The battleground of our minds is under attack and losing ground, unless…
Throughout any day, week, or month – sometimes minute to minute – we face the outcome of other’s decisions or lack thereof. It’s been my observation that most often people have, or choose to have, a negative expectation of these decisions. I see this as a kind of flawed thinking that has permeated most people I come in contact with – friends, family, coworkers, and associates.
Here are some examples that come to mind:
Someone submits an application to get an apartment and during the wait time they automatically assume the outcome will be bad (the applicant being turned down).
Or the lack of response from a sales prospect is taken as a sign of no interest or that they bought elsewhere.
A phone call gets sent to voicemail after the second ring and the caller assumes an assortment of negative outcomes from the person they were trying to call.
A message sent with no reply (to a relative, a friend, a prospect, an employer, employee, etc) gets categorized the wrong way by the sender.
The old saying – “they have a college education, but don’t have sense enough to get out of the rain”.
The list could go on but the general consensus is to default to a negative outcome.
Is this human nature?
Is this how we are designed to be?
Is this due to the accumulated outcomes and experiences dealing with other humans. That we have no positive expectations from any other person?
Also, those that choose to use influence and human nature in a less than noble way can and will use this behavior against us – unless…
…we build our lives around, feed our minds with, and practice positive reinforcement.
Yes, I hear the naysayers, so here are a couple examples to flip the above scenarios:
The person seeking an apartment – how about applying to ten times the amount of places – even places that they think they have no shot at getting – so that when a number of them reply it is a relief and thought of “I forgot all about that place” comes to mind. Or to follow up such that they assume they are gong to get the place they desire. Leaver no foothold for the thought that it’s not going to happen.
The lack of response from the sales prospect – two things here: anyone in sales needs to build there pipeline of prospects so big that they always have several other prospects lined up to follow up with – this solves a lot of problems. Next – if they’re following up with qualified prospects the chance is very likely that they are busy, out of the country, traveling, etc. The salesperson needs to be the one that keeps there name in front of the prospect – continues to follow up so that when the prospect is ready or gets back in town or has time they are there and ready to be of service.
The phone call that gets sent to voicemail on the second ring – the caller can and should use any energy and time saved by not completing the call and the subsequent action as a result of the call to: 1) leave a message – rule #1 in calling anyone about anything; 2) carry on with other activities that will have positive results.
The message sent with no reply – this is similar to the sales prospect above.
What we should do and be proactive in adhering to is feeding our minds with positive reinforcement and train ourselves to have a positive expectancy in all things. Everyday.
If not we leave things to the influence and input of others, the media, negative people, and the default thinking (which we talked about above).
The battleground of our minds is under attack and losing ground unless we take charge and make positive change to not let it happen.
Our thoughts influence and direct our actions and behaviors which dictate the outcome of our lives. Be the difference and break free. As the song goes… “free your minds and the rest will follow”.