intentional inputs

What makes the difference between surviving and thriving in every day life? Is it routines? Schedules? Better planning? Doing more? Doing less? Goals? I’ve coached many clients on this topic as well as put it to practice myself, and the shift isn’t necessarily in what we do, it’s why we do it. And why we do things is often connected to our mental input. 

I’d like to share a study I read recently in the book Be Your Future Self Now by Dr. Benjamin Hardy: 

A group of researchers told 2nd and 3rd grade teachers they wanted to study the learning of their students over the course of a school year. At the beginning of the year, the teachers were privately told which students were gifted and which ones weren’t based on IQ tests the researchers had given.

As expected, by the end of the school year, the gifted students showed extremely higher increases in learning and overall development than the non-gifted students. 

But here’s the interesting thing – the researchers hadn’t given the students IQ tests at the beginning of the year. Instead, they randomized which students were considered gifted and which ones weren’t simply to see if it would influence their results. 

Unconsciously, the teachers treated the gifted students differently than the non-gifted students. They expected more of those students and those expectations became a self-fulfilling prophecy. 

Interesting right? We won’t dive into it deeply, but psychologists call this the pygmalion effect.

The inputs we receive have an effect on the results we create. These inputs could be our environment, our relationships, how we use our time, what we eat, etc. 

Jim Rohn is known for summing up this concept by saying “you’re the average of the five people you spend the most time with.” 

This month, we’re going to take this concept and look for ways to turn some of our unintentional inputs into intentional inputs. And before I talk about the strategies to do this, I want to preface with two things: 

1. We aren’t robots. 
2. Small is powerful. 

Okay, so let’s jump into three strategies for this month: 

1. Become mindful of an unintentional input that you would like to make more intentional. 
2. Tap into your future self. 
3. Commit. 

I tried these three strategies recently with my morning routine. I knew I wanted to make some adjustments, but before changing anything, I started with the first step – I took time to really become aware of what my current routine looked like. And not for just one day. I spent a couple weeks going through my routine fluctuating between mindless auto-pilot and mentally being aware of what I was doing. A couple weeks in, I was standing in my closet looking around for a shirt that I wanted to wear and I couldn’t find it. It was taking longer than I thought it would. I was getting frustrated, and spiraling into overwhelm. And then I realized something – I was unintentionally spending more time than I wanted in my closet. And every time I was in there, I had a cloud of cluttered thoughts that carried into the rest of my morning. 

I took a moment to really look at my closet. It was so disorganized! No order, empty boxes, a pile of donations sitting to the side, and all kinds of clutter. 

What happened next? Nothing. In that moment, I couldn’t commit to step three – making a change. So over the next couple of weeks, every time I walked into the messy closet, I practiced some compassion. Makes sense that it had become a chaotic mess. Makes sense that my past self had created this for my present self. 

And then I allowed myself to enter step two – to start thinking from my future self. What would my future self love about this closet? Well, my future self would love to find things easier and quicker.

And then I took a look at my life. And I knew that to create what I wanted for my future self, my present self would need to sacrifice some time. I estimated about 90 minutes and then I added an extra 30 minutes because I knew I’d be doing it while the kids were home and there would be interruptions. I visualized myself going through the process of cleaning out my closet. 

When the two hour block came up, here’s what’s interesting. My present self wasn’t excited about this project at all. In fact, my brain offered all kinds of ways I could “better” spend my time. But, I chose commitment. And reminded my brain this would move me toward my future self.

Fast forward a month, and I am now experiencing what I envisioned for my future self. I have so much less mind drama and it has truly simplified that portion of my morning. 

And what’s interesting, and I see this happen all the time with clients, is this one change created momentum for other changes. I started to notice other little tweaks I could make toward an intentional morning routine.

This month, choose something – a relationship, food, a physical space, technology – anything you want to make an intentional input and have fun with it!

The last thing I want to leave you with is the idea of creating an intentional input list. This might be something you have on your phone or you write on paper, but make a list of things you want to intentionally bring into your life- podcasts, books, experiences or people. From time to time, give yourself permission to commit to one of those things! 

“Do something today your future self will thank you for!”