This Question Shifted Everything
Words in an instant
I’d recently reconnected with an old friend with whom I’d been out of touch for several years, almost a decade. She’d been going through a challenging transition which included selling her home, something she didn’t want to do, but had to. Interestingly, I went through a similar transition at about the same time we’d last spoken. So, the timing of our reconnection seemed rather divinely directed. I shared something with her that someone said to me during that time that shifted everything for me. And, when I said the words, she had a very similar reaction.
It got me thinking about how words, when you hear them at the right time, can shift your mindset in an instant.
“When the student is ready, the teacher will appear.” Lao Tzu
From a place of boy-have-I-been-there, I shared my experience with her. I—like so many others during that time—was laid off in 2008 and was out of full-time work for over two years. I was in a daily struggle to try and keep my house. During that time, it was my friend and (still) financial coach, Lisa Gould, who was my lifeline of truth. We often discussed various alternatives and in that particular conversation, on that particular day, it was a brass-tacks breakdown of what it would take for me to hang on to the house.
I was hanging on for dear life, at least that’s how it felt. I loved that house and my identity was ingrained with being its owner, making every little inch of it mine and sharing it with others. It gave my life a meaning that came from years of creating the meaning, by habit, by upbringing, by stories about the American Dream, and that home ownership was an integral part of being a successful adult. I felt like a failure if I couldn’t keep my home.
The Question
When I discussed all of this with Lisa, during the brass tacks chat, she said, “Wouldn’t you rather set yourself up for success than protect yourself from failure?”
Wait, what? Say that again, I said.
“Wouldn’t you rather set yourself up for success than protect yourself from failure?”
I still remember where I was sitting when I heard those words. Everything shifted in my body, my face was flushed and I felt alive.
Like I had choices.
What shifted was my mindset.
And, the reason it made such an impact in that moment, is that I was ready to hear it, to receive and to incorporate it. I was “the ready” student. That’s when a mindset shift happens. You hear or read something at the moment when you’re ready.
It wasn’t until she said it that I realized that was exactly what I’d been doing: trying like crazy to protect myself from failure.
Protecting yourself from failure…
It’s looking over your shoulder, stopping the bleeding with a bandaid that doesn’t hold, being in a constant state of shame for fear of what others might think, and always waiting for the other shoe to drop. It’s painful and a self-generating cycle of doom. You feel like a loser.
Because here’s the thing, since what you focus on expands (another phrase that’s a true mindset shifter), protecting yourself from failure focuses your attention on the impending failure.
Setting yourself up for success on the other hand…
It’s assessing the present, looking forward, cutting your losses, and moving on so they’re not shackles holding you down. It’s knowing that your circumstances don’t define you, it’s what you do with and about the circumstances, that do. Setting yourself up for success becomes all about intention. When you focus on your intentions for success, then success expands.
Gary Zukav in The Seat of Soul said, “You create your reality with your intentions.” So, if you intend to protect yourself from failing, then you’ll be in that state. Or, if you intend to continually be serving your highest good with your choices which lead to fulfillment and success, then you’ll be living in that state.
It’s intention and choice.
Well, that changed everything for me then. Literally, in that moment, my home became a house, just brick and mortar. It removed the emotion, which is what kept me attached, the emotion that was linked to the shame and feeling of failure.
In a success mindset, it became a transaction that freed me to rebuild. Was it hard? You bet. Short-selling my house was a huge hit. But, I recognize it as a moment in my life, a circumstance I went through. Once it was done it cut the chains that held me back, in so many ways that went beyond selling the house. Because when your mindset is changed it affects everything.
I remind myself often of Lisa’s words. And, when I find myself in a conversation like I had with my old friend, I share them as well.
Wouldn’t you rather set yourself up for success than protect yourself from failure?
With life’s ebbs and flows, this phrase has ongoing benefits. I’ve fully incorporated it. It’s one of my mantras now, in my work, in my relationships, in everything.
The full Lao Tzu quote is:
“When the student is ready, the teacher will appear. When the student is truly ready, the teacher will disappear.” Lao Tzu
What words or phrases have shifted your mindset?
Make them a mantra and share them with others. It’s the best way to not only expand your own life but expand and raise the collective consciousness as well.
Share yours in the comments, I’d love to know them.
Beautiful words of wisdom!
Words that nudged me to a huge change in employment...and ulitmately set the course for the rest of my life in a way I could not have imagined as I took those first tentative steps : The Road Less Traveled by Scott Peck and the Robert Frost poem The Road Less Traveled. Both poem and book dropped into my life around the same time and inspired me to take the leap away from comfortability. It did make all the difference.