How To Overcome Old Habits Of Thought

There isn’t a person alive who isn’t being held back by limiting beliefs. Limiting beliefs are formed from old habits of thought; a belief is just a thought you keep thinking. >Tweet this!

Old habits of thought begin in so many ways. What your religion teaches you, what your culture says is so, what your family instilled in you, what your community says, what your friends say, what your employer stands for, what you think an experience you had said about you, what you observed and decided about something.

A #ThoughtRevolution can free you, no matter the habit of thought, or how old it is.

You may believe I’m not good enough to love. I am terrible with money. I will never get well and fully healthy. I am a doormat. If I was worthy of living in the now XX would not have happened to me when I was a boy. 

No matter what it is, you can change it.

When I was a little boy, around the time the above picture was taken (that’s me on the left in case you’re wondering), I asked my parents if I could have a birthday party. I had no way of knowing this would turn out to be one of the defining moments of my life. It planted a seed of an untrue thought within me that grew tall and mighty over the years, so much so that overcoming it has been one of the greatest lessons of my life.

When my parents said I could have a birthday party, I set to organizing games, activities, food, everything I could think of so that my friends from school would have fun. I put my little heart into it. I had phoned each friend on my list – this was the 70’s – and told them the time and the date and (sort of) where we lived. I remember making the calls from my parent’s rotary dial phone in their bedroom, listening in on the “party line” between calls (to the annoyance of my exasperated neighbours: “We can hear you breathing!”), sprawled out on their big bed in the sweltering heat of our non-air-conditioned house that actually sat on no other address other than a rural route number; the long gravel road we were situated on was merely called Erin 5th line.

It was the first and last time I ever left anything to chance again in my life, the first and last time I was not hyper-vigilant in organizing anything, the first and last time I made a plan with anyone without checking and double-checking.

My birthday arrived and while I was excited to open gifts in the morning I was more excited about my party. Like a good future gay man I spent the day making sure everything was absolutely perfect. The time came for kids to begin arriving.

Time passed and no one arrived. An optimist even then, I reminded myself that we lived in the country, some of my friends lived dozens of miles away, none had ever even been to our house. Having a birthday party and people over was a big first, doubling my excitement.

I gave it more time. Sat there amongst the balloons and streamers and props for games all ready to go. Pretending not to notice my parents exchange anxious glances.

No one showed up.

At all.

My mother putting her hand on my shoulder saying, “I’m sorry, Shaun” was the worst part. I felt humiliated; sympathy made it worse.

Looking back I can easily understand how it could have happened. My birthday is in the middle of summer when school is out, and always falls on a long weekend. My parents should have called my friends’ parents, me calling kids I hadn’t seen or spoken to in eight weeks wasn’t the way to go about it. And what kid was expected to remember: the blue and white house on Erin 5th line?

This is clear to me now but it was not then. I went off to be alone, and in that moment although I didn’t know it, the thought was born: no one comes to my party.

It is divine to me to be all grown up now and to have created an entire career where success and my living depends on people coming to my party. (A shrink once said, “Well that’s twisted.”) Whether it’s my radio show, this website, my LGBT site, workshops, speeches, and yes, often, as recently as last week, actual parties – everything I do is about people coming to my party.

What I have discovered is, that until I recognized and managed the deeply buried old habit of thought: no one comes to my party, my success was not as good as it could have been. And the ride has not been as enjoyable. And not only that, there has always been a niggling feeling, as I’ve gone about my work, that no one was going “to come”.

And when it’s been time to host an actual live event – and I host a lot of them – add in super-high anxiety  about whether anyone would come to my party. Anxiety about having a party, inviting people, RSVPs, and then god help me, the event itself, waiting to see if anyone would show.

Ultimately it never stopped me, but it has held me back. It delayed me for years in doing what I wanted to do; I landed in fiance instead of working in an arena where an audience was part of what equalled success. It has affected my personal relationships – I can still overreact when someone is unduly late or a no-show or bails last minute.

It has been a terrible way to live, frankly. But such is the power of an old habit of thought.

It was last December when I realized this one small habit of thought needed to not just be managed, that it actually had to be annihilated once and for all.

My husband, who is also my manager, was in a 2015 strategy session with a business expert and he came to my office after, to report in on the day.

“Lisa thinks you should hold a ______ event,” he said.

Immediately my whole physicality sank. My vibration diminished. No one comes to my party.

But then I thought: I’ve had it.

Had it, had it, had it with the same thought creeping into my being because of something formed four decades ago. Six months since that moment and barely a day has gone by when I have not included in my morning journaling these words: “I love the idea of people coming to my party. People come to my party and have a great time and more people want to come as a result.”

And whether I have been in the back of a cab, or sitting staring out the window over morning coffee, or walking Ella, I have thought this thought often: “People come to my party.”

As silly or simple as this may seem, tending to the toxic thought that bled out from my little boy’s wounded heart so many years ago, by speaking a story that reversed the one I began to tell back in the ’70’s, worked. Never underestimate the power of the story we tell ourselves and what changing that does. As always, the low-cost investment of a #ThoughtRevolution has yielded an amazing return already. More traffic, more listeners, more engagement, more of all the things needed to make “the party” that is my career more successful.

But it was last week when I really knew I had won. Last week we threw our 2nd annual Shaun Proulx Media LGBT Influencer Celebration at The Trump International Hotel here in Toronto – an actual party. Scotiabank was our presenting sponsor, and Porter Airlines sponsored the event as well as several other great brands.

Of all the parties I have thrown, this one was most important one ever, in so many ways. Dozens of LGBT influencers and VIPs were invited.

For the first time ever, during all the months of planning, hurdles, negotiating, arranging, inviting, RSVPs, to the event itself, at no time ever once did I feel one ounce of negative emotion. It was so odd not to feel anxious that I was acutely aware of my calmness.

And not only did everyone come to my party – we actually had to turn some people away.

You can change your entire life experience when you play with your thoughts. That is all a #ThoughtRevolution is. You commit to taking the thought that is not serving you – and you know it isn’t because it has so much negative emotion attached to it when you think it – and you play with it. Find a better thought and think it a lot, wherever and whenever you can.

You got to where you don’t want to be thought by thought by thought – and you get to where you want to be the same way.

• Related: The Disease To Please – How To Stop Being A Doormat
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