The One Thing Standing Between You And The Life You’ve Always Wanted
It feels safe in the moment, but sabotages your chances at a dream life.
Stelko via Shutterstock Some of us want to be happier, wealthier or healthier, and others want more love and peace. Whatever you desire, I have experimented for forty years and have amassed a set of skills that have worked for me.
Often, the people who get stuck in that negative mentality have "practiced" it for so long, they no longer realize they're participating in it. It becomes a habit. For them, a new disaster is often around the corner, and they don’t see a way out.
The first step to repairing this mentality is to realize that you are stuck in it. Only then can a person move forward.
Negative bias stands between you and the life you've always wanted
What you think matters. Take it from Fred Alan Wolf, Ph.D., a physicist and author who states, “There is no 'out there' independent of what’s going on 'in there’” (meaning your brain!). On a cellular level, Dr. Wolf is right. What we think and know creates our reality.
As cell biologist Bruce H. Lipton explains, "The subconscious mind is the primal mind and constitutes about 90% of our brain. The subconscious mind is habitual. It has programs in it—habits. These habits play automatically without us thinking about them."
The fact that it's subconscious doesn't mean it's unimportant. In fact, all of our habits exist in our unconscious minds. Not just the bad ones, but all of our learned behaviors — from walking and talking to how we treat others and think about ourselves.
So, what does this have to do with getting the life you've alwasy wanted? As Dr. Wolf writes, “The only stored information our brains can retrieve is what we already believe is possible." Therefore, we ‘create' our individual reality.
When I heard this, once the shock wore off, I realigned myself with the new landscape, fully focused on what I wanted. I developed a different mindset and more effective plans to achieve success. This is what I learned:
3 steps for clearing out self-sabotaging negative bias
1. Reframe your goals
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The first step is to reframe your goals so that you will no longer focus on your future with a mindset of hopelessness.
What happens to your life if you believe your goals are impossible? You back away from your goals and try to settle for less, which leads to disappointment and frustration.
When you settle for less, you convince yourself that this limited future is acceptable — even though it isn’t. You can waste years, decades, or lifetimes, and eventually you forget that there was ever a “bright young thing” smiling back at you in the mirror who had her/his whole life ahead.
Here's an example: Imagine a woman who was convinced she could never marry a man she would actually wish to spend her life with. She can only imagine settling for less. Can you imagine the misery of her marriage?
How about the man who hated his career and always had, but believed his situation was hopeless. Can you imagine any way in which he could enjoy his career or even truly dream of another one?
For every one of us who has felt stuck: What if the feeling of being stuck were the true problem, not the men, the job, or the marriage itself?
Yes, it's a lot to imagine, but it's worth giving it a shot and take responsibility. Your beliefs do affect your results every time, and all my clients and I have proven this for 25 years.
2. Identify where hopelessness may be sabotaging you
Look for times when you combine the words “I’ll” + “never” in your mind, speech, and writing, and work toward eliminating this phrasing. After all, what you say is perceived by your brain as truth, and this can create serious blocks that last a long time.
For this example, I'm going to talk about money. While I have been able to achieve increases in my income with my mindset, I’ve also observed expected funds disappear before they reached me, or suddenly “held up” for no apparent reason. This was when I realized that focusing my thoughts on desired results was much more complicated than I realized!
I am horrified to report that even the passing thought, “It’s too expensive,” has stopped my financial flow until I took reparative action. This negative statement becomes "truth" to your mind.
When you allow a negative thought to creep in and take hold, how does that affect reaching your goals? How long does it take for this to become a destructive habit?
While we can’t be irresponsible with money, seeing its arrival and working towards that is the solution that works, compared to using negative or even positive language alone. People who expect problems may not even realize that this is where they have focused. Even if you find this impossible to believe, you may want to consider the benefits of learning these skills to experiment with your own goals.
Please be very honest with yourself, because we can each climb out of old programming, but first, we need to see what it costs us.
3. Envision who you want to be and all your dream goals
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You know how you feel around peaceful, happy people with light energy and smiles. You also know how you feel around moody, stressed-out people. Which one do you wish to be?
Anyone stuck in negativity and moods of fear, anger, or sadness will find it much more challenging to achieve their biggest goals. Tragically, they may work just as hard as happy people or even harder, but the results rarely arrive with the same speed and quantity as for those who have learned to evolve beyond negative emotional states.
So, before you set a goal of large amounts of accolades or a fabulous new relationship or job, set a goal of becoming happier. Yes, it is the big leap, and there are valid skills that help. Here are a few examples of positive intentional thinking on goals you may enjoy as an experiment once you’ve stabilized your moods:
A. One week, I desired clients in the entertainment industry and focused on this goal. Within a few weeks, using my goal-reaching skills, I found myself working with a prominent former studio president and the wealthiest executive producer in Hollywood. In addition, I was also working with an uber-famous rock star.
B. When I focused on the potential fun of reconnecting with a former lover, within thirteen days of saying a 2-minute focused affirmation, a man emailed me whom I had dated twenty-seven years earlier. The most amusing part was that my focus had been on someone else — but the man who emailed fit the criteria even more successfully than the man I remembered!
Every thought is a new opportunity
We can drift deeper and deeper into storm clouds and disasters, or we can decide to learn how to create more and more of what we enjoy,. If you begin noticing your thoughts and words today, you can replace the “I’ll" + "never” forever.
Yes, it will take some time. But, as it's said, "one day at a time".
Susan Allan is a certified mediator and coach, and the founder of the Marriage Forum Inc., and creator of The 6 Part Conversation© and The 7 Stages of Marriage and Divorce training to help people understand their own needs and their partners.
