Careful, You Might Fall (or you might succeed)…

“Our greatest glory is not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall.” -Confucious

My toddler Freya is a cautious daredevil.

She likes to teeter on the edge of furniture, stairs, ledges, and slides. Yet, she always remains somewhat cautious and seems to know her limits.

For the most part, I let her go. I figure she’s ultimately better off learning how to fall properly.

At the playground, other parents gasp as Freya toddles up steep slides, and I don’t intervene.

One day, as she climbed up a high jungle gym, I noticed my dialogue to her wasn’t matching my confidence in her.

I said: “Be careful, my love, you’re going to fall.”

I realized I said that to her often.

“You might fall.”

“You could hurt yourself.”

“That’s dangerous.”

But she wasn’t falling, and she wasn’t hurting herself. She was balanced and poised.

Then, I changed the dialogue to:

“You’re making it.”

“You’re succeeding.”

“You got this.”

“If you lean too far left or right, you can lose your balance. But right now, how you’re doing it, you look perfect.”

That dialogue felt so much better.

Most of us probably received heavy doses of, “You might fall,” from our parents when we were children.

Although our parents said it to us out of love (as when we say it to our children), we can take those thoughts forward to adulthood. And if we hear, “You might fall,” enough, we begin to think it’s true…for everything.

What do you tell yourself when you feel too close to the edge?

Do you say, “I’m going to make this and remain confident and balanced.”?

Or do you say, “I’m too close to the edge, I might fall.”?

If you’re in a “fall mindset,” how can you shift to a balanced one?

It’s a simple process of (1) being aware of your thoughts, and (2) shifting them to thoughts that serve you.

So change: “I might fall,” to “I might succeed.”

Change: “I might hurt myself,” to “I might grow.”

Change: “It might be dangerous,” to “It might be just the challenge I need.”

The trick is to find a new thought that feels true.

So if “I might succeed,” doesn’t feel true, then shift it to a thought that does feel true. Such as, “I’m willing to consider that I could succeed.”

Keep shifting until you find the thought that serves you and feels true.

There is so much in our world that we have no control over, but the one thing we fully control is our thoughts.

I challenge you to be aware of and change your inner dialogue.

I challenge you to think about how you can succeed, how you can stay upright, and how you can climb higher and higher.

Ultimately, it doesn’t matter where our limiting beliefs came from. We have the power to shift them today to the thoughts that support us on our journey.

To you, uncorked, XOXO
Allyson

 

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