Your success in life will be primarily determined by your mindset explains Graham Price
In my role as a psychologist, development trainer and executive coach I often ask my clients this question:
“If you could do, have or be anything you want, what would you choose?“
Answers I receive range from being happy, successful or wealthy, to having great relationships, contributing to family or others, and even changing the world.
The next question I might ask is:
“So why don’t you already have these things?“
The answers I receive reflect differences my clients may believe exist between them and great achievers. Examples might include genetic traits, the environment we’re born into, our upbringing and education.
At this point I might offer some information:
- Various studies, such as of twins separated at birth, have pretty well negated the importance of genetic influences
- Many people without apparent benefits in their upbringing and education, have achieved great things
- There are many examples of people experiencing major change in their lives as a result of significant life events, personal insights or the influence of others
My own experience of dramatic change occurred in my late 20s. It was initiated by some learnings I was lucky enough to gain from others and continued through some equally lucky personal insights. In the space of a few months, I became very confident, highly motivated and developed some huge aspirations. Since then, I’ve been fortunate to have led an amazing life, have achieved things I never dreamt of, have met the aspirations I developed during my time of change and replaced them with more, much bigger, goals.
For those interested in approaches to personal development, I can tell you it began by learning how to replace ‘resistant’ thoughts (wanting things to be already different) with the ability to ‘accept what is’ all the time. It continued through discovering that the world we live in is totally determined (nothing in the past or present could possibly have been different, but the future is wide open and can be whatever we want to make it) …. an extraordinarily powerful understanding that every great thinker in recent times, such as Bertrand Russell and Albert Einstein, knew to be true, but few others beyond the world of philosophy are aware of. I then discovered how much we limit ourselves by allowing our internal beliefs, thoughts and feelings to drive our behaviour, and how this constantly maintains and reinforces our limitations. This in turn led to understanding how to change our mind-set (self-beliefs) by behaving powerfully while accepting the inevitable internal constraints we may initially experience, such as fear and reticence.
And while this was happening, I had the good fortune to learn some more life-changing tools for dealing with challenges in relationships that we all experience from time to time.
I was astonished to find that none of the powerful tools I’d discovered and used to change my own life were being taught in the fields of psychology or development training. While I gained some useful insights from both fields, they proved to be just supplements for the tools I’d already discovered. I now had the justification to create my own therapy and training. I’ve since been both fortunate and privileged to have been able to resolve mind-based problems of thousands of therapy clients and enhance the lives of tens of thousands of training participants.
Let me give you some tips right now, from what I’ve learned and used extensively in my life, and that you can use straight away.
- Understand that, aside from physical brain dysfunctions, there are no mental limitations that cannot be overcome.
- You can achieve anything you want in life, beyond genuine practical constraints (at my age I won’t ever be able to run a 4-minute mile, look like Pierce Brosnan, or be the first human to land on Saturn; but just about everything else is, and always was, possible).
- Your success in life will be primarily determined, not by your knowledge and abilities, but by your mindset.
- You can develop a powerful mind-set, not through self-talk (affirmations, visualisations or trying to directly change your beliefs), though these things can certainly help, but by repeatedly acting powerfully, beyond your ‘comfort zone’, while accepting, for now, limiting feelings that may try to get in the way.
