The importance and effect of state of mind is well known in sport.
A recent and brilliant example being British triathlete Alex Yee at the Paris Olympics.
In the men’s individual triathlon Alex was trailing Hayden Wilde of New Zealand as he had been for most of the run. He was far enough behind that no one expected him to challenge for the win.
Yet in an instant something changed.
From the sidelines former triathlon champion Alistair Brownlee shouted to Alex, “Anything can happen, mate”. This stirred something in Alex and, incredibly, over the last kilometre he found something extra in himself and took the gold medal by six seconds.
What changed in those final moments – his body or his mind?
Being a successful financial professional is ALL in the mind
Everything you do as a financial professional happens in the mind because there is no physical performance element to the job.
Gaining your qualifications, building your practice, your effectiveness with clients, the way you manage your time, and how you deal with setbacks. All of these happen within the mind first.
Yet the contemporary understanding of the mind (which I will come to shortly) is a hindrance rather than a help.
So, what do we know that’s true?
Higher states of mind and lower states of mind
In clear, present, and free states of mind you have far greater resources available to you. For instance, you might face a significant challenge, yet the energy, creativity, and resilience to solve it are fully available to you.
Yet as we all know, in low states of mind such as when we are feeling discouraged, insecure, doubtful, worried, or tense, everything seems much harder.
When our state of mind is imbued with fear the parts of the brain associated with creativity and resourcefulness are far less available to us, if at all. Fear puts us into fight, flight, or freeze mode.
So, an important question is how do we experience a clear state of mind more often?
The conventional wisdom is outdated
We are culturally conditioned to believe that stress is a natural consequence of our circumstances. For instance, believing we have a ‘stressful job, are experiencing a ‘stressful situation’ or are ‘having a bad day’ are all baked into the way we use language.
As a result of this the conventional wisdom is all about managing stress. What the ‘experts’ recommend is either eliminating the perceived source of the stress or using techniques to manage the stress.
Inadvertently, this advice is reinforcing the illusion that life works ‘outside-in’.
But the fact is that stress ONLY exists in the mind. If you go looking for stress anywhere else, you will never find it.
A new way of understanding your mind
In Timothy Gallwey’s book, ‘The inner game of work’, he shares a simple formula:
p = P – I
‘p’ stands for performance, ‘P’ stands for potential, and ‘I’ stands for interference.
Interference, rather than being caused by external factors (as the conventional wisdom believes) is always made of thought. We live in the feeling of our thinking, not the feeling of our circumstances.
Why does this matter so much?
Knowing this immediately takes external causes completely off the table. It stops you being a victim of circumstance. It points to the fact that your mind can clear in a moment, at any time.
The understanding will do the work for you
We all know that the body has an immune system. It is constantly protecting us from pathogens, healing wounds, and working to keep us healthy.
The mind also has an immune system. When we catch on that our thinking is causing our feelings the mind will begin to return to presence and clarity without us trying to make it happen.
The understanding that your mind operates from inside to out rather than outside to in is a game-changer.
Instead of coping under the circumstances you can thrive whatever the circumstances. You will be the best version of yourself for an increasing amount of time and this will impact everything that you do.
PS. Do you want to know more?
Drop me an email at john@clientcentredadvisers.com and I will share some useful resources with you.
