Starting Anew: Turning Your Monstrous Mountain Into A Puny Pebble

Good Morning, Fam!

This week has been about creating a New Normal. 

For some of you that meant creating a powerful morning routine.  For others of you it meant taking better care of yourself.

Others of you wanted to grow your spiritual life, sharpen up your household finances, or give back to your community. 

Here's what we know:  The first week is always the easiest. 

The idea of starting something new is fresh, and the excitement of a new routine and new possibilities sparks our momentum. 

Let's quick jump forward a week or two and get you ready for the speedbumps, shall we?

For the "what to do when you slip on your Bambi legs, make mistakes or get hit with something straight out of nowhere, that knocks you down," sort of speedbumps. The kind that land you flat on your culo hyperanalyzing and reviewing how badly you suck, how everyone else is lightyears ahead of you, etc.

For that, we're bringing in one of my favorite concepts: FOCUS.

Have you ever heard the saying, "The grass is greener where you water it?

Gardening examples always give us the perfect analogies to life and how we live it.  

Let's say you're a Master Gardener and you have two fields: 

One field has planted in it seeds of joy, gratitude, faith, health, love, positivity, inspiration and dedication.  

The other field has planted in it seeds of guilt, shame, anger, resentment, worry, jealousy, insecurity, doubt, fear, anxiety, worry, criticism, negativity and defeat. 

When I ask you the question, "Which one of those fields do you want to harvest from?"

Your answer is the first field, right?

Of course. 

And I'm sure you know where I'm going with this, but it begs to ask the second, MOST OBVIOUS QUESTION:

If you want to harvest from the first field, which one should you water?

To which, the MOST OBVIOUS ANSWER is what?

Exactly. THE FIRST FIELD. 

Seems logical, right?

Check this out...We've just agreed on that what you water, grows, right? 

(And yes, we need all the other things like sunlight, fertilizer, a way to get rid of weeds, etc. etc. That's a given. Come back to the main point...) 

If we've just agreed that what you water grows, what I'm going to ask you to do now is imagine that the fruits of what you harvest from these fields are what will become the food source for your dreams and goals. 

Now notice-I'm not asking you to focus on your goal.  I'm submitting for your consideration how you curate the fuel for your goal. 

And the reason we're taking this approach, is because FAILURE IS A NORMAL PART OF GOAL ATTAINMENT. ESPECIALLY WHEN YOU'RE CREATING A NEW NORMAL FOR YOURSELF! 

I think most of us can agree that it's not just the failing or falling down that gets ya.  It's the little voice (aka the Negative Committee which meets inside of your head) which left unbridled, grows into a choir inside of your head that enslaves you.  That choir starts pointing out all of your mistakes from yesterday, the day before, that one time in 6th grade...and it gets so loud that it drowns out hope and ultimately obscures both your focus and your perspective.  

Think about that for a second. 

Better yet...think about a baby who is learning to walk.

Seriously...how many times does that baby fall down before they learn how to walk? 

COUNTLESS TIMES. 

Do you look at that baby after they've fallen down for the umpteenth time and say, "You stupid baby.  You're never going to be able to walk."?

Of course not. 

Does the baby lose heart and stop trying to walk even when they fall? 

No. 

In fact, they take on greater risk-think of the kid who climbs on the kitchen counter to get to the cookie jar which is on top of the refrigerator. In the two seconds it took you to (finally!) go pee...they push the kitchen chair over, scale the countertops and fall down. AND THEY GET HURT!   

Does it stop them from building another Tower of Power to scale your kitchen like Spiderman?

ABSOLUTELY NOT.  Granted, their little brains are not developed enough to understand and remember cause and effect (not to mention the fact that you probably gave the frickin cookie and a sundae to make them feel better after you took 'em for stitches! lol). All they know is that they want the damn cookie.

Their focus is not on the hazard or any past injury.  They don't get drowned in a tsunami of negative seeds like the ones that we talked about planting in our earlier example found in field #2. 

They just can't.  Developmentally, their brains don't allow for that sort of cause-effect and negative committee pattern to occur. 

As we grow and develop, our brains hit developmental milestones and we learn.  We learn and remember that it hurts when we fall down. We put two and two together and we learn not to do certain things. (Well some of us do.  There's always that lil hellion who seemingly has NO fear. You know EXACTLY who I'm talking about! lol)

As we have different life experiences and socialization, then we learn that sometimes people laugh, joke, and criticize us when we fall. 

So what happens is our brains develop the capacity to remember past events and AAAAALLLLLL of the pain associated with it.  And then any time we move out of a comfort zone and try something new, our brain is hard-wired to keep us safe from experiencing physical and emotional pain of falling down and failing. 

And truth be told: It's a crafty lil son of a gun.  It cues the Negative Committee to keep you from moving forward AND YOU STAY STUCK in a mental prison focusing on the $#!+ seeds in field #2. 

Your focus is like water.  

Believe it or not, you have the power to choose which field you want to water. When you're starting something new and The Negative Committee starts chirping at you, and you allow yourself to become distracted by it, you are LITERALLY watering the seeds in field #2.  THE VERY SEEDS THAT WILL BE HARVESTED AND USED AS FUEL FOR YOUR DREAMS. 

The harvest from field number two is brutal.  It's got thorny bushes, bristles, poison ivy, oak AND SUMAC.  AND IT'S GOT WEEDS GALORE (which are an analogy for disappointment-a topic for a different day)! 

I mean really...how messed up is that?

Here's the thing:  The road towards goal attainment can be a slippery slope because we are emotional beings. 

Our emotions are what separates us from other forms of life. 

Our emotions are what allow us to experience life's most cherished moments, and connect with others.

Our emotions are what fuel our DESIRE, which is the driving engine of our journey and our results.   

However, when the goal is to move forward, you cannot afford to become a slave to your emotions.  You'll never get out. It'll be like quicksand-the more you move, the faster you go down. 

There has to be some sort of a concrete rock for you to step up and out of that scenario on.  Something that'll always be there. Something that doesn't change based on how you're feeling at the moment, or after you've fallen down for the 20th time. 

You're not going to be able to solve your current situation using the same mindset that got you there, or the same mindset that keeps you there because all you end up doing is spinning your mental wheels. 

A fresh perspective and newly trained thought patterns are sometimes all it takes to move your Station forward.  

So as we close out for the day, I'm challenging you to become a student of yourself. 

Take note of when you enter that mental "F-dom" of spinning your wheels and walk yourself through this coaching sequence again.

Get clear on your goal, and which field of seeds you're choosing to water along the way. 

THAT'S WHERE THE GROWTH HAPPENS, AND THAT'S WHERE YOUR POWER COMES FROM:  CHOICES.  

My goal when I coach you is to EMPOWER YOU with the tactics and strategies on how to navigate your course when we're NOT together.  So that with practice, what seems to be right now an insurmountable, monstrous mountain becomes a puny pebble you don't even trip on anymore.  You become a force to be reckoned with and ultimately a beacon of light for others who are experiencing the same thing as you are right now. 

But you can't do that when you're stuck in your feels. 

All of the choices you make along the way, and the mental conditioning to choose new choices-including which field you choose to water...those are new skillsets for you to learn and master.  Those are the concrete stepping stones for you to step up and out of your current situation and move forward with peace and power. 

Make sense?

We covered a lot today.  We've made some powerful observations and discoveries about ourselves.  That's how growth happens. 

Undoubtedly, your mind will be reeling for the next week as you catch yourself watering the wrong field, and remembering how many times over the course of your entire life you've done this. 

A few final bullet points to properly align your expectations and allow you to get some sleep: 

1) Notice in field #1, Happiness is not listed as a seed.  That is intentional.  What IS listed is JOY.  Happiness and Joy are two completely different things and we will make the distinction between the two in upcoming Sessions.

2) Notice that the focus of this article has NOT been on your goal.  The focus has been on identifying your thought habits and how to create higher-level habits that serve you well.  This is also intentional. 

3) Come up for air.  Mindset coaching and the discoveries you make can drive you bat$#!+ crazy if you let it.  You have to be able to shut the damn door on it for awhile and know we'll come back to it at a different time.  Sleep is mandatory as is being a productive member of society.  'Nuff said.  

If you have found great value in this Coaching article, please tag your friends and share it. 

It has been my great pleasure spending this time with you today.  If there is a way my Coaching and Training can be of service to you, your team or Agency, please CONTACT ME DIRECTLY VIA THIS LINK.

Take care, stay safe and CHOOSE POWERFULLY.  

Catch you next time! 

 Nichole DeVincentis (@figurechick911)