Declutter your mind, achieve your goalOne of the basics of better thinking is to acknowledge where your thoughts could be better.

If you’ve read any decent self development books, you know you’re supposed to turn these areas into goals to achieve – notice what happens to your thoughts as you read the following statements:

  • My goal is to be a confident public speaker
  • I want to start my own business
  • I’m scared of sweating, freezing up and making a fool of myself
  • I’m dreading being in this dead-end job forever

Chances are that you found the first two statements uplifting and the others less inspiring.

The idea of having positive goals is that they put an attractive vision of yourself inside your head, making it seem achievable so you can work towards it.  The concept is sound and is an important part of the “Better Thinking, Better Success” model.

But identifying a goal doesn’t mean that you’ll automatically believe you can do it.

When you find yourself unable to move past the problem towards the goal you want, it’s because “mind clutter” is preventing you from consistently believing in this positive goal. This is what tells you that you need to redefine the area where your thoughts could be better. Mind clutter is often at odds with your goal.

Continuing the example of confidence, some possible mind clutter could be:

  • It’s not polite… because Mum/Dad/Teacher said it’s showing off.
  • I don’t know enough to be taken seriously… Is this really true? Could you prepare? Is there more mind clutter underneath this thought?
  • My friends won’t like me if I change… Are you afraid you won’t be able to accept a more confident you?
  • It’s not me. I’m not meant to be the center of attention… because I had buck teeth when I was young and everyone laughed.

Dig into your thoughts about why you can’t believe in your goal and you’ll unearth the real blocks in your mind. Writing/journaling is an effective way to do this.

It takes courage and persistance to dig in this way – some thoughts are poignant, some silly and others still have sharp thorns. If you don’t acknowledge them, they’ll continue affecting you, perhaps limiting your opportunities, in subconscious ways. Acknowledging them means you can start working to dull their impact on your life.

This is something I started to do myself some years ago. I found that my “sticky thinking”, stress or fears often had some musty-dusty mind clutter hiding underneath. Identifying this mind clutter let me understand the specific areas that were keeping the problem alive.

Better Thinking. Better Success.

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Photo credit: saivann
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