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Is Your Glass Half-Full Or Half-Empty?

Is Your Glass Half-Full Or Half-Empty?

by Linda-Ann Stewart

I’m sure you’ve heard of the test to determine if a person is an optimist or a pessimist. Imagine a table with a glass with water in fifty percent of it. A person is asked “Is the glass half-full or half-empty?” Disregarding whether the glass has just had water poured into it, or half of the water poured out, the optimist will say “Half-full,” and the pessimist will say “Half-empty.” Both are right, and both are looking at the glass from their own perspective, through their own mental filters. Those filters also affect the way they look at the rest of their lives.

The Difference Between a Pessimist and an Optimist

The pessimist will expect the worst to happen. They don’t want to get their hopes up so they’ll never be disappointed. And they rarely are. Since they’re looking for the worst, they’ll generally find it. If a negative thinker receives a compliment at work, he’ll brush it off, figuring it was a fluke and will never happen again. Since they expect the worst, they don’t use their resources to discover a solution. Their life becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy, they give up and become stuck where they are.

Conversely, the optimist will look on the bright side, and find it. They’re the ones that “make lemons into lemonade.” Since they look for a way to turn a disaster into an opportunity, they’ll generally create a way to do so. If a person with a positive attitude is praised for a project well done, he’ll accept the congratulations and appreciate it. Optimists expect life to improve, so they look for solutions and take action.

How Realism Impacts Both

There is a difference between pessimism and realism. Suppose you have just enough in your bank account to pay all of your bills. A pessimist may get depressed over this state of affairs, and decide that “I don’t have any extra money for fun, and the situation will never get any better,” which simply tells the subconscious not to find a way to improve the situation.

Someone who is too optimistic may choose to spend some of their income on a good dinner, believing that something will turn up to recoup the money before the bills are due. That’s when a realistic attitude is helpful. A realistic optimist will think “Wow, there’s enough money to pay the bills this month. And since there’s nothing constant in the Universe but change, my financial situation will get better,” instructing their creative mind to keep working on a solution.

Optimists Aren’t Born

Pessimism is actually stressful and hard on the body. Studies have shown that pessimists have more physical illnesses and die at a younger age than optimists. Many people think that if they’re an optimist or pessimist, it’s a permanent condition. Not so. Optimists are not born, they’re trained that way. (The same is true of pessimists.) As children, we might pattern ourselves after the way a parent, friend, or teacher acted towards life; or we might choose the opposite approach. Either way, we learn to either look at the shadow or at the sunny side of life.

Being optimistic doesn’t mean that a person is a Pollyanna, wears rose-colored glasses and never recognizes that something is difficult, hurtful, or sad. It just means that they don’t dwell on it. They choose to focus on the good in life, and look for a way for things to improve. In doing so, they’re instructing their creative mind to find a way to turn the obstacles into a benefit. The Chinese character for “challenge” is the same as the character for “opportunity.”

How to Become an Optimist

Becoming an optimist means changing the way you focus on the events in your life. Listen to what you tell yourself about things. Are they negative? Are they actually accurate? For instance, if a friend betrays you, do you think, “I can’t trust any of my friends, and I’ll never find a friend I can trust?” Simply because one friend betrayed you doesn’t mean that all of them are disloyal. Challenge your own negative beliefs and attitudes. They are not facts. They are simply how you have been trained to think about a situation. If you have been trained one way, you can train yourself to think about it differently.

Give yourself a pep talk, such as “Lois betrayed me. She pretended to be my friend for her own agenda. That’s not my issue, it’s hers. Looking back, I realized that something was amiss in the relationship. I have other friends who have been trustworthy. I’m learning more and more to pay attention to my feelings about who can be trusted. There are lots of nice people with integrity in the world, and I can meet them.” This changes the focus of your attention from “no solution” to “solutions are available.”

Just as when a person sees the glass half-empty or half-full, altering the focus can change your filters. When you change your filters, this transforms the way you perceive life. So, instead of seeing the glass as half-empty, you can begin to see the opportunities of the glass being half-full.

Affirmation:

I know that I perceive life through the filters of my own beliefs. Those beliefs aren’t facts, they’re simply based on conclusions I’ve drawn from past experiences, and from the way I’ve learned to process that information. I now realize that there are many other ways to view the events of my life, and I now choose to change my focus to a more positive one. I actively search for a positive way to look at the situations of my life, a way that supports my well being. As I do, I’m instructing my creative mind to discover ways to improve my life.

What Are You Expecting?

What Are You Expecting?

by Linda-Ann Stewart

“People only see what they are prepared to see.” Ralph Waldo Emerson

Imagine you’re at a networking meeting where you don’t know anyone. You feel out of place and just a little anxious. A nicely dressed woman walks in your direction. Uneasy, you prepare to introduce yourself and smile at her. But she never makes eye contact, walks right by and you feel snubbed.

You filtered her actions through your beliefs and expectations. Because you already felt insecure, you believed she deliberately ignored you. The truth is that she probably was focused on someone across the room that she knew and never even noticed you. But you interpreted her actions to be what you expected, which was to be ignored, rather than she just wasn’t aware of you.

We See What We Expect

As we go through life, it’s human nature to notice things that reinforce what we already believe. For example, a salesperson gets uncomfortable with a potential client being quiet during a sales conversation. The salesperson thinks the client has no interest in the product, when the client is actually trying to figure out how they can pay for the item.

Negative people seek out any information that downplays optimism being beneficial so they can validate being pessimistic. A self-confident, outgoing person expects people to like them. They believe that everyone they meet is a potential friend, and because of their attitude, most people respond to their warmth.

Expectations Shape Results

Everything in your life is filtered through what you expect and believe. Anything that disputes or questions your perceptions is demeaned or dismissed. When you have so narrow a focus, you won’t notice other ideas or opportunities that present themselves to you. Possibilities may be all around you, but since you’re not expecting them, you overlook them. And sometimes, if they’re presented to you, you rebuff them because they don’t fit into the picture you have in your mind.  

If your beliefs and expectations are the lens through which you view life, then that outlook is where your focus is. Wherever you put your attention affects your actions. For instance, when you expect an idea or project to be rejected, you don’t put a lot of effort into it. So your expectations become a self-fulfilling prophecy, because your decisions, behaviors and actions influenced the outcome.

Change Your Filter

The way to see things differently, so your results improve, is to change the filter through which you view conditions. When you have a disappointing encounter, ask yourself the following questions.

  • What did you expect from it?
  • Was your expectation unrealistic?
  • Did you misread the situation?
  • Did your actions or inactions contribute to the outcome?
  • Were you open and accepting of other options?
  • What can you do to improve the situation?            
  • How can you change your beliefs to be more aware of opportunities?

These questions will begin to break through your mental assumptions, allowing you to consider other interpretations. As Wayne Dyer said, “When you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change.” Change your expectations, and you’ll start seeing a whole new world of possibilities.

Affirmation:

I release limiting beliefs and expectations. They come from the past and no longer support the life I want. I now look at situations from a more objective viewpoint. Possibilities abound in my life, and I recognize opportunities when they come my way. I attract the best that Life has to offer.

Watch the complementary video, Check Your Preconceptions at the Door.

As a focus coach, hypnotherapist, and speaker, Linda-Ann Stewart motivates women entrepreneurs and small business owners to focus and transform their business through deliberate actions that break through distraction and overwhelm to greater success, wellbeing and prosperity.To achieve your goals with confidence and ease in 4 powerful steps, register for her FREE training video and accompanying action planning guide at www.Linda-AnnStewart.com/setyourcourse.html. You can contact her at LAS@Linda-AnnStewart.com or 928-600-0452.

Stop Believing Your Excuses

Stop Believing Your Excuses

Are you believing the excuses you’re telling yourself? These are the reasons why you aren’t going after what it is you want or taking an action that will move your forward to your dream. You may think that it’s a valid reason, but generally, it’s not. It’s simply a way to keep you in your comfort zone and from doing something that makes you uncomfortable. Learn how you can stop believing your excuses and start creating ones that support your goals.



Transcript:

Are you believing the excuses you’re telling yourself? These are the reasons why you aren’t going after what it is you want or taking an action that will move you forward to a goal or dream. You may think that it’s a valid reason, but generally, it’s not. It’s simply a way to keep you in your comfort zone and from doing something that makes you uncomfortable.

I’ve been a hypnotherapist for almost 30 years. Clients came to me to create change in their lives. They might want to stop smoking, lose weight, feel better about themselves, or reduce their stress, and they hadn’t been able to do it on their own. And much of those reasons were because the things that they were telling themselves about it. So one of my tasks was to de-hypnotize them of those incorrect/false beliefs. Think about that. And many of those beliefs were wrapped in excuses. I’d like to touch on how you can stop believing your excuses so you can have a freer, happier and more successful life.

I’m Linda-Ann Stewart, Heartvision Consulting. I’m a vision strategist and help women entrepreneurs align their heart with their vision. As a hypnotherapist and coach, I’ve helped clients achieve their goals. Now, as a vision strategist coach, I help women entrepreneurs who are stuck, scattered and tired of being run ragged by their business to align their heart with their vision, get clear, focused and accelerate their business to the next level.
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One of the things I do is help them to recognize their excuses and what they’re believing that’s holding them in that self-sabotaging feedback loop. It’s the same type of cycle you get into when you find yourself making excuses why you don’t…. go to the gym, refuse that cookie, make that follow up phone call, finish your project on time, stand up for yourself …. Fill in the blank. Those excuses become self-fulfilling prophecies.

You tell yourself why you can’t do something/aren’t doing it this time. If you keep telling yourself that same idea, it becomes a belief, and then becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. Without realizing it, you’re making sure that belief becomes true, which just confirms it for you. That’s the feedback loop you have to de-hypnotize yourself from and break.

For instance, I had a client come in to reduce stress. One of her complaints was that she didn’t have enough time and get everything done in her work. That’s a common enough complaint, isn’t it? Do you have it? There’s so much to do that we just run out of time and energy to get it all done, right? And you can’t do anything about that, right? Time is finite, right? Well… that’s a belief. And believing it means that your actions will make it into a reality. Bear with me.

My client and I worked to deal with some of her issues to reduce stress and this was one of the big ones. I gave her the suggestion that she was able to get twice as much done in half the amount of time. A bit of an exaggeration, but… she found that she got creative. She figured out how to ditch some of the things she really didn’t need to be concerned with and how to streamline others. Within a short time, my client was able to get all her work done with time to spare.

What excuses are you turning into beliefs and making real? What are you preventing yourself from having? The mind is very creative when you give it a goal, whether that idea is good, bad or indifferent. Belief becomes a goal. With my client, we just had to de-hypnotize her of the false belief and then get her mind focused on a new idea so it would figure out how to make it real.

For you to overcome your excuses, you have be become aware of them. Notice what you tell yourself whenever you’re avoiding something, or telling yourself “I can’t.” Those are 2 signs of an excuse coming on. Confront and challenge your excuse. Why do you think it’s true? When might it not be true? What can you do to undo it?

These are all things that I help a client with. But you can do it for yourself. When you de-hypnotize yourself of false beliefs, and start to focus on ones you want to be true, you’ll make them real. It takes some dedication, stay focused, but you can do it.

If you’d like more tips on how to make your day flow more smoothly, download my free guide, Take Control of Your Day.

Thank you for watching. I hope you’ve gotten some encouragement and direction to support yourself in your quest for your goals and dreams.

Read the accompanying article, What Are Your Excuses Telling You?

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