It’s Spring! And with spring often comes mass cleaning sessions, whether of the kitchen cupboards, your wardrobes or the whole house being given a freshen up. However, have you thought about spring cleaning your mind? Now, I’m not talking about any dirty thoughts (you’re welcome to keep thinking those as often as you like!), but I am talking about any thoughts that don’t serve your best interests!
Our Survival-Based Negative Bias
Did you know that every day, we each have thousands upon thousands of thoughts and the majority of these are repeats of the same thoughts we had the day before..and the day before that? And perhaps even more concerning is that our brains are hardwired to have a negative bias; it’s what has kept us safe and evolving as a human race and so certainly has a purpose.
So, if we allow our thoughts to simply continue on auto-pilot, we can end up becoming stuck in old routines and habits that, when we stop and think about them (pardon the pun!), we realise are no longer valid and don’t support where we want to be now or what we want to achieve going forward.
However, the good news is that we ARE able to make changes and be more in control of our minds; we CAN choose which thoughts we pay attention to and allow to have more of a bearing on what we do!
“Where attention goes, energy flows”
How? We just need to start taking notice of our thoughts and decide whether we want to continue having those, or if we’d rather have a spring clean of any negative, unhelpful ones and start sowing the seeds of more fruitful, positive thoughts.
Our minds can be our own worst enemies or our own best friends – which would you rather have?
Mindset Shift Exercise
So, if you find yourself thinking unhelpful thoughts, whether that’s “I’m no good at this”, or “How can I compare to every other Coach/Designer/Therapist out there” or “I’ll never meet the man/woman of my dreams”, then this next short exercise could help you change your inner world and start to transform your outer world:
- Start taking notice of any negative/unhelpful thoughts you have and write those down.
- Think of the opposite, positive outcome you would rather have and write that down in a separate list.
- Practise repeating the new positive phrases (or ‘affirmations’); write them on post-it notes and stick in places you see often (the fridge door, your steering wheel, your notepad etc) or add them to your welcome note on your mobile phone, whatever works for you…and very quickly these will become your new habitual thoughts and that’s when the MAGIC starts to happen…
Try this out and let me know if you notice any differences! I love hearing about the mental shifts and changes in reality that people start noticing when they do this, post your comments below!
And if you find you’d like some help with making these mindset shifts, I currently have a special Spring Clean Offer for a limited 6 places – 50% off my 90 minutes Kickstarter Coaching Session, where we can delve into what’s causing you challenges right now and how you can turn that around to serve you more positively!
Get in touch here or email me at Katie@TheCatalystForLife.com for more details, quoting: SpringClean19 for the offer price!
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