Career and business success depends on this question: Who do you think you are? Often this question is asked with an attitude, as in “you must think you’re somebody”. Well, yes, I do, and you should too.
Not only are you “somebody” you are unique, special and it’s time to stop playing small and letting the world around you define you. Since the default setting for the mindset of the world is so constricted, and limited, focused far more on lack than on abundance, if you plug into this viewpoint – you are bound for lack and struggle right out the gate.
In these times of change and flux, you had better get a grip on your mindset and learn to consciously manage yourself or you will be in for a heck of a bumpy journey. I used to be so worried about the opinions of others and micromanaging life that I was stressing myself out and creating unnecessary drama.
Like most people, I operated my mindset out of a worldview of fear. Well fear, unless it is due to truly life-threatening circumstances, is really only “Fictitious Evidence Affecting Reality”. It is psychological. This acronym that I created when I wrote my book “Empower Up and Play Big”, is based in neuroscience. Even many years ago, Albert Einstein said:
“Reality is an illusion; albeit a very persistent one”
Reality is an illusion in that it is not “the way it is”. It is relative, based on one’s perceptual system, the way we wire our visual system, our brain and nervous system. We first wire, then we continue to find the evidence from the “facts”, (our nervous system is masterful at this without our awareness) the events and information of the material world around us, and we create our own “story” based on our view of life.
Empowerment seems to be a developing buzzword these days. I think people are starting to realize that there is more to life than stress and struggle and they want to do something about the status quo other than whine and complain about it.
I’m all for it as truth be told, talking about what is wrong all day long only makes things worse – or at least feel worse. This is because what you focus on expands and your words and language matter.
This is true also when you speak your words powerfully. When you speak in terms of what you want and imagine what you can do, be or have, you are just as likely to feel good and excited and achieve your goals as when you do the opposite. Think about it; when was the last time you saw someone who was chronically negative, do anything of significance that attracted abundance and happiness?
Those that walk around in a funk complaining about the sky falling down are not very likely to notice opportunities all around them or to take action to move toward success. They are too overcome by fear, their story about how bad life is.
Well, even the words “self-improvement”, though innocent I’m sure, are not the best way to focus your attention if you want to start making some upward bound quantum leaps in your life. Here’s why.
It’s the word “improvement”. It implies that there must be something “wrong” with you right now. I have an “aha” that has really shifted my perception. It is not “improvement” so much as it is “growth” or unfolding.
Why does a “weakness” have to be “bad”? It’s because we are geared to be critical and judgmental and look for the worse, to look for “flaws” in others and ourselves. I’m not advocating that we ignore our weak areas, no; I’m saying that wisdom dictates that we shift only our perception of how we interpret them.
Confidence and empowerment is much need in our current environment – core confidence that is. If you have built your sense of self upon external opinions and the quicksand of what material possession, job or degree you hold, you may be feeling insecure right now.
I used to be caught in the trap of comparing myself to others. I had “delusions of inferiority” instead of grandeur. I’ve noticed that the story lines are not that varied. Most people spend their lives living much less content and abundant than they need to.
The problem is, we give all of our attention to the external world, to the neglect of our inner Spirit. This is why we don’t feel empowered. We are more than “only human”. Human is fine, and I think we should be grateful to be alive and appreciate the journey.
Yet, if you are not aware of the power of the invisible world, including “thoughts, feelings and emotions”, you will hit all sorts of land mines on the road of life. We tend to only look at the physical. What we do not realize often, is that the physical is that last thing to manifest, meaning, your physical world is formed from the invisible.
Your body believes every thing your mind believes, as they are not separate. If you believe that “life is under pressure”, don’t be surprised if you develop high blood pressure. If you think that people around you are a pain in the neck, don’t be surprised if you have tight neck and shoulders. You may even demonstrate a rigid personality, which could be the source of your aliments!
When we believe that we are at the mercy of people places and circumstances, we unconsciously keep our attention on what we don’t want, who we don’t like and “if only” something outside of ourselves would change – then we could be happy.
Well, don’t hold your breath, because you will not be long on the planet.
At the end of the day, we all want peace of mind. Look at the word “inner peace” and you may see a clue to where you can find it. Then why do we believe that getting a new title, possession or relationship is going to give it to us?
And why can’t we see that even if we temporarily feel better by getting what we want outside of ourselves that it is a shaky proposition at best? Well, it’s wired into our brains and body. Since memory is held in the body at a cellular level, it is not going anywhere until we learn how to change it.
Here’s a key: memory is a story that you create. Yes, facts happen, events happen, but it is the MEANING that you assign makes all of the difference. And you will assign your meaning primarily based upon your own self-image.
If you feel powerless and insecure you will view how someone reacted to you differently than someone who loves themselves and “knows that they know” that what they do is NOT who they are – two very different things.
When I have my identity wrapped up in my activity, roles and appearance, I will be very vulnerable to change. When I realize that my essence is separate and apart from what others think about me, I can make a conscious decision to respond with confidence and power rather than being knocked over by the opinion of someone who at the end of the day will not expand my life in any way.
We can’t have peace of mind until we change the thoughts about life that keep us chasing this elusive state of being. I grew up on many beliefs that were held as “common sense”. They may be common but they make no sense if you want to live an empowered, abundant and happy life. What are some of these beliefs?
Topics of empowerment always grab my attention because I know that feeling victimized and out of control is no way to live.
In fact, since stress is such a killer, if we are chronically overwhelmed and ill at ease, we will not live a long life and at best, certainly if we do our life will not be of a high quality.
So, since I highly value peace of mind and good health, I made it my business to get to the root of my dis-ease. I started to notice that I had this companion hanging around my life that did not support me, that put me down and seemed to cause me to miss opportunities that could have created more abundance and adventure in my life.
It seemed to follow me wherever I went, and though it felt familiar, it did not seem to have my best interest at heart. Why would you ask, did I allow such a companion to hang out with me? Good question. As soon as I started to realize this, I began to make it my business to cut the ties and figure out how to get rid of it.
Who or what was this companion? It is fear. We can get so attached to fear that it becomes our familiar way of traveling through life. Fear, or Fictitious Evidence Creating Reality, it is the story that we wire into our brains that life is unsafe, full of suffering and lack and that is just “the way it is”.
Notice I say “fictitious”; we are making it all up.
Can life have physical threat and dangers? Of course, events happen. But this is not the general rule or else you would probably not be alive to read these words. I assume you are more than 5 years old.
The average man or woman lives around 75 years or so. How is it that we use up those years suffering and afraid to get out of our box? The main reason is that we do not know how our brain and minds work, and we take in the outdated beliefs of those who arrived here before us and we think that these beliefs are the Truth of the entire Universe.
While empowerment starts as an idea in mind, it doesn’t make any difference until we start taking the action to make it happen. Having a lot of good ideas or intentions is nice, but at the end of the day, results matter.
Time is something that I’ve noticed people talk about frequently. I often hear “I don’t have enough time”, “I’m sooooo busy”, and “Time is moving so fast”…these are only a few thoughts that do not empower you. They can in fact create a sense of powerlessness.
I’ve tried many “time management” tricks in the past, none of which really worked for me as they were all about changing my behavior. In fact, that is where most “change agents” focus their attention. They give you new behaviors to perform without really addressing what is driving your behavior in the first place.
Since I started working with the root cause of behavior, my life has drastically shifted for the better. What’s the root cause of behavior, you may ask? It’s thought and feeling, which forms your belief. Fundamentally, it is energy.
The belief will then cause us to take action and create the story of our life. It is simple; yet it is easy only if you convince your self that you CAN change your life, enjoy your life even, without struggle and “hard work”. What I’m saying here is that we are making up our life experiences, and what they MEAN to us as we go.
So, one of the most empowering things that has happened to me is to become aware of certain key elements that determine the quality of our life experience and begin to consciously deal with them. Getting back to time – did you know that time is not “real”? Even Einstein talked about time and the “theory of relativity”.
Empowerment is more often a topic for discussion lately, I believe because we are undergoing a shift in paradigms. Most people are looking at the changes going on in the world as a “bad” thing. I see the metaphor of the butterfly when I look around.
What it feels like to me is that society is like the caterpillar that is undergoing change and in that transition of going from the less than gracefully caterpillar to the butterfly there is a struggle. With change comes turmoil often because most people resist it and react instead of responding from a place of power.
We all want a better health care system, yet just look at all of the resistance going on in Washington. We want prosperity, yet our system breed debt and Wall Street and the markets are a mess. Then there’s the issue of relationships. Depression and dysfunction is at an all time high, yet, most people resist personal change until they hit the proverbial brick wall.
Why wait?
Change is going to come either way. We can resist kicking and screaming or adapt and learn how to get into the flow. We can proactively release our old baggage and wounded emotional patterns by learning new ways of shifting using our awareness and working with the energy of life, or we can stuff our feelings and continue to experience more chronic disease and lack of peace within ourselves and with others.
What is mindset? Think of it as a radio station that has a frequency that you must dial into. Your mind set tends to be set to a certain way of thinking and keeps bringing the results in your life. It has to do with perception.
If you want to expand the vision for your life, your have to be willing to turn the station from where you are to where you want to find yourself. You have to be willing to open your mind and consider new possibilities.
Or else how are you going to even begin to see a new vision, you keep looking at the old stuff around you, which is yesterday’s vision. So what are the ingredients to mindset? Thought, emotions and feelings. This trio forms the basis of your beliefs, and beliefs are just thoughts and feelings that you keep reinforcing through your perception, HOW you perceive the world.
It is your nervous system’s job, which includes your brain, to make you right and keep looking for and finding what you program yourself to believe by the thoughts, feelings and emotions you experience.
Most of this is done unconsciously, so if you want to change your dial, you have to learn how to consciously switch the dial. Now while this is not necessarily a quick fix, it just depends on your willingness to grow.
If you are looking for the magic pill, you will not find it here, yet, change does not have to take a long time or be a long, drawn out process. That is, if you are willing to be open-minded and develop some discipline along the way.
One of the first steps would be a willingness to change.
1. Set Intention to change
2. Start to see responsibility as the “ability to respond” instead of a dirty word
3. Realize that much of what we are conditioned to think about the world is what is keeping us from living empowered lives. Your life is a reflection of your beliefs. So you have to open your mind to think new thoughts for new results.
Empowerment is what most people would say that they want. In fact, I’ve noticed an increase in the use of the word in the general public. I think we are in a time of evolution. Evolution did not stop with the dinosaurs.
However, when we try to hold onto ideas that do not progress us, don’t we surprise if we join those dinosaurs either individual or collectively. Mother Nature does not play when the interest of Life is on the table. What I mean by this is, all of life is connected whether you are walking around in a physical body or not.
Your physical body is a an expression of the role you are playing now, however, when you live against life giving principles, don’t be surprised if the consequences start to catch up with you. I am referring to our emotions and feelings.
Empowerment is about seeing clearly, embracing the totality of who you are with love and acceptance, then being able to have the personal power to update those things within you that need to evolve. It may have worked for you at one point in your journey, but the environment has changed, so you will evolve or make life really tough for yourself.
The earth and civilization changed and the dinosaurs, with their destructive dispositions and oversized bodies, could not adapt, so they are no longer in the game. We are at a time of change on our planet, this is obvious. Yet, many people want to ignore this change and pretend like its business as usual.
You can feel it in the air. The energy has shifted. This is one reason why things seem to move so fast and furious – unless you have learned to live in the present moment and make friends with change and your emotions. For me, it is getting easier, not more difficult. And I am happier now than I have ever been in my life. Why?
Because I finally stopped pretending that I did not see the “elephant in the room”, I stopped repressing old emotional baggage and saw them for what they were. Emotion is the perception, either based in fear or love. It is energy at its most basic definition. I, like most people were conditioned to live in fear – focusing on what we don’t want, like or prefer to avoid.
And this is dangerous to your mental, emotional, physical and spiritual health.
Empowerment for me is about being able to do, be or have what I consciously choose to experience in my life, including positively impacting my world. It’s about being able to create what I want instead of floundering or feeling like a hapless victim, waiting for the next wave of situations and circumstances to “make” me unhappy.
I figured out a long time ago that if I have to wait for someone else or some circumstance to make me happy, I would probably live and die first. So, I decided, to turn my focus, a long time ago, to finding the path that could take me to my destiny. I think that there is fate, and then there is destiny.
Our destiny is paved with love, joy and peace – regardless of outer circumstances. Our fate is what gets played out based on genetics, karma, childhood experiences and the hand-me-down knowledge that we use in our life without questioning it. My fate was not getting me what I wanted, in fact I did not feel very empowered to go in the directions of my dreams and certainly I did not see then how to make it a reality.
One thing I have discovered is that when there are blind spots in the way, even if someone hands you the treasure map, you still will fall into a ditch and not find the goods. This is what a WHOLE lot of people (I know from my own past personal experience as well), do every single day. Instead of using wisdom and courage to eliminate these blind spots, we somehow think that we can live on a whole new higher level and still keep our bad habits and low self-images running rampant through our minds.
I saw again a movie called “The Kid” with Bruce Willis. I first saw this movie ten years ago and I rented it to watch with my husband last week. This is a great movie to give you an example of how our wounded “inner child” can run our lives in so many ways.
Career and business success depends on this question: Who do you think you are? Often this question is asked with an attitude, as in “you must think you’re somebody”. Well, yes, I do, and you should too.
