Are you settling? Why do people settle for less?

Are you settling?

Have you settled into a job, lifestyle or mindset that is keeping you from reaching your full potential?

Have you began settling into a mentality where you have stopped striving, creating and achieving?

Many people start to settle and become complacent, losing the spark that had kept them eagerly anticipating what each day would bring. This can easily happen when you’re in a job you don’t love anymore, or in a career that no longer brings you the skip in your step that it once did.

Unless you work for an amazing company with an awesome boss, working for someone else isn’t likely to keep delighting you in the longer term. You might gradually stop learning. Or speaking up. Or asking questions to improve both yourself and the company. You might just start to care less and less. And if the money meets your needs, and various other factors meet your needs, you might just settle for that.

Perhaps your lifestyle has started to make you settle? Are you so used to not having enough that you’re just used to it and have become accustomed to ‘getting by’? Are you rationalising it because you’ve still got a roof over your head, so “it can’t be that bad”?

Perhaps your mindset says you will never be anything other than what you are now?

Does this sound like you?

If you have settled, why?

 

 

Why do people settle for less?

There are many reasons why people settle, and a lot of it has to do with mindset.

If we have a fixed mindset, we believe we have a limited capacity and that we have only what we’re given. On a daily basis, this translates into behaviors where we cut ourselves from opportunities to stretch ourselves. We will limit our beliefs and convince ourselves it isn’t possible. We might convince ourselves about aspects of ourselves that be just ‘believe’. Such as

“I’m not a successful person”

“I’m not someone that people can look up to”

“I’m not creative or entrepreneurial”

“I don’t have it in me to be wealthy”

“I will never be one of those people who have nice things”

Others settle because they have tried and failed so many times that they don’t think they can ever succeed. Or maybe they have seen so many online scams that they don’t believe there are any legitimate online opportunities available. In some ways, they are protecting themselves from future perceived pain.

I can understand that. Humans want to minimise pain and maximise pleasure. Failing is typically not a pleasurable experience. However, if we have an abundance mindset, failure is simply a learning (provided we do actually learn from it – we don’t want to be repeating the same mistakes over and over).

 

All in all, it comes back to mindset. It’s how we deal with failure, negativity, loss and other things that determines how we respond in the future, and what are open to exploring.

When we come at things with an abundance mentality, rather than a scarcity mindset, we view things differently.

A person with an abundance mindset believes that there is always more. More opportunity, more money, more resources, better relationships, and better ‘stuff’. People who think with an abundance mindset attract opportunities and experiences, perhaps because they are open to those kinds of discussions and seeing opportunities where someone from a scarcity mindset only sees a risk or a negative.

 

Am I worthy? YES – you are worthy!

We are all worthy of thinking with positivity and seeing a better future for ourselves. That is not just for other people. We all can and should consider that we deserve good things to happen. We can all change our situations, even when it might feel like we can’t.

It is so important that we all realise we are worthy. We are all worthy. YOU are worthy.

 

How can we stop settling and start living with purpose?

We can start by reframing the way we look at things. We can stop asking whether we can do something, and ask “how can we do it?”. Asking ourselves closed questions like “can I change my life?” only elicits a yes or a no response. It might be hard to actually say “yes I can change my life”, and easier to respond with a “no”. However, what if instead of asking “can I change my life?” we ask ourselves “HOW can I change my life?”

This is a far better question to ask. It opens us up to the possibility that we actually can change our lives, we just need a plan on ‘how’ component. And that is good – because we can all come up with actionable plans. That’s our first step – a plan of action. We can only change when we take action.

Action! 

 

Some more reading

Here are some articles I’ve written that might help you think a little differently, and help you be open to change and self-improvement:

Creating an abundance mentality – thinking with an abundance mentality means we are open to new possibilities and opportunities.

Can I do this? – you can start doing new things when you reframe your “can I?” to “HOW can I?”.

How to embrace change and find new cheese – not literally cheese! This is a metaphor for finding for something new.

Getting out of your comfort zone – something we all need to do every now and then for own growth.

Careers from home and goal setting – don’t be afraid to set yourself some stretch goals.

What actions are you going to take?

We all need to start somewhere. We don’t need to know the answers right away. But we need to know IT IS POSSIBLE when we start to take action. They don’t even need to be huge actions. But action IS required.

What will be your first action?

If you’ve ever thought “only other people can make money online”, or “only other people can change their situations”, maybe now you can consider that you might be one of those people too? What if there was training and support available for ANYONE to do it? What if there was something available that could open the door to a new path for you? You don’t need to have any special skills or knowledge. Just the willingness to give it a go.

Be open to the possibility that there is a genuine and risk free way of changing your life.

 

What actions will you take? As always, please leave me a question or a comment and I’ll be very happy to help you out.