If You’re in Your Forties and Feel Stuck in a Rut, This One Mindset Shift Will Open New Avenues for Exploration, Personal Growth, Self-Development

At some point in your life, you find yourself in a rut.

Things that used to matter, don’t anymore. Exciting things have become mundane. Things that used to work, seem less effective now.

Here is something you can do to reinvigorate your self-development journey.

We Are Processes, Not Things

We are used to thinking of ourselves as something or even multiple somethings — lawyer, CEO, friend.

However, like a river, we are not static, we are constantly flowing processes. The language we use — referring to it as a thing — blinds our thinking and keeps us contained within the perceptual boundaries of the thing we call ourselves.

When we think of ourselves as doings instead of things, we begin to perceive ourselves in terms of a process, and we begin to realize the myriad of ways we can change, develop, and grow that process.

How to Use This Principle

When you change the noun to a verb, you free your mind to come up with new avenues for growth and change.

I am no longer this thing called “a friend”, I now “friend” — I am “friending”. My mind spontaneously begins to explore the process I’ve just identified. How do I do “friending”? When do I do it, and with whom?

Each one of these questions introduces a path for development that we may not have noticed before. Is the way I’m “friending” successful for me and the people around me? What can I do differently to “friend” better? (Phone more often? Listen more attentively?)

Changing a thing is onerous. Changing a process or behavior is as simple as doing something else. That “something else” is a new path for self-development.

(PS: Your internal grammar police is going to have a fit until you get used to this idea. Stick with it. Play with it. Make it your own secret self-development language.)

(PPS: If you want to take this to the next level, apply this principle to your name…)

This post was created with Typeshare