beliefs

Focus

September 12, 2016 By Arminda

Charles Fillmore suggests “There is an inherent law of mind that we increase whatever we praise. The whole of creation responds to praise, and is glad. Animal trainers pet and reward their charges with delicacies for acts of obedience; children glow with joy and gladness when they are praised. Even vegetation grows better for those who love it.”

But there’s a flip side.

What you focus on grows, whether that focus is on something praiseworthy and valuable, or whether on something unimportant and without merit.

When I water my plants, they flourish; when I neglect and disregard them, they become limp and lifeless.

The same principle also applies to our mindset, thoughts and behaviors.

During a recent conversation with the sweetest CNA I know, she told me she is really bad at taking blood pressure and because she’s so bad at it, she’ll never be able to advance her position into a different environment that would require her to regularly take patients’ blood pressure.

Her mindset in this situation is currently “fixed,” as she sees herself as good as it gets with no option for anything different.

Her thinking about herself is negative and comparative to others and she (mis)believes she’s incapable and less than.

Her behavior is resigned to where she is right now and because she can’t ever possibly take blood pressures differently than she does right now, she’ll always be working in a place where that’s not a daily requirement.

Up until our conversation she was focusing on what she can’t do (take blood pressure readings) and so she was simply creating a self-fulfilling prophecy. Plus, her fear and inhibition around the idea of being asked or required to perform this task were escalating.

I suggested a little game:

Believe she’s capable of learning something new.
Tell herself (out loud and at least once a day) she is great at taking blood pressure!
Create regular opportunities to practice taking blood pressure.
Update her resume in anticipation of a new working environment in which she will be using her amazing blood pressure taking skills!

What you focus on grows.

Focus on what you want to grow.

Now go bloom.

Practice creates talent.” — Steve Chandler

Loving you,
arminda

You Got This

April 6, 2015 By Arminda

“Train your mind to believe: There is NOTHING that sits in front of me that I can’t handle,” said super coach Steve Hardison as I sat in front of him in a small group of other coaches receiving counsel and coaching from him.

I wrote it down. In hot pink lettering, of course.

Train your mind to believe.

Your mind will believe anything you tell it to believe.

Anything?

Anything.

But only every time.

Truth or Untruth?

March 24, 2015 By Arminda

Full Disclosure

During college, whenever I got a test grade back from a professor, the first thing I wanted to know was which of my classmates did worse than me on the exam. As soon as I found someone who received lower marks than mine, I always felt better about myself. Conversely, I felt awful if I thought I’d come in the lowest.

Truth

Whenever I compare the results of my choices to the results of someone else’s choices and give that comparison meaning, I have just created an untruth. And then believed it.

Too often we get caught up in someone else’s business and neglect our own. My choices have nothing to do with anyone else’s choices. Whatever someone else thinks of me is none of my business, just like whatever I think of someone else is none of their business.

Tell yourself a truth: the quality of my life is a direct result of the power of my thinking. Be in your own business.

Believe that.

Wanting

December 9, 2014 By Arminda

We’re all guilty of getting in our own way. But only all the time.

The truth is we make up lies, then believe those lies, and play them on a repeating loop inside our heads. It’s no wonder we feel we lack or that someone else is better than us or others are accomplishing more or are capable of bigger things.

When was the last time you caught yourself believing:

I’m great at what I do; I just don’t know how to run the business side of things.
I’d love to be in that career but I don’t even know where to start.
Oh, I could never. . . .
I don’t know how to motivate my team.
I’ve got a great story, but I’m no writer.

Trust me when I say the “how” is the least of your worries. What you need is a “want.”

Identify a time in your life when you REALLY wanted something (anything) and (against all odds) you got it. You didn’t allow your lack of knowledge of the “how to” to stop you. YOU figured it out!

Admit 2 things:
1. You’re really smart!
2. You need to get out of your own way. Yesterday.

What do you REALLY want right now?

Now go figure out your how.

Create Tomorrow Today

March 10, 2014 By Arminda 3 Comments

Creation has been a lot on my mind lately. The creation of our lives. Our futures. Our realities. Our now. And how our beliefs create the world around us.

We have within each of us the power to create whatever present and future world we wish to inhabit. We are the creators of our today and of our tomorrow.

How do we create something that we don’t believe exists?

Start believing it does.

Shawn Achor (my happiness crush) says:

Studies show that simply believing we can bring about positive change in our lives increases motivation and job performance; that success, in essence, becomes a self-fulfilling prophesy (The Happiness Advantage, 75).

Coach Michael Neill says you can make believe anything:

. . . we can change our experience of the world (and ultimately the world itself) by changing the way we choose to see it. . . . instead of always trying to align your beliefs with “reality,” it’s possible to align your beliefs with what you most want to create in your life. And when you consistently make believe in what you want, you can begin to create some pretty unbelievable results (Supercoach, 15,16)!

The greatest athletes and performers in the world will tell you they weren’t born talented; they created their talent by believing they could and in his bestselling book Wealth Warrior, Steve Chandler corroborates that sentiment with his reminder that “practice creates talent (115).”

Creating a new belief can be intimidating, or even scary, for some of us. You’re not alone.

Even Alice, from Lewis Carroll’s classic Through the Looking Glass, challenged the very notion of believing what Alice deemed an impossibility when the Queen chided her:

I daresay you haven’t had much practice. . . . When I was your age, I always did it for half-an-hour a day. Why, sometimes I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.

Impossible only exists if you believe it does. You define impossible.

Me? I’d rather eliminate that word from my personal dictionary altogether.

Let yourself give in to this new belief. This creation notion. It’s very liberating.

Perhaps practicing believing the impossible before breakfast as the Queen suggests is a great idea, and before long you’ll recognize you’re no longer chasing after your dreams; you’re manufacturing them.

Choose you. Choose happy.