How to Bust Through a Blocked Mindset
A blocked mindset can stop you in your tracks, keep you from making any forward progress, and often you have no idea why you’re blocked. A blocked mindset will tell you something external is the reason you’re struggling, when really, all our blocks start from within. The quickest way to bust through a blocked mindset is not to change your external world-at least, not yet. First, you must take the time to search within yourself so that you can understand why this is happening.
In this blog post, I talk about some of the internal work you can start doing such as envisioning your destination, engaging in positive thinking, and claiming your power back over fear. I provide a wonderful three-step exercise to show you how you can start busting through that blocked mindset toward a thriving mindset instead.
Let’s hop to it!
Mindset can make or break a writing journey. Every day we entertain an average of 60,000 thoughts. If you haven’t begun work on any kind of personal development, then likely the bulk of those 60,000 thoughts are negative. Negative thoughts repeated over and over turn into beliefs—limiting beliefs. (Vice versa, positive thoughts repeated over and over turn into empowering beliefs.)
Scan your thoughts for the past hour or more. Would you say they were negative, positive, neutral or a blend of all? Maybe you don’t really know. Maybe you’re so accustomed to these thoughts that they don’t stand out from the other 60,000+/- thoughts. This is a problem if you’re a negative thinker because it means you’re buying into beliefs that limit and block you.
Humans are all on a journey. Creatives are on what I call a creative journey, which is usually its own path not tied to our real-world journey (although, there are always exceptions).
THE VALUE OF EXPANSION
How would you describe your creative journey? If it’s tied to your real-world journey, then describe that too. What is your ultimate vision? What kind of destination would you love to reach that is beyond your wildest dreams?
If you have a tough time envisioning a destination “beyond your wildest dreams” then that’s something you’ll want to journal out. You want to be expansive in your creative journey. You want to aim for the stars—and beyond! Because when you do that, opportunities will suddenly appear to you like small blinking lights through the fog of your limiting belief system.
Take, for instance, the following questions:
1. Where do you see yourself in six months?
2. Where do you want to be in six months?
For anyone who is new to personal development, your answers will likely be different for each question. And if that’s the case, that is your ding-ding moment to alert you that you need to be more expansive with your thoughts.
Study the differences in your answers for questions 1 & 2. What comes up for you? Are you able to see where you might be holding the reins of your horses a little too tight? Maybe some fear pops up, a voice that warns you “No way will you be able to do that!” This is normal. The bigger issue is whether you allow that voice to limit you.
THE VALUE OF POSITIVITY
Are you happy where you are right this minute? I mean, I bet you’re pretty happy because you’re reading this blog post, but besides that—are you happy in your creative life right this minute? What is working for you? Where are you struggling? What seems to never feel good, or starts out feeling good then ends up feeling crummy?
Your emotions are your gauge to what kinds of thoughts you’re buying into. If you feel good, then that means you’ve been loving on yourself (which is a beautiful thing). If you feel crummy, that means you’re shaming yourself, putting yourself down, holding yourself back, limiting yourself—none of that is healthy or natural.
I’m referring more to patterns of low-vibe emotions, not a random bad day. The good news is that you can break any pattern or habit that isn’t serving you. Yes, you have to desperately want to change, otherwise your plan won’t stick. Once you make that decision to change, then your requirement is to show up every day as your new creative self. Create a new pattern.
Before you can hope to achieve your wildest dreams & beyond, you must treat yourself with kindness, love, and respect along the way.
Positive thoughts can help you pave a creative journey that brings you joy, fulfillment, and passion. Let’s go back to the questions I posed above and take another stab at them, with the understanding that you have the power to create a new pattern through positive intentions.
With each question, answer as the person you are now, but follow up with an answer as the person you want to be.
FOR EXAMPLE: Are you happy in your creative life right this minute?
Current Self: No, because I can’t seem to finish this memoir that I’ve been working on. It’s been five years since I began writing it, and I keep getting stuck and losing interest in it.
Desired Self: Yes, because I finished my memoir, which felt so healing and beautiful. I was challenged by the process, but I was really clear on why writing this book is important, and that vision is what helped me get through some obstacles that stood in my way.
Now your turn:
1. Are you happy in your creative life right this minute?
2. What is working for you?
3. Where are you struggling?
4. What seems to never feel good, or starts out feeling good then ends up feeling crummy?
This exercise is really powerful because it helps us get out of the mentality that we “can’t” and into a mentality that anything is possible if we want it desperately enough and we’re willing to work hard.
THE PAINS & GAINS OF GROWTH
Growth is what happens when your Current Self evolves into your Desired Self. This is a good thing! We want to grow. We want to thrive. We want to see beyond the constructs of our current world and get excited about possibility and opportunity in our new world.
However, growth also means we have to leave some things behind. Typically, we’re leaving behind what doesn’t serve us anymore but this can be difficult if “what doesn’t serve us” is something that’s been part of our lives for a long time. Journal through this difficult period. Meditate. Take some time to yourself and appreciate that which you must surrender.
It’s helpful to know that the version of yourself you’re shedding is what brought you to this new version of self, so it fulfilled a hugely important job! There is much to love and appreciate about your shed version. Surrender with a grateful heart.
When we grow into our Desired Self, then the fog of limiting beliefs starts to lift. Those blinking lights of opportunity and possibility become brighter and more plentiful. Your world is expanding, Creative Warrior, because now you see what you’re capable of. You have everything you need in your arsenal to go beyond your wildest dreams.
HOW FEAR HOLDS US BACK
Ah, good ol’ fear. Where would we be without it? Fear is a useful emotion in some ways but it must be tamed and kept in perspective. When we let fear run the show, we have lost our individual power, our say in what we want. Fear will keep us boxed in our tidy comfort zones, and ain’t no room for growth inside there!
Your Ego (that fear-based voice in your head that conjures up all those negative thoughts) will always be a part of you. It will always be your wing-man on whatever journey you take up. So rather than ignore it, fight it, or lose to it, try to learn how to own it.
There are a lot of ways your Ego will pop up. Creatives in particular are “honored” by the presence of an Inner Critic. (I named my Inner Critic Eris.)
Inner Critics are professional hit-men. They know how to take us down when we least expect it. They know how to hobble us anytime we get too far ahead. They know how to shame and guilt us, strip away our confidence, deflate our joy. The moment we start thinking we can, our Inner Critic is right there, on top of her job, reminding us that we can’t.
How do you OWN a voice like that? How in the world can you take FEAR down a few notches—and keep it down?
Your expansive, positive, thriving mindset, that’s how.
When you can show up to each confrontation with your Inner Critic with a counter-attack, the results will knock your socks off. You’ll reach your personal finish line feeling (and knowing) that you put your best self forward and that you chose the path that best serves you and your wildest dreams (and beyond).
Witnessing and identifying and dealing with any of your negative thought patterns (courtesy of Ego) will bring you relief and strength throughout your journey. Own your fear, and watch your power return.
If you like to journal, try this wonderful three-step exercise:
STEP ONE
List out all your limiting beliefs and fears. Go as deep and as far as you can. If you start feeling uncomfortable, take a break, but come back to the exercise. No one has to see this work. It is part of your secret garden of writing and it is only for your eyes. Spend a day or more on this if you can. You may find that devoting some time to this on a regular basis is beneficial for your healing—this would go along with personal development work which, by the way, would impact any creativity work you’re trying to do. It’s not necessary, but don’t be surprised if by working on your writer self, your real-world self is affected.
STEP TWO
After you do some deep-diving into your negative belief system, it’s time to turn things around. For every single fear or limiting belief you listed, write down the exact opposite statement.
For example:
Negative: I have no time to write
Positive: I have plenty of time to write
Be careful to always use positive language here. If, for example, one of your limiting beliefs is “I’m always interrupted”, then you want to stay away from using as your positive statement “I’m never interrupted” as the term “never” is considered a negative word, so it brings in a negative tone. Rather, say something like “I am free of interruptions.”
It’s important that you stay open and receptive during this second part of the exercise.
Reason being that once you get into the flow of positive statements, more positive statements will bubble to the surface, and they’ll be of their own accord and probably have nothing to do with any limiting belief you’ve listed. This is your writer self expressing its desires. Remaining open and receptive will allow all of this good vibe stuff to come forth—they are your creative center’s core beliefs and you need to write them down somewhere that you can see them every day.
Interestingly, many of our creative center’s core beliefs are things we might not even be aware of. We’ve stopped hearing them because Ego (Inner Critic) is powerful enough to silence the good stuff when we’re not practicing self-awareness.
But remember: If you keep yourself shut down and closed off or in a state of not-quite-believing during this section of the exercise, those core beliefs will not come forth for you.
Spend as much time and energy on this section as long as it makes you feel good.
Here’s my theory behind writing down a positive statement for each negative statement: If we’re going to give our Inner Critic / Ego air-time, then it only makes sense to give our creative center the same amount of air-time as well.
I’m all about Equal Opportunity.
If we’re going to roil constantly in the negative headspace, then all we’re going to feel is negativity. But once you start balancing out the negative with the positive, you’ll start seeing more positive opportunities, more possibility, more creativity in your writing life.
Sure, that takes some focus and discipline—but in all reality, it’s an easy thing to do. I mean, you write because you want to write, not because you were forced into it. So…write. Stop getting in your own way.
STEP THREE
The third step involves finding creative solutions to your biggest blocks—and putting them straight into action. Add them to your calendar, start today! Don’t put off this step for later because you might lose momentum. Try to act upon at least one of your creative solutions as soon as you can.
Pick five-ten of your blocks to start, but if that feels overwhelming, then just pick the top three. Now, come up with three creative solutions for each one of your blocks. Use your imagination and don’t be afraid to go wild here. Even if your solution feels impossible, write it down anyway.
Tell yourself “Wouldn’t it be marvelous if I could get rid of this fear by …” This helps you remain open to possibility. The true solution may not come to you right away, but as long as you are in the zone of being positive and willing to see things differently, then you’ll find a way around your problem.
You’re still be putting this into your secret garden of writing, so no one is reading this, no one is judging you. It’s important to put it into writing though, so that you can see your thoughts in words.
Quite possibly you have a life block that is severe, traumatic, or horrifying, one that truly has stopped your writing journey cold. One thing to keep in mind is that if you still have a story idea pushing its way through all of that garbage, then your creative self is telling you something. Listen carefully: Your creative self is telling you, “Yeah, okay, life sucks right now, but this is where you can thrive.”
Life is hard, and for some of us, life sucks. But if a story is stirring in among the crap and the busyness and the distractions and the struggles—then you must honor it. You have been given a beautiful gift to tell stories! You must find a way to write, because that is what being a writer is all about.
DO YOU HAVE LIMITING BELIEFS THAT GET IN THE WAY OF YOUR WRITING JOURNEY?
HOW DO YOU DEAL WITH THEM?
HAVE A WRITERLY DAY!