Ep.8: Simplifying Overwhelm: A Method to Untangle Your Challenges

Episode Transcript

What's the biggest thing holding you back in your life right now?

Welcome back to the Wisdom Practice Podcast. In today's episode I want to walk you through a thought experiment that can help you feel less overwhelmed. If you feel overwhelmed, it can help you feel like you have more control over your life. It can help you chunk down and break apart a problem you're facing, and get into a state where you feel like you can actually solve it. It's something you can do whenever you need to, and it's a nice reminder of the power we have in our minds.

Let's get right into it. If I asked you something right now, take a second and really think about it: what is the biggest thing holding you back in your life right now? It could be holding you back from something you really want, a goal, a way of being, anything. Whatever pops into your mind when I say that, what's really holding you back?

Ask yourself that for a second and see what comes up, because I'm going to run a little experiment with you and I think it will be valuable. Some of you may be thinking, okay, my finances are holding me back, or my time, or my job. All great answers, and they're all true. But let's go a little deeper. The purpose of this exercise is to see how far we can go until we realize the truth of our situation.

What caused my finances?

So, my finances are holding me back right now, let's say. What caused my finances? What caused my current financial state? You may say the economy or my job, but I think it's fair to say your financial state is caused by your decisions — what you decide to spend money on or not, what you decide to invest in, what job you decide to take.

So let's go one step deeper. If my decisions caused my finances, and my finances caused the obstacle I'm facing right now, what caused my decisions? We went through this in another episode: it's your beliefs that cause your decisions. Your belief around what you can afford, what's a good investment of your money and what isn't.

So my beliefs cause my decisions, my decisions caused my financial state, and my financial state has now caused the obstacle that's getting in the way of the life I dream of. Now we're getting somewhere. What caused the beliefs? Maybe something that happened in your past caused your beliefs — maybe you were the victim of fraud, or someone stole money from you, and since then you've been a lot more careful with your investments. Things that happened to me in my past caused my beliefs. That's fair. Your beliefs are based on events, based in some level of truth — otherwise they wouldn't be there.

Two salesmen, the same rainy day

But I want you to think about this. There are two salesmen, and they both have a goal to reach a certain amount of money this month, and they're both up for a promotion — whoever makes the most money this month is probably going to get it.

The first person wakes up one day and it's pouring outside, completely flooding everything. He can barely leave the house. He thinks, well, I can't do anything right now, I can't go to work, I can't make any sales, I'm stuck at home. They can't expect me to work when it's this bad outside. That's not fair. So he goes back to bed.

The second person wakes up the same day, brushes his teeth, opens the curtains, and finds it's completely pouring outside, flooding. He thinks, this is amazing — everyone's going to be at home, I can make so many sales calls today, everyone's going to have to answer their phone, they have no excuse, I can make my entire target in one day.

The purpose of this story is to show one thing: if your beliefs are caused by what happens in your life — which is true, something happens and you create a meaning around it — is it possible that two different people can get different meanings from the same situation?

The true cause is the meaning, not the situation

Now we're getting somewhere. So my finances, the biggest obstacle right now, are caused by my decisions over the past ten years. My decisions are caused by the beliefs I had around that topic, and those beliefs are based on a true life situation — maybe my parents didn't have a lot of money growing up, maybe someone stole from me and I became more protective of my money. That's fair. But the true cause of that belief isn't the situation — it's your meaning of the situation.

It's the meaning you take from that situation, because, like I said, you could wake up one day, open your curtains, and it's flooding outside, and the meaning you take from it could be "this is ridiculous, I can't go outside, I'm going back to bed," or it could be "this is a great opportunity, I can make so many more sales calls." So the true power we have is in the meaning we give to a situation, because that meaning will define our beliefs around it — or at least what we think of it — and if we reinforce that, it creates the belief.

So, one step deeper: what creates the meaning? This is fun for me, I like this. What creates the meaning around a situation — when you open those curtains, what makes you decide whether to think "I'm going back to bed" or "hell yeah, I'm going to make today a great day"? This is where it gets interesting. Before I say what I think, ask yourself that question and see what comes up.

What creates the meaning: our focus

I would argue that what we focus on creates the meaning, because both of those thoughts could be in either salesman's head. They could both be thinking, "they can't expect me to work right now, it's flooding outside, that's not fair." But even the guy who thinks that may also be thinking, "well, I guess everyone's at home, I should probably make some more calls, that could be good for me." And even the guy who decides to make those calls is also thinking, "I've been working really hard lately, I could take this as a day off, no one can expect me to come into work, this is a good excuse to get some more sleep."

Those thoughts are both in that person's head. What we decide to focus on will define the meaning we create around that situation. And it's not easy — it's not like we can just decide "I want to focus on this one and therefore I'll have a great day." Because when we've conditioned ourselves to focus in certain ways, if your focus is always negative, that creates momentum in that direction, so you end up looking for those things — and vice versa, if your focus is always positive, you'll seek out the positive in whatever scenario you find.

So our focus determines the meaning we give something, that meaning affects our belief around that topic, that belief drives certain decisions, and those decisions drive certain outcomes.

Where do we actually have control?

So when I asked you at the beginning what's the biggest thing holding you back, and maybe the answer is finances, let's use that as an example. Do you have control over your finances? Intuitively you'd think yes, because they're your finances. But many of you may be thinking, actually I don't, because I have my rent to pay, I have to do this, I have to do that, the economy isn't that great, I don't have full control.

That's why I think it's important to dig deeper. If we don't have control over our finances, do we have control over our decisions? Well, I hope so, but again, sometimes our decisions are driven by beliefs we're not conscious of. So do we have control over our beliefs? Not always, and that's the truth — that's the process of becoming self-aware, because there'll be beliefs you don't know you have, and those beliefs could drive certain actions. So we don't have full control over that either, at least not until we do the work.

Let's go one step deeper. Do we have control over the meaning we give something? I'd say yes, but it's still difficult — if someone dies, you're not going to turn around and say that's a great thing. So we have some influence over the meaning we give things, but not full control.

So, one step deeper: if our meaning is defined by what we focus on, do we have control over what we focus on? That's where you strike gold. Yes, we do. We have the choice whether to focus on the good or the bad, the right or the wrong — they're both there in a world of duality, and we can find whatever we look for. I don't think you could argue that we haven't got the ability to decide what we focus on.

There may be momentum there — whenever you come into a situation, your mind may look for the negative first because that's just how you've conditioned it, it's just a habit. But if you decide that for the next 30 days you're going to be more conscious about what you focus on, maybe you could change that. Maybe you could drive it toward a direction you want it to be, and maybe that will affect the meaning you give things, the decisions you make, the beliefs you have, and therefore the obstacle in your way.

Chunking a big problem down to something you can act on

And it sounds a lot simpler, right? Dealing with finances is a huge thing — how do I fix my finances? That's a big question, that's going to take years maybe. Even my beliefs — fixing beliefs is quite a big topic too, that could take a long time. But what about my focus? In this moment, can I change what I focus on? Yeah. That doesn't take much time, I can do that.

So when you chunk things down like that, it's a really great exercise, because when something seems so big, just chunk it down. It's true there may be things that affect your finances that you can't control — maybe the economy's bad, maybe anything — but deciding what you focus on is the important thing. If you decide to focus on what you can't control, you're always going to be subject to what happens, because you believe you haven't got control over it.

So next time you have an obstacle facing you, something that seems so big it feels overwhelming, write it down and chunk it down. What causes this? What causes that? What causes this? And it will come down to your focus. What you decide to focus on will affect your reality — and this is when people say your thoughts create your reality. I know it sounds all woo-woo and not all that real, but when you chunk it down, the thoughts running through your head, that's what you're focusing on.

Track your thoughts and change the questions you ask

So if you want to know what you're focusing on, understand the thoughts running through your head. That's the truth. Maybe you're focusing on the good things or the bad things, and because it's just habit, habit energy is quite strong, it's not always obvious. Be more conscious of what you're thinking day to day and make a list of the thoughts you had today. People have something like 60 to 80 thousand thoughts a day, so I wouldn't expect you to write down all of them, but write down the ones you remember, the ones that repeat — because 90% of those thoughts are the same thoughts from the day before, and the day before that.

Do this for a week, two weeks, however long feels right, and find what thoughts keep coming up. Ask yourself: why does this thought keep coming up? Does that make sense? Is that really what I want to focus on? Is that really going to help me? This is how you change what you focus on, and that's how you change the meaning you give things — because the meaning you give things is just your mind asking questions about what you're experiencing.

So understand what thoughts you have, then change the questions you ask about those thoughts, change the questions you ask about what you experience day to day, and watch as that snowballs. Over time your entire perspective on life changes, and the voice in your head changes from a mean, cruel, irritating voice to maybe a supportive voice, a guiding voice.

So I wanted to run that little experiment by you. I hope it was of some value. Please take some time and do it with something you're struggling with, then comment below and tell me — did it help? Did you finish that exercise feeling less overwhelmed than when you started? Do you feel like you have more control over your life? Because dealing with finances, or a relationship, or whatever else, it's a big thing, it can seem overwhelming. But if you chunk it down and realize the driving force is going to be your focus, your thoughts — can you change that?