Feeling stuck? The roadblock is probably all in your head.
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“Progress is impossible without change, and those who cannot change their minds cannot change anything.” ~ George Bernard Shaw
The power to change our minds is arguably the greatest power we have as human beings.
From making a different decision about what to have for breakfast — the sugar-laden Coco Puffs or the nutrient-packed Greek yogurt and fruit — to shifting our core beliefs about what we deserve and what is possible in our lives, we control our outcomes by choosing our thoughts.
If you’re stuck in a dead-end job, or climbing a career ladder in a profession that leaves you cold, you won’t change direction until you change your mind. Until you make a different decision about what work you want to do, until you make a different decision about what skills you’re going to develop. Until you make a different decision about the professional connections you make and nurture. Until you make different decisions about dozens of choices you make weekly, even daily, you’ll stay stuck in the course you’re on.
If you’re stuck in emotions that tear you down any time you try to make progress in your life then you may need to change your mind about yourself, about others, and your world.
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If you’re stuck with what seems to be an impossible dream, you won’t come unstuck until you change your mind about how that dream is designed. If it requires that you live in a house that is being torn down to make way for a super highway then what you believe about your dream makes it impossible. But if your dream is designed around a house that looks a certain way, feels a certain way, offers certain amenities or is close to certain features such as a beach or a bubbling brook that talks to you all day then new possibilities open up.
If you’re stuck in emotions that tear you down any time you try to make progress in your life then you may need to change your mind about yourself, about others, and your world. Maybe you need to change your mind about blaming others — not because no one else has ever done anything to you that was wrong, but because blaming them robs you of your power to change your circumstances. Maybe you need to change your mind about individuals in your life, or groups of people in your community — not because everyone is good, but because so long as you believe that people are generally not good you’ll be blind to the good in people. Maybe you need to change your mind about your ability to make a difference in the world — not because any of us can change the whole world, but because we are all responsible for how we change the world just by being in it.
No matter where you’re stuck, or what seems to be the obstacle that has you mired, chances are that the first thing you need to change is your mind.
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Photo: Flickr/BK
I listen to Ted Talk where a former New Zealand inmate Paul Wood talk about people’s minds act like a prison and what people need to do to free themselves. I highly recommend it.
Dixie, I love your gentle, nurturing tone while giving firm advice to the reader: be honest with self in order to re-evaluate and move forward. Valuable message. Well written.