A few years ago I began to receive a strange message on my cell phone which increased in severity. The calls were from local numbers, so much like Adele, I would answer the phone with a simple “hello.” People on the other end would then ask if I was Comcast Cable. To which I would simply reply “no.” Because while I may not know much, I do know I neither own, use, or am apart in any way of Comcast Cable. Wrong NumberNow this is the part where it would get strange. While most people would simply say “ok, thank you” and hang up, there were a few people who did not believe me. I had people belligerently tell me “yes you are” with a defiant tone in their voice. I am not quite sure how they wanted me to respond. It is a rather surreal moment to have people yell at you about who they think you should be. I was tempted to just tell them “sure I am Comcast, I will be there tomorrow at 2pm, see you then.” Just to get them off the phone. I had one lady begin to cry on the phone because I was not Comcast Cable. Which I found odd, I am usually the one crying at the end of a two hour conversation with the cable company. But, I really had no responses to these reactions and I could not understand why people were calling me and they were the ones getting upset. Their anger and emotions were completely misplaced. The more this happened the more I began to ask questions of the callers. I began to piece together that my number was being used in a scam. Someone would call a house and leave a message saying they were Comcast Cable and would be showing up tomorrow at 2:00pm to check the cable lines. What they were doing is attempting to see if the person would be home at a specific time in order to rob their house. The issue was when they called the house they were displaying my number on the homeowner’s Caller ID. It was at this point I decided to change my number in order to not have to listen to these distracting messages anymore. Believing the Wrong MessageAs individuals it is amazing what you will believe when a message is presented to you in a respectable manner. How many times in your own life have you believed the caller because they sounded legitimate? When what you should have done is hung up? I am not talking about an actual phone call, but those voices, thoughts, and descriptions of yourself. The message you hear which says “you are not good enough.” The one which states “you do not have what it takes.” Or “you will never make it."
These are the scams you allow in your life when you let your internal thoughts, or the words of others, impede your own pathway to success. When the messages are packaged in a legitimate format you will believe the content, whether it is correct or not. You need to be able to discern the message as a scam as soon as possible and hang up. When you believe the wrong caller you begin to derail your journey in very specific ways.
1. Distracts You from Your Goals
When you believe those internal thoughts or even external conversations, they will distract you from your goals. You will begin to exert the energy needed to accomplish your goals into attempting to justify your actions. If you ever feel you have to justify your actions to anyone, even yourself, then take a step back and look at your motives. These wrong callers do nothing but keep your focus from where it should be in accomplishing your goals.
2. Plants Seeds of Doubt
Listening to a wrong caller will also plant an unnecessary seed of doubt in your mind. When you hear specific words which pierce your soul, and you know what those sound like. “You are not good enough,” “You do not have what it takes,” “This is awful.” It plants a seed in your mind. If you ignore the seed it will not grow. But most of the time you begin to think about the doubt. When you begin the process of thinking about the doubt, you are giving it water, you are giving it life, and it begins to grow. When doubt grows in your mind it begins to push out all the positive and useful thoughts, ideas, emotions, and goals which were occupying this space. In order to not derail your journey, you need to do whatever is necessary to NOT give life to those seeds of doubt.
3. Wastes Your Time
You will completely waste your time when you listen to the wrong caller. There is no good which can come of this process. When you receive constructive criticism digest this information wisely. But if it is simply people pushing their own agenda and purpose, then you will waste your time attempting to rationalize an irrational statement. You will spend your time thinking, contemplating, and reorganizing your goals or thoughts to justify your actions. Or worse, change them to appease the naysayers. Either way you are wasting valuable time which would be better served in crushing your goals.
4. Kills Productivity
Much like wasting time, you will also lose productivity toward your goals and dreams by listening to the wrong caller. When you change your goals because of other people’s criticism or suggestions you have just moved from creating your own unique product, to attempting to keep people happy. Which by the way, you will never be able to please everyone. Stay focused on on what you are accomplishing. Keep a vision in mind of the end result. Then shut out all the wrong numbers. Nothing will kill your productivity quicker than listening to a message from someone who has no idea about what they are discussing.
5. Feeds the Fear Monster
The last thing you ever want to do when listening to the wrong caller is to feed the fear monster. Much like the seeds of doubt, when you listen to the haters you can begin to build a wall of fear between you and your goals. When those seeds of doubt grow you begin to believe in what they say. When this happens you begin to fear what is next. You start asking yourself the questions of “What if no one likes it,” “No one is going to read this,” or “I am just wasting my time.” If you ever begin asking these questions, or anything similar, you are feeding the fear monster. You must do everything possible to crush this fear to keep moving forward. This is not an easy process, but it is doable. You must understand fear is a natural part of a new process. If you didn’t have a little fear in what you were attempting you are probably not dreaming big enough. But you can never let fear freeze you or stop you from taking a step each day toward your goals. Your pathway to success will be met with challenges. The one obstacle you need to be able to eliminate or address from the very beginning will be the doubts and fears which can plague your journey. You are capable, you have a dream and vision only you can bring into this world. But you must let loose of the false messages inhibiting you from bringing your dreams from thoughts into a reality. ChallengeWhat false messages have you been listening to in your life? How do you need to hang up on these people or thoughts in order to keep moving forward on your pathway to success? Choose today to live life on your terms and not be defined what other people think about you.