How do you build a mindset that takes these “miracles” from probability to possibility to inevitability with predictability? Continue to BELIEVE in each other when emotions are running high and everything human in you tells you to believe what’s in front of you and there is a seemingly impenetrable barrier between you and that vision and dream beyond the current circumstance that brought you here, to begin with.
What a thrill it was to see this play out on national TV.
I would love to dive deeper into the word used repeatedly in post-game interviews – BELIEVE. The truth is people experience “miracles” more often than we recognize. As a coach, I see these kinds of comebacks in restoring marriages, overcoming addiction, and financial ruin, and even changing the course of a cancer journey. We tend to say it’s unexplained, call it luck and leave it to hope to make it happen again.
In my time coaching, I noticed how one person who can hold space for unwavering beyond the circumstances belief without judgment holds the key to these miracles in the material world.
What would you be capable of if you had one person who believed in you like that? What if you had a team of people that all come together with that mindset as a backbone?
You might wonder why this backbone seems to be a rarity.
Here is why, the way I see it, we all have our built-in protective instincts that have been passed down in our DNA for eons, the survival instinct, and the protective instinct. “Assume the worst and you’ll never be disappointed” might have worked in the days of hunting and expecting danger to be lurking under every bush in the wild – it allowed for survival.
In today’s world that instinct no longer serves us as intended. Passing over the opportunity to assume the best robs us of better opportunities and decisions in the moment, those that would get us to the result we are looking for.
Simply put here are the trajectory options illustrating the domino effect:
One path:
At the sign of trouble, you assume defeat,
Feel disappointed ahead of time (thinking you are protecting yourself in the event the disappointment actually reaches you),
Make fear-based decisions,
Receive poor outcomes from those fear-based decisions,
Brace for the worst,
And get it.
Alternatively:
You could hold steady the BELIEF in the outcome you set out to achieve,
Allow yourself to feel energized using current circumstances as fuel,
Make brave decisions in the moment working back FROM the place you want to be.
Receive the reward in the form of small successes for brave decisions and for playing full out,
This allows for building confidence with every incremental reward,
Building momentum,
Continuing to make brave decisions,
Conserve the energy you would have spent bracing for the worst and use it to deliver on every opportunity
This lands you in the inevitability of achieving what you set out to do.
This is what I saw on the field Saturday night from the Jaguars.
Did you see it too?
Easy to say and hard to do. The honest truth is that sometimes you still don’t get what you want, BUT you DO get what you want MORE of the time taking this alternative path.
Even if your result doesn’t turn out exactly how you wanted, you played a better game and in the end, spent that time in a higher human state surrounded by people who grow as a team.
Regardless of the final outcome – this PROCESS keeps you on a higher functioning level and sets you up on an escalator to predictable success rather than a trampoline of success by chance. I call it stubborn faith and I will bank on it every time, win or lose. People who know me, know that I am very new to following football. The outline I noticed I use in life. It happened to be perfectly illustrated in last night’s game.
Now that we answered the WHY, the can touch upon the HOW. This “how” varies in every circumstance and if you are clear in your individual WHY the HOW takes care of itself. One common thread is that change starts with ONE.
If you are blessed enough to have just one person in your life that can hold that space for unwavering, beyond circumstances belief without judgment this transfers to your team and builds the environment where fear and disappointment can not take hold or thrive.
Yes, fear will always be there, we are wired that way, but what happens in the environment of unlimited potential is the miracle of making changes and inviting the hard-wired emotions to take a back seat, still present but not DRIVING.
This is the place where anything is possible, progress is inevitable, wins are predictable and the saying “ you either win or you learn” becomes part of your DNA forcing fear and disappointment to ride the back seat.
I believe that ONE person who set this in motion for the Jaguars this year is coach Doug Pederson and now it’s part of the team’s DNA. Let’s GO!
Bio:
Lena Winslow is a world traveler and cancer survivor with a foundation of 18 years in health care and 10 years in home education, as well as countless hours of community service and advocacy, Lena is a Health Coach certified by the National Board for Health & Wellness Coaching, a motivational speaker, and an international best-selling author who considers herself a whole-person scientist and connector of the dots.
She is the mother of 3 children and has been married to her rocket scientist with an enormous heart for 23 years.
Using those superpowers and her obsession with emotional fitness, she bridges the crispness of logic with the comfort of compassion and faith to fuel endless curiosity for her children and her clients.