“When we choose not to focus on what is missing from our lives but are grateful for the abundance that is present, we experience heaven on earth”
Sarah Ban Breathnach
This phrase caught my eye. It is simple, yet it is so hard for everyone to do. Why is it so hard for people to focus on doing just that?
Look at the story of Elizabeth Collins, published in “The Ascent” online magazine, for example. Her revealing article “Do You Focus on Everything You Don’t Have?” tells us a story about how our minds work. She grew up in a neighbourhood with people who lacked money; no one believed she could make it to college. But she did. She worked full time and completed her undergraduate course in 12 long years. When one of the lawyers at her law firm showed interest in her, she admitted she was flattered. One year down the relationship, she knew he was an alcoholic but avoided all the signals she constantly saw. She ended up with a lot of hurt, pain, fear, shattered dreams and got distracted from work, depressed and tired of life.
In her own words, she wrote,
“If I had felt that my life without him was good enough and that I was enough, I wouldn’t have let this happen. I would have put myself first and left when it became clear that he had problems that I couldn’t help him with”. Unfortunately, she was not the only one with similar happenings, and there are many more. This realization made her move from her troubled life to a better life with time.
Let us look deeply at Elizabeth’s story above. Why did she make the wrong decision when she knew full well that the relationship would not work out due to his alcoholism? Why did she ‘possibly’ give away few years of her life, leading to almost costing her the life she worked so hard to build? What leads her to make the wrong choice?
Mindset… The mindset that she was not adequate or deserved to be happy. An attitude that made her underestimate her potential in her career. A perspective that underestimated her worth as a person.
However successful you are as a person, if you have deep down beliefs of your childhood planted by your parents, teachers, relatives, neighbours, about your lack of worthiness….you will make wrong choices in life. These bad choices will make you go off track of your dream path, cost you pain, misery, heartache and those around you as well. But, if you can find the courage to come out of the situation, with the help from your peers, friends and most importantly, yourself….you will bounce back to be a far better person. But it takes years to make that shift, and unfortunately, many people don’t do so often and opt to live a sad life.
The same goes for people stuck in their careers. Some people are unhappy with their jobs, and they feel stuck and cannot move on. They focus on the negative aspects of lack of specific skill sets, security issues, everything why they can’t move out of the said career, instead of looking around to see if you can find pathways first and then work on a career transition plan. We underestimate our worthiness to be happy in doing something we love.
What are some mind hacks we can adapt to?
Know part of the problem is not you but your mindset.
Mindset is just a part of you, which can define your well-being and where you are today, but it’s not totally and fully YOU. What you need first to understand is if the mindset is putting you on the right pathway or not. If not, you need to understand your mindset has a problem. Just like we go to a doctor when we are physically sick, you need to treat your mindset starting somewhere. Whether you will work things out, or you need to have a chat with a trustworthy or you go to a life coach or a counsellor is your choice.
Book a consultation with yourself
One trick that has worked wonderfully well for me is when I am feeling down, I book some time with myself in a beautiful surrounding where you don’t get disturbed. It can be a coffee shop, by the sea, a mountain area, or where ever you have undisturbed access to have a genuine conversation with yourself. When I talk with my mind seriously, I write everything I feel in a book, looking at how the thoughts have generated, trying to get to the bottom of what is going on in my mind, and why I am getting such ideas. I identify the bottlenecks that my mind has seen and trying to prevent me from getting hurt. If just one day is not enough, you can do this a few times until you understand the story of your mind.
Have a chat with a trustworthy person/life coach
Believe insincerely when you have a problem. The solution is also within you. You need someone to help you get the key out of yourself, not for them to tell you what you do. In the end, mountains have been moved just because you made that choice, not someone else who made it for you. People such as life coaches are incredibly talented objective listeners. They can guide you through a pathway to narrow down your thinking, and the end of the tunnel is your solution.
Start to maintain a ‘thank you’ journal
To appreciate the things around you every morning, start maintaining a thank you journal every day in the morning. You will begin to see, and you have so many things in life that you can be thankful for which you didn’t see before. When you start to do this exercise often, the problems you saw as a mountain once will sink into its natural size, easy to deal size. Then it’s a matter of doing things needed to pass that hurdle in life.
Keep telling yourself ‘you are worthy of happiness
As described above, many times, feeling unworthy of yourself, believing you don’t deserve to be happy (not on the surface outside the mind, but deep within yourself), you will never have the power to move out of the situations. You need to train your mind you are worthy of happiness. As you start to believe in this fully and honestly, you will begin to see the progress you are making towards overcoming the same hurdle in front of you. Having this thinking gives you the courage to take steps. Until you have this mind shift, you will never be able to walk with confidence down the road. This mind shift change no one else can do for you, which is why many therapy sessions fail. This mind shit change only you will be able to make.
This is one example of how a mindset of not having or being enough can hurt you. It can keep you so focused on what you think you have to have that you don’t see what you already ARE Every day we get to choose how we’ll think. We can think about what we don’t have, what we do have, or a balance of the two. I always try for compensation. Live in the present moment and pay attention to the good things in your life, no matter how small. All you need is your health, a sharp mind, belief in yourself, and an environment that you can thrive in. You got this!
