Losing your super-power

The next mindset phase starts to develop around the age of 11-13 years and it is a step away from Magical and Mighty. Sadly though, it’s a step down-hill from here on in. Quite simply, we start to lose our super-hero powers. Day by day, event by event, our powers drain from our bodies as we start to think that our lives are created from the outside in. By ‘outside in’ I mean that we start to think that success and happiness are achieved by what we acquire in our lives. Whether that’s the skills we acquire, the cars we own, the houses we live in, the people we’re dating, how many followers we have on Social Media, or how thin or full our bodies are. What happens is we start to compare and we begin to imagine that there is something wrong with us. You might have noticed your thoughts saying something along the lines of: I’m not good enough, tall enough, rich enough, skilled enough or clever enough.

What ever your ‘not ...enough’ is (and there are many), we all have at least one and if we don’t bring it into our conscious awareness, it can affect what becomes possible for us in our lives. As I’ve mentioned, this mindset usually kicks in around the ages of 11-13 but I’m noticing, through my work, a trend of it starting even earlier. I believe this is (in part) down to the influence that Social Media is having on our youth. There are so many people/brands on the internet offering instant access to the perfect life, the perfect body, the bank balance of your dreams; with the people and companies selling this idea claiming to have already achieved everything on your behalf and for a fee you can get fast track access.

Now I know with my rational head on that there are some people out there who have achieved a lot; and there are many more that haven’t, but our brains seem not to be wired to look at this objectively. What tends to happen instead is that we look at how far the ‘made it’ have got and then we compare how little we’ve achieved in our short time on the planet by comparison. Then we go on to imagine that it’s impossible for us to achieve what they’ve achieved. This prompts a phase where we become consciously aware of limitations. We start to notice and become self-conscious of the things we can’t do rather than the things we can do.

We get ‘MEEK’. And the meek mindset becomes our filter for everything. We become stoppable. We lose access to our super-hero powers and begin to get metaphorically smaller. Our world gets smaller; our dreams and our ambitions for our life diminish. The expectations we set ourselves are overwhelming and we start becoming afraid to fail. Where once we embraced the Magical and Mighty mindset to overcome every life challenge head-on: where once we freely conducted our lives in a stream of trial and error, we now start to remove the necessary and inevitable failure component of learning. Why do we do this? Well, I think it’s the relationship we develop with ourselves that prioritises looking good and avoids looking bad. And ‘looking good’ to the outside world comes in many forms for a young person: wearing the right clothes, having the right friends (real and virtual), not being seen with your parents, hanging out in the right places. Essentially our unconscious focus becomes set on fitting in and being part of the crowd.

Looking bad is anything that might present an opportunity where people might laugh at you- having few or the wrong friends, tripping up in public, not enough likes on your social post, or getting something wrong even if it’s the first time you’ve tried it.

So we stop trying and as a result we stop embracing failure! We become so afraid to fail that we avoid anything that has the potential for failure and that could make us look bad. The downside to this is, we reduce our capacity for learning and growth. We trim our edges, or cut back the new growth thereby significantly limiting our potential. I read a quote the other day that asks two questions. 1: How many apples come from one tree? This answer is easy based on size, variety, historical growth and health. 2: How many trees come from one apple? One seed has the potential to grow millions of trees over time. But the point is a tree doesn’t bear fruit over night, and neither does your ability to drive a car, speak a language, write a book, or launch a career. In other words, everything worthwhile in life takes time, energy and a clear understanding of the necessity of failure to develop and grow.

This current pandemic is a perfect example of when the Meek Mindset can creep in and grab hold of us. The outside world has changed, fact. But have you changed, adapted and flexed accordingly? Have you utilised your Magical mindset about what is possible in this new ‘unprecedented’ world? Have you accessed your Mighty mindset to actually make it happen? Or have you chosen Meek, become stoppable, resigned to the outside world being in control of your life rather than the other way round?

If you have got stuck in Meek, remember we always have the ability to go back to Magical and Mighty. However if we do not consciously choose this option, then we set ourselves on a pathway to the 4^th and final mindset, which I’ll share with you next week.

In the mean time, remember that the Meek mindset is a negative response to our expectations for ourselves. But we create those expectations and we also create the response to them. Our lives are created from the inside out. So if it’s looking bleak out there why not have a rummage around inside for that superhero costume.

Darren Smallridge. Power-Up Partner

Read about the other Power-Up mindsets here