Thinking Small in Your Life and Business

 Thinking Small in Your Life and Business

Think small and you’ll get small things. Think big and you’ll have big successes, big experiences, big achievements. Some people hear that and they wonder why they haven’t realized their dreams. After all, they’ve been thinking big and dreaming big, so why aren’t they where they want to be? Thinking small in your life and business can hold you back from the life you want and deserve.

The Answer Might be Because They’re Actually Thinking Small and Don’t Realize It. Be Willing to Stop Thinking Small in Your Life and Business and See What Happens!

Sometimes people fail to chalk up big successes because of a single failure. They dare to dream big. They shoot for the moon. A lot of time and preparation, planning and sweat equity goes into a really big effort.

Then they fail.

This can lead a person to avoid taking chances in the future. They decide to keep their thoughts small and safe. After all, the one time they tried to create a wonderful, amazing result, they failed miserably.

There are lots of reasons why most people are happy thinking “normal” thoughts.

Sometimes it’s the environment. A person’s senses are constantly bombarded with normal achievements. Their friends, coworkers and family members are all normal, in the respect that they’re happy with just getting by and living a common life.

A lack of evidence can also lead you to stay inside your comfort zone. What right do you have to believe you can achieve something that’s never been done before? There’s no evidence that it’s possible. So why should you waste your time and energy attempting to be the first person ever to create some big reality?

It’s so much easier to think small and normal and common. The problem is, there are so many dangers in this mindset. It doesn’t matter if you want to create some amazing reality in your relationships, your career, your finances or your health. The topic doesn’t matter.

Playing it safe and aiming for small results can be dangerously limiting in any area of your life.

We don’t want that to be your experience. To help you get the most out of your life, let’s dig deep into 5 dangers of thinking small.

Thinking Small Means Missing Big Opportunities

Did you know you can’t think two thoughts at the same time? When you decide to think about a topic, you recognize it as important. After all, you can entertain any possible thought. You chose this particular thought so it must carry a high level of importance.

That’s Dangerous if Your thoughts are Always Small in Nature.

Thinking small things occupies your mind. It’s busy. It doesn’t have time to imagine bigger results. This is because your subconscious goes to work on any information you give it.

Not to get into a lot of scientific mumbo-jumbo here, but your subconscious mind leads to feelings and emotions. How you feel leads to how you act. The things you do create the successes, failures and the life you realize.

You May Be Very Successful When You Set Out for a small achievement. Even so, this almost always guarantees a big achievement is impossible.

Here’s an example.

Imagine you’ve never made more than $35,000 per year. You are currently right at that number. You decide to expect more of yourself. You formulate a plan to get your earnings up to $45,000 per year.

There’s nothing wrong with that ambition. You’re planning on making about 30% more than you are right now. To tell the truth, the average person doesn’t make much of an effort to earn more money. They’ll gripe and moan and complain about their wages, and that’s about it.

So good for you and your plan to earn more. You begin to put your plan into action. You learn new skills that are required for advancement. You volunteer for overtime. You apply for every new step up the corporate ladder when it becomes available.

You succeed!

The problem here is that you can only focus on one thought at a time. You thought small and small was what you got.

You might not have to make much more of an effort to earn $55,000 or $75,000 per year, or even six figures. Thinking small (having limiting beliefs that you can’t make much more than you ever have in your life) was successful, but it was a very small success.

Achieving big things means doing things differently than if you aim for a small success. However, it doesn’t necessarily mean working harder. It just means working differently. Remember that thinking small almost never leads to big results.

Paulo Coelho de Souza put it another way…

“If you think adventure is dangerous, try routine; it’s lethal.”

This Brazilian lyricist and novelist wrote The Alchemist. It didn’t become an international best-seller with small thinking. The author has published 28 more books since.

Small thinking would have said, “You are a best-selling author. Great! That’s amazing! That’s good enough. Most people never publish any books at all, and you have a bestseller.”

Instead, the author thought much bigger. There aren’t too many published authors who have 29 books to their credit. Most only have one, possibly a couple more, because they thought small and safe.

You Don’t Grow If You’re Thinking Small in Your Life and Business

You may have had an amazing life so far. If so, congratulations. Most people go from cradle to grave without much fanfare.

Even if you’re a high achiever, don’t you want to grow in some area of your life? Small thinking doesn’t let you. It keeps you tethered to your previous experiences and what you’ve already done.

Greek poet Archilochus warned of this repercussion of thinking small way back in the seventh century BC.

“We don’t rise to the level of our expectations, we fall to the level of our training.”

Your training means your personal experiences and your previous successes and failures. It includes the people you spend time with and your environment. The thoughts absorbed by your childhood brain have trained you all your life.

Your training got you to where you are now. If that’s all you want, fine. Good enough is good enough for some people.

You’re probably not that type of person. You are reading this now because you want to shoot for the moon. Big victories are your focus. You want to avoid the dangers of thinking small, because “right now” isn’t good enough for you.

If that sounds like you, then start thinking bigger. You’ll find that you grow in so many ways when you push yourself to achieve big things.

Making Big, Important Decisions is Difficult for the Small Thinker

Think small and you lose control. That’s because when a huge decision needs to be made, you’ll ask someone else to make it. This can happen in your personal life and in business.

A lifetime of Thinking Small in Your Life and Business Means Never Developing the Skills to Make Big, Tough Decisions

The first time you allow yourself to tackle a big responsibility you might fail. Guess what? That’s okay. The greatest achievers in human history were sometimes massive failures up until the point where they enjoyed huge success.

There’s a first time for everything. Tell yourself that you can make big decisions. Tackle them confidently. Learn from the results, whether they are positive or negative. Then use that information to make future decisions.

Think small and you may never be able to make important decisions that have a big impact on your life.

Your Life Is Dictated by Others

Big thinkers don’t care what other people are saying about them. They’re independent. Successful people know they will inevitably fail on their way to success. These people also understand the opinions of others don’t matter in the least.

What other people say or think about you is unimportant. Small thinkers might be surprised to find that most of the time they are not the topic of conversation.

You might be worried about what other people are going to say when they’re not noticing you at all.

Always remember that the people who matter in your life will support you. They may not agree with the big, challenging project you’re undertaking. Even so, they’ll always be there for you, win or lose.

The small thinkers that try to keep you down by criticizing you don’t matter. They want you to fail. They don’t want you achieving big goals because they know they never could.

Be careful about worrying what other people are saying about you. Who cares what they think? When you allow the opinions of others to affect the decisions you make, you give them control of your life. When you give up thinking small in your life and business, everything changes quickly, and in a very positive way.

Your Name Will Never Make the History Books

Most big thinkers aren’t driven by pride. The fact that their big dream might get their name written in history books doesn’t matter to most of them. That having been said, it feels nice to be recognized for something you’ve done.

If you lead a small life, you’re never going to get noticed. You might not care about that at all. While that’s what you say now, you don’t want to experience regret on your deathbed for not having achieved much in your life.

Talk with many people in their eighties or nineties and you’ll hear the word regret pop up again and again. They’ll speak of the gifts and abilities they were given and then regret their lack of achievements.

You may not care about becoming famous. It might be the last motivating factor you consider when chasing down some dream. Don’t overlook the benefits of being noticed. They can help you make a much bigger impact on your personal life. You also have more of a chance to make a bigger and more positive impact on the world when people know you are.

Thinking small can negatively impact your life in so many ways. We just mentioned a few here. Since you have to think anyway, what not think big instead of small? The most successful people don’t achieve rewarding, fulfilling lives without thinking big.

Do for a Year What Others Won’t, Live Forever the Way Others Can’t. ~ Connie Ragen Green

I’m bestselling USA Today and Wall Street Journal author Connie Ragen Green. My goal is to help at least a thousand people to reach six-figures and beyond with an online business for time freedom and passive income and to simplify your life. Come along with me, if you will and let us discover how we may further connect to achieve all of your dreams and goals. This is also why I want you to stop thinking small in your life and business, to change your life in amazing ways. Perhaps my “Monthly Mentoring Program” is right for you.