Challenges You Face When Changing Your Mindset

In my last blog,  I wrote about the power of the subconscious mind and why listening to it – and nurturing it – is crucial if we are to lead the life we want to live.  The subconscious mind is thoughtful, deep, and powerful.  It controls our feelings and emotions, as well as being the storage system for our beliefs.  Many of us fall into the trap of ignoring our subconscious mind and instead focus on thinking logically and rationally, but to do this is to lead a half-life.  If ever there was a time that changing your mindset and nurturing your subconscious was needed, it is now, as you approach or live through retirement.

It is not going to be easy

If you’ve resolved to listen to your subconscious mind, then congratulations!  That is the first and most important step.  I’m not going to lie, changing your mindset and the way you think and feel about life brings many challenges but also countless rewards.  I’m a living, breathing example of that.  To help you on your way, I thought I’d share some of the biggest challenges you will face on your journey to a better future and how to overcome them.

Challenge One – Relationships

If you are in a relationship, your immediate – and perhaps greatest challenge – will be your partner.  When you change your mindset, you change your identity and who you are and in doing so, the whole dynamic of the relationship shifts.   I often find that partners are initially reluctant to share the journey with the person embarking on it, and it is important that you do not push or force them to get on board.  Equally, don’t let them stall you as very often, when they see the impact you have made on your own life, they become willing participants, walking alongside you on your new path – or deviating off it to chase their own hopes and dreams.

Challenge Two – Dependents

Retirees often feel they ‘know it all’ and have ‘done it all’, but that mindset is a very dangerous place to be.  Believing that life is over and that there’s nothing else to experience and no more knowledge to gain means that people live a sheltered existence instead of opening themselves up to a world of possibilities.  Bizarrely, because of how society views retirement, dependents have come to expect their elders and parents to live in this way, relying on them for babysitting, DIY, and even taxi service duties!  To this, I say, “NO!  Just NO!”  We, as a society, need to break this ideology, for it is not ideal. We need to show younger generations that life after work is a new beginning, a time to expand our horizons, not limit them.  That’s not to say we shouldn’t help out – or be around for others – but let’s face it, how can we love others if we don’t love ourselves first?

Challenge Three – Friends

They may have been your biggest allies through the past twenty or thirty years, but when you change your mindset, friends can quickly become your biggest enemy, holding you back from conquering new territory and achieving your dreams.  You see, not everyone will want to change and embrace new things.  Some people are very happy with the status quo.  These friends will worry that if you bring a new purpose into your life, they will be forgotten.  The ties of the past decades will quickly unravel until they are left with nothing.  Don’t stick around because you fear loss, and don’t listen to what other people tell you.  Concentrate on what you want for yourself.   And remember that when we are not growing, we are dying.

Challenge Four – Fear

We’ve established that there are barriers between you and the life you want to lead and have concentrated on the people around you.  Next comes self-sabotage, and the biggest challenge here is fear.  We all feel fear – it is a human emotion and exists for a reason – to keep us safe.  Alarm bells ring when we face a problem, and we have two choices, fight or flight.  If we run away when fears present themselves, we will not move forward, instead, we will be held back, living the life we were set to live, not the life we want to live.