Mind Tricks in Business - How Your Mind Can Play Tricks on You

Today, I'd love to share with you a quick personal story. Kind of funny at the time, but a great illustration of how your mind can play tricks on you.

You can take it, analyze it and make it work for you in business.

We've been chatting with our clients about a new system that we were rolling out called The Seven Key Metrics to Business Growth and talking about the importance of what are you measuring, how do you track progress so that you can really see that you're on track.

How My Mind Played a Trick on Me

The morning of our new system release, I woke up and for some reason, I felt compelled to jump on the scale. It had been after the holidays, and I'd started to pay a little more attention. I was thinking, "Gosh, I wonder what the scale's going to say."

So I jumped on the scale. You may relate, it was one of those lovely days where four pounds were gone. It felt amazing. Feeling all happy, I declared that I really did feel thinner.

All those stories that our mind can tell us, right?

And Here's My Mind Trick in Action...

I'm all excited about choosing my outfit for the day, and I wanted to grab my white jeans. They were in the laundry room. So, I pull out the jeans and quickly press them before running off for the day. I run back into my room. As I go to pull them on, they are so tight. They are absolutely skin tight! I cannot even get them on.

Immediately, my mind goes into, "It's just not possible. How on earth could this happen? There's no way I've put on weight over the holidays."

I've Gone Into My Story of 'Something Wrong'

My mind started to feed me stories. I've put on weight and I haven't even realized. The jeans don't fit! Bearing in mind that only half an hour earlier, I had been on the scale jumping up and down because I lost four pounds.

This is a high tech scale, there was nothing wrong there. So what was going on?

The funny side to this story is that I was thinking there has to be something up. The scale said a certain number. It can't be possible that the jeans don't fit anymore. What happened?

The Mind Trick and the Reality

In my hurry, didn't have my glasses on, of course, and I picked up my 17-year-old daughter's jeans! I'm trying to get hers on. She's taller than me, she's lovely and skinny. Her jeans won't fit me!

What was so interesting is where my mindset went. How my mind was trying to trick me. Right at that moment, even though I had the evidence of the progress, my mind played the trick.

How The Mind Trick Relates to Business

I offer you the story because as I shared with my clients, we were talking about the metrics in the business and how important it is to stay on top of those. It only takes a bad day, to be emotional or not on our game, and all of a sudden, we can think it's all going wrong.

We've forgotten the three new clients we've just signed up. Or that our income was increasing steadily. And we start to panic that things aren't working.

So this really is about the importance of looking at the real data. Keeping track and looking for that evidence. The bread crumbs of evidence that you're headed in the right direction.

And be really careful about putting on your 17-year-old daughter's jeans and worrying about why they don't fit!