Reven Concepts is a coaching company that emphasizes mindset. We have led the effort to bridge the gaps between limits and possibilities in people.
The wonderful thing about life is that each new day brings a chance for something new. Sometimes, we allow life to take control of the wheel and steer us right off into the deep end. We learn to juggle the chaos and uncertainty of our future because it is “all we can do.” Regardless of how busy life gets, there resides a chance to slow it down within us to be more in control. For example, if you are nervous/anxious, depressed, etc., you can find the way back to normal. I call returning to a place where you are in full control of your thoughts, feelings, and actions, your Reset Point. In this month’s T-U-S, I want to share with you what a reset point is, the steps to applying it, and how it can help you in your life.
The purpose: Have you ever felt uneasy, nervous, angry, sad, confused, etc.? I am sure you have. Those are necessary feelings that come along with being human. Each one of our feelings holds a purpose. Some serve us more than others, and you should investigate which ones those are. However, most negative feelings do not feel great to be in for any long duration of time. It is important to get out of what you are feeling and go after feelings that you want/need to feel. If you need to be calm or happy, then it is up to you to get to that place. Though getting there might be a journey in itself, these steps will help expedite the process by continually exposing your mind to the feeling(s) you want. The rest follows from there.
What is a reset point? A reset point is a time in your life when you are in your static state of being. This means a reset point will help you return to your typical normal/calm. Imagine if you have a presentation due for work, and you have a fear of public speaking. Having a reset point can help you calm down, so you will not be as nervous as you would be without having one. A reset point is meant to be a tool that helps cope with your fears, anxieties, and any other undesired feelings. A reset point can also be used in our daily thinking. I preach a lot about a positive mindset and how powerful it is in your life. Well, if you are in a place where your thoughts are negative, then you can use a reset point to go back to when you were positive. The uses for having a reset point can be many, so let us get into the steps to acquire one or more reset points.
Step 1: Create A Reset Point
Step 2: Determine the Feeling you want to Feel After the Reset
Step 3: Practice Resetting
Step 4: Positive Back-Up Reset Point
Step 1. Creating a reset point is the foundation for overcoming all your future pains and struggles. The process of creating a reset point is straightforward. First, you must find/remember a moment in your life when your thoughts, feelings, and actions are in a neutral state (In simple terms, you feel regular). For example, my most used reset points were when I was a swim instructor. It was the time when I felt most focused on the now. My thoughts, feelings, and actions had no place in the lessons because the students were the focus. The students I worked with were happy, smiling, laughing, etc., because that was how I operated. I was confident in my skills to the point where I didn’t have to worry about what was next because I always knew. Thinking back on that time makes me remember why I am doing what I do now. It reminds me of the many lessons I learned on my journey.
My reset points are a testament that growth is possible. I helped children who were afraid of the water, couldn’t swim, or were dependent on mom/dad overcome any limiting beliefs they had. I gave those students more than just the ability to swim. I challenged all the fears that they placed in their minds and had them overcome them. I told them how amazing, smart, and courageous they were with each passing lesson. I learned that if you have someone constantly speaking words of encouragement into your ears, you will start to believe it. I know that is true because the students would come back to the next lesson and repeat some of the things I said. They would say things like, “I am brave!”, “I am a great swimmer!” and “This will be easy!”. These are words of affirmation at work, and some of those children were not even five years old yet.
Your reset point should be something meaningful to you. I recommend your reset points be tailored to a few feelings. You do not want to have to deal with a melting pot of mixed emotions every time you go and reset. You also do not want to reset to a time/place in your life where things are negative and dark. Though going back to moments like that has the power to motivate you, a reset point is meant to be a positive tool for you. I do use some traumatic experiences in my life as reset points, but I have turned those moments into life lessons. Any moment can become a reset point, but the purpose for resetting is similar to the saying, “Take one step back, to take two steps forward.”
When you hear the word reset, it means to go back to the start. This does not mean you are starting from scratch. Think of it as re-reading directions for an IKEA piece of furniture. At least for me, I typically have extra pieces when I am done assembling anything I get from them. I just chalked it up so that I was more efficient than the directions wanted me to be. A reset point is meant to get you back to where you went. If you had some type of hardship, turmoil, trauma, or struggle in your life, then choosing the correct reset point is critical to getting over it more quickly. What they say about time healing all wounds is true, but if you are bleeding out, you need to stop it before it becomes a problem.
Step 2. After you have found your reset point, you have to determine how it makes you feel. For example, if we take a look at high school, there is a mess of emotions and memories incorporated with that time in our life. Perhaps you were on a sports team, and you were one of the best players on the team. You can think back at any of those memories and remember how you felt. Perhaps you felt powerful and in control. This makes for a great reset point if you feel weak/lost currently in life. Thinking back to a reset point should reinvigorate your brain to show it the feeling you want to feel is attainable. Simply knowing it can be achieved is enough motivation to go after something until you complete it.
The brain likes to get in the way sometimes, and that is why a reset point with the feelings you want is needed. If you need to feel brave, confident, calm, etc., you can find a reset point to get there. The feeling that you want to feel should be the determining factor for the reset point. You do not want to go to a reset point that gets you “hyped” when you are trying to be calm. For your first reset point, you should practice limiting it to one feeling/outcome. You want to make sure you can walk before you run with this. Make sure you know what you want to feel, then look back in your mind to see what memories will give you the best-chosen feeling.
Step 3. Now that you have a reset point and know what feeling you want to feel and get back to, it is time to practice. The reason why you must practice resetting is that it is something I can almost guarantee you have not done consciously. You might have had a good moment pop into your mind, and that was the extent of the reset. The purpose of this T-U-S is to help make your reset points deliberate. You should practice with many different areas, memories, and feelings to see what works best for you. You may even come across that a reset point that has been working for a while stops working. That is typically for two reasons. The first is you have not practiced/played the memory in your head enough. The second reason is brain fog. This is when your mind is having a hard time focussing. Both of these problems should fix automatically, but if not, then it would be advantageous to start from step one again.
When you first start to practice your reset points, there should be no stressors that are affecting you. The mind is powerful, and if it has a feeling that it thinks will harm you it will put you in a state of fear or paralysis. This could arise from the stress of a sports game or a public presentation. Both of these situations are non-life-threatening, but your mind might make you believe they are. If you allow fear to inhibit your life, then it will continue to do so again and again until you stop it in its tracks. That is why new teachers are nervous when they start to teach in front of a class. It is unfamiliar to them, so their brain is trying to process it all. After some time, the brain realizes no harm comes from standing in front of a classroom and teaching. A reset point will help you reach a state of calmness and confidence quicker than if you let the brain operate at its own pace.
Step 4. Creating a backup reset is the same process as the first one. It would be advantageous to have more than one reset point that can get you back to a neutral state. For example, if you need to reset to a certain feeling, like calmness, then having more than one reset can be beneficial if your initial reset is not working. Perhaps one can be when you were young, playing in the backyard and the other one is when you are on the sofa watching your favorite show/movie. If you tend to look back at memories and can only be greeted by negative feelings, then your mindset is to blame. You can get over that easily with some positive mindset work. The remedy to negativity is applying positivity to your life. Simply removing the negative and not replacing it with something positive will allow negative feelings/thoughts/actions to fill the void.
When you look back for a reset, those memories should be good. Typically a person doesn’t reflect on past moments that do not serve them. If you do, then that is might not be a wise choice to re-envision something negative. On the other hand, if you can add a positive lesson to that moment, then do it because it will be a great lesson. We learn best from our failures, not from our successes. Do not shy away from the parts of your life that you grew from. Your past is filled with lessons that will help prepare you for any future troubles you may face. Any moment can be a teachable one. Before you go cursing your past and all the difficulties you are having right now, understand that all moments have the power to make you better prepared for the future.
I am fortunate to have had many good moments in my life. That alone gives me an advantage when making new positive reset points. However, you do not need to have an exorbitant amount of good memories to have enough reset points. You can make any “ordinary” moment and apply the desired feeling to it. With practice, you will be able to see that moment and be overcome by the associated feeling you assigned to it. For example, if you look at the grocery store from the parking lot. You can apply any feeling you want to it. You can apply calmness, happiness, ambition, etc., to that parking lot moment. The joy of creating a reset point is that it can be anything that will help enact the feeling you want.
In closing, creating a reset point in your life can hold tremendous benefits for you. A reset point can help you get back the control of your life that was lost in a particular moment. Whether you are nervous or afraid, you can turn that around and go after how you would like to feel. Creating a reset point is not about running away from your emotions but rather teaching you that you are in control of how you can feel. You are in control of your thoughts, feelings, and actions. No one or anything can change that. The big three are up to you to control and use how you see fit. Do not become a victim to your lesser self because you have failed to find a way out. The way out of a certain life or way of thinking is to reset your mind. All you have to do is be in control of what goes in, stays in, and stays out.
Until then,
Michael Rearden
CEO of Reven LLC.
The Author
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1 thought on “T-U-S Part 20: Finding your Reset Point”
I stopped watching the news.To much negative.Going out in nature is my reset.Thanks for reminding me.That a bad day is not a bad life.Thanks for the positive words.
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