Master your thoughts to achieve your dreams

To achieve your dreams, goals, and desires it means mastering your thoughts, and mastering your thoughts means you must master your attention.   [00:01:08] Hey, it’s Penny here, and back with another episode of Design Your Destiny. I’ve been having a lot of conversations about thoughts and feelings and what comes first when we are dealing with our mindset. So many people, myself included I used to be one of these people, get caught up in doing all of the things that we have to do. I mean, as a responsible business owner there is a time in business where you’re juggling a lot of balls in the air, and then you are begging to build teams. Then you’re juggling becoming a leader and handing things off. Then you’re moving into refining the way in which you do things, which hopefully you’re refining the way you do things all along. But as we know there are bottlenecks that we can get into in business. When it comes to these things we can really get bogged down in following through on the actions. We can even step into a place of, you know, forgetting. Not consciously choosing, but we lose sight of our goals, and we become focused on achieving these short-term gains that get us to our goals. When we are focusing all of our attention on the reward of the short-term gain we are getting these little dopamine hits, right? It can condition our brain to continually be looking for the next thing that we need to do.    [00:03:16] When we are head down in the doing of our business, all of the things that must be done, the things that must be handled. Until we get to a point where we can hand these things off. our minds can go into a state of habit. Just head down get it done, head down get it done. Sometimes when we do these things we’re in the zone, we’re in flow. Our emotional mind is pushed to the side, and we’re focused in, and things are just flowing through and we are oblivious to the world around us. But, other times we are doing things out of habit. It's just another task that has to be done ‘oh my gosh let me put my head down, let me get this done’, and when we are working out of habit we are not being mindful. When we are not being mindful our subconscious mind is running the show underneath the surface.    [00:04:16] Now you may say habits are good. Habits are good things, yes. Habits are good things, but when we operate out of habit, meaning that we are not being mindful of what we are doing and our attention actually on the task. Then we actually have subconscious thoughts that run all the time. It’s like the monkeys in the circus they just don’t stop. Unless you learn to be mindful and quiet your mind. Because you can be working on something out of habit. Say it is a task you don’t like very much and you haven’t outsourced it yet, or you’re in a crunch and you're like you know what in the time it takes me, and this is actually a bad habit to have in business I know that, in the time that it takes me to communicate this, make sure it gets done, and report it back. I can just do it faster myself. So there comes a point in business when that becomes a control issue, but when you're new and you’re learning to navigate those things. It’s easy to fall into, I know because I’ve been there. I have had to force myself to step back, be patient, and hand things off unless it’s urgent. But, you know, when you're doing these things, your mind is underneath the surface, you know, ‘I don't want to be doing this’. You may not be thinking about it when you’re doing it you’re going through the motions, but your mind is going through all of these stressful thoughts underneath. Like when is the pressure going to end, how long are we going to keep doing this, right, I need some help. It creates stress and tension in our body, or the other side of that could be if you have someone on your team that was doing this before and let’s say you got burned. Underneath the surface, your mind could be going you know what I can’t find anyone I trust to do this, I can’t find anyone who speaks in my voice, I can't find anyone who is consistent and stays on task. Why can't I hire anyone good? You may not be thinking these things, but the mind is running them underneath the surface.    [00:06:37] So these thoughts they are reinforcing the idea that you can’t, they are reinforcing the limitations in your mindset, in your business. Even if you have the intention to go out and hire someone, and hire a team. It might delay that decision, and you don’t even understand really why you’re delaying the decision, but it’s because you burned this story subconsciously in your mind so many times that there is a sense of you could say dread. There could be resentment from past experiences, there could be feelings of not trusting yourself to not get the right team. I would say that thought of, you know, ‘I don’t know enough to hire the right team member’. That is my notification of a knowledge gap, but if it's going into the ‘I'm not smart enough to do this’ then it is going into a self-esteem issue. So, these thoughts can run underneath the surface.    [00:07:45] Now this pattern can apply to business deals, it can apply to joint ventures, it can apply to partnerships, it could apply to restructuring your business. Thoughts can run underneath the surface in regards to anything, and it can be limiting your choices in your business because you may lack the focus, you may lack the clarity, you may get the sense that something doesn’t feel right about a situation, but you don’t know why. So, you pass on it, and later you’re like ‘damn that would’ve been the best opportunity. I don’t know why I passed on that!’ and it is because whatever the undercurrent running is subconsciously it didn’t feel like a good thing to do.      [00:08:49] So, if you want to get the most out of your business if you want to get the most out of your life. You must master your attention, and when you master your attention you will master your thoughts because you cannot master your thoughts unless your attention is on what you are thinking unless your attention is on what you are doing. So, that your subconscious mind is not running the show. You do not have to be a yogi or an expert on meditation. Those kinds of things to master your attention, to master your thoughts. It takes practice, it takes time, but spending that little bit of effort to notice what it is you're thinking, to observe your thoughts while you are doing a task will make a difference. Because you might be surprised to find what's running through your mind.    [00:10:03] It begins to creep out into other areas of your life right? They mentioned something and they started their statement with the words “what if?”. And my response to them was “have you considered that  ‘what if?’ is the seeds of anxiety? It's the fertile ground. It’s where it all starts. And they replied with “well, I thought asking ‘what if?’ was a good thing’. Like what if this problem happens, what if this doesn’t work out, or what if this integration fails? Now, to give you some perspective on this, in business we need to anticipate, right? So, whether you're someone in tech building funnels and automation, and those things. Or, you know, you’re in anesthesia, like I was, and you’re dealing with critically ill patients, or you know, you are a COO in a company and you’re rolling out something new it is your job to anticipate there things may get a little bumpy, may get a little rocky and to make sure you have things and people in place to lifeguard those areas to keep things running smoothly. Well, that’s fine in business. It’s fine to sit there and say ‘what if a client comes in at this stage and this and this what happens, what happens next, and what happens next?’ So that you can identify any breakdowns and make sure those don’t happen so you’re clients, your customers, your partners, whoever it is have a really good experience. However, if this becomes a habit and a pattern of thinking and we don’t have that awareness this “what if?” can become a pattern in our everyday life. It can become a pattern in our own interactions with people around us. In our own interactions with different situations. So, now what we are doing is future surfing, we are out here giving our brain all these made-up scenarios that are potentially unsafe, they're unpleasant. And what are we doing? We are stimulating our nervous system, We are stimulating our nervous system, and it's going to be like ‘wait a minute why would I want to go into this partnership, my god all these terrible things might happen!’ then all these feelings come up and when all these feelings come up you don’t have the clarity, and you don’t have the objectivity to make a good and healthy decision for your business. You don’t have the clarity and objectivity to make a good and healthy decision for yourself.       [00:13:20] So, ways of thinking, ways of questioning, ways of evaluating things can become a habit. And that habit doesn’t stop with the business and it doesnt start with the troubleshooting. That habit will carry over into every area of your life. So, asking what if does seem like it could be a good thing because it helps you to deliver a service when you’re in the business of troubleshooting things for people and making sure things go smoothly, and implementing better systems. But you don’t want that to come into other areas of the business because it will slow you down, it will limit you. So, look at what it is that you are saying to yourself and say ‘ when I ask myself this question how is that making me feel? How is it making me feel?’ You know, is it a valid question to ask? Is the answer something that is preposterous, right? So if the answer is something that is just out of this world and makes no sense but its driving all of these feelings inside of you, you know you’re asking a very bad question. If you have to ask yourself ‘what if’ ask yourself “what if it all turns out just fine?” Right, I don’t even like asking what if. I actually discourage my clients from asking that question cause nine times out of ten when they ask what if their mind is looking for worst-case scenarios. It is looking for danger to avoid and that is because your brain is wired to survive. So this is a natural response unless you master your attention, so you can master your thinking.   [00:15:12] So, hopefully, that example really comes across and it helps you to take a deeper look at the way you are using your thoughts, the way you asking yourself questions. Because, you know, once I had this conversation with this person around what if. It really began to knock down a lot of dominoes over the way they were thinking about different things. And this person, you know, someone in well versed in sales psychology, they're well versed in human response, and how important words are. But they had never stopped to think about how these words are impacting their sense of safety. And when I say sense of safety I’m saying from a brain-based standpoint. But the sense that everything is okay that they're smart enough, they’re good enough, and that things are gonna work out okay they can trust themselves. Because your self-talk, your inner thoughts that inner voice it will undermine your self-confidence, your self-esteem, and your self-trust. If you ever get into the habit of asking yourself questions that create this doubt, this worry. So, really if you want to achieve your dreams, your goals, your desires master your attention. In everything that you do be mindful. If you are reading a book, be mindful. If someone sends you a text message and you just made a cup of coffee and you’re going to pick up the cup of coffee stop paying attention to the phone for two seconds and be mindful as you pick up that cup of coffee because nine times out of ten if you bump that cup of coffee and you spill it or you dump it on your shirt it’s because your attention was somewhere else and you were acting out of habit that didn't have the full focus of your attention and you dumped your coffee on your shirt. Ask me how I know, I’ve been there.   [00:17:40] Even though this episode has been short there is actually some very potent information here for you, and I would love to know how you’re able to take what I shared with you today and implement it in your life as you go about mastering your thoughts and mastering your attention so that you have the focus and clarity that allows you to just do what needs to be done in your business and to do it without being in your feelings and emotions. As we all know is what allows you to make good and objective decisions in your business as you grow it, as you scale it, and as you build those relationships that allow you to create a legacy that's something that you have always looked for. So, I would look forward to hearing from you you can screenshot this episode, you can share it on Instagram, you can DM me I’m on Facebook, I’m on Instagram, I'm on LinkedIn. I would love to know your thoughts and how this is impacting the way you approach your mindset and your life.