"There is an illusion that nothing important is going on in the dark nightclub where our thoughts, theories, stories, and inner dialogues dance. Truth be told, we are lousy bouncers in that nightclub."
- James McPartland
We may indeed want to go to bouncer school, or perhaps put our minds under new management. We rent space to toxic tenants, allow negative neighbors to walk on our carpet with dirty shoes, and tune in as the sounds of gossip damage our internal stereo system. The hard truth is that in any area of your life where you are suffering, struggling, or stuck – it is your conscious and unconscious self-talk that is busy orchestrating your results.
Even if opportunity strikes – we don't rise to the occasion – we sink to the level of our mental conditioning.
When we ruminate on things that we have no power to change, we lead a life of anxiety and frustration. We live in survival mode. On the flip side, when we get out of our heads (leave the nightclub) and take action on the things that we DO have the power to change, we live in creative mode. True creativity is spending greater and greater percentages of our days doing what we love to do and, at the same time, inspiring others to do what they most love to do. Accessing this powerful way of living all has to do with how we talk to ourselves, about ourselves.
Remember – the most important meeting you have is the meeting you have with yourself.
You truly have to "buy in" to yourself. You get to "buy in" with something that costs nothing, yet requires all you've got:
Integrity – Doing what you say you are going to do when you say you are going to do it
Responsibility – No matter the outcome, you can be 100% responsible either to a result or for a result
Truth – If you truly want to be free, be truthful
Purpose – A commitment to be a part of creating something far bigger than yourself
Whatever you believe and keep alive in your head – you are proving to be true in the way you lead your life. There is a huge life-altering difference between thinking "this is just the way I am" versus an understanding that "this is just the way I keep behaving". Our self-talk is far too often more interested in throwing a pity party than in fighting for our dreams, our future, our family, and in doing the amazing things that we are indeed capable of.
If we truly intend to put our dent in the universe, let's all stop living those survival-mode parts of our life. It's up to you to decide what you are going to be proving true about yourself from now on.
After all, you are the one who wrote your current autobiography in the first place.
When we listen to our self-talk and realize that we are trying to control the uncontrollable (and feeling the tension that goes with that), we have the power to throw those thoughts out of the nightclub. No matter how difficult things become, the next step is always our choice.
The future version of yourself gets created one choice at a time.
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