And so, we come to the last installment in our Negotiating Your Mindset series. Not that there isn’t more I could write about … there are multiple books worth of content on this important issue … but my aim was to highlight this oft-forgotten negotiation so you can start taking steps now to take control of your mindset. When you do so with intention, you take control of your life.

If you missed Parts I – III of the series, I invite you to check them out here.  Part I  Part II  Part III

So far, we’ve tackled:

• Choice and Control
• Gifts of Gratitude
• Strength in Service
• Power of Thoughts
• Loving Yourself Unconditionally
• Living Fully Present
• Direction of Your Focus
• Abundance Mindset
• Perspective
• Letting the Universe Inspire You
• Releasing Worry

Today, I’ll share a few final tips and strategies that you can use on your journey to take back control of your life.

Choose What You Tolerate

You get what you tolerate in life. This holds true in your negotiation with yourself. What you are tolerant of and tolerate for yourself is what you’ll get.

If you stay in your comfort zone, afraid of the unknown, of pushing your limits, of challenging the status quo or your beliefs, you won’t reach your full potential. You won’t fulfill your vision by hanging back in your comfortable space. Most end-of-life regrets are for chances not taken and experiences not lived. You’re not likely to reach the end of your life feeling relieved at having played it safe.

The good news is that it only takes a simple mindset shift. Simply make a decision that you won’t tolerate mediocrity from yourself anymore. Decide what you want in life and make a pact with yourself that you won’t tolerate anything less. You don’t need to turn your world upside-down overnight. But start. Take one step outside your comfort zone, towards a larger vision for yourself. And then another. Every journey, big and small, starts with a decision to take a step in that direction.

In addition to your internal negotiation about what you’ll tolerate of yourself, I invite you to start the internal dialogue about what you’re prepared to tolerate of others. You set the tone for how you will be treated. Take ownership of that. If you find yourself wishing that someone in your life wouldn’t treat you a particular way, maybe it’s time you turned the lens on yourself. Why have you been tolerating it?

I come to you with these nuggets having learned on the hard road of experience. I spent many decades training people in my life to take advantage of me. It caused me much heartache and many lost relationships. And it also cost those I thought I was being generous to. They became smaller versions, unable to achieve their full potential.

Ask yourself today, what are 3 things that you’ve been tolerating that don’t serve you … and brainstorm how you’re going to change that pattern.

Invoke the Power of Questions

If you ask bad questions, you’ll get bad answers. The opposite is also true. If you ask better questions, you’ll get better answers. Maybe it’s time to reframe the questions you’re asking yourself. To ask better questions.

These questions are usually based on the stories we tell ourselves. Stories about why we’re not good enough, or strong enough, or smart enough … or just plain not enough. We’ve usually carried these stories and narratives since childhood and we continue to repeat them even though they don’t serve us.

Flip your stories, flip your life. Why not decide today to start challenging those old stories? And as you challenge your stories, get intentional about the questions you ask yourself. Instead of “Why is this happening to me?”, ask “What lessons can I continue to learn and share even more deeply in this moment?”  or “What opportunities are waiting for me to discover them in this moment?”

Can you feel the difference? Feel the power in that shift. These simple reframes allow you to come from and show up in a place of potential and possibility instead of fear. Your brain tries to give you what it thinks you want. When you ask negative questions, your brain will look for examples to support that negativity … as that’s what it thinks you want. Why not train your brain to expect the best, to look for example of the best the world has to offer and to give you the best.

Train yourself to ask more empowered and empowering questions to get more empowered and empowering answers and in so doing, to lead a more powerful life.

As we come to the end of this series, I hope I have opened you up to reframe how you think of negotiation. Specifically, it was my intention that you start to think of your internal dialogue as a negotiation. And that you recognize it as your first and most important negotiation. By seizing control of your inner chatter and choosing your mindset with intention, you can stay out of the quicksand and stay unsinkable even in challenging times.

For more powerful tips on how to negotiate your mindset to lead a more powerful life, check out my book, Negotiate From Fear to Powerful Resilience: Shining light in the dark.

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.

Last week we started this series on negotiating your mindset. I believe the subject warrants a series as all of life is a negotiation and negotiating your mindset is your most important one. Your inner voice and inner chatter will determine the meaning you attach to things, which in turn will determine your emotional state, which in turn will determine your experience of life. Most people allow their inner critic to take centre stage in their brain and never seize control of their own internal negotiations.

If you missed the intro last week, check it out so you can build the foundation necessary to manage your mindset and choose your state with intention.

Gifts of Gratitude

A simple and powerful technique to manage your mindset and shift out of negative states is to remind yourself of things you can be grateful for now … in this moment. Even in your seemingly darkest hours, gifts abound all around you. In our busy ‘to do’ lives, we often forget to appreciate (or even recognize) these gifts. They become background white noise as we focus on what we don’t have or on what’s not going right.

If you’re having trouble finding terra firma, and want a simple step to reclaim solid ground beneath your feet, simply pause. Take a moment to think of something you are grateful for in that moment. It can be something simple (maybe the feel of the sun or wind on your face) or something more emotionally resonant (the love of someone in your life) or even the breath flowing into your lungs.

You will always find something to be grateful for if you take the time to consider it with intention. Let yourself revel in it for a moment. Breathe it in. It’s impossible to stay in a state of anger, resentment, fear, angst, disappointment (or the range of other negative emotions that disempower us) while in a state of gratitude. Feel the freedom in that gratitude.

Strength In Service

An effective sister technique to appreciating the gifts that abound around you is to also ask yourself “what gifts can I bring”? Coming from a place of service and generosity can be the most powerful gift you can give yourself. It lifts your vibration to a higher plane and releases endorphins, inspiring feelings of well-being and joy. I invite you to ask yourself what gift you can share with the world.

Power of Thoughts

You’ll notice that both the above simple techniques involve choosing your thoughts. I always advocate the importance of getting intentional about the thoughts you choose. This will always serve you, but now, during these unusual times, where we’re spending more time alone, I urge you to get serious about taking control over the thoughts you allow in. We recognize the importance of paying attention to what food we put in our bodies for our physical health. Think of monitoring your internal mental dialogue as mental hygiene.

The thoughts you allow in and the meaning you attach to those thoughts will determine your reality. Sift through the chatter in your mind and consider starting the practice of asking yourself “Does it serve me to allow this to take up space in my head right now?”

According to the Cleveland Clinic, the average person has 60,000 thoughts per day. Of those thoughts, 95% repeat each day. And sadly, on average, 80% of those repeated thoughts are negative. Consider the destructive power of that kind of defeatist repetition. Our brain believes what we tell it, which is why our expectations are so often realized (the good, the bad and the ugly). So, I invite you to expect the best. It takes no more effort.

Your thoughts are the gateway between where you are now and where you want to go. Change your internal dialogue. Change your thoughts, change your outcomes.

Love Yourself Unconditionally 

The most important starting point in monitoring your thoughts is to love yourself. Be kind to yourself. Forgive yourself your imperfections. Reconnect with yourself and get to a place where you enjoy spending time with yourself. Be self-centered – in the sense that you’re grounded and centred in and with yourself. Go out into the world from that place.

Live Fully Present

Remember that life is made up of moments. Every moment matters. So, it makes sense to be fully present in each moment. Presence is one of the most valuable gifts you can give – to yourself and to others in your life. Ask yourself if you’ve been living your life with intention in the moment. Or have you been racing toward some imaginary finish line? If you’re thinking about the finish line (whether for a particular task, project or endgame) it’s unlikely that you’re living in the moment. If you’re in survival mode, or waiting for something to ‘be over’, or waiting for ‘one day’, then you’re not fully living.

And the good news is that you can hit the reset button now. You can choose your reality by choosing the thoughts you allow in. Choose gratitude. Choose to love yourself unconditionally. Choose to live fully present in each moment.

Last week we talked about avoiding the pitfall of attachment in your negotiations. A recent coaching call had prompted the subject. But there was more to the story. I thought this week we’d extend the lessons from that seemingly simple exchange to increase your influence and persuasiveness in negotiation. Because success in bargaining ultimately depends on your ability to influence and persuade.

After my caller had determined whether she still wanted the deal, we jumped into a few of the elements of my negotiating systems to see how she could best navigate her next steps. If you recall, the parties had reached a tentative agreement in principle when the issue of value was raised. It was a trigger and caused the other party to back away from the deal.

It was time to go deeper in my No F.E.A.R Negotiating model. As we discussed last week, first I wanted to explore that often-ignored important question: “Does the deal still make sense for you?”. It’s critical to avoid getting so attached to a deal that you continue to bargain after it’s no longer advantageous for you. This consideration is the ‘A’ of the No F.E.A.R system – no attachment.

Now let’s turn back to the ‘F’ – fear. Fear sometimes drives us in our negotiations, often unwittingly. I asked my friend to consider what fears may have kicked in for her and for the other party when the issue of value came up. Fear of rejection, fear of failure, fear of losing, fear of missing out, fear of the unknown … even fear of success are the usual suspects. Recognizing these fears – in yourself and in the other party – will go a long way to informing how you ought to show up to maximize your chance of success. Recognizing your own fears will allow you to dissolve them or use them to fuel you instead of derail you. Knowing the other party’s fears can be a powerful tool in a negotiation. You can use that knowledge to diffuse the fear and build trust or, where appropriate, use their fear to get them to a better place for both of you. Considering the fears of the other party also helps to build empathy, which will affect how you show up and help build trust.

And let’s not ignore the all-important ‘E’ – ego. You lose control of the negotiation if you let ego drive you as you’ll lose control of your ability to assess information accurately and with perspective. You’ll likely fail to recognize opportunities or alternatives that could deliver better outcomes. It was clear in this case that the issue of value triggered ego on both sides of the table. Ego shows up in many ways: need to win, need to look good, inability to admit you don’t know, talking too much, and wanting to be liked, to name a few. Recognizing when your ego has kicked in allows you to check it and regain control.

In this case, questioning my friend’s value had kicked in her self-esteem issues and with it her need to look good. Acknowledging this helped her get perspective on how she had contributed to things going sideways in the negotiation. It also allowed her to see that wanting to be liked had impaired her judgment when the other party became offended (and to explore whether that offence was genuine or a manipulation). Also, considering the impact of ego on the other party allowed her to get intentional about how to show up in renewing the talks. She was able to make a conscious, controlled choice to shelf her own ego and cater to the ego of her counterpart to get talks back on track.

That control took care of the ‘R’ – reactivity. It allowed her to avoid becoming reactive again herself, and minimized the chance of the negotiating counterpart becoming reactive. It allowed for a more productive discussion to ensue.

Try applying this simple No F.E.A.R system next time you negotiate. Ideally, you’ll want to build it into your pre-negotiation prep work to maximize your opportunity for success. But as with this case, even if you haven’t done that and your bargaining goes south, you can always take a step back, regroup, and bring this system to bear to get your negotiation back on track to get what you want.

A recent ‘coaching’ call reminded me of the importance of one of the fundamentals of negotiation. I received a call from a distraught colleague who had just lost a deal. They had reached an agreement in principle but then the conversation went sideways and fell off the rails. She was calling for help on how to get it back on track. It was immediately apparent that a basic negotiation principle had been abandoned or forgotten in the heat of the moment.

I see this mistake happen time and again. It’s heartbreaking to watch people lose great deals or jump into bad deals when a few simple tools could have made for a happier ending. In this particular case the deal was at the final stages when the issue of value came up. A few questions on my part made it clear that this was a trigger for both parties, so it wasn’t surprising that things got heated quickly. The other party had taken offence and had a mini meltdown as the deal spiraled out of reach. My colleague now regretted how it had ended and wanted to revive the deal.

I knew some simple tactics that could help achieve that goal but first I wanted to explore the often ignored most important question to consider.

“Are you sure this deal still makes sense for you?” I asked.

This would seem like an obvious thing to consider and yet too often we get so caught up in the chase of the deal that we don’t ensure we keep checking in to make sure the deal still makes sense. Whether it’s determining if the cost or price point is still viable, or if you can live with the terms, or if the relationship is even one you still want to entertain, we often overlook this vital check-in when we fear the deal is slipping away.

One of the elements of my No F.E.A.R. negotiation system is ‘no attachment’. Don’t ever get so attached to getting a deal that you continue to bargain long after it makes sense i.e. when the deal is no longer advantageous for you. Ideally, you always go into a negotiation with crystal clarity around your desired outcomes, where you’ve identified your objectives with specificity. This preparation includes consideration of your bottom line, awareness of the best alternatives to a negotiated settlement and the zone of potential agreement. This consideration should include both tangible and intangible elements of the deal.

In this case, it was clear my prospective new client had started to bargain against herself. Further, she was shaken by the other side’s meltdown and felt the need to right the perceived wrong. I reminded her of the old proverb – when someone shows you who they are, believe them – and I urged her to consider whether she was sure this was a long-term client relationship she wanted to maintain.

This simple exchange gave some perspective and allowed my friend to make a more informed decision about how to proceed. Clarity around your objectives at the outset gives you the certainty and confidence you’ll need to hold the requisite detachment. Not being too attached to the outcome is a powerful place from which to bargain. Be prepared to walk away from a deal if the outcome doesn’t serve you. Be confident in knowing (or trusting) that another deal is waiting around the corner. Great negotiators know when to walk away.

This confidence also allows you to be open to other alternatives. Remember, effective negotiating isn’t a competition. It isn’t about winning or losing. It’s about looking for better results and creative solutions that exceed both parties’ expectations. Ironically, being intentional about not getting too attached to the deal increases the likelihood of securing your desired outcome … and more.