63. Be Open to Possibilities

When you're open to possibilities, you actually create multiple options for yourself. Hi, I'm Jay, a certified life coach and former educator who believes that rediscovering ourselves takes just a little bit of courage. This show is focused on helping you develop the mindset and the courage to regain your confidence to redefine yourself and to reimagine your life one episode at a time. Hey, what's possible today? My positivity posse? Let me ask you this. Have you thought about that recently? What's possible? I've been working on that myself working on possibilities in my own life. And I want to share with you some ideas that I think will help you be open to the possibilities in your life. Are you ready? All right, let's go. Okay, friends, so let me ask you this question. When was the last time you said to yourself or to someone else? Well, I just don't have a choice. Was it yesterday? Last week, last month, betting at some point over the last 12 months, you utter those words, you said those to yourself? You said them to somebody else? You said, I just don't have a choice. And when you think about it, was it when you think about that particular instance? Was it money? Was it time? Was it effort? Was it desire? Maybe it was something else? Regardless, if you ever said that to yourself that you didn't have a choice. When you say yourself, I don't have a choice. That's a thought error. Okay? And I'm being totally honest, our efforts and thinking are responsible for all of our choices. All the choices we make in our lives, even down to the fact that we don't have choices, it's just a thought. And when you say don't, it's a thought error. All right, let me be clear. First off, you always, always have a choice. You always get to choose, you're the one only you are in charge of your thoughts. You're the only one in charge of your feelings. And those thoughts and feelings lead the actions in your life. Only you only person. Okay, so I'm sorry, if I'm being a little preachy here. I'm probably doing it for myself. So I can listen to myself say you do have a choice. Right? But I want you to understand that you're always in control of yourself, always. So how does having a choice translate into being open to possibilities? Alright, for starters, when you're open to possibilities, you actually create multiple options for yourself. Again, when you're open to possibilities, you create multiple options for yourself. And here's how that works. First, you need to be curious about your thoughts. So one of my mentors, Stacy Boehm, and she says, Being curious about your thoughts is the difference between being a judge or being a scientist, right, a judge, they weigh the facts. They make a decision scientist, though a scientist is curious, they're always curious. And they're open to other conclusions. Now, if you're saying to yourself, Well, I always weigh the facts before making a decision so that there's only one clear choice, right, I get it, right, you go through what you believe to be facts. Okay. What you believe to be facts. And that might be true. But think about it, right? A fact is, without question, something that both you and I would agree on. That's a fact. Okay, so you have circumstances in your lives. And sometimes we believe circumstances are facts, when they could certainly be a thought instead of a fact. So a fact is indisputable, for example, yes or no. at a stop sign, you are required to stop, right? That's a fact. It's indisputable. You are required to stop now, whether you stop or not, or whether people stopped or not. Okay, that's up for debate. But the fact is, you're required to stop at a stop sign. So it's indisputable. Now, here's a thought you might think is a fact, but is really just a thought. Because it's in not indisputable, right? There's some little bit of, well, maybe some people would see it one way and some people would see it the other way. Okay, ready? Here it is. I have no choice. Alright, I brought that back up again for a reason. You might be saying yourself, I have no choice is a fact. I don't. I didn't. I can't I like it. I don't have a choice. Okay. Why? And now you're probably going through it and you're kind of outlining all the reasons why you don't have a choice. But I'm gonna say it again. Those are thought errors, my friends, those are thought errors. Because the thinking is getting in the way of you thinking you don't have a choice, right? It's your thoughts that are getting in the way of you. So if we go back to the idea of being curious. So we're going back to the idea of like putting all of our thoughts out on the table, we're gonna examine them, just like a sciences with examine all of the specimens. So think of your thoughts as specimens, they're on a table, you're looking at them, they're all out there, you don't have any connection to them other than they're in front of you. Right? When you're curious. When you're curious about your thoughts, okay, you open yourself up to possibilities. And possibilities, create options. And then options allow for choices. Not a choice, but choices. Multiple choice, right? Multiple Choice ABCD, E, F, G, yeah, absolutely multiple choices. So if you go back to having choices, oftentimes, we limit our thoughts and thinking, because we haven't experienced something, we haven't done it before. Or we're afraid to have a new experience. Or sometimes we say, You know what, I don't know what to do. I don't know how to make that an option for me. I don't know how to have multiple options. Let me ask you this. What if you didn't know? If you change the phrase from I don't know how to do something, I don't know how to have multiple options. But what if you did know? Like, seriously, what if you actually knew what to do? What if you were in charge? What if you were in control? What's coming up for you right now? What's going through your mind? Or is the door of possibilities opening up to you? Are you still stuck on? I don't know, Dan, I can't see it. I can't see beyond this podcast. I can't see beyond my window in my kitchen. I can't see beyond what I'm doing right now. But I'll throw it back at you and say what if you did? No. Alright, so when I ask myself these questions, what I find I regularly find that I do know. And sometimes it's just the fear holding me back from saying out loud what my options are. But I do know, and sometimes when I get into the practice of it, and I want you to do the same thing is I can quickly churn out at least five choices that could make my decision better in any particular instance, when I do those five choices, I have options. I've put it on the table, I've created possibilities, because I've been curious about what's going on. And here's the trick, right? I said it before it is about curiosity. And we've come full circle. When whenever, whenever you find yourself saying, I don't have a choice, say to yourself this, what if I did? What would that look like? When you say I don't know? Say but what if I didn't know? If you find yourself in conversation with other people, and the first word out of your mouth is going to be I don't know. Your brain actually does know, the I don't know is a reaction to protect you. So say to yourself, ah, let me stop that. What if I did know? What would that look like? Where do I go with this information? How do I create choices for myself? The more that you can consistently stay curious, the more that you can ask yourself questions that start with things like what if? Or how about work, consider that. The more you do that, the more you leave yourself curious and have questions, the more you'll be open to possibilities. And again, when you're open to possibilities, you create options for yourself. And that's what it's about. That's how improving yourself gets better. That's how you improve yourself. That's how you build your confidence. That's how you do the baby steps. That's how you do the micro gains. It's all built around staying curious about what you're thinking. I know it's tough work. But the more that you do it, the more you put it into practice. The more that you spend time being curious about your thoughts, the better that you'll get at it. Alright my friends, that is a wrap on another episode of positivity on fire. If you want to learn more about how you can become open to possibilities, open to the possibilities in your life. Drop me a line at coaching at Jason Ramsden calm. Let's find time to connect. And remember your gift of time listening to this Show does mean the world to me. Your Your time is the most precious thing that you have. So I thank you for being a listener. And as always be well be happy be you. And until the next time they your quest for positivity begin today a positivity posse. If you're ready to coach yourself, I invite you to download my free workbook. Seven Steps to regain, redefine and reimagine your life. Head over to www dot Jason ramsden.com backslash my dash links and click on the download link at the top of the page. It's that simple. And hey, if you're interested in working with me as your own personal life coach, visit Jason ramsden.com and click Get Started in the upper right hand corner of the screen. I hope to talk to you soon until then have an amazing day. Positivity on fire is a production of impact one media LLC. All rights reserved.