Coaching Videos & Tips - November 28 2019 No.629
BUT IT'S BAD EXPERIENCE!
Today's video is, when I reflect upon it, exploring something that we're all very good at (and that's not very good!)... over-thinking. It's a plague and a curse. But, at least, it's something over which you have absolute control.
Now, as you no doubt know, I've been hammering on about the curse of over-thinking since February 1996! And, as you'll notice, we're on Issue No. 629 today. That means there are 628 previous videos, tips, articles and stories... all at your fingertips in The Archive!
I mention absolute control opposite - I'm suggesting that you can exercise it when it comes to what is going on in your own head. Many disagree with me because their everyday experience of a noisy mind suggests otherwise.
But you can take absolute control of your state of mind right now... you're the only one who can.
So stop. Hold out your hands, palms up. Admire the lines, wrinkles and creases. Absorb yourself in what you're seeing and simply park your thoughts for a couple of minutes.
The old saying that we know something or someone like "the palm of our hand" is not true. We're simply not good at paying attention to what is closest to us. Here's your opportunity.
You can make of this what you will... I'm about to quote Donald Trump who, in response to Hillary Clinton's claim that she had the greater experience, replied "But it's BAD experience". That's what today's video is actually about. We cannot assume that our past experience is a guide to our future achievement.
Up to the point in our lives, where we take control of our state of mind and set our mind off in the new direction of our choosing, we (like everyone else) create our daily experience from our closed and programmed minds. The normal (crazy) experience of life is repetitive and essentially never-changing.
When we take the small steps that we all need to take to gain control of our state of mind, we fundamentally recalibrate our mental settings to the extent that our past experiences of lack of change or, dare I say it, failure, are no guide to what happens next.
A quantum shift takes place. I don't mean that in some philosophical way. The shift is real, physical, neural and fundamental. We set off on a new trajectory.
Will we stumble along the way? Of course we will, we're human. But we will stumble and fall on a different path to the one we tread up to that fundamental shift. Will we lose heart? Of course we will - our negetively biased thinking will always be with us. But it will only be thinking - it won't fundamentally alter our newly-set subconscious belief or expectation.
Don't get lost in the uninspiring experiences of the past. Don't let your own mind do you down. Don't let your in-built preference to stay in your comfort zone (I'll deal with this next week) prevent you from setting aside a few minutes every morning to take the little action that will lead to that quantum shift.
Some people don't just use their past experience as a guide to the future, they get stuck in their past experience.
An acquaintance with whom long-time followers might be familier (she thought her son might be, at various times, a world-champion skier; a confidante to Barack Obama; a top-ten tennis-player... it's quite a long list) keeps posting pictures on Facebook of "my chalet in the Alps" or "my boys out on the slopes".
It's six years since she moved away. The pictures she posts are of random chalets, the skiers are random stock or tourist office photographs. And she keeps posting.
Her latest post is a photo of a well-heeled regency home in London's trendy Chelsea. She comments that she's "heading back to my lovely home in Chelsea". The photo in question had appeared in a news story a few days earlier. It is not where she lives... not even the country where she lives!
In fact, I'm not sure what planet she's living on!