A few weeks ago I went to a talk with Ryan Walter. He talked all about thinking and four main modes of thinking.

  • Past Positive
  • Past Negative
  • Future Positive
  • Future Negative

Really all of these states of thinking are mostly fine. They’re going to happen, and some of the ones that make look bad at first, aren’t.

Take Past Negative as an example. The way we learn is by looking at the things we’ve done in the past that were less than ideal and changing ourselves.

The only one we want to really watch out for is Future Negative. This is the mindset that says we won’t amount to much. That we’re not awesome and that’s not true.

I’m not sure about you, but I fall into Future Negative thinking a lot lately. Thinking that as tough as things are sometimes, they’ll stay that way.

While I know that’s not true, it’s hard to live in that in the moment.

What I’ve done to kick my own ass is create a set of ‘awesome notes’ that I turn too when I get stuck in Future Negative thinking. Notes that remind me how I’ve helped people.

Like when I helped Amanda land her first contract at $10k/month when they didn’t want a contractor at all but an employee.

Keep the notes of awesome close at hand and use it regularly.

Have an awesome day!

Curtis

photo credit: jdhancock cc