Are your dominant thoughts keeping your world small or opening up a world of possibilities?

I have a quote in a frame on a shelf by my front door and it reads:

And you ask “What if I fall?”

Oh but my darling, what if you fly?

It’s by the poet Erin Hanson and was written when she was 18 years old. The full verse is:

There is freedom waiting for you,

On the breezes of the sky, And you ask "What if I fall?" 

Oh but my darling, What if you fly?

It’s an important daily reminder, and I do read it every single day as I walk past it, to call out my self-limiting beliefs, and to keep pushing myself forward to achieve my desired goals.

For it is the nature of our thoughts that will shape our life- how we think about what we think about, including the way we think about things we don’t choose to happen to us in life. It’s the dominant thoughts to be consciously aware of, and whether they are keeping our world small, or enabling us to embrace the opportunities.

Thoughts come and go- it is said over 70,000 of them daily. Studies show that 95% of our thinking is subconscious, which means that just 45 minutes of our thoughts are conscious in our waking hours.  Most of the time, we don’t even know what we are thinking about, but the way those thoughts show up, for want of a better phrase, will be evidenced through our emotions; so, when we’re feeling anxious, concerned, worried, unhappy, disappointed etc, it’s important to take a beat and think about the thoughts that those feelings stem from. Some of those thoughts could be self-limiting beliefs but we might not recognise them as such- taking them as lore- as the absolute truth about ourselves without ever questioning them. If we actually thought about the factual basis for these self-limiting beliefs, much of the time, there wouldn’t be any- they would be based on negativity and fear and are often a defence mechanism to ensure we don’t harm ourselves emotionally. They perpetuate our version of what normal is to us, not wanting to change anything, not wishing to entertain any kind of risk.

Lost in music

I needed to remind myself of Erin Hanson’s quote recently when the fear kicked in around a gig I was going to. We’d managed to get four tickets to see a band that myself and my three teenagers love. Buying five tickets wasn’t an option which meant my husband couldn’t come. This meant me driving the 200-mile round trip to a venue I hadn’t driven to on my own before. The self-limiting beliefs started to kick in. What’s more, I’d been recommended to park at a nearby shopping mall as apparently, it’s less hassle than getting out of the venue car park. That option meant getting to and from the venue via the multi-storey parking, on top of the driving. I’m not a huge fan of multi-storey car parks- Park n Ride is more my thing, but the time factor was important if it meant we might get home more quickly on a school night.

On the days leading up to the gig, I realised my thoughts were of an arduous 200 miles, whether I might get lost en route, the difficulties of negotiating an unknown multi-storey car park in my Mum Bus (as I affectionately call my car), how difficult the travel to and from the car park and the venue might be, possibly missing the start of the gig, messing the whole trip up- dominant thoughts pervading my mind.

Wow! A great mindset to get myself into ahead of what should be an exciting experience; not exactly a resourceful mindset to be in.

It’s important to remember:

You move towards your dominant thought.
What you think about most of the time you become.
What you concentrate on you bring into your life.

How about:

Might they be a better way to reframe the situation?

Mindset reset

Whenever we are in a goal-orientated state of mind, we will adopt one of three modes of thinking:

1. Expecting failure
2. Trying to avoid failure
3. Expecting success

Most people adopt mindset number 2 – they don’t like the feeling of expecting to fail, so they give it a ‘try’. But as Yoda said: "Do or do not, there is no try." A wise being indeed.

Do things go wrong in life? Yes. But optimists accept things can go wrong but expect to cope. If we are trying to avoid failure, the dominant thought and feeling is failure, and the brain cannot be resourceful when in a negative state.

If we expect success, it’s important that it’s knowing the elements that we have power and influence over in the situation. For me, it was looking into the location of the car park, downloading an app to make it a smooth process, and knowing the transport links to the venue.

Does adopting an expect success mindset 100% guarantee things will go your way? No, but it will significantly stack the cards in your favour because you are much more likely to be in a solution-orientated state of mind.

We once worked with a group of GCSE students as they approached their exams. At the beginning of the 10-week sessions, they admitted they were dreading their exams and didn't expect to do well. We worked with them on turning around that mindset and by the end of the sessions, just one week from taking their exams, they all said they felt confident they could do their best, that they would have an open mindset to succeeding, and knew this was key to being able to access all the knowledge they had in their subconscious.

Their results? The school went from 27th in the County league table, to 3rd. The teaching hadn't changed, nor the parental/carer input, but the students' attitude had. They expected success.

Our mindset plays such a huge part in our success.
That's why it's so important to be aware of what your dominant thoughts are.

Check-up from the neck-up

Whenever you tell yourself, or anyone else, that you can’t do something, the question to ask yourself is: “Is it that I can’t or is it that I don’t want to badly enough?” An interesting one to ponder I always think… There is such a key difference between the two.

If you want to do anything but it feels challenging, that you’ll feel out of your comfort zone and you don’t quite know how you’re going to achieve it, it’s important to find a big enough emotional benefit because then your brain will help you to find a way.   

And seeing the band I liked was a big enough emotional benefit for me to take on the 200-mile round trip, negotiate the car park, then get to and from the venue. It was more important to focus on the ‘why’ of the trip which was to see the band live, and the shared experience with my children, as opposed to fearing the driving, navigation etc.

It’s important to remember that the only thing that stands between you and your ideal life, is your inability to manage around, include or where possible eliminate unhelpful emotions such as fear of failure, procrastination and inertia. There may well be lighthouses in your way- those things that you have no power and influence over, but it's choosing to intelligently navigate your way around them, which might mean giving yourself some time. 

I’m not saying you should never have negative emotions because that just isn’t realistic, but it’s being aware of them and ensuring they don’t keep your world small and limited. It’s about managing around them.

Apparently, Bruce Springsteen throws up before every performance (I have been told this and had it confirmed by another source but cannot find it anywhere on Google, so can it be true if it’s not on Google?!). It is said that Dame Judi Dench has terrible stage fright, yet she will manage around that emotion and still get out on stage to give stunning performance, after stunning performance. As Susan Jeffers would say, it’s about feeling the fear and doing it anyway.

And the gig? Bloomin awesome and how pleased and proud of myself am I, that I didn’t allow the unhelpful dominant thoughts to prevail. I reframed them and gave myself a new narrative to sing along to!

Think about what challenges you currently face, perhaps a project coming up, an interview, meeting, presentation or an assessment. How are you currently thinking about it and what mode of thinking are you adopting? Expecting success won’t 100% guarantee everything will go your way, but preparation and a solution-orientated attitude will give you access to a significant amount of knowledge you have in your subconscious.

Think more consciously about the way you are thinking about what you are thinking about. It will mean you embrace more opportunities. You will call yourself out when you allow unhelpful dominant thoughts to keep your world small- when you're expecting failure, or trying to avoid it. When you work on the nature of your thoughts, it will mean you have more courage, determination and tenacity.

Rather than worrying about falling, how about expecting to fly?

Empowering stuff eh?!

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