When you’re open, life carries you:, it shows where it wants you to go. When you’re open, new ideas and innovations come in, and new possibilities arise.
It seems simple to know what an open or closed mind feels like. But unfortunately, our culture is disconnected from our bodies, and too connected to our iPhones. An open or closed mind is a feeling, but, too often, we aren’t aware.
What closes your mind isn’t pressure from the outside world, but your own thinking. You have to understand that you have a choice—and when your mind is closed it’s because you’ve decided it to be so.
Imagine heading in to work like you are going on vacation. That’s an open mind. Rather than: “I have to get this done and then get out of here,” which is closed. In the state of openness, you see all the possibilities.
So, how do you find work that’s meaningful? It’s the number one question that I hear in my business coaching practice.
People come to me and they think they’re in the wrong job. What they can’t see is that it’s often not the job, it’s that they have a closed mind. They are not open to seeing anything new and their mind isn’t open to seeing anything. They’ve made a decision and have decided this doesn’t work. Sometimes that decision isn’t truth based, it’s based on their own thinking.
9 times out of 10, people make a decision based on a misunderstanding and they close themselves off, and then the job is boring, it’s stagnant. When we have an open mind, everything is fresh, new, and exciting. If we just understood the difference between an open mind and a closed mind, all parts of life: your career, your relationships, everything, would be interesting.
And yes, often times it is important to make a change, quit a job that sucks, or leave a relationship or situation behind. But if you go about making changes when your mind is closed, it will only bring you further into misery in your career. You have to approach your current job and situation with an open mind, and life will lead you to where you need to be. The changes you desire to make will happen in a way that fulfills you and brings you joy, because you are approaching your life with joy and fulfillment.
I’m offering a workshop next week on finding a meaningful career. If you would you like to learn how to maintain an open mind, please join us. An open mind is our natural state, and it lets magic and beauty happen in our lives.