In my workshops I often talk about the power of the mind. When we talk confidence we talk about the different ways confidence can be grown or not. We control so much of our world by what we think and what comes from the inside. That, added to the external influences on us and what’s in our environment make our world.
Ideally both are positive influences but we can see why sometimes this can be hard. It’s why being in toxic work cultures or relationships erodes our sense of self or why too much negative news or office gossip makes us think more negatively. This of course is twice as bad if our inner critic is also doing the same thing internally!
There’s the external circumstance that causes us stress and our internal response or frustration towards wanting it to be different.
The saying is true: we can’t always control what happens to us, but we can control how we react to it. Buddhists have a great analogy for this, which perfectly sums up how our attitude and mindset affect our resilience: the second arrow analogy.
If we’re walking through the forest and we get hit by an arrow, we have a problem, and it causes us pain. Our reaction to this problem is like being hit by a second arrow in the same place. Now we have two problems and double the pain: but the second arrow is one that we shot ourselves.
What’s important is not so much what happens to us, but how we react to it. We tend to get upset and angry about the initial problem. Maybe our car has broken down: that is the first arrow, and the resulting pain is not of our doing. If we choose to get angry and upset about this, that’s the second arrow. It will double our pain but do little to resolve the first problem – and we shot that arrow ourselves.
If we can cultivate a positive internal world it’s half the battle, it’s the one we have most control over. A positive external world also helps and is the sweet spot but we know that doesn’t always happen and is sometimes out of our control.
Know that if negativity is around you you’ll need to work twice as a hard to make up for it from the inside and vice versa. When your mind is not is a good place or the inner critic is running wild find a nice place or nice person to be with a lean on the external world to even things out.
It’s why paying attention to what we put in our mind is so important because this is the external influence that’ll disrupt the internal mind. Too much social media, busyness and overwhelm, dramatic friends and violent movies all impact how we feel and ultimately our mindset. Positive mindsets help us deal with what life throws at us and what we feed grows – especially in the garden of our mind. So are you watering the weeds or allowing the flowers to bloom in your mind?