What’s Holding You Back?

August 6th 2017 Insights

For those of you just joining into my summer series of Keys to Success Insights, we have been exploring the Big 4 energy blocks that keep us stuck and limit greater success and happiness in our lives. We’ve already explored the concept behind self-fate, limiting beliefs and disempowering assumptions. This month, we move onto the third energy block, interpretations. When we interpret something, we create an opinion about an event, situation, or experience. In essence, we create an explanation and then look for evidence to support its validity. When we make an interpretation, we don’t even see that other explanations exist. But in actuality, an interpretation often only represents one viewpoint among the many that are possible.

toungue_outOur interpretations have a powerful impact on our energy, which affects our emotions and actions. If we believe our viewpoint of a particular situation is the only explanation, we might not be aware of another point of view. We may end up wasting a lot of time and resources marching off in the wrong direction because we don’t see that other possibilities exist. Resulting in remaining stuck in our story(interpretation), and likely feel we have no control over the outcome.

So let’s say you come into work one day, and your boss barely nods hello, and then goes into her office and closes the door. If you think that your boss acted that way because she is angry with you, you might spend the morning wondering what you did to get her mad, and you might be hesitant to approach her with the great idea you came up with on the way in to work.

As with assumptions, interpretations are personal and are somewhat difficult to let go of and challenge. Holding onto them may seem like the easy way out, as facing them may move you into uncharted territory. However, challenging your interpretations opens you up to a world of possibilities.

Typical interpretations I have heard often sound like this:

-She doesn’t like me.

-He thinks I’m incompetent.

-They don’t want to follow orders nor want any help.

-They haven’t returned my email/text, they clearly aren’t interested.

-My daughter/son is just lazy.

 Interpretations can be directly challenged by asking: “What’s another way to look at that?” Just realizing that there are other ways to look at something lessens the power of your interpretation. One way to do this is to imagine what another individual’s perspective of the situation might be. Asking for someone else’s point of view on a difficult situation (even if they are not directly involved) can break existing paradigms and open pathways for more successful solutions. Challenging yourself or others to argue the point of view directly opposite your interpretation also works remarkably well to arrive at new information, new angles, and new paths to success.

In the example of the boss above, perhaps the reason why she barely acknowledged you was that she just received a disturbing phone call about a family member, or she had a deadline that had to be met – or…….well, there are many possible explanations. What an opportunity you’d miss if you decide not to present your great idea based on your false interpretation.

This month, before you “jump to conclusions” and believe the first story that comes to mind, consider other possibilities that could lead you to new, empowering choices and actions.

 

Wishing You Always The Best Of Success

-Holly-