What if it isn’t hard to change?

Last week in step 1 we discussed that in order to program our autopilot for success we need a high level goal.  I also shared my high level goal with you.   You’ll have to let us know if you came up with one that makes your heart leap.

Training Your Mind for Success: Step 2

I ran into a mental context this past Friday that was, at least, if not pleasant, instructive.

con·text

n.

1. The part of a text or statement that surrounds a particular word or passage and determines its meaning.

2. The circumstances in which an event occurs; a setting

Anger and blame and then, more of both.  This guy was mad. It was somebody’s fault.  Not his. No, not his.  Somebody made him mad.

That kind of thinking takes place in a common mental context.  One in which  other people have the power to make a person angry. 

Fuming, blaming and criticizing the other person’s behavior with clenched jaws, this guy did not want to hear my questions.

“How much of your life do you want to spend angry?”  He just blinked at me.  “No one,” I told him, “can actually make you angry. You have to choose it.  If you say ‘he makes me mad,’ then I say you are lying.  If you say ‘I got mad about  what he is doing, then I think you are telling the truth.  Why are you choosing to spend your life angry?”

There was a shift in his mental context.  It made sense to him.  “You’re right, I’m choosing to be angry.”  We had, for a little while, a more constructive conversation.  Even more instructively, it didn’t last long.

Just as through repetition we’ve taught our mental autopilot how to drive a car for us  (see “You Should Be Committed” part 1) we’ve also taught our mental autopilot how to think for us.  Just as we have driving habits, we have thinking habits.

In this case his conscious mind chose to think differently for a few minutes and then his autopilot, his thinking habit if you will, kicked back in and he became too upset to talk further.

I observed this with regretful eyes because I spent 10 years of my life doing the same thing.   I was the angry man.  It was so easily justifiable, so clear – even.  So stupid, really. 

I figured out, eventually, that the people I was angry at were enjoying themselves, while I was home gnashing my teeth – for years.  The only thing I accomplished was diminishing my own life and that of my loved ones.  Now and then, I still find myself visiting victim land but I’m no longer a permanent resident vying for a leadership position. 

Its not that life is giving me fewer opportunities to be angry.  The universe hasn’t started running the way I think it should.  There are the same infinite number or reasons to be angry now as there were back then.  I just realized that there are also an infinite number of reasons to feel joyful too.  Then I asked myself how much time do I want to spend feeling angry versus feeling joyful.  Duh. 

I also got to wondering what choosing to be angry does for me.  Eventually I realized I use it to avoid looking in the mirror -  to avoid looking closely at my own behavior.  It is far easier to blame pretty much anything or anyone else.  What scared me, accepting responsibility, turns out to be a great source of joy.  Really.  This continues to be a big surprise to me.

Choosing to blame negative feelings or unhappy life circumstances on others is victim thinking.  We all know a professional victim or two.  It is not a successful thinking habit.  I suspect most of us are, at least, amateurs at it at various times in our life.  Really successful people don’t do it.

Training Your Mind for Success

Step 1 is to give yourself a high level goal.

Step 2 is to accept responsibility for your mental context – your mindset – and hold yourself accountable for improving it every day for the rest of your life.

till·er/?til?r/

Noun:

1. A horizontal bar fitted to the head of a boat’s rudder post and used for steering.
2. An implement or machine for breaking up soil; a plow or cultivator.

This is where you put your hand on the tiller and begin steering.  Your mindset is your tiller.  The wind and the currents will carry you somewhere.  They may do so anyway.  They will certainly try.  Not to mention the economy, family and friends, the news or a host of other forces that will gladly steer your life if you choose to let them. 

Will you choose to let them?  Or, will you choose your own course?

"Damn the torpedoes, Full speed ahead!"

Admiral David Glasgow Farragut (1801-1870). Aboard Hartford, Farragut entered Mobile Bay, Alabama, 5 August 1864, in two columns, with armored monitors leading and a fleet of wooden ships following. When the lead monitor Tecumseh was demolished by a mine, the wooden ship Brooklyn stopped, and the line drifted in confusion toward Fort Morgan. As disaster seemed imminent, Farragut gave the orders embodied by these famous words. He swung his own ship clear and headed across the mines, which failed to explode. The fleet followed and anchored above the forts, which, now isolated, surrendered one by one. The torpedoes to which Farragut and his contemporaries referred would today be described as tethered mines.
[Hearn, Chester G. Admiral David Glasgow Farragut: The Civil War Years. (Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1988): 263-265. According to the book by Admiral Farragut's son, The Life of David Glasgow Farragut, First Admiral of the United States Navy, (New York: D. Appleton and Company, 1879), pages 416-417, Admiral Farragut said "Damn the torpedoes! Four bells! Captain Crayton, go ahead! Joucett, full speed!"] from http://www.history.navy.mil/trivia/trivia02.htm

One ship destroyed in front of him, another frozen in fear, drifting towards disaster Farragut had a few excuses available for not going forward.  His mindset didn’t lead him to accept them.  His mindset steered him to take another path, one that led him to the results he wanted.  The mindset comes first, then the actions, then the results.  Are you willing to take ownership of your mindset?  Will you own your own ship?

My high level goal, my Big Hairy Audacious Goal (BHAG), is to help add 10,000 jobs to our area’s economy over the next two years.  I need quite a mindset to achieve this objective.  There are a couple of torpedoes to be damned along the way.  How will I strengthen my mindset to match this task?

To be committed is to do what is necessary to get your autopilot on board with the commitment every day.  Doing this in a way that you will stick to and continue is the key. 

You and I should be committed.  Next we’ll look at some “insignificant” ways to make significant changes on a daily basis.  Stay tuned.

Consider strengthening your commitment to run a successful and profitable business by attending one of our upcoming workshops.

Business BootCAMP starts February 27th.

Business GrowthCLUB March 30th

Your unreasonable friend,

Dennis

216-965-9129