I was listening to Lisa Abramson’s 10-day class about Mindset Reset on InsightTimer this morning after a short meditation and it made me consider:
“If we are doing all the things, we think will help us get unstuck, but we are still stuck … what might be the reason for it?”
Are Learning Blocks Keeping You Stuck?
Lisa introduced a new topic area for me that I had not considered much. She suggested that the reason we might not be moving forward in our personal development efforts could be that we have learning blocks.
Now, of course, she was very specifically giving guidance in her course about what might stop you from learning her mindset reset techniques, but I found a lot of wisdom in what she suggested are three areas that you might be blocking your own progress.
She suggested three possible blocks:
- The I can’t do it block
- The I already know this block
- The this won’t work for me block
What do you do about these blocks?
So, what is the “I can’t do it” block? Well, it isn’t that complicated. Essentially when you are faced with a new learning experience or opportunity in this type of block your first internal thoughts are “I can’t do it.”
The way to move through this type of block is to consider changing the thought ever so slightly. Let’s say you were thinking “I can’t meditate for 10 minutes.” If you simply add the little word “yet” at the end of the sentence the thought is much more empowering. “I can’t meditate for 10 minutes, yet.”
Or what if you think you already know everything there is to know about a topic, you have the “I already know this” block. Well, you might consider asking yourself “What can I learn from this?”
So, if you already know how to meditate and you find yourself in a mindfulness course where they are teaching you focused awareness meditation you might think “What can I learn from how this instructor teaches meditation?”
Or lastly, if you are thinking “This won’t work for me” when presented with a challenge, then you have the “This won’t work for me” block. One way to help overcome this block is to ask, “How can this work for me?”
Get Out of Autopilot and into Learning Mode
Very often the reason that we are not progressing in our personal or professional learning goals isn’t that we are not doing the work. We might be going to all the classes or doing all the tasks that we are provided, but if we are just showing up and going through the motions and are not being aware of our negative thoughts on autopilot … well, we might just never make the type of progress we are looking for.
If you are already working toward eliminating your learning blocks the next step to getting unstuck is to consider that “you” are not your thoughts. You are the one that is aware of your thoughts and therefore you don’t have to believe those thoughts.
So why does this matter? Well if we think that everything, we think is true and that we must believe all of the things we think, then when we think “I can’t do this” we might just believe ourselves and not try. However, if we aware of the thought we can also change the thought and decide that we do not want to believe the disempowering thought any longer.
Thoughts are Inspiration for Potential
If you are not yet buying into this idea that thoughts are not always true … think for a moment if you ever thought monsters were real or there was something chasing, you in the dark. Or heck, if you ever had a fantastical dream filled with dragons or wizards. Since thoughts are your thoughts … does that mean are they also real?
The thing is that do hard for us is that we are preoccupied with our own thoughts. Yet, our brain is like a huge thought machine. It just cranks out ideas based on all the inputs it receives and sends you bits of inspiration from all of those inputs. The thoughts are not intended to be the final recipe, but more like the inspiration for potential ingredients to help you achieve a goal. They are nothing more, nothing less. Just inspiration for potential.
Getting Unstuck and Taking Back Your Power
So how do you get unstuck then? First, you remove the possible blocks to learning the new thing. Then you consider those thoughts are just inspiration for potential. Become aware of those thoughts, consider if they inspire something useful, and then use that inspiration to create an empowering ingredient toward your goal.
For the most part, getting unstuck is about shaking loose the padlocks we have put in our own mind. Getting a mindset reset can greatly help you make progress toward those goals that you are already putting the work into, you just need to know how to do it.
Lisa Abramson provides some great insights into resetting your mindset here: www.lisaabramson.com/mindset-reset
