Impossible thoughts
Believing things I don’t have much evidence for makes me mentally stronger.
A big part of mind management is opening our minds to new thought ideas. Our brain has its preferred story, and it will fight to keep it. Even when that narrative is sad or hard or makes it more difficult for us to achieve our goals, the brain wants to be right. When a life coach suggests new ideas for a certain situation, many clients will resist. They will say, “That’s not true.”
It’s important to our progress in mind management to recognize that there are no true or not true thoughts. It’s all up for grabs. Everything we think is simply an interpretation of events. Grasping this concept is a first step to allowing new viewpoints to be entertained.
Once you see it, it’s almost comical. It’s as if your brain imagines there are thought police that will punish you for supposing something not “true.” There are no thought police. You can think whatever thought you want; you can believe whatever perspective you choose to.
For example, Morgan’s ten-year-old son loved playing video games. It seemed to her that he could play all day, every day. And when she tried to limit his screen time, he cried, begged, and negotiated with promises such as “I’ll clean my room tomorrow if you just let me keep playing tonight!”
Morgan held a belief that video games were bad for kids. This impression is so prevalent in our society, that Morgan didn’t even realize that it could be questioned. She had read articles and heard podcasts about ways to help kids get off screens, all of which implicitly or explicitly said that screen time was harmful to children. Morgan let other people’s opinions and statements reinforce her default belief.
When Morgan assumed that video games were bad for kids, she became frazzled. She constantly worried about what they were doing to her son, and she criticized herself for not being a better parent and keeping him away from them. She didn’t want to talk to her son about the games or why he liked them because she worried that would emphasize the fun he was having and make it seem okay.
But Morgan had options she wasn’t yet aware of. She could believe that it is okay for kids to play video games. She could believe that this is what her son was supposed to do and enjoy right now. (We know he is supposed to because he is.) If she did believe this, she could still limit the time her son played, but she could do it from a calmer, more accepting place. She might be more effective at parenting and more positive toward herself from this place.
When this idea was introduced to Morgan in a coaching session, she resisted. She listed the reasons video games were bad. She quoted professionals who held that opinion. She cited friend’s kids who had become violent or depressed, assuming it was because of the video games they played. She wanted to lay out the evidence her brain had gathered for its viewpoint. In essence, she was saying to the coach, “You’re telling me to let go of this painful cactus I’m holding, and I don’t want to.”
Whenever we’re facing a difficulty such as this, the first step to managing our mind is to become aware of our beliefs about the situation. We do this by separating out the circumstances from the thoughts. This exercise alone can give you clarity and relief. But the next step is even more helpful: acknowledge that we don’t have to think those particular thoughts. We open our mind to the idea that there are hundreds of possibilities.
(Side note: in this process, don’t forget to allow your feelings and work through them. Yes, you’ve been creating your own negative emotions, but that’s okay. This is what humans do. And once the feelings are present, you must allow them and process them.)
I love the idea that believing things I don’t have much evidence for makes me mentally stronger. This reminds the brain that no, we may not have a lot of reasons to suppose this certain thing, but we still can. We are permitted to adopt whatever notion we want to.
Our minds often want to go to the past to find evidence. If we haven’t been attentive with money or with our health goals in the past, our mind says we can’t do it now. Our brain sees what happened in the past as a “fact” that determines the future. Many people don’t ever examine these theories or have an inkling that there are other ways to think.
Our brain sees what happened in the past as a “fact” that determines the future.
Start getting your brain used to impossible thoughts. Teach your mind that just because something hasn’t happened or been the case before, does not mean that it can’t be. Isn’t it silly that our brains disregard some things as impossible? The brain comes up with ideas, and sometimes it latches on to them strongly. “I could never…” or “I’m not good at…” are simply opinions our minds generated. They are not truth.
This is not to say that you should force yourself to assume something you don’t accept. This is not a matter of repeating positive affirmations even though your brain rejects the notions. This is simply an exercise to appreciate that you can believe new things if you want to. There’s no force; be gentle with your mind. Simply direct it toward new perspectives. Show it that they are possible, but don’t insist on change.
I talked about impossible thoughts in a previous article (Try This On). I quoted Lewis Carroll there, but it’s worth repeating. In Alice in Wonderland, he wrote:
“Alice laughed: ‘There is no use trying,’ she said, ‘one can’t believe impossible things.’
“’I daresay you haven’t had much practice,’ said the Queen. ‘When I was younger, I always did it for half an hour a day. Why, sometimes I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.’
If you’re having trouble believing that something positive will happen (for example, that you will find a house to buy or your child will get into their college of choice), pretend you ordered it online and you know it’s coming. When you order something from Amazon, you don’t spend time worrying that they won’t deliver your package. You don’t contemplate the ways things could go wrong. You know it will come, and you put it out of your mind. You’re confident it will be delivered. When you apply this strategy to events you’re less sure of, your brain will reject the suggestion at first. But remind it that believing things you don’t have much evidence for (thinking impossible thoughts) makes you mentally stronger.
Here is another example. Say you want to write a book, but your mind says, “That’s way too hard. It would take too long and too much work. I could never do that.” But, if you ask other people who have written books, many of them will say, “It wasn’t that hard.”
You can adopt that notion if you want! Isn’t it funny that after they’ve accomplished something, even something huge, most people say, “It wasn’t that hard; many people could do it”? The task doesn’t seem as daunting because they have already accomplished it.
If you asked your future self about completing a big goal, what do you think she’d say? She’d probably say that it wasn’t as hard as she thought. She might say that it seemed hard, but in the end, it was quite doable. The person on the other end of the goal knows you can do it; she doesn’t doubt it.
What if you decided to adopt that same idea before doing the task? Wouldn’t that be crazy? How would espousing that thought influence your feelings and actions? You can probably see that supposing “It’s not that hard” would create emotions like motivation and inspiration. You’d have more energy and creativity. Your brain might warn you that assuming it’s not hard will make you complacent, but it’s exactly the opposite.
Let’s review our impossible thoughts and add a few more:
Writing a book is easy.
What happened in the past does NOT predict my future.
Making money is easy and fun.
Sometimes my kids don’t want to be happy, and that’s okay.
It’s okay for people to be wrong about me.
It’s okay for me to be wrong.
I can still be happy even if others around me aren’t happy.
There’s no emotion I can’t handle.
Just because most people agree on something, doesn’t make it true.
My weaknesses are part of my kids’ growth and journey. I’m the perfect mom for them.
I’m not supposed to be any different than I am right now.
When you begin a new job or go after a big goal, impossible thoughts can be incredibly useful. Try on the idea “I’m going to be great at this.” Your brain will want you to be “honest.” It will say, “What if I’m not? I can’t tell myself that when I don’t know if I will be good at it or not.” But that’s not the case. You can believe you’re going to be great at it. You can believe things you don’t have much evidence for.
You can also choose to embrace the concept, “It’s okay if I’m not good at it in the beginning.” The brain will want to catastrophize and worry over your anticipated performance, but managing your mind will help you stay calmer and therefore perform better. The thought “I will be proficient at this eventually” becomes reality. Some other alternatives are “I’m right on track,” and “I know as much as I need to.”
Hopefully you can see how fun impossible thoughts can be. It’s thrilling to realize the limitations your mind sets on your thinking and bust through them. There are no thought police. You’re not going to be in trouble for believing things that the world (or your own brain) says are impossible or not practical. You can suppose anything you want, and when you get adept at expanding your thought options, you are able to generate any result you want and build the life of your dreams.
Try this on: “I’m right on track.”
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“Disappointment comes in the gap between expectation and reality.”
