by Marty Johnson
“You’ve always had the power my dear,
you just had to learn it for yourself.”
– Glinda
– Glinda
New year’s resolutions often get a bad rap. In my
experience, rarely do they last longer than a few days—a week or two at most if
we go by my record. Their intentions are often pure(ish), and the initial momentum
on January 1st (or January 2nd, because why start on a
holiday?) fades fast as old habits creep back in, junk food starts appearing back
in our pantries, and life resumes its full speed.
I’m not a huge believer in the resoluteness of run-of-the-mill
new year’s resolutions, but I am a huge believer in the power of a changed
attitude, the focus and resolve that comes through a clear vision of what one
wants of the future, and the beautiful marriage of willpower and faith to make
the seemingly impossible possible, the ostensibly insurmountable surmounted,
and the supposedly adverse advantageous. I’ve experienced it. I’ve preached it.
And I need a whole lot more of it.
The word “mindset” is currently being thrown around a lot in
personal and business development seminars, publishing, and podcastdom. Like
any trendy phrase-of-the-moment, it can be overused and its meaning therefore may
get a little diluted. But, let’s think about the word for a second. A mindset,
by definition, is “the establishment of attitudes held by someone.” Simply
stated, a mindset is an attitude.
There are two common mindsets—or attitudes—that we, as
fallible, imperfect, easily persuaded humans, gravitate toward. The first is the
“I can’t because (insert excuse here)” mindset—an attitude through which we
constantly make excuses and procrastinate. And the second is the “I will
because I can” mindset—an attitude that allows us to do whatever we want
because no one is telling us not to.
There’s also a third mindset that is less common, yet a
tell-tale trait of some of the most successful, productive, and impactful
humans I can think of. That mindset is one that helps us recognize the traps of
the first two attitudes and use willpower to overcome them. It’s the “I
can because I will” mindset.
Let’s explore these a little more. As we all know all too
well, it’s human nature to make excuses—to say, “I can’t because…” We’re prone
to have conversations with ourselves that may sound something like this:
“Should I finally reach out to a
mentor and lay out a plan to get started on the next phase of my business
development? No, I can’t because it’s just too much to think about right now.”
“Should I send a quick note to
my old friend to let her know I’m thinking about her, even though we haven’t
spoken in years? No, I can’t because she’d probably think it was weird.”
“Should I give a little extra to
the local mission? No, I can’t because it’s not my responsibility. Besides, I
dropped off a big bag of old clothes at the donation center last Christmas.”
It’s also very natural for us humans to just do whatever we
want—to say, “I will because I can.” We end up sabotaging ourselves, and
sometimes harming our health and taking quality away from our best years on
this planet, simply because we say things to ourselves like:
“Should I skip the gym this
morning and hit snooze for a fourth time instead? Sure! I will because I can.”
“Should I binge the entire next
season of my favorite baking show instead of working on that project that’s
been sitting on my desk for eight months? Sure! I will because I can.”
“Should I eat that whole box of
donuts in one sitting? Sure! I will because I can.”
When no one’s stopping us, it’s in our nature—or at least
it’s in mine—to just give in and do that thing we know we shouldn’t … just
because we can.
But now let’s think about what would be possible if we
changed our attitude; if we changed our mindset from the first two
self-attacking ones into the third attitude—the healthy, forward-thinking,
self-loving and others-loving mindset where we say, “I can because I will.”
If we did that, our conversations with ourselves may instead go something like
this:
“Should I finally reach out to a
mentor and lay out a plan to get started on the next phase of my business
development? Yes! I can do that because I will do that. All it
takes five minutes to send an email.”
Then what happens? Maybe our mentor emails us back the next
day and we set up a 15-minute call together for an evening the following week.
On that call, she outlines a few steps to get us started and answers some of
the questions we have with wisdom from her own experience.
Then what happens? We take the first few steps and start to
see how not overwhelming they actually are when we take them one at a time. So,
we take a few more, and within a few months we’ve laid the groundwork for the
business expansion we’ve been dreaming of but back-burnering for years. It
snowballs and, before we know it, a five-minute email has turned into a
quality-of-life changing venture.
Let’s look at another example of what an attitude adjustment
might do:
“Should I skip the gym this
morning and hit snooze for a fourth time instead? No! I can get up because
I will get up.
Then what happens? Maybe, as a result of that one simple
change in attitude which led to that one simple decision, we find out that we have
more energy that day. We’re more productive, less stressed, and end up going to
bed at a more decent time that night so we can get up on time again the next
day.
Then what happens? In a few weeks, what may have initially
seemed like a huge burden has become a fueling, healthy habit. When we look in
the mirror, we see a happier, healthier, more energetic reflection; we see
someone who, in being more self-respecting, has become more others-respecting
too.
I know this may sound all too simple, like a pie in the sky,
but I promise it can be done. When I said that I’ve experienced it and proved
it, but need a whole lot more of it, it’s the truth. I’ve been able to overcome
quite a bit and grow both my business and my being as a result of simply having
a positive, can-do attitude. And, in all transparency, there’s a lot more that
I know I could realize if I could get my act together on more things; there are
still quite a few snooze buttons that I need to stop hitting.
I write this as advice to myself as much as advice
to my readers. I’d like us to all pause for a moment and think of what could be
possible with a simple attitude shift. Maybe, instead of making our same old likely-to-fade
new year’s resolutions—or new decade’s resolutions, as the case may be—we
simply resolve to change our mindset; to change our attitude. Maybe we resolve
to stop saying, “I can’t because…” and “I will because I can,” and we start
saying, “I can because I will.”
Marty Johnson is
an entrepreneur, writer, and business coach. He serves as ex officio Director of
Communication and Advisor to the Board for the non-profit Association of Mail & Business Centers (AMBC) and is Editor of MBC Today, AMBC's industry-leading publication. Marty owns and operates Uncle Marty's Shipping Office in Ithaca, NY, where he's also Co-Founder of the Collegetown Small Business Alliance. Please
visit him at askunclemarty.com.
#AskUncleMarty
...
This essay was published on page 12 of MBC Today Volume 22, Issue 1 (January / February 2020). It was also published on the AMBC blog on December 20, 2019.
