There’s something about the crisp, clear spring air that gives us the uncontrollable desire to ditch everything dusty, tattered and winter-worn! Whether it’s the delicate pink blossoms, the bright new leaves on the trees or the distinct feeling that the layers can come off, we get a shot of energy that sees us flinging windows open, chucking rubbish out and generally making everything much nicer in our environment.
So if a good spring clean does wonders for your home, imagine how amazing it would be to spring clean your MIND!
That’s where a spring mindset clean comes in. To find out how to do one, read on.
Ditch the distractions
The very first step – before you can start mindfully removing the clutter you’ve dumped on your mindset – is to ditch any distractions. You can’t evaluate how things are going in your head if you’re jumping at every beep from your phone!
So at least for the duration of this process, turn off notifications, put your phone on silent, or even – gasp! – turn it off.
Make sure you won’t be disturbed by your kids, family members or anyone else. This is YOUR time.
Reflect
Now that it’s quiet, take time to reflect.
Consider:
- What is going well in your life?
- What helped bring these things into your life and optimise them for positive results?
- What good habits do you have that you’re really proud of?
Now on the flipside:
- What isn’t going very well in your life?
- What contributed to this situation?
- Which bad habits could be making things worse?
And now move towards growth:
- What small steps can you take on a daily basis to take your good habits to the next level?
- What small steps can you take every day to move away from your bad habits?
- What sort of mindset do you need to adopt to do this? Learn how a Growth mindset can help you achieve your goals here.
- What are your goals?
Kick bad habits and crappy thoughts to the curb!
It’s time to move on from reflecting, towards doing!
You’ve probably identified some thoughts and thought patterns that aren’t helping you move forward. For example, maybe every time you try to lose weight, you look at your ideal body on someone else and think, ‘It doesn’t matter if I lose weight, I’ll still never look like her. I’m too ugly/plain/old.’
Thinking this causes pain – and the end situation seems painful. All that work to lose weight and still looking gross? What a waste!
Your thoughts have instantaneously sabotaged your weight loss goals.
Humans are driven by seeking pleasure and avoiding pain, but do you know which impulse wins when pitted against each other? Avoiding pain!
So if you attach a bucket-load of pain to the end result of your goals, you’ll consciously and unconsciously sabotage yourself ALL.THE.TIME.
Fix this by consciously and repeatedly replacing those unhelpful thoughts with ones that connect pain to your current undesired state and pleasure to your goal state. This helps you direct the superpowers both these feelings have.
Forgive
Now is the time to forgive yourself and others for past mistakes and hurts.
While it’s tempting to hold onto grudges for as long as you feel they’re deserved – and deny yourself and other people the satisfaction of thinking you/they’ve gotten away with anything – forgiveness is for YOU.
Forgiving others releases their power over you. And forgiving yourself means that although you can still be disappointed by past choices, you’re choosing to take responsibility for those mistakes by doing what you can now to heal and improve things.
Practice
As nice as it would be, this isn’t a once-off process! You can – and should – lay the groundwork today, but keeping a healthy mindset is something you’ll have to revisit over and over.
Like, daily. Or multiple times a day!
Every time that mean girl in your head crops up, telling you you’re worthless, it’s pointless and go eat cake – you’ll need to be ready.
You’ll need to know exactly what you’re going to say to flush out the trash-talk.
Remember, you want to think about the ways your current situation is painful, but guard against attaching pain to the achievement of your goals.
Over time this will become easier, as your neural pathways get stronger in areas that serve you, and harmful ones shrivel up.
Need support?
Changing a strongly negative mindset can be really hard going. Even if you don’t consider yourself to have a poor mindset, if you’re not achieving your goals, something is going wrong somewhere.
Sometimes you just need a bit of help.
If this sounds like you, you may benefit from a Wellness Consultation. In this 45-minute session, we’ll work together to identify your challenges & goals, and then strategize to come up with an achievable and measurable action plan for you to reach your full potential.
If you think this would help you, book your consultation here.
