Recently I’ve made a concerted effort to regain my self-belief and make my own mental shifts. As a parent, I’ve come to realize the challenge of simultaneously encouraging my children to dream big while occasionally having to say “no” to their constant requests.
I can relate to this because, as a child, I faced similar circumstances. My parents would fuel my imagination by telling me I could be the superhero I envisioned, but then they’d quickly pull me down from the roof as I attempted to learn how to fly. They’d inspire me to pursue my dream of owning a mountain in Colorado, where I’d hollow it out and have a giant volcano lab for inventing. I wanted to become an inventor like Thomas Edison and Nikola Tesla. However, these aspirations would often be overshadowed by discussions about practical career choices and a “realistic” future. These discussions would usually follow a talk about why taking apart whatever electronic device was not a good idea.
A lifetime of “No”
The problem worsened when my peers, teachers, coaches, and virtually everyone I interacted with seemed to only say “NO”. Over time, the chorus of voices telling me “I can’t” grew louder. It’s human nature to sometimes bring others down in an attempt to elevate oneself. Spending enough time around others can bury your dreams so deep that you wonder why you ever dreamed them in the first place. Other people’s expectations for you can start to dictate your own, and that’s the most disheartening part of it all. Childhood dreams of becoming a superhero, a firefighter, or making a significant impact on the world often fade away. Some people manage to keep those dreams alive. A lucky few rediscover them later in life. However, for the majority, those dreams wither and never resurface.
In the world of circuses, the most powerful and formidable animal is usually the elephant. While cages can restrain large cats, elephants possess such immense strength that few barriers can stop them. Circuses, therefore, employ a peculiar method: from a very young age, they fasten a barbed collar to the elephant’s leg, staking it to the ground. If the elephant attempts to escape, the barbs dig into its leg, causing excruciating pain. After enduring this ordeal numerous times, the elephant no longer tries to break free. As it grows, the memory of that pain lingers, and a simple rope is enough to remind it not to escape. Despite their immense power, these animals remain held back by a flimsy rope.
Reintroduced to my child mind
For my thirtieth birthday, my parents gave me a nostalgic gift. In the fourth grade, our teacher tasked us with creating a roadmap for our lives. While most kids outlined five to ten steps like “go to college,” “get married,” and “get a job,” I, in my usual fashion, mapped out thirty steps. The first eighteen were predictable stages like “being born,” “learning to walk,” “preschool,” and progressing through the K-12 grades. The other twelve steps included attending a specific college, excelling in sports there, serving in the Air Force, marrying at a particular age, retiring from the Air Force at thirty, becoming an inventor in Colorado, and oddly, dying at the age of 111. I even humorously drew a picture of my gravestone with the dates 1986-2097.
What delighted me as I look at this picture was the realization that I hadn’t abandoned my dream of becoming an inventor; it remains a goal I’m actively pursuing. I simply adjusted it a bit to fit in a career where I can make a living – Hardware Engineer.
However, what saddened me was discovering that I had given up on playing football for ASU and pursuing a career in the Air Force. I had allowed others’ negative opinions to convince me that I wasn’t cut out for football, that I was too slow or too weak. Moreover, my family discouraged my Air Force ambitions, while peers deemed them foolish. Even writing this now, I feel a pang of regret, as I’ve always yearned to fly, first as a superhero and later, more “realistically,” as a pilot. The child within me is urging me to dream big again, so on a whim, I’m adding it to my list of seemingly impossible goals, effective today. While I’m thinking big my desire to own a mountain in Colorado was rekindled. It is now on the list as well.
When I saw that life plan I’d drawn out and had these realizations, I made the choice to believe in myself once more, just as that young child had. Over the years, my mind has been teeming with dreams, but the narrative I’d absorbed had stopped their progress. They stayed dormant in the back of my mind, slowly starving until they eventually perished. So, I resolved to pull the script that had been playing on a loop in my head and rewrite it. If you’ve read this far without getting sidetracked, I sense that you may share some similarities with me. I hope this narrative inspires you to embark on a similar journey, taking control of your future as I am doing. Decide now that the opinions of others do not have to dictate your vision for yourself.
5 Mental Shifts
The first step in rewriting your mental script involves making five mental shifts to help believe in yourself again. I’m drawing these from an article I read on Inc.com, but I’ve rearranged them to align with what I believe makes more sense. I encourage you to check out their article as well.
1. Believe in Yourself
This step may seem straightforward, but it’s undeniably the most challenging. Whenever you think “I can’t,” you’ll need to muster the strength to challenge that belief. Recognize that it’s not genuinely your voice; it’s the collective chorus of negative people you’ve encountered in your life, now merged into a singular, internalized voice. Challenge every doubtful thought you have. Ask yourself “Who is really saying this?” It is most likely the voice of someone in your past who didn’t want to see you get hurt like they did. I assure you, those voices do not define you. Forge ahead with the conviction that “you’ll never know if you don’t try, so why not try.”
2. Take More Risks
Although it may appear obvious, taking risks is exceedingly difficult. Fear often dominates our thoughts. After we start believing in ourselves, our own minds often take over and create doubt. Our brains are wired to protect us from pain, so when we venture into the unknown, we risk leaving our comfort zones.
Fear is nothing more than “False Evidence Appearing Real”. We have two choices; forget everything and run or face everything and rise.
Zig Ziglar
Launching a new business could lead to failure and financial embarrassment.
Asking someone out who seems out of our league might result in rejection.
They could also work out.
In these moments, remind yourself that the best-case scenario could bring you what you desire, and the worst-case scenario won’t be life-threatening.
If you have an instinct to act on a goal, you must physically move within 5 seconds or your brain will kill it.
Mel Robbins
Your mind tends to magnify potential negative outcomes, but when you consider that they won’t be life-threatening, it becomes apparent that the fear is irrational. So, why not take action and see what happens?
3. See Value in Everything
Every experience teaches you something. What you learn is entirely up to you. If you choose to focus solely on the negative outcomes of your actions, you’ll attract more negativity. If you opt to see only the positive outcomes, that’s what you’ll find. Treating every setback as a learning opportunity is key. There’s always something to take away, improve upon, do differently next time, avoid, or do more of. This perspective is what will make the risks worthwhile.
If you want to make a lesson out of it for yourself and for your own kids I created a lesson on Growth Mindset. Sometimes, it can be challenging to find the silver lining in failures, but that’s where the next mental shifts comes into play.
4. Seek and Accept Support
While the original article mentioned “accept support,” I believe that’s not enough. It’s crucial to actively seek out coaches, mentors, and guides. They won’t magically appear on your doorstep, and even if they do, they might not be the right fit. Your best approach is to look for someone who has successfully achieved what you aspire to do. Once you’ve identified someone, approach them with specific challenges you’re facing and seek their guidance.
Make sure to value their time as you’d want your time valued. It’s frustrating to answer vague questions like “how do you find prospects?” or “how can I run a faster mile?”
A better approach is to ask something like:
- “I’ve been trying to cold call using scripts, but I’m hardly getting any results. How do you think I can better find prospects?”
- “I see your focus is on XYZ and that you run ads. What do you find is the most successful ad that you are running?”
These specific inquiries show them that you are not just looking for them to explain everything. Instead it allows them to share their expertise more effectively.
Similarly, if you’re running into obstacles, such as not improving your mile time, it’s more useful to say:
“I’ve been running 2 miles in the morning and evening six days a week for the past two months, but I’m not getting faster. What can I do differently to improve my mile time?”
This specificity helps mentors provide tailored advice.
When you receive guidance, it’s essential to act on it. Ignoring their advice wastes everyone’s time. If what you’re doing isn’t working and you’ve received advice from someone who’s achieved what you want, why wouldn’t you try it? Failure to act means you need to revisit the previous steps and take a risk by trying their recommendations. The interesting thing is that if you’re asking the right questions to the right person, their advice is unlikely to be wrong.
A mentor of mine likes to joke, “You can fail at it a few times, or you can do it the way your coach told you to do it the first time.”
5. Adjust Your Vision
This last step is something that should ideally happen throughout the entire process, but it may require a conscious effort. If you believe in yourself, take more risks, find value in every experience, and seek and accept support, your vision will naturally expand.
It’s a self-reinforcing cycle.
As you envision more for yourself, your belief in your capabilities grows stronger, and the negative voices fade away. The conscious part of this step is to define your vision deliberately. For too long, I allowed ideas and dreams to enter my mind, only to let them expire and fade into oblivion. If I had documented them regularly and, with unwavering belief, created actionable plans, my horizons would have expanded long ago. Goals are essentially dreams written down with specific action steps. By getting these dreams out of your head and away from the influence of those hundreds of negative voices, your belief in yourself will continue to grow. Eventually, those voices will starve and fade away.
Conclusion
In conclusion, remember that you don’t have to conform to others’ expectations of who you should be. It doesn’t take much to make the mental shifts mentioned but you have to want to do it and do it. All the limits you’ve accepted in your life are lies. You are capable of so much more than you or others give you credit for.
Be more; Be phenomenal; Be YOU.