Even the most well-meaning mindset choice can create difficulty in our businesses. Many entrepreneurs lean into difficulty in pain, believing that it is the secret ingredient for business gains. Today I’ll share why adopting a flexible mindset is the key to reaching your goals faster and with less suffering. Learn how to tune into your nervous system to identify when a path is needlessly painful…and embrace a mindset that allows you to choose an easier route!

Read transcript below:

Steve Napolitan: Welcome to More Business More Life Daily, and this week we’re talking about mindset. I want to share, how do you know you’re going on the right path? So, how do you know you’re doing the right thing, you’re on the right path, you’re making the right decision? And I’ll tell you, it comes back to feelings. Many of us have been taught, “Hey, don’t let your feelings get into this. Don’t get emotional, and you got to be all logical. You got to look at the numbers. You got to know those things.” And you do have to do that. I’m not saying don’t look at the numbers and don’t do all those logical things. But ultimately, my end decision making factor is how I feel about that. Now, you have to practice this, and it took me a while to adapt because I was so removed from my feelings. But I just want to take it to a metaphor.

Imagine putting your hand towards a hot fire. Right away your body’s going to move away and hopefully just when it starts to feel the heat, it moves away before you actually get burned. But sometimes we might touch fire, and then right away you’re going to react without even knowing. You’re going to pull away. This is our body’s reaction. It’s the nervous system, right? And it helps us to save ourselves, right, when we get hurt. Even injuries… I’ve found in my life now when I get hurt I tend not to take any kind of pain relief or anything because I want to feel the pain. It’s there so you don’t move something so that you can start to heal because a lot of times when you take too much pain relievers, then you go reinjure yourself because you overwork it.

Now, I’m getting on a slight tangent, but those feelings matter, right, for our own healing. Well, it also matters for our mindset. When I find that I’m not feeling good about something or it’s making me upset, then I start to step back and re-examine. It’s an indicator that I’m not in the right direction. Whereas the opposite, when I’m happy, when I’m feeling joy, then I know that I’m more on the right track. When things become really difficult, where I used to lean in… Because they say, “No pain, no gain.” Right? This is something we’ve all heard, many of us. I mean, I know in the United States we say it a lot. I’ve been in other countries, and people say it as well.

The reality is, yes, that is true. Part of it is true. In pain you can have a gain. You can learn things through tough times. But you can also learn without pain, and, it’s a lot easier. When we have pain, for me it doesn’t mean give up on your dream. I’m not saying quit. I’m saying find another way. There are many roads. There are many paths. There are many ways. There’s always another way to get where we want to go. So, this has allowed me to pivot, shift, move in a different direction, and then keep that mindset there that when things aren’t going the way that I want, then how else can I do it? I love the saying by Bruce Lee. He Says, “Be water, my friend. Be water. Water goes around the rock, over the rock, under the rock. It doesn’t stop. And it doesn’t pick one way and then wait.”

So, when things start getting really uncomfortable, that’s actually your system showing up. It’s your body saying, “Hey!” So, the more that you listen to these feelings, the more you can get back on track, find joy, find happiness, find smooth ways. Another metaphor I put to this is it’s kind of like a train being on the rails. When a train is on the rails, it can go, right? And it can go smooth. Then if it’s off the rails… If you’ve ever seen a train go off the rails, it is not pretty. And then if you even try to push or pull it through the dirt or anything it is going to take a lot of work. And you can you move it? Can you move a train car or train engine through other ways? Yes.

But is it going to be way more work? Yes. And do we want things to be that way? No. Right? We want things to move as easily, as quickly as we can and safely. So, with these things you can do that by focusing on our feelings. So, I just want you to start tuning in to how you feel about things. Now, there’s one last thing I have to say. This doesn’t mean you have to be careful about comfort zone. So, if you try to do something new, and then it doesn’t feel comfortable, sometimes we mistake that. So, the way that I check in with myself as like, “Am I afraid? Is this fear? Is this the fear of the unknown?” You know, I check in with myself, and if it is a fear, if that’s what I’m feeling uncomfortable about, then I lean through that because most of the time fear is the unknown. It’s what we don’t know.

And if you’re really wanting help, then you can ask someone else that’s already done what you’re doing if possible. Then you can get a clue that, “Yeah, this is fear,” and this person knows what I’m doing. This looks like to be the clear path, and you can move forward. So, you can check in on that. But other than that, when you know it’s not fear and you just don’t feel good or you’re getting sick and tired of doing something or it’s hurting really bad, it’s really, really challenging, those are indicators that I’m going down the wrong path. So, just allow yourself to shift, and allow yourself to feel your feelings because they’re there for a reason just like our nervous system’s there to stop you from burning your hand. I hope this has been helpful. Please let me know your biggest “aha” moment through this video. If you have any other questions, any other ways I can help you, please let us know. I look forward to continuing to serve you and see you tomorrow. Take care.