Life is actually good, even when it isn’t, but somehow, we think things always go against us and we subconsciously keep looking for affirmation of that. Instead of seeing that today we have another day where we can create our story, we dread getting up in the morning. We complain how busy we are in our jobs, instead of being grateful that we have a job. We complain about our spouse texting us about some meaningless thing and get annoyed at her, when we should be grateful that she wants to communicate. We rather whinge about being held up in traffic by every light turning red, instead of considering that we may have been slowed down to not be in an accident. We focus on all the things that are going against us. We create a space of negativity, enforce limited thinking and by doing so we limit ourselves. We don’t think that life can be different. Instead of pondering what life could be, we paralyse ourselves with limited thinking. We keep repeating the past instead of creating a new future. We keep thinking the same way over and over again and stay in the limitations of our own thinking, reinforcing a life lived by limitations.
When we consider a job, for instance, or what is possible in terms of payment, we think that can only be paid a certain amount, because we talk to others, we do market research, and so on. We don’t consider that maybe our skills are more valuable and as such we can ask for more money, or ask for additional benefits that most people may not have. We may also think that we have keep having this ill-fitted job to pay the mortgage when there actually is a better suited one with more money and better benefits out there. We kill any possibility, or chance, of a different life before it even takes its first breath. Just because it hasn’t been done before, or happened before, does not mean that it is not possible but we rather think that way. Think about professional athletes though. Do you think that the few men in the 1960s who crossed the 100m line in under ten seconds for the first time, since being able to electronically record sprinting time, were thinking that it wasn’t possible? No, of course not. If they thought it wasn’t possible they would not have achieved it, but they didn’t let the past rule the future. They thought it was possible. And ever since then the sprinting time keeps being broken. It doesn’t happen all the time and not every year, but none-the-less it happens, and those that do it don’t let anyone stop them.
The only ones who give up before they even start are the ones who live in the prison they have created for themselves. The prison is made up of bars of limited thoughts. It is those very bars that are holding you back. You have spent many years carefully building this prison by the limitations that you put upon yourself and the thinking that runs in endless loops looking for problems where there are none. But…. you are right. If you think something can’t be done, it won’t be. If you think you can’t win, you won’t win. Let’s also get clear on one thing, it is not a circumstance that is holding you back either, it is you. Your choice of attaching to the circumstance, instead of letting go and moving on, is what keeps you stuck in this mind-fuckery. It is not your partner or your friends either. If they actually discourage you from whatever it is you want to undertake, maybe they are not the right people to hang out with in the first place, but it is up to you.
You may say you have problems though and as such these problems prevent you from doing something else in your life or with your life. You have a job that stresses you out, your co-workers take time off when a critical deadline is due, you think you have just made a mistake in a high-stake deal, for some reason Rosey doesn’t talk to you anymore even though you have been nice to her, Jimmy isn’t texting you quickly enough so maybe he has moved on, your child hasn’t washed their hands before dinner,…. I could write pages upon pages with things we think are problems, when they are actually not. You may have a stressful job, but it is how you manage stress that is important. Think about your co-workers, they don’t seem to care about the time-line, so why do you worry so much about it? Do you think worrying about it will help you get the project done in time? You may have made a mistake, but guess what, we all sometimes make mistakes. Rosey may not want to talk to you, or anyone for that matter, because she has had no sleep all night. Jimmy may be on a phone-detox and as such is not texting you, or anyone else.
Most often the problems that we think we have, are not even real but we have manufactured something in our heads about something or someone. Instead of questioning the validity of those thoughts, we give them space to roam freely in our head and we even get other people involved. We go to others under the pretence that we need to have our problems solved, when in reality we are seeking validation and to get others’ buy-in. And when we have talked to everyone who is willing to listen, we spend more thinking about them or on what possible other problems there are. We start creating this loop of filling our time with thinking about “problems” that we don’t have, talking about them, validating them, to then trying to solve them to make space for the next problem to be solved. We rob ourselves not only of precious sleep, because most of the ‘how to solve a problem’-thinking happens right before we fall asleep, but also of all the time we could spend on working on our dreams. We let our faux problems fester and grow into something so large that we think our world is caving in soon. And by now we actually have a real problem. We have built a prison in our heads with all these problems that aren’t real and we spend our time either creating problems, or solving problems and by doing so create more problems so we can keep ourselves stuck in our prison instead of breaking out.
And even if we are not focused on any problems for once, we talk ourselves out of anything that possibly could be achieved. If you don’t think it possible, it won’t. If you think others only achieve something because they are an outlier, and you are not, then that is your choice. You absolutely can be the outlier but you have to consider removing the ‘im’ from ‘impossible’. You will always be right in your thinking. But if you consider that there is a possibility that it can be done, you will leave no stone unturned to get there. You will do whatever it takes to get there and leave your problems, that aren’t real, behind. You will stop putting limitations on yourself and consider any possibility. And just because it doesn’t happen the first time when you try, doesn’t mean it will never happen.
I will leave you with one final comment to ponder about: In case you think you need to spend time looking for a key, the door to your prison has never been locked, you just need to swing it wide open and step outside into a world filled with endless possibilities.