Breaking Free
It's time to reclaim the mortgage on your future
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If you have purchased a home, odds are you didn’t bring a stack of 100’s to the closing meeting. You likely got a mortgage so the bank could lend you money for your new home. But a mortgage doesn’t come without strings. If you don’t make your monthly payment, the lender has the right to take your property back from you. Why is this the case? Proverbs 22:7 says, “The borrower is a slave to the lender.”
So what's your point, Tarek? We all know how mortgages work.
My point is this. While home mortgages are common, we may also have allowed people, situations, or destructive mindsets to mortgage our future.
Here are a few examples of these types of mortgages:
Mortgage #1 (It’s others’ fault): If only that boss would have seen how great I am and promoted me. If only that coworker wouldn’t have taken credit for my work. Then, I would have the title, prestige, and respect I deserve.
Outcome: You live in the past, blaming others instead of taking responsibility for your future.
Antidote: Decide that you won't let others control your future. It’s as simple as that. Instead of focusing on what others will ‘let’ you do, start thinking about what you can and will do. Then, take action! Take small steps to get the car moving so you can steer it. Why haven’t you read James Clear’s Atomic Habits yet?Mortgage #2 (Worry): What if my kids have a car accident? What if I get fired? What if I run out of money before the month is out? Did I close my garage? I bet I didn’t, and someone will steal all my stuff!
Outcome: You live in fight or flight mode, one hair trigger away from your lizard brain taking over.1
Antidote: Start thinking about what could go right! Put your mind in a positive space on purpose. Tamp down that amygdala hijack!Mortgage #3 (I let others think for me): I inundate my life with political messages from my chosen tribe. I ingest this information like a firehose, drinking in every video and meme until I lose my ability to think critically about alternate viewpoints.
Outcome: I see the worst in people from the ‘other side’ instead of seeing their potential. I have a handy excuse for not reaching my potential.
Antidote: Listen to voices outside your tribe. Yes, I said it. Be open to other ideas. Perhaps you’ll start to see the other side as fellow human beings with similar struggles but different ideas about solutions. Also, turn down the bad news firehose to a trickle. Those people are paid to make you angry. You don’t have to subject yourself to it.
Who holds the mortgage on your future?
As we discussed a few weeks ago, what you focus on takes center stage in your mind. You may say, “Hey, Tarek, I’m a realist!” Let’s be truthful. Being a realist will make your life miserable. I’ve tried it. Try positivity instead - unreasonable positivity. It 100% works. What you feed your mind will change your life.
Don’t mortgage your future by giving your attention to attitudes that will suck the very life from your body. Become a different person one minute, hour, day, month, and year at a time.
You will one day look back and not recognize the person you have become in the best way possible.
I very recently did this and I am SO happy, two weeks later: "turn down the bad news firehose to a trickle. Those people are paid to make you angry. You don’t have to subject yourself to it."