Moxie After 50

Live is good and only gets better by the decade

jamie@happinessismycompass.com

the life you want is within your reach

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Start Where You Are

Start where you are makes so much sense, it’s almost stupid. Where else are you going to start? But it’s also brilliant because if you keep waiting for the right moment, enough money, the perfect opportunity, you’re going to be waiting, and waiting. You’ll never get started.

Isn’t waiting just an excuse to not get going?

Waiting for the perfect timing, or whatever, is just another way of procrastinating. You’ll never get started. Been there. This blog is a perfect example. “I’ll wait until I have at least 30 blog posts before I go live,” was my first excuse. Other excuses included wanting to add a podcast, “But I can’t launch the blog until I have at least five or six podcasts recorded.” Look, I know, I’m the queen of wanting to be somewhere else before I get started. I finally realized I needed to start now, and get to where I want to be by getting started. If I didn’t write this post and the few others that I have, I’d never write more. But now that I’ve begun, I’m excited to continue.

It’s time to stop making excuses

Start where you are, right now! Don’t wait for the right time or opportunity. Take advantage of what you have, and build from where you are. If you want to start a side hustle but you don’t have the money, start smaller and build by getting the money along the way.

I can already hear the next sentence, “But Jamie, where am I going to find the money?” There are lots of ways: sell the stuff you no longer use on Craigslist, put yourself on a strict budget and set aside money while you build your business plan, earn a little cash with your smartphone camera, grab some quick cash while running errands with the EasyShift app, have a garage/yard sale, take advantage of Facebook Marketplace by selling your bigger items, etc. Take a look at what you have around you, what can you use to earn some cash? Maybe start your own blog (I’ll have post on that in the near future too, and yes, blogs can make good money).

Start where you are…

If you’re look for a little inspiration, be sure and read August’s book club selection.

Start Where You Are Book

Taking my own advice

I’m preaching to you about starting from where you are, and I’m taking my own advice. I started this blog as Jamie & Co. and I never seemed to quite have the number of articles I wanted for an official “launch.” Well, I have a handful of articles now and I’m launching where I am. I’d love it if you subscribed to my blog (and eventually my podcast) because I’ll be posting regularly about living your best life. There’s so much we can do when happiness is our compass.

Jamie Signature

How Your Subconscious Rules You

The stuff dreams are made of, and nightmares. The subconscious mind is the part of the mind of which we aren’t fully aware, but which influences one’s actions and feelings. We’re talking about memories, beliefs, fears, and your subjective ideas of reality

Your subconscious mind is extremely powerful, and can, whether you realize it or not, change the path you choose in life. It can create a reality you didn’t think you asked for. Learning to choose our thoughts effectively, both on the conscious and subconscious level helps you create a better reality for yourself. Whether it’s personal, financial, work, or (as we concentrate on here at HIMC) happiness.

Tapping into your subconscious can play an integral part of your life.

The subconscious mind is your brain’s memory bank, with unlimited gigabytes, able to store every thought, every incident, every victory. Here’s the rub, your subconscious memory is perfect, but your conscious recall is not.

Let’s just say the subconscious is your hard drive, and its job is to store and retrieve data. Your hard drive is your master file, and you can control the files before they are stored. You can also change your perception of what you think you stored. It’s programmed to your patterns, so it obeys your conscious mind. It doesn’t have the ability to think or reason independently.

Your subconscious is commanded by your conscious and works to make the algorithm fit your emotional patterns, your hopes, and your dreams.

Subconscious is Lazy

Your brain is lazy, probably the laziest part of your body. Like your autonomic nervous system, it wants everything to run on autopilot. Once you develop habits, emotional triggers, and negative thoughts, your subconscious grabs onto them and sees them as the norm. Then it works hard to make you uncomfortable when you try new things or try to change set patterns. Even thinking about doing something different, changing a habit, or trying something you fear triggers feelings of discomfort and unease. If the discomfort keeps you from making the changes or trying something new, the subconscious wins! Yes, no need to store anything new!

Pushing Out of the Comfort Zone

Living within your comfort zone is easy, but no one ever grew by being complacent. Staying in your comfort zone is the enemy of creativity and growth. To grow, you must push past the feeling of awkwardness and discomfort.

There are many ideas on pushing past your discomfort, including counting to five. When your mind tries to talk you out of going for a run (the couch is so comfy), give it five seconds, then get off your butt and into your running shoes. Once you’ve pushed past the idea of the discomfort, you’ll be happier, and you won. Now you’re one step closer to making running a habit.

Fake it Until You Make It

You’ll hear people say this is bad, but they aren’t looking at it correctly. Don’t let your subconscious keep you from trying new things because it tells you you’re going to suck at it. You sucked at crawling, then walking, then running, right? Doing something, no matter how small, faking confidence, is better than doing nothing.

Controlling your Subconscious Mind

Your thoughts have power in your life. What you think about, dwell on, believe in, feel intensely about, all manifest to be part of your life.

When you control your subconscious, you are being intentional with your thoughts, and putting the right ideas out into the universe, and therefore training your subconscious.(By now, I’ve typed subconscious so many times, you’d think my fingers would find the keys without my help, LOL)

You need to be specific about your life and goals.

When you focus on a new habit, soon you don’t even have to think about it. Brushing your teeth, for instance. Many people brush their teeth at least twice a day. It’s automatic, you don’t even think about it. Just go into the bathroom and it’s part of your routine. You grab the toothbrush, add toothpaste, brush, and rinse. Easy peasy, no thought involved. Your subconscious knows the drill.

Now, change it up. In this case, the goal is to brush your teeth automatically with your non-dominant hand. Use your non-dominant hand to brush your teeth, from beginning to end. Say you’re right handed: open the cabinet with the opposite hand you’d usually use, grab the toothbrush with your left hand and the toothpaste with your right (or opposite of how you’d normally put paste on your brush), now brush your teeth with your left hand. Notice how much slower you are? How you must think about your movements? Because your subconscious has this task on autopilot. The whole time you’re doing this task, your brain is asking you to please stop and do it the right way.

You’ve pushed out of your comfort zone. Keep at it. And try to brush with your non-dominant hand for a week. You’ll find that each time it gets easier, and your mind tells you you’re doing it wrong less and less.

Set a goal, and be specific.

Then take the steps to get there. Baby steps are fine, so your subconscious doesn’t complain too much.

When you stop listening to the negative patterns that your prehistoric mind thinks are keeping you safe, you take control.

It’s That Simple

As with the brushing your teeth example, anything new you want to try, your subconscious is going to fight you, try to tell you the reasons it’s not smart or not possible, or how much more fun sitting in the recliner and flipping through channels will be.

How do you change this thought pattern? Train your brain! It’s as simple as ask, believe, act, receive.  This is the cornerstone of the Law of Attraction, and your path to happiness. Of course, there’s more to it, but knowing how powerful your subconscious is gives you the tools to control it.

I highly suggest reading Subliminal: How Your Unconscious Mind Rules Your Behavior

 

 

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