Using a childlike mentality to achieve more 

During the COVID-19 times, we all missed lots and lots of things, and I call it the four F’s: our family, our friends, our freedom and our forward planning. We were being told all the time, and the guidelines were telling us, “You can’t. You can’t. You can’t.” Actually, doing what you can’t in your business and in your personal life can really be your hidden superpower. 

What stops us from achieving what we actually want ? What is it that we can change? Where is it that you would really like to be? Where is it that you want to be? What dreams do you have of perhaps a bigger, better, brighter future? What is it that you wish for when you see other people? What is it that you particularly admire in them? Or do you think, Oh, I would really like some of that. We are all born equal, but we’ve gotten to where we are because of the people and the influences that we’ve had around us and the education that we’ve had. But above all, it is our mindset that allows us to handle whatever life inevitably keeps throwing at us. 

As soon as we think about things we want to achieve, and we have these big, hairy, audacious goals, often our mind goes into what I would call defense mode, and it thinks of all the reasons: Yeah, but I can’t. We can’t. We can’t do these things. So, think back to being a child. I remember when my son was under 10 years old, he used to love running around the garden and making things with his Lego sets. His imagination would run wild. Why? Because not many people had told him by then that he couldn’t do that. Nobody had taken away and stolen those dreams from him. I think that’s a really magical place to be. 

How can we take ourselves back to those places and start believing and dreaming bigger about our own lives? Unless we fully embrace that and change that phrasing in our head as to how we hear it and see it, we are always going to be held back by our fears and frustrations and being told in our heads and by other people that we can’t. What if we could? Where would it actually take us? 

If you knew you couldn’t fail, what is it you would really set your goals and dreams to be? How big a goal, how big a dream would you really have if you didn’t think that failure was even an option? It makes you think, doesn’t it? What would we all do? What would we like to try? What experiences would we want to have? What would we want to do in our business lives? What would we want to happen in our personal lives as well? How would we want to run our lives? What would our ideal and perfect life actually look like? 

We need to be that childlike person again and dare to dream. 

Hear more from 14-year MDRT member David Braithwaite, Dip PFS, in the April episode of MDRT Presents: