We have the power to be completely free within ourselves, regardless of our external circumstances. It isn’t an easy power to wield, but once mastered, it is everything.
In The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, Covey talks about Viktor Frankl’s experience in the concentration camps in WWII and how choosing our attitude towards anything is “the last of the human freedoms.” Covey further describes Frankl’s experience as “He could decide within himself how all of this was going to affect him. Between what happened to him, or the stimulus, and his response to it, was his freedom or power to choose that response.”
We have the ability to choose our self-awareness, our imagination, our conscience, our independent will. All of these things allow us to live how we like, despite our circumstances.
These sentiments come from the Stoics as well.
Even though all of these examples show an extreme level of external constraints, we all find ourselves with problems that we allow to control our behavior rather than maintaining the control. Covey says that “our behavior is a function of our decisions, not our conditions.” Meaning that the locus of control is within us, not external to us - but so many act in the opposite, riding through life on a wave of bad circumstances and feeling helpless to change anything. But the power to change everything lies within our minds. It is within the words and stories we tell to ourselves. It is within the thoughts and emotions we observe rather than allowing them to take over.
All of this circles back to the theories discussed in Carol Dweck's Mindset. We can either have a fixed mindset in which we believe our “qualities are carved in stone,” or we can choose to have a growth mindset in which we believe that we cultivate our basic qualities through our efforts and strategies.
Many times, we fall into the trap of learned helplessness and have a difficult time pulling ourselves out of that hole because it can become quite comfy, cozy in there. But by living in an “emotional home” (as Tony Robbins calls it) of learned helplessness, we give up our freedom to someone else to make the decisions for us and run our lives.
So, how do we get freedom in our minds? A few things I have embraced over the years:
All of this is deeply personal in nature; however, if you don’t have your own personal shit together, it will ultimately impact your business - whether it be with your staff, your vendors, or your clients. Taking the time to work on yourself will be beneficial not just in your personal life but in your professional life as well. As I said in the beginning, it isn’t an easy task - but it is so worth it.