No matter how imperfect I am at it, I spend much of my focus on mindset and sharing the knowledge I have of the subject, my successes and failures, and my hope that people are better able to focus on how they want to think and feel versus have their emotions and lives dictated for them.  I whole-heartedly believe we have spent too much time receiving input on what is important to us rather than learning how to discern and feel what is actually important to us.  We are fed narratives about what happiness is and what success looks and feels like, and what we need to achieve to hit either of those markers.  But we spend little time discussing the importance of peace, of value, of time well spent, and the power that comes from knowing/honoring/believing in ourselves and our abilities and even less time working on connection and understanding the similarities in humanity.  We have misconstrued power over other people as the marker of true power and success when we should be looking at the power of personal mastery and recognition of our own goals and what is important to us.  The power that comes from honing our skills and then applying them to help people around us.  The power that comes from a solid foundation in our personal values.  When we are solid there, nothing can sway us from knowing who we are.

Over the last several years I’ve worked deeply in mindset work and one thing that stays constant in all aspects is that our mindset will determine our results.  In the last two weeks I’ve heard a quote (or parts of quotes mashed together) from Michael Jordan used several times by other motivational and inspirational speakers as well as some self-help enthusiasts and it’s simplicity holds a strong truth: Jordan says something along the lines of, “Spending time in the mind gym is just as important as spending time in the physical gym; [We can] turn fear into anger, you can run from fear or you can get angry and attack it; I think people like Julius Erving, Denzel Washington, Spike Lee, and Martin Luther King, people I admire, all created their own vision.”  It speaks of the truth of a few things: one, we have power when we have clarity and control over our emotions, and mindset is a practice like any other skill we want to become successful with.  Speaking from personal experience, I am well aware of how much time it takes to master some feeling of control over the mind.  I am aware of the roller coaster of getting close to where we want to be and then falling into old habits.  I am aware of feeling safe with old habits but what we have to talk about with habit is programming.  We fall into old habits because it’s a program well engrained and practiced in our mind.  That means we can learn a new one.

I experience frustration every time I fall back into old habits but one thing I’m learning about is the rebound.  Habits are so automatic we often don’t have the chance to stop them before we repeat them but I believe with all of my being that we are capable of doing just that and thinking entirely new thoughts instead.  While I haven’t replaced all of those thoughts yet, I am absolutely able to add another thought to the negative thought pattern: STOP, that isn’t how I want to feel.  That act alone brings me closer to how I want to feel and the interruption of a pattern serves to start breaking the pattern.  It isn’t until we have control over those patterns and our thoughts that we are able to start a new pattern, and it isn’t until we are clear on our values, beliefs, goals, and how we want to feel that we know we need to stop the old pattern.  Start evaluating life in a new way.  Ask ourselves if this is really on par with how we want to feel.  Asking if it’s what we want to have leaves opportunity to miss the mark so it’s important to ask how we want to feel as that’s a better guide toward purpose.  As we practice more and more, the shorter time it takes for us to rebound and go in another direction.  That’s a skill we need to master on the way toward mastering our thoughts.  Mindset truly is the key and we need to practice the skills of exercising it.