy but don’t know how, what should you do? The answer is: GET STARTED. Start somewhere. Find a book about how millionaires think, learn about saving and investing, start a small business (any business), join networking groups.
2/8
If you are coming from a place of knowing nothing about business, investing, leadership, management, entrepreneurship, marketing etc…..then you have to accept that you have a shit load to learn. You have tonnes of mistakes ahead of you. You will have lots of ‘wasted’ time as you go down one blind alley after another trying to find what works. Enjoy it – it’s part of the journey.
Learn to love the ‘zone of discomfort’ On the journey to freedom, greatness, success, fulfillment etc, we will constantly have to do things we have never done before. This is called getting out of your comfort zone. In my view it’s the most important mindset change you can possibly make to lead a fulfilled life. Recently I wrote about moving along the road from fear to freedom and I maintain that acting in spite of fear is the best habit to cultivate. It’s true that you have to break through the boundaries which have previously held you back if you want to become successful. It’s rather poetic that life is designed so that the things which we fear are exactly what we really need to do. For example, if your dream is to build an online business yet you fear to put out content or expose yourself on social media – then you have some conquering to do!
It’s more important to master yourself than others It’s no coincidence that unsuccessful people are constantly moaning about and judging others. Some people are forever trying to change others. Successful people, on the other hand, understand that it is about mastering oneself, not others. And until you have mastered yourself, it is nearly impossible to lead others effectively. Self-mastery does not mean being selfish or self-obsessed. Quite the opposite. It means to know yourself so well, and have such complete control of your behaviour, actions and thoughts, than you can do whatever has to be done to achieve what you want. Whether in the domain of business, work, health or relationships, mastering oneself means to master your thoughts on that topic. It means being able to manage and control your emotional responses, self-manage and use your intuition effectively. Forget about trying to change others and forget about judging the behaviour of others. Focus on being the best you can be. The best husband, the best mother the best leader, the best at what you do.
Become so big that problems seem small Ever noticed that big, successful people rarely complain that something can’t be done? Ever noticed that small people see everything as a big deal? T Harv Eker says that our problems are only problems in relation to the size of person we are. For example if you are a level 2 person, and you are dealing with a level 5 problem; the problem seems MASSIVE. On the other hand, if you develop yourself to a level 8 person and a level 2 problem appears, how difficult do you think that problem will be to solve? The answer of course is that the problem barely registers. Again it comes back to our fears and being able to take action in spite of them. Success in any endeavor can be looked at like a staircase. You can’t move from the bottom of the staircase to the top without stepping on all – or most – of the other stairs.
3/8
Your fears generally lie on all of the stairs in between the bottom and the top. We must act in spite of one fear to move to the next step. The same process turns weaknesses into strengths. Imagine if you overcome so many fears that you get to the top of the staircase – how easy to solve will those ‘problems’ at the bottom seem by that time??? Eventually, through constantly growing yourself, learning skills and overcoming fears, you become a person whose answer to every problem is: “no problem”!
Money mindset to service mindset It’s been said before but bears repeating: generating optimum mindset means you have to move away from obsessing about money, and instead focus on service to others. The reason is that a focus on money forces you to dwell on a lack of money. This leads to desperation and making decisions ‘for the money’ rather than for what is best for others. Everybody else, don’t forget, are your potential customers. You need potential customers to make money. That’s why focusing on serving others as well as possible eventually brings you wealth. The more serviceminded you are, the more you begin exercising the ‘entrepreneurial muscle’, which is the muscle which spots needs in the market for you to fill. Filling those needs, of course, is what can eventually lead to wealth. As MJ DeMarco says: serve millions of people, and you will undoubtedly become exceedingly rich! Interestingly enough, you can feel the difference within you when you change from a fixation on money to a fixation on service (at least I did!). You start to relax a bit and accept that you first have to give before you can receive. Personally, when I decided that I was going to build financial freedom I suddenly found myself in a massive rush for results and progress. What happened was that I became stressed that money wasn’t immediately pouring into my bank account. I forgot to enjoy the process of growth that comes from working on yourself. It is a mindset shift to focus on serving as many people as possible – you have to put your own needs second, and sacrifice the short term for the long term. Difficult, but worth it.
Understand the power of habits Our habits generally control the outcomes in our lives. Changing yourself into a more successful, loving or healthy person means changing your habits. Habits are pivotal because they are powerful. Therefore if you can change bad habits into good habits (or negative habits into positive), you alter your direction from being powerfully negative to being powerfully positive. This may seem obvious yet so many people just don’t get the importance of habits. Gary Keller in ‘The One Thing’ writes about how none of us can make changes, or behave a certain way based on willpower alone. Willpower is fleeting and, like motivation, it can only keep us going for so long until the effort required burns us out. Building a habit, on the other hand, takes an action that was previously difficult and unnatural, and makes it normal Perseverance and willpower should not be used to create an outcome – they should be used to build the right habits which will lead to the outcome. For example let’s say you are trying to get in shape. Your goal is to get to 10% bodyfat, and that you will need to go to the gym 3 times per week and eat a strict diet to accomplish your goal.
4/8
Now at first your habits are the opposite of what they need to be, and therefore the behaviour needed to reach your goal is not natural for you. So you can’t just motivate your way to the goal. You can’t just use willpower for 9 months until you are at 10% bodyfat. No, you use willpower to build the habits which will naturally get you to your goal. It takes about 3 weeks or so for a habit to build. So your willpower only needs to last for 3 weeks and then habit kicks in. In other words, everything gets easier but you have to give it time. With willpower alone, you might give up after a couple of weeks because everything seems unnatural and difficult. You think ‘9 months of this?? No way!’ But of course once the habit is formed, the daily activity is easier. The principle of habit-forming can be applied to any situation and any change you wish to make: be it writing everyday, being a more loving person, calling your mum etc.
Never ever apportion blame – even to yourself In Marianne Williamson’s book ‘A Return to Love’, she talks about the ‘ego mind’. The ego in this context is that part of your mind that always thinks the worst of every situation. If anything goes wrong or things don’t work out quite as intended, the natural reaction is to start blaming all kinds of factors. Blame wears many masks but we have a tendency to blame everything we possibly can – the government, the economy, our colleagues, our friends, our families, our pets (dog ate the homework!), etc. When you stop and think about it properly, what is actually the point or purpose of blaming someone for anything? It literally never gets us anywhere. I cannot think of a single situation in my life where I have blamed someone or something and achieved any kind of successful outcome. It can’t happen because blame, by its very nature, is detrimental. To everything and everyone involved. Lets look at an example: If you are unhappy and place the blame for that unhappiness onto someone else, what exactly are you expecting them to do about it? Accept the blame? Apologise and agree that it’s all their fault? Even if they did these things the problem would not be solved – because our happiness is NEVER the fault of someone else. They don’t decide our happiness, we do. Or if we decide on our unhappiness. In fact, while on the subject of blame, it is no better to blame ourselves than it is to blame external circumstances. Putting blame on ourselves is another trick of the ego mind. The outcome is only negative. Making ourselves feel bad is just as bad as trying to make ourselves feel better by blaming others. We can take responsibility and be accountable, without blaming ourselves. Responsibility and accountability mean that we accept that the results we achieve are down to our own actions and that we can change both the actions and the results. We must also be able to own the issues that may arise from our actions.
Don’t try to be someone you are not When people used to tell me to ‘just be yourself’ I never quite got exactly what it meant. Surely, I thought, if you are trying to better yourself then you have to become someone you were not before. I struggled with this for quite awhile until I realised that much of what I habitually did (particularly at work) was done seeking the validation of others. One of the problems with the world of employment is that we are all forced to adhere to a variety of rules which are designed to control and constrain. In my view, this leads to doing things because you want to impress people,
5/8
not because you want to or believe them to be right. If you are trying to ‘make it’ in the corporate rat race it is easy to fall into the trap of becoming someone you think the company wants. Often your own personality and unique contribution is left at the door. I realised that the more I tried to act the way I thought others would expect, the more uncomfortable I became. I found my own creativity, fun and personality were being squashed in favour of trying to be ‘good’ at the corporate game. The more you try to act like someone that you think others will admire, like or be impressed by, the more you tend to find yourself in positions and jobs that you’d rather not be in. Try to focus on being the way you naturally are. Try to incorporate the things you like to do into your job or business if you can – it helps you keep a sense of natural personality in your everyday life.
Observe and write down what you think about Writing can be a useful and therapeutic exercise. Writing down what you think about can also be very illuminating. At the beginning or end of each day it can be very interesting to reflect on what you thought about most during that day(or the previous day). Are your thoughts primarily positive or negative? Do you generally focus on yourself and your contribution? Or do you think about what others can do for you? Do you view people with love, respect and compassion? Or do you constantly bitch, moan and complain about the behaviour of others? Do you always think about solutions, or do you tend to focus on the problem? Do you think thoughts of abundance, energy, harmony, power and confidence? Or do you think fear, nerves, lack and argument. As you can probably see, there are polar opposite ways of thinking. It should be obvious that some of these will have a negative impact on the results in your life, and others a positve impact. Which you choose is up to you. Writing down your dominating thought patterns can let you reflect quickly and make small changes every day. Once you know an area where you think you’d like to improve your thoughts, you can reflect everyday on how that improvement is progressing.
Train your mind the way you would train your body This is nothing new but the truth is that many of us neglect our bodies. Our western society is fat, sick and generally a mess physically. Well the same is true of our minds. The neglect that is threatening the physical health of many of us is also threatening our mental health. In my view the body should be treated with respect. I am a huge proponent of strength training, fasting and good diet. I constantly want to keep my body in good shape. In my view the same should apply to the mind. Many of us fill our minds (like our bodies) with so much junk that it’s embarrassing. Watching junk TV, never reading a book and never working on your thoughts or challenging your mental capacity in any way, is the same as never exercising and eating fast food all day. Treat your mind as something which needs to be trained constantly and fed the right diet in order for you to
6/8
function your best. However don’t forget that, like the body, the mind also needs rest and relaxation at times. Meditation is one way to strengthen your mind and also give it the rest and relaxation it needs. Few people master meditation and you don’t have to in order to obtain the benefits. Even taking 20 minutes per day to relax and let all the negative crap from the day before go is beneficial. Avoid bouncing from day to day without ever stopping to ‘actively rest’ the mind. I have found that taking even 10 minutes at the start of the day just to be silent and reflective helps me enjoy the day more, and perform better. These are just some of the ways that you can change your thinking if you want to change your life. There are lots of excellent books already on the topic of thought and I highly recommend some of the following: Secrets of the Millionaire Mind by T Harv Eker The Values Factor by Dr John DeMartini A Return to Love by Marianne Williamson The Science of Getting Rich by Wallace D Wattles The Master Key System by Charles F Haanel Hopefully you find these ways of thinking helpful I know that when I have applied some of these principles in my own life, the results have been staggering. Feel free to leave a comment, agree or disagree! Andy
7/8
8/8