Take a moment to imagine your life in the future. What do you see?
For many years, psychologists across the globe have practised the Positive Psychology method. This simple yet effective process gives the brain a healthy shot of optimism as it dives into a more forward-thinking perspective on life.
This exercise is called the Best Possible Self intervention, or BPS.
While it sounds like a phrase you’d find all over a millennial’s Instagram, your Best Possible Self actually centres on your imagined ideal life. Most people tend to envisage that their work-life is thriving. They see their goals all met, and they’re finally sitting comfortably in the easy chair of fulfilled dreams.
While this is a lovely thought exercise, many people don’t realise that with just an adjustment in your mindset, those things floating around in your daydreaming mind can become a reality.
Chris Dufey knows all about the power of mindset. He is a Health and Fat Loss Specialist and Business Mentor, and is the CEO and Founder of Coaches Cartel. Chris has a deep understanding of how anyone can mould their business and life into something they love by just having the right kind of thinking.
Find Balance and Healthy Control
Finding a healthy balance anywhere in our day-to-day is tough. Life, business, family, friends- it’s a thin tightrope that we’re all struggling to walk across. If we start to lose our footing or falter on that little bit of control, then it’s certainly a long way down. That’s something that Chris knows all too well.
When Chris was younger, he had a strained relationship with food. In his words, “it would be called an eating disorder.” He was overweight as a teenager which limited his movement and was drastically holding him back athletically.
Chris knew he was heading into dangerously unhealthy territory. He set a new goal, and he found himself striving to get fit and slim down to compete internationally as a fitness model. But as the scales tipped from one extreme to the other, so did his mindset. It spiralled into another kind of eating disorder- bulimia.
“That’s where I decided that this is not a healthy journey that I want to go on,” he explained. So, in taking a step back, re-evaluating his direction and engaging in healthier habits, he can now live a beautiful life, without compromising his goals, or his health.
“Now I feel like I’ve found a really happy medium where I love how I train and move, my nutrition and the way that I feed and nourish myself. I find it extremely easy and enjoyable.”
When we’re laser-focused on a particular goal, it can become very easy to get blindsided by unhealthy habits and thoughts. Step back, do a little bit of self-diagnosis and ask yourself a few simple questions.
Is my mind calm? Is what I’m doing healthy? What can I change or strive towards, to achieve a better balance for not only myself but also those around me?
Find Courage and Embrace The Unknown
When it comes to starting something new there’s an element of treading dark, uncharted waters. This new phase can quickly bring on the creeping feeling of fear. When anyone reaches this state, many people’s carefully planned goals are often laid to rest.
Chris knows that confidence comes more readily with time, as the fear of failure or the unknown fades.
But, when he’s initially too apprehensive to take that step across the threshold, he asks the simple question, “How can you be confident about something you’d never done before?”
To reach your ideal success, you have to have a little bit o’ faith and courage.
Some of the best entrepreneurs he’s known are fearless in the face of uncertainty. “You don’t see where your foot is treading in the next step, but you’re taking the next step anyway,” Chris said, before making an excellent, yet blush-inducing point.
“Let me ask you a question. The first time you had sex, were you confident when you got into bed? No! I was shitting myself. Goddammit, but you were courageous enough to be like, “You got this.”
Take the leap and trust yourself. When you take yourself out of your fixed mindset and enter into the growth mindset instead, beautiful things can come out of the unknown.
Banish Your Self-Limiting Beliefs
Our own self-limiting beliefs often mean that many of our goals stay unfulfilled, and Chris wants to put a stop to that.
“One of the questions that new clients get asked when coming on board is, “How much money do you want to earn?” says Chris. They will often quote a number along the lines of, “I want to earn 500,000 dollars in a year,” to which Chris boldly responds, “Why is it not one million dollars a year?”
One great mind hack is to not focus on the ‘what?’ or ‘how’ first, but instead hone in on the ‘why.’ Your ‘why’ is the unwavering foundation, anchor and reason behind your goal.
“We need to, number one, get a clear reason why you want to earn a certain amount of money,” Chris says.
To overcome self-limiting beliefs re-word the story you’re telling yourself. It would help if you didn’t reinforce those pesky negative thoughts or habits, but instead pursue attitudes and behaviours that lead to healthy and prosperous growth.
Tell yourself that you are capable of becoming so much more- because more often than not, you are.
To quote the positive thinker and renowned author, Roy T. Bennett,
“Believe in yourself. You are braver than you think, more talented than you know, and capable of more than you imagine.”
The Psychology of Entrepreneurship
For more insight into creating a successful mindset check out Volume 31 of the Psychology of Entrepreneurship podcast hosted by Ronsley Vaz with special guest Chris Dufey.
Author: Ronsley Vaz
Ronsley is the founder & chief day dreamer at AMPLIFY. He is an author, speaker & serial entrepreneur.
He has a Masters’ degree in Software Engineering and an MBA in Psychology and Leadership. He is known as the creator of We Are Podcast – the first Podcasting Conference in the Southern Hemisphere, and the host of The Bond Appetit Podcast and Should I Start a Podcast. He has an audience of over 3 million in 133 countries.
Comments 1
Your life is what you think it should be, that’s exactly what you are right now, you are what you thought you should be, and if you don’t like who you are, you got to change what you think you should be. What you think is more important than what you do, and so if you want to change, you got to work on this attitude bit.