Could Simply Changing The Order Of Your Thinking Help You Reach Your Goals?
According to best selling author John C. Maxwell…
Upgrading and changing your thinking is the biggest gift you can give to yourself or someone else.
Changing your thinking is definitely the best place to start if you want to administer exceptional changes in your life, since:
changing your thinking changes your beliefs, and belief has shown itself as one of the most powerful forces that affects human behaviour.
Belief has the potential to make good people do bad things and it’s probably responsible for the most bloodshed in human history. Differing beliefs are also one of the biggest dividers of humanity to ever be created throughout our existence on Mother Earth.
Since belief can lead to such separation and it all starts from how you think about the world (or your world), let’s address this division and other predominant issues people struggle with on a deeper level…
I’m not advocating not to follow your gut instincts, ignore intuition and only approach the world with the tone of conscious predication (there is a lot to be said for following your heart). But not taking facts into account, not observing the tangible and being closed minded will not serve you well in any aspect of life.
When you change what you believe, you change your level of expectation, and subsequently your attitude towards tasks and how you approach everyday life will soon follow. When this change is made wholeheartedly with sincere efforts, you can and will exhibit a change in behaviour that many find difficult to attain.
Changing Your Thinking Is Very Personal, Very Possible And Very Profitable!!
Because we all want to improve, become better and achieve our aspiration, when you reach the point when your thinking is effectively changing your behaviour, a change in your performance will follow. The ultimate rewards tend to come toward the end of this change process as you pursue your goals over time.
The Chain that leads to successful results: Thinking — Beliefs — Expectations — Behaviour — Performance
Understanding your beliefs and them serving you well is critical, because this is the start of the chain and you need to assess whether your beliefs serve the right purpose or not? — If they don’t, change them, FAST!
Do the values you live by match what you “say” you believe in? — With most people, this is often not the case.
In reality change can be very uncomfortable, but unless the change is uncomfortable in some way, it probably isn’t a change that will have any meaningful impact in your life.
There is a lot to be said for making many small changes, and this can equal a big change. But on the flip side — many small changes can lead to biting off more than you can chew, and experts tend to advise focussing on one or two changes before going for the jugular!
Let’s Play A Game
Using the terms below, rank yourself from 1–6 in the order of where you place the most emphasis in your mental processes when facing a challenging task.
If 1 is the most and 6 the least — which areas do you actually place the most emphasis ?
Rank from 1–6
- Thinking
- Beliefs
- Expectations
- Attitude
- Behaviour
- Performance
This is a very interesting game because it shows you how potentially misaligned your mental processes are and, subsequently your actions.
Here’s how to interpret your result to the game above: with a clear line of thinking you should rank 1–6 from top to bottom respectively, thinking being first and performance being sixth. — This is the optimal step-by-step sequence you should follow when thinking about overcoming challenges according to best selling author John C. Maxwell.
If your thinking was not in this alignment, you need to assess the mental paths you take and focus on re-aligning accordingly. If you were very far removed from the tried and tested optimal, that’s ok because now you know!
(feel free to leave your results in the comments below — I’m curious to see if I wasn’t the only one who failed miserably lol)
Capturing thoughts on paper is a great way to bring your efforts into focus and help you persevere in the log run. It can help you draw strength by remembering how far you’ve come, and how much closer you now are to your goals! Plus you can’t always take action on great ideas the very instant they come into your mind, so writing them down means you won’t forget and you can always go back revisit and take action on when the time is right.
An active and intelligent mind will naturally have MANY good or even great ideas arise.
And it’s key to not get overwhelmed and make the mistake of trying and do too much too soon, as I’m sure we have all been guilty of in the past!
Many successful people have failed miserably multiple times in the past but their failures are often the keys to their successes.
In order to reduce your chances of failure you need to make sure you: Stress Test Your Ideas Thoroughly!!
IN YOUR EARLY YEARS YOU WONT BE AS WRONG AS PEOPLE THINK YOU ARE
IN YOUR LATER YEARS YOU WONT BE AS RIGHT AS PEOPLE THINK YOU ARE
AND ALL THROUGH THE YEARS YOU WILL BE BETTER THAN YOU THOUGHT!
It is mentally, emotionally and financially cheaper to fail on the front end of an idea’s timeline by testing it first, before investing a whole lot of time and energy only to find it fail on the backend.
Something to BE AWARE of: all the testing in the world doesn’t guarantee you will succeed. But trust me, save your ego from the pain of wallowing and don’t wander blindly into any new idea, however wonderfully amazing it might seem at the time!
Don’t be afraid to ask for help from people who can add value to your endeavours! Having a great mentor can be awesome and quite possibly life changing. Or just having the right environment and the right people around you can make or break your efforts for change!
Hanging around people who have a similar mindset to you or are “higher minded” in the area you are trying to improve can and will serve you well. You can draw strength from them when times get hard and you need some added grit, willpower and determination — which you inevitable will!
The Right Thought + The Right People + The Right Environment + The Right Time + The Right Reason + The Right Action Plan = The Right Result
If, like me, you’re on your own journey of self-discovery and growth, you will find a wealth of value in my new “Reprogram Your Mind For Success” e-book.
You can download your free copy here.
P.S. If you resonated with this article, I’d really appreciate you hitting the ❤ button.
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