Negotiating Your Mindset: Your Most Important Negotiation Part III

The last couple of weeks we’ve been talking about negotiating your mindset and why it’s your first and most important negotiation. As promised, we’re going to continue exploring simple techniques you can use to take control of your mindset and in so doing, take control of your life.

If you missed the first two parts of the series, you can check them out here. Part I  and Part II

Choose the Direction of Your Focus

Let’s talk about the law of attraction and why getting intentional about your focus is key. Your point of attraction will become your reality. Simply put, you will attract more of what you focus on … even if it’s what you think you’re trying to repel. If you continue to focus on what’s wrong in your life, you will continue to get more of that. The good news is that the opposite is also true. As you focus on what’s right, you’ll see more of it.

Choose an Abundance Mindset

I invite you to ask yourself whether you come at life from a scarcity mindset or an abundance mindset. Do you worry that there’s not enough … whether it’s money, resources, time or love? Or do you believe there is an infinite amount available – that we live in and have access to absolute abundance? If you accept the law of attraction as a foundational starting point, you’ll quickly see that approaching life from a scarcity mindset is self-sabotaging as you’ll never live into the abundance that’s waiting for you. Why not choose to believe you have all the time in the world you need. And that there is limitless love available to (and from) you in every moment. That the resources you need are available at your bidding … you need only tap into the outpouring.

Get a New Perspective

Another simple way to shift your focus is to shift your perspective. Take stock of your life from a new frame of reference. There are a number of ways to do this. One is to imagine yourself rising up in a hot air balloon, examining your situation from above. This higher viewpoint can give new perspective on our perceived problems.

Alternatively, you can visualize yourself in a submarine looking through the periscope at your situation i.e. taking a glimpse from below to look upward. This can help lift you from the depths and avoid tunnel vision and its associated risks. Don’t underestimate how powerful a perspective shift can be.

In addition to the perspective shift of looking down from above, or up from below, also consider a linear perspective switch. i.e. looking back to where you’ve come from and forward to where you want to go. As circumstances change, things we took for granted may now bring gratitude and things that seemed daunting or untenable may now seem insignificant.

COVID is a perfect example of this phenomenon. Think about the things you saw as problems in your life pre-pandemic. Do they still look as serious or significant? Think about the simple things you took for granted (like toilet paper, social engagement, physical touch). Are you able to renew your appreciation for them and look at them with fresh eyes – appreciate them as beautiful luxuries and evidence of abundance?

Perspective shifts allow us the opportunity to reinvent ourselves, to hit reset as we re-evaluate how we’re living and take stock of how we want to spend our time – that precious commodity. I invite you to ask yourself: what perspective can I choose to even more fully live my life on purpose and with purpose?

Let the Universe Inspire You

Speaking of perspective, have you ever lay on your back looking up at a star-studded night sky? As you let yourself relax into it, you’ll see more stars magically start to appear before your eyes. You’ll likely also feel a deeper sense of peace sweep over you. This is a beautiful analogy for life. As you allow yourself to relax in your life, to step away from the frenetic energy of a ‘to do’, task-driven mindset, you will see and feel more. You can celebrate our ultimate connectedness to each other, to Mother Earth, to the universe and beyond. Let the universe ground and inspire you.

Choose to Release Worry

Catastrophizing and running worst-case scenarios never ends well. So why do we spend so much time worrying? It’s arguably one of the most useless and destructive human emotions. We’ve already talked about controlling where your focus goes and controlling the meaning you attach to your thoughts so I won’t repeat myself. But here are a few practical tips and tools to stop casting big dark shadows over your life from worrying over small things.

If worrisome thoughts are crowding out your peace of mind, take a moment to do a quick ‘worry dump’. Jot down all the negative, worried thoughts about your ‘what if’’ scenarios. In fact, consider keeping a Worry Dump journal, so you can periodically review your worries and start to see patterns. The immediate benefit of a ‘worry dump’ is that it gets the thoughts (and their destructive power) out of your head and strips them of power.

Make sure to challenge your worries by asking yourself the following questions as you jot them down:

• Is this really true?
• Is there a more positive spin or potential outcome?
• What is the likelihood of this thing I’m worrying about actually coming to pass?
• Is this worry helping me?

This simple exercise should lead you to a more positive outlook as you chip away at the foundation of your worry.

Sometimes a simple pattern interrupt will suffice to disrupt the worry cycle. Stop yourself from hitting the spin cycle by tuning in your awareness and taking action with intention, whether it’s as simple as breathing, getting up and moving, choosing a humorous distraction … or anything that breaks the worrisome thought patterns in the moment.