Back in 2006, I remember a very specific moment when I sat around a dining table with a group of people I was close to at the time. During the conversation, I was sharing some of my visions for the future, plans for growth, and how I saw my future life shaping up. For many, my ambition may have been a little lofty, for the majority it may have seen overly optimistic; but the very specific feedback I received scarred me permanently. And worse still, these words came from the very people that i believed where my supporters, my friends and on my side.
The feedback was the words “My goodness, Phil, you’re such a dreamer”—as if it were a bad thing. It was the ripple of giggles that accompanied that really got under my skin. You see, a dream is ambiguous, perhaps even out of control and maybe even something that “just happens”; that was not how I saw my future at all. I was dreaming with my eyes open, making plans, and taking action. I was doing the things I had always done.
I found myself questioning a lot about myself, my thinking, and my life in general. This moment was to become a catalyst for change in my life as I made a giant discovery: I was looking for validation, perhaps even permission from those around me, that I was heading in the right direction. But here’s the catch: Most people cannot believe in something that is new, different, or unlike them. That took me a long time to realize.
When stuck at an amber light in our lives it becomes very natural to seek the encouragement, acceptance, and agreement of others toward our goals. This desire for permission can easily create a giant roadblock and add fuel to the negative voice of self-doubt.
Self-doubt can be easily identified if any of these thoughts have occurred to you:
The trouble with these thoughts is that they move the responsibility for the creation of your desired success out of your hands and toward a fictitious external source. By speaking these types of statements (even if only in your head), you are looking for concrete excuses for why this cannot work and developing limiting self-beliefs toward any impact you personally can have on your outcome.
The mind is a dangerous thing, and it was the great Henry Ford who famously said, “Whether you think you can or you think you can’t—you’re right.” This could not be truer than at this precise moment. Your self-esteem is a powerful asset in your progress, and being kind to it, protecting it, and giving it the fuel it needs, you gain a handsome ally that remains committed to you and your task.
You have the choice to see a roadblock as a dead end or a diversion. Many things in our lives we cannot change, but how we think about those things is always in our complete control. The second you start thinking differently about your obstacles, you empower movement in your actions, and this movement results in opportunities being realized. You can create the catalyst to this movement easily by changing the statements you are making into questions and putting control of the situation back where it belongs—with YOU!
Borrowing some psychology from my earlier book, Exactly What to Say, an ideal preface to these questions are the words “What needs to happen to …” or “What happens if… ?”
When you change the statements above into active questions, you can engage the creative, problem-solving part of your mind. You move from how most people think and toward EXACTLY how you should think:
Taking the positive step of turning your problems into challenges and your limiting beliefs into puzzles, you very quickly create a natural road map of progressive steps. These allow you to take complete control of your own circumstances.
Steve Jobs once said, “It is not our customers’ responsibility to know what they want.” That exact thinking gave birth to the iPad. If you have a BIG idea, then it is your responsibility to move forward with it. Nobody else has to do the work, nobody else needs to believe in you, and nobody else will be the benefactor of your success more than you will be.