Clarity of thought is a critical part of your success in any sector.
Something I’ll often talk about with my coaching clients is how when you’re getting into any kind of investment business, whether it’s real estate or something else, so much comes down to psychology.
After all, when it comes to doing business and being successful, it’s only 20% strategy, and it’s 80% psychology. So, your perception of how things are going is really affected by your mindset, and whether things are going well or badly, you must take care not to fall into any thinking traps.
Something I’ve often talked about is positive and negative mindsets, and the problems that either can create.
However, it’s also vital that you don’t let your past experiences influence your decisions and experiences in the present day. Recently, I had a situation that illustrates this point perfectly, and I want to share it with you this week.
Getting the wrong idea
I’m part of a WhatsApp group with some like-minded individuals, and whilst I’d never met them in person, I interact with them on a regular basis.
They invited me to join them on a retreat, which in itself isn’t unusual. However, the word retreat really made me think twice about it. I really wasn’t sure that a retreat was my kind of a thing, but I was curious to meet this group, so I thought I’d go along and that maybe I’d got the wrong idea about retreats in general.
On the actual day, we’d arranged to meet at 9am. At 7.30am I was at home in my sports gear, procrastinating about whether or not to go.
My wife asked me whether I was going or not, and I really wasn’t sure. I was there, ready to go, but saying, “I think I’ll skip it”, and making all sorts of excuses: I was too busy with work, had too much on and it really wasn’t the right time to be going off on some retreat with, essentially, a group of strangers.
I kept making all these excuses to try and get out of it, until my wife eventually convinced me that I should probably just go along. After all, maybe it’ll be great!
“Why don’t you just do it,” she said, “and see what it’s like. Afterwards you can say it was a mistake, if you haven’t enjoyed it.” So sure enough, I went off to this retreat, not knowing what to expect, but really not feeling overly positive about it.
And it turns out, my wife was right. I’m so glad I showed up, because it was absolutely fantastic!
Running, jumping, climbing trees
It was actually an adventure retreat, which started off with a hike. Then we went swimming in the freezing cold sea. After that there was another hike, and then we went rock climbing in Dalkey Quarry, where, having never done it before, I discovered that I’m actually very good at rock climbing, and went flying up the thing really quickly, which is when the guys started calling me a mountain goat…!
After all this we walked down to the harbour, got a boat across to Dalkey Island for lunch, and had some really great conversations about mindset.
Don’t let past you decide for present you
I had such a great time, but it was something I’d so nearly missed out on it. Afterwards, I got to thinking about why the word ‘retreat’ had made me think twice about going and triggered such a negative reaction in me, and I realised that it went back to an experience I’d had in school.
The last time I was invited on a retreat was when I was 16, and it was organised by one of the religion teachers. Now, this guy was probably a lovely man, but he was someone that I clashed with a lot.
I used to find his mannerisms really irritating and annoying, and of course teenagers can be brutal, so I rebelled against this teacher. We were all set to go on this retreat that he’d arranged, and I remember convincing myself that it was all bullshit, I was going to have a crap time, it was all a load of nonsense, and we were all going to all be talking a load of shite.
That was my impression of going to a retreat as a 16-year-old, that was the mindset I went in with, and sure enough that was the experience that I had.
Who’s in charge here?
I showed up as a brat thinking I was going to have a crappy day, and sure enough I did have a crappy day. I felt like it was a massive waste of my time and that I would get nothing out of it. After my experience in Dalkey, this great experience that I nearly missed out on, I realised that somewhere in my subconscious, my bratty 16-year-old self was still calling the shots!
All that childhood emotion and way of thinking had buried itself at the back of my head, so when I was invited on this retreat, just the use of that word had summoned up all those memories.
It’s amazing how your subconscious can convince you that you’re going to have a bad time, or that you can’t afford the time, or whatever it that might be stopping you from doing something.
Staying in the present
It’s at times like these when clarity of thinking is so important. I always say when you’re reacting to a situation that you have to be detached, and keep emotion out of it, and it’s equally important to make sure that you’re not letting ‘past you’ dictate how you react to things in the present.
Next time you notice yourself reacting negatively to something, ask yourself why you’re doing that. What evidence do you have to suggest that, if you take a specific action or make a specific decision, the outcome will be negative?
I came back from my adventure retreat feeling absolutely recharged, really brimming over with energy, full of creativity, but I’d so very nearly missed out on it, because I was allowing my past to influence my present… a mistake I won’t let happen again in a hurry!
I hope you’ve found this interesting – for a deeper dive on aligning your past and present self, have a listen to episode 210 of the podcast, where I dig into the questions you should be asking yourself to really move yourself forward.