Child-like mindset
For children, life is an open field of discovery and possibilities. Everything is possible. When in a loving environment full of love, encouragement, and opportunity to learn and grow, they believe they can do anything and become anyone. When asked at one point or another, my own children chose the future profession of princess or superhero. They have voiced wanting to be a fireman or doctor. They believe they can do anything because, at that point in their lives, failure isn’t even a thing.
Failure doesn’t even exist.
But as we grow older and try new things, we begin to see things don’t work out the way we initially thought. The way people in our lives react to our failure or the words spoken to us concerning that lack of immediate success can cause our own self-talk to change immensely.
A child is told NO thousands if not hundreds of thousands of times before two years old. Parents have an automatic response to say no.
- No, don’t touch that.
- No, you can’t do that.
- No, you aren’t big enough to do that.
- No, I don’t think you can.
It is customary for parents, including myself, to speak that negative talk daily. NO seems to fly out of my mouth before my brain even realizes what is being said! I’m not saying to let your two-year-old do everything they want, but I’m challenging the possibility, the decision, to reword those comments more positively,
- “No, you can’t touch that” can be reworded as “You may get hurt by doing that, let’s try this, or let me help you.”
- “No, you are not old enough yet, so you can’t do that” (possibly helping me cook dinner) can change to “Here help me with this part.”
- “No, you aren’t big enough to do that” can be “When you grow taller, you will be able to do this, how exciting! For now, let’s do this together, I will help show you how.”
Notice the flip from negative to positive?
As a result of having the NO thoroughly programmed in our minds, as adults, we start to talk poorly to ourselves and destroy our minds with self-doubt. Often our self talk consists of these thoughts:
- I can’t do that.
- I’m not smart enough.
- I already tried and wasn’t good enough.
- I tried and failed, so what’s the point of ever trying again.
I used to speak to myself that way too. Hell, I will be honest; I still do at times; this will be a life long process.
As I have developed myself in personal development, spent time learning how our minds work, and how whatever we THINK moves us in that direction, I have learned to make changes.
As soon as I recognize the negative thoughts, I change that same idea to a positive one.
- “I can’t do that” turns into “If others can, so can I.” or “I can do hard things.”
- “I’m not smart enough” turns into “I can learn anything.”
- “I tried and failed, so I won’t try again” turns into “My failures teach me lessons to reach my achievement.”
I have been practicing this for a few years now. I’m not perfect by any means! The more you train, the more naturally you can catch that negativity. You notice it far more quickly than ever before.
And something beautiful starts to happen, your life begins to change.
We will allow ourselves to become what we believe we are capable of.
We set the limit on ourselves.
On May 6, Roger Bannister became the first person to run a four-minute mile (3:59.4 to be exact). Before this, it was said to be physically impossible to run a four-minute mile. SO NOBODY did it, it was impossible, right? After Roger conquered this, what do you think happened? Numerous runners started reaching that goal and surpassing. Hircham El Guerrouj held the fastest four-minute mile at 3:43.13 in 1999.
Limiting beliefs are real, often self-imposed, and destroy our potential.
Sad. Can you imagine what we could accomplish if we didn’t set these limitations on ourselves? Here are four amazing stories of people who did not let failure stop them. What would you do if failure wasn’t a possibility?
- Michael Jordan has said, “I failed over and over again in my life. THAT is why I succeed“.
- Babe Ruth held the record for strikeouts for decades! He hit 714 home runs and struck out 1,330 times. But he still said, “Every strike brings me closer to the next home run.”
- When Julie Andrews took her first screen test for MGM studios, the final determination was that “she is not photogenic enough for a film.” That didn’t stop her.
- Thomas Edison failed 1,000 times while attempting the light bulb. He said, “I didn’t fail 1000 times. The light bulb was an invention with 1,000 steps“.
Do you see the commonality? Their mindset was not that of FAILURE, but of SUCCESS. They had an end goal, a vision. Even though they had not reached their goal yet, they all persisted. They reorganized, regrouped, learned from mistakes, and continued until that goal was attained.
We can do the same thing if we stop limiting ourselves. Anything is possible when you don’t give up.
It is okay to fail, make misjudgments and errors. This is EXPECTED. All part of learning! And quite frankly, if you are not making mistakes every day, you are not trying hard enough in life, not consistently growing as an individual.
If you need to hear it’s okay to fail, then right now, I’m giving you permission to do so.
But whatever you do, DO NOT GIVE UP if success is what you want the end result to be.
The only actual failure is giving up.
In the end, when you have tried, failed, and learned, then succeed?
Nobody focuses on those failures, all they see is the accomplishment.
Until next time
XO,
Sydney