The Element of Being Careful With What You Tell Yourself And Its Hope For Changing What You Think You Can Do and You Can’t Do

To The Tallest Mountain, Say “Bring it On”. Change What You Tell Yourself.

Recently one of my friends told me a story.

She said throughout her life, she had ruled out careers where the requirements included math.

Like most people, she was terrified of math.

A few years ago, she decided to do her paralegal studies.

The math bogey arose once again.

There was a math course requirement in the paralegal studies program.

My friend was extremely anxious about this.

She wondered if her dreams of becoming a paralegal would come to nothing because she would not be able to pass the math course.

Nervous as she was about this possibility, she decided to go ahead.

What happened next was a surprise to her.

She discovered the math classes to be easier than expected.

What was even more surprising, she found herself enjoying the math classes.

She passed the math course with flying colors and completed her paralegal studies with flying colors.

“I wish I had never told myself that math was something to be afraid of all these years” she said. “I ruled out so many different career options just because of math.  I lost a decade of years because of my wrong thinking.  I was my own worst enemy.”

The words struck home.

“I was my own worst enemy”.

Aren’t we all?

We tell ourselves all sorts of things, as a result of which, we limit our options.

I am an introvert.

I am an extrovert.

I am a numbers person.

I am a words person.

I am a theoretician.

I am a technician.

I am afraid of flying.

I am afraid of water.

What are you telling yourself that you shouldn’t be telling yourself?

My job as a Commissions Analyst landed in my lap. 

There was an opening at Palm Inc, where I worked as an administrative assistant, and my manager suggested I talk to the hiring manager to consider me for the job.

My manager wanted to get rid of me as his admin, ha ha. Maybe because of fiascos like the sandwich fiasco you learned about in my post the United States of Friendship Part 2.

Anyway, it was a case of ignorance leading to bliss. 

Like my friend, I too was numbers shy. 

My eyes would glaze over when people talked numbers.

But I was very idle in my admin job.

I would spend hours chatting over the cube with April, who was also an administrative assistant, and whom you met in my posts The Sometimes Orange-Headed, Sometimes Purple-Headed, Sometimes Red-Headed Link between Redneck Jokes and King Cake and The United States of Friendship – Part4.

Also, I did not know what a Commissions Analyst did.

So even though the idea of me being considered for the Commissions Analyst position was preposterous, I followed my boss’s lead and asked the hiring manager about it.

Laura’s initial reaction was “I need someone with experience in commissions.”

But I offered to help her out until she found somebody with “experience in commissions” and she said yes to that.

The rest is history.

Laura taught me the nuts and bolts of commissions administration.

I picked up the ball and ran with it. 

Soon I would be tested.

Laura was scheduled to go on maternity leave, and I would be left in charge.

Would everything go to pieces?

Thankfully not!

I survived Laura's absence.

And when Laura never returned from maternity leave, I became the one-woman Commissions Analyst team at Palm.

I held the position for the next 5 years. 

And it was all because I never got a chance to tell myself “you are not a numbers person”.

Initially, I felt like an impostor.

Not only did I not think of myself as a numbers person, I did not think of myself as an Excel person.

I barely knew how to navigate Excel.

Secretly, I was terrified that Laura’s LOA would throw my limited Excel and numbers skills into sharp relief.

I purchased 5 different Teach Yourself Excel books.

And after Tanita went to bed each night, I would crack them open.

I soon knew enough Excel to feel that “I could do it”.

I was the first person in my department to start using vlookups and pivot tables.

I taught several other people to use vlookups and pivot tables.

This was how I succeeded in a career I never thought I was capable of succeeding in.

What are you telling yourself that may be limiting your options?

Is it “I don’t have the resources” or “I am too new in America”?

I have another friend.

When this friend decided to start her own assisted living business, she didn't tell herself, “I don't have the resources.” or “I am too new in America.”

 She decided she would not let anything come in the way of her goal. 

She would move city, move state, even, if needed. 

And this is what she did. 

She knew she had to find a house which could house the facility and her family.

She found this house in a small city in another state.

The house was a 2-floor fixer upper with an unfinished basement.

The basement had been flooded several times and the previous owner had given up on it. 

Where others would have shaken their heads and said “who wants to deal with flooding?”my friend saw gold. 

She knew if she was able to solve the flooding problem (she was certain she could), she could finish the basement.

Then she and her family could live in the basement, and she could use the second floor to run her assisted living facility. 

The house being a corner lot on a road with a gradient, it lent itself well to the dual purpose.  Both floors opened out onto the road. 

She knew she would have to work on the house to make it compliant with the codes for an assisted living facility, but she was ready for that. 

In just a few months, she had the assisted living facility up and running. 

My friend continued to marshal her resources well. Today, in addition to her assisted living facility, she owns 3 small rental properties.

My friend’s story is amazing.

And a great deal has to do with the fact she never told herself she was too new or had too few resources to do it.

What are you telling yourself that you shouldn’t be telling yourself?

Are you telling yourself, “It won’t work.”?

Are you absorbing the over-caution of the people around you?

It reminds me of when I started Purple Patch, my creative shop.

Well-meaning people said different things to me.

The Creative Director of HTA, the company I was leaving, said to me, “Minoo, you won’t succeed, because you are too soft.  You won’t be able to collect on your payments from your clients.”

Well meaning friends said to me, “Minoo, you are too new in this city and you don’t have enough contacts.  You won’t be able to drum up business.”

I told myself a different story.

I did not allow myself to absorb what all these other people were telling me.

Instead, here is what I said to myself, “I don’t have any bills to pay.  My husband is paying all our household expenses. Plus I have my savings. If I don’t drum up any business, or produce an income for the first 12 months, we will be okay.”

I knew I had to give it a try.

As to the Creative Director’s warning I would not be able to collect on payments, I went “Psshh” in my head.  I was sure that wouldn’t be one of my problems.

Neither my friend’s warnings, nor the HTA Creative Director’s warnings, came to pass.

I took up some retainers, and with these retainers, I soon had enough work for myself, as well as for a minor army of creative temps. By year 2,  I hired four students from the copywriting course I taught at Loyola College to work for me part-time, as well as a driver and a typist.

As to collecting on payments, it turned out to be a non-issue.  Plus, I had help from an unexpected source, as I narrated in my post The Element of Simplicity.

What are you telling yourself that you shouldn’t be telling yourself?

Are you telling yourself, “I have too much to lose to change course.” or “If I give this up, I won’t get it back again.”?

This is a story we tell ourselves when we are afraid to give up something (what we have) for nothing (starting on a new goal from scratch).

A few years ago, I gave up being a full-time Commissions Analyst and became a Commissions Consultant.

I was scared to give up full time employment. 

I had been at the same company for five years, and had gotten very comfortable.

Commissions Administration typically has a steep learning curve your first year in a new company, and then gets easier.

By year five you know all the ins and outs.

It is hard to think of throwing that up for the unknown.

But I went ahead and did it.

What I found out (and you should take heart from this) is that rather than having a lot to lose, I had everything to gain.

I learned Xactly.

I learned Varicent.

I joined an Implementations team and worked on implementations for Splunk, Fusion IO and Lynda.com. 

I did commission logic testing for Salesforce up in the city on Market Street.

Today I have 12 different assignments under my belt.

None of this would have happened, if I had told myself “You have too much to lose by changing course.”

Want to learn about my cousin Vinita who gave up even more than I did to pursue her dream?

You can do so here.

If you have to tell yourself something, tell yourself the courageous bold thing, not the timid thing.

Don’t be afraid to tell yourself something different from what other people think you should tell yourself.

Revolutions begin with one person telling themselves something different from what they have been told to tell themselves.

Progress often starts with one person understanding that they don't have to accept what other people are telling them about what they can do and cant do, and they start telling themselves different stories.

When Elizabeth Blackwell decided to pursue a career in medicine, women were barred from studying to become physicians.

But Elizabeth Blackwell told herself a different story.  She said, “Why should women be barred from studying to become physicians?” and she went ahead.

When Rosa Parks rode that bus, black people were expected to give up their seats to white people.

But Rosa Parks told herself a different story.  She said, “Why should I have to give up my seat to someone else, just because the color of my skin is different from theirs?”

 

When President Obama decided to run for the Presidency, a black man succeeding to the highest office was thought of as highly unlikely.

But President Obama told himself a different story.  He said, “Why should a black man not succeed in being elected to the highest office?”

We are glad that Elizabeth Blackwell and Rosa Parks and President Obama told themselves different things from what the prevailing social mores were telling them to tell themselves.

The world is a better place for it.

On a personal level, I am glad people in my life didn’t tell themselves certain things.

I am certainly glad Ajay, Aaarathi, Subhakar, Ananda and others who have provided feedback on my blog didn't tell themselves that their feedback would mean nothing to me. 

On the contrary, all feedback I receive means the world to me, and I have thrived on all your feedback.  So thank you all and keep it coming.

I am certainly glad my sister Rosie didn't tell herself “It is no use my learning how to cook. I could never cook anything as well as my husband”. 

If she had, we would never have got to taste her appams, which she makes fantastically and only she knows to make in the family.

I am certainly glad my friend Ajay didn't tell himself, “I don't have time to write for Minoo's blog.”

When I requested him to write, he found the time. 

If he hadn't, hundreds of people would have been denied the pleasure of reading A Short Stint in Advertising and his Oh Bangalore series, now an Amazon book.

I am certainly glad I did not stop myself from publishing some of my posts.

An example is You have heard about Wesabi.  How about Wabi Sabi? 

I wrote the post in a hurry and I didn't think it was very good at the time. 

But I went ahead and published it.

It was that very post that brought reader Aarathi  into my life. You have heard about Wesabi.  How about Wabi Sabi? struck a chord in her and she commented on it.

What are you telling yourself about your life right now?

Are you typecasting yourself?

We all love to dabble in amateur psychology.

I have dabbled in amateur psychology myself.

My post What Your Starbucks Drink Says About You? and my post Which Household Object Best Symbolizes You? are two examples of my dabbling.

It's fun to dabble in amateur psychology.

But we should not think of our personalities and dispositions as a trap.

I am glad I did not decide “I am a hot tempered person and that’s that”.

I was able to conquer my anger management issues, as you know from my post How Many Times A Day Do You Visit Ireland?.

Many of the things we consider personality problems are just “habits” or “approaches”.

We can be in the habit of behaving a certain way.

We develop a fixed set of responses.

I had the habit of responding to the same triggers in the same way in my interactions with my teenage daughter.

When I changed my approach, everything changed.

You can read about it in my post It's Called Motherhood 2 - How I went from Tiger Mom to Helicopter Mom to Hippie Mom.

We are afraid to give up things because we are afraid to give up our identity.

Actually our identity is an illusion.

It is manufactured and we can discard it.

What are you telling yourself that you shouldn’t be telling yourself?

If you tell yourself you must have this and this and this in order to be happy, you are setting yourself up for frustration and disappointment.

Desires are endless.

When you acquire the things you desire, you will find out someone else has something you don’t have, and you will start desiring that.

It is an endless cycle.

What you have will not give you the pleasure you thought it would give you when you didn’t have it.

To enjoy what we have is our biggest challenge.

One sure way to tell ourselves we don't have anything good, or we don’t have enough, is to compare ourselves with someone else.

What are you telling yourself when you compare yourself to others?

Stop comparing yourself to others.

We should not tell ourselves that we have to be like everyone else.

As J. F. Kennedy said, “Conformity is the jailer of freedom and the enemy of growth.”

And as Walt Disney said, “The more you like yourself, the less you are like anyone else, which makes you unique.”

People will admire you for the unique choices you make. If you need inspiration to be yourself, read my post, The Element of Making Authentic Autonomous Decisions and Its Hope for Living Life On Our Own Terms.

We should not tell ourselves we have to want what everyone else wants.  If we don't want to own a house that's okay; if we don’t want to be married that's okay.  If we want to live alone, that's okay.

We should not tell ourselves that we have to be single track. 

We can be a stock broker who writes, a marketing manager who likes to cook; a Commissions Analyst who likes to blog.

We should not tell ourselves that we need this or we need that to be happy.

We should be able to empathize with Walt Whitman who said “I have learned that to be with those I like is enough.”

We should not tell ourselves there is no hope for us.

We should confidently say, as Walt Whitman said, “I may be as bad as the worst, but, thank God, I am as good as the best.”

When I went through my depression, I am glad I didn’t tell myself there was no hope for me.

What are you telling yourself that you shouldn’t be telling yourself?

Are you telling yourself, “been there, done that – didn’t work out”?

Before I came to America, I didn’t know how to drive.

I told myself I would never learn to drive.

After I came to America, necessity made me revisit what I had told myself.

I learned to drive.

If I hadn’t, life would have been very difficult for me in America.

What are you telling yourself that you shouldn’t be telling yourself?

Are you telling yourself, “I can’t do that.  I won’t do that”?

I did not know how to cook before I came to America.

Back in India, cooking was a feministic flash point for me.

Cooking was thought to be a woman's job and so I stubbornly refused to have anything to do with it.

When I came to America, I had a choice. 

Eat store bought and restaurant food, or learn to cook so I could feed myself.

I decided to learn to cook.

In the beginning, I couldn't even cook a pot of rice.

But like all things, the more you do it, the better you get.

I got better at cooking and soon found myself enjoying it.

Cooking was the chief outlet for my creativity before I started to blog.

We can tell ourselves anything.

So we should be careful about what we tell ourselves.

We should not let what we tell ourselves become a trap.

As Maya Angelou said (and though she said it about women, her words are applicable to both men and women), “A wise woman wishes to be no one's enemy; a wise woman refuses to be anyone's victim.”

We should not let what we tell ourselves keep us down.

We should not tell ourselves we have to be someone we are not.

As Andre Gide said, “It is better to be hated for what you are than to be loved for something you are not.”

We should not tell ourselves our choices don't matter.

As J K Rowling said, “It is our choices that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities.”

Don’t think your choices don’t matter to your happiness.

As Khalil Gibran said, “We choose our joys and sorrows long before we experience them.”

We shouldn’t tell ourselves that we shouldn't break rules.

As Douglas MacArthur said, “You are remembered for the rules you break.”

For what's quirky, what’s different about us.

Guess what I am remembered for from my MAA days?

I would suddenly break into song.

Guess what I am remembered for from my HTA Chennai Days?

I wore sweaters in the middle of summer.

Guess what I am remembered for from my teenage years?

I used to wear sunshades at night (Michael Jackson style).

Quirky stuff.

Above all, we shouldn’t tell ourselves that it's too early or too late to do anything.

We should resist the temptation to think “I am too old”.

As Betty Friedan said “Aging is not lost youth but a new stage of opportunity and strength.”

How we handle ourselves, as the years add up, is up to us.

As Stanislaw Jerzy Lec said, “Youth is the gift of nature, but age is a work of art.”

We have to make our lives a work of art.

Remember that external circumstances are not essential to our happiness.

As Anton Chekov said, “People don't notice whether it's winter or summer when they're happy.”

What are you telling yourself that you shouldn’t be telling yourself?

Take a few moments to think about that today.

Start telling yourself a new story.

Get working on that work of art that is you.

As always thanks for reading and have a great day and week…..M…..a Pearl Seeker like you.  Thanks to Ajay and Aarathi for their comments, and thanks to the rest of you for your likes, votes and pins.  Much appreciated.