I heard a brilliant story a few years ago.
There was this milk delivery truck driver. He started his shift as 6 am. He always had a partner who did most of the heavy lifting.
There was a dangerous junction on his route, entering a busy bridge on the left hand side. The visibility was nil… He could not watch the road and drive at the same time.
His partner would hang out his window to see the traffic and when it was clear, he would yell “Clear” and he would drive.
One morning his partner called in sick.
At that dangerous junction he stopped as always, waited, and they he himself yelled “Clear” and drove into traffic… you can imagine the crash.
Why am I telling you this story? it’s funny and tragic. It’s you and me.
I am a coach, but “I am also a client”.
One of my clients makes it a point to tell me how he thinks about himself, how bad, wrong, weak, stupid, lazy, etc. he is. I know his background: his family used to tell him that. Now that they are not around, he, just like the truck driver yelled himself “Clear”, he tells himself all the things his parents used to tell him… automatically.
Now, why would he treat himself different? He always complains about how his parents used to treat him, yet…
It hasn’t occured to him to call himself what he wants to be, no matter what the circumstance. In spite of all the coaching to set the context to every mistake or every victory. We have invented, ok I did, that he is a person on his path to greatness. This is a great context, because on the path to greatness you can act stupid, you can make mistakes, you can drop the ball, the context is that you are on the path…
No matter what, this context stays alive for hours at a time, no longer. If he wants to change that, he needs a major “mind surgery”, or a miracle, or both.
Luckily there is such a thing, and I am halfway through it… it is called Quantum Thought Shifting. The person who performs this “magic” is Pam Ragland, and her site is http://www.pamragland.info