What’s your Sherlock state of mind?
Whether you are a fan of the modern day Sherlock Holmes or the old black and white versions, the constant feature of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s creation is his power of deductive reasoning.
We want to apply the energy and tenacity of Sherlock to our everyday lives in solving the complex inner mysteries of our own selves and unravel the patterns that have kept us away from the goals that we want and desire.
It’s all too easy to get bogged down with the things that are worrying you the most and causing you pain, you focus your attention on the problem. It’s easy to stay in the head space of what took place, but that’s putting all your attention and energy in the past event and makes you feel even worse about it all. We all know that Sherlock Holmes would use his powers of deduction to solve a mystery and use all his skills and experience to get to the outcome he desired…YES solving the case
Energy flows where your attention goes!
Once you are clear what the problem, mystery or incident (curious or not) is, you need to get your attention away from the problem and get clear on what you want instead. Whenever you are faced with a problem the best way to deal with it is to get yourself into a resourceful state of being that will allow you to resolve the problem far more effectively than being bogged down in the thoughts and feelings generated by the problem itself.
The state of being that you are in is essential to achieving the outcome you desire
If you were Sherlock Holmes out to solve a mystery what state do you think he would be in at the start of a case?
Intrigued, excited, tenacious, energised, observant, focussed, positive, confident…
You are about to solve your own case that’s in your own life and you need to be as sharp witted as Sherlock to solve your problem, mystery or face your nemesis.
Elementary Watson!
Ok, here’s the process
Sherlock’s side kick Dr Watson was always on hand to help and document their adventures and we also need to document this adventure too!
Get a blank piece of paper
Create 4 columns with these headings below:
1 What’s the problem, curious incident or mystery?
Get it off your chest – write down all the things that are causing you sorrow, worry, frustration, pain, anger etc. It may feel exactly like a mystery and you may feel lost for answers at this point so include all these thoughts and feelings. Are you facing your own nemesis, just as Sherlock faced Moriarty, you may feel overwhelmed or like hiding. It’s important to be honest and fully own the place where you are emotionally in this moment.
Now take 5 deep breaths and on each out breath let these feelings go on every exhale
Now stand up and just walk around the room, have a shake of the body and make sure that you shake yourself free of how this feels physically.
2 Access your Sherlock state of mind
Identify the resources that you would have if you were Sherlock Holmes and any other resources that you believe would help you.
Try this state on – walk around with it as if you were trying on a new coat, move, breathe, walk and talk with this new state just as if you were Sherlock and really get into it and feel it fully. How does Sherlock walk, talk, gesticulate and be the amazing sleuth of Baker street? Notice the different thoughts that come to you now in this place.
3 How would you like it to be instead – your outcome when this problem is solved?
The trick here is to write down all the things that you do want – leave out anything that is a statement that is about what you don’t want or want less of.
It has to be a positive statement of what you want instead – what you want the most, perhaps it would be a miracle, an outcome that you don’t actually know how to achieve right now but you know that you want it.
Make sure that when you have written this down you spend 1 minute creating the movie of this outcome in your mind and as you watch it really feel how it feels to have this in your life. Experience it in HD and have the volume turned up, have your taste buds on fire too with any tastes on offer.
After at least 1 minute stand up and step into the movie and move around the room really feeling what it is like to be in it. You must really FEEL this physically as well as have the images and movie in your mind, BOTH ARE ESSENTIAL.
Notice how differently you move here and what you think and believe here too (make sure you write all this down in column 3 too)
4 Take action
Knowing what your goal now is, identify 3-5 actions that you can take that will take you to the successful achievement of this goal. Make sure they are steps that you can start doing quickly to gain the momentum of taking you to your goal. Revise your action steps regularly and keep moving towards your goal.
Run the movie of your goal and spend at least 1 minute experiencing it
every day for 90 days
Try on your Sherlock state of mind every day too, the more you do to access your most resourceful state the better (P.S No deer stalkers required, but hey if you want to go for it! )
Sherlock used his great powers of deduction to solve his cases and it is equally as important for you to follow the process of thinking and feeling the outcome that you desire followed by actions to get you to where you want to be.
The game is afoot!
