During the holidays my daughter and I took him to a children’s museum in San Antonio, which had this amazing replica of a grocery store with plastic food and miniature shopping carts. It was nirvana for two year olds!

We were enthralled with his approach to this adventure, getting to act like a big person and shop all by himself. He immediately put six plastic carrots in his cart, along with one box of sausages and four packets of fruit desserts. And he did it nonchalantly, roaming the aisles like he’s been doing it all his life. He never looked around to see if other toddlers were gauging his accuracy or if he were doing it “right.”

Watching him approach something he’s never seen or been allowed to do before with such enthusiasm and abandonment made me think of how much we tend to change our mindset from the resilient, flexible mentality of a two-year-old to our often staid, grown up attitude on life.

Isn’t adaptability and resilience all about approaching something new or unexpected with a sense of excitement and confidence? And if this is an innate ability we all posses (assuming all of us were two years old at one time) then isn’t our job this year to start reminding ourselves we have the ability to change our perspective on change?

Deepak Chopra, in one of his lectures, talks about the ability fleas have to jump two to three feet high. Yet once they are confined for a period of time in a six inch jar, the lid can be removed and they never jump out. They are conditioned to learn and accept limitations.

Let’s look at this New Year as an opportunity to release limitations. Start with the premise that change can be pleasurable, which certainly must be the mantra of every two year old. And if we believe that our ability to be resilient comes from a change in our attitude, then let’s close today’s blog with some fun, “what if” questions:

What if you were six to 10 years old, how could you look at the change you’re facing in this New Year? Could you find it an adventure? Could you be less judgmental of yourself and make one of your resolutions to step a little more outside your comfort zone?

What if you were looking back from the year 2015, what great insights would you share on being the best person you can be this year, and at the same time less fearful of new opportunities and change?

What if a bell rang every time you did something, what would it be? Would it be a validation of doing something you believe in (complimenting a colleague, thinking positive thoughts in a negative situation) or would it be a gentle reminder of what you want to stop doing?

What if you worked for free because you were independently wealthy? What would you do at work (yes, you are still going to work) to encourage others to embrace change? What is your second right answer?

What if one of your jobs this year was to help others at work have more fun, what would you do? Make it mandatory to sing during a morning meeting? Give everyone silly string and let them spray it if they liked someone’s ideas? Run a creativity meeting that encourages thinking outside traditional lines to solve a current problem, and include koosh balls, construction paper and other “toys” to help stimulate creativity?

Finally, what if you chose to gain insight from one other person whom you respect, who would you choose to go to for advice? Would it be a favorite teacher, favorite boss, TV personality, celebrity or someone you admire from history?

Adaptability is an art and a mindset. We find mentally old people everywhere, who think that doing something in a different way is a fundamental crime. Those are the people referred to in the quote “People die in their 20’s, they just wait till their 80’s to be buried.”

And for the rest of us who wish to remain mentally flexible and resilient in our ever-changing world, why not, at least for a little while, try thinking like a two-year-old!

In looking at how we retrain ourselves mentally it’s interesting to look at how we define resilience. One definition talks about an ability to recover from or adjust easily to misfortune or change, to jump back, with a synonym of elastic. And when I think of elasticity, I think of a rubber band that snaps back or a yoga master who has such control over her body there is a beautiful elasticity as she contorts into her lotus or other positions.

Of course if we went to our first yoga class and tried to follow along with an extensive routine, we might be in trouble physically. But if we were up to continually stretching and focusing on attaining the positions, eventually we would get there. Yet so often we see people we work with who fight to protect their right not to bend or stretch mentally, arguing against anything new that might force them to mentally limber up. By the way it’s been said we think 60,000 thoughts a day, and 90% are repeats!

As we prepare for the New Year and strategize on our future successes in 2010, it’s a great time to realize the power we have to control our thoughts and gently guide them toward a more resilient mindset.

In his book Evolve Your Brain, Joe Dispensa reminds us we are what we believe. Change how we see ourselves and we change our outcome. He explains that in his studies of neuroscience it’s been proven we change our brain (that 100 billion cell organ of ours) just by thinking. And when we rehearse failure and mentally focus on limiting thoughts, we strengthen what we don’t want.

My Super Power Elasticity reminds us of the necessity of stretching outside our comfort zones in order to be as adaptable and flexible as we need to be to succeed. So here’s a fun (and possibly tiny bit painful) exercise.

Think of something that is a problem right now that you’re dealing with. Let’s not make it too big, but still an annoyance of some sort. Ask a colleague to watch where your eyes go when you think of this problem. For instance, if you’re thinking of a major deadline that is troubling you, do your eyes go up and to the right? And if you are thinking of person who drives you crazy, do your eyes go down and to the left? Once you know which way your eyes go put a rubber band on your wrist.

Next, think of something that makes you happy, makes you feel good (for me it’s usually sitting in the forest with my dogs, smelling pine, feeling wind through my hair and sunlight on my face).

OK, here we go helping the brain create a new perspective on a problem. As you start to think about the negative issue snap the rubber band on your wrist, say “stop it” and put your eyes in the opposite direction from where they were when you thought of the problem. Follow that up with a few seconds of focusing on the thought (resource state) that made you happy.

Of course all you’re doing is rewiring so that instead of dreading the meeting/person/situation you’ll be open to hear the conversation or alternative ideas. And will it happen immediately? Nope. But tenacity always pays off here, and you can absolutely change your perspective on something.

And if this sounds quite crazy to you, stop and think of how hard it is NOT to think of a purple elephant if someone came up right now and said not to think of one. We get stuck with old thought patterns. Yet the brain’s natural capacity of neuroplasticity, to rewire and create new outcomes, is amazing. We just need to help our thinking along a bit.

Amazing what we can create, how resilient we really are. Have fun changing your mind on something today. Let me know how it works, and if you find a small red mark on your wrist from the rubber band (as I have from time to time) it just reminds us of how deeply we can obsess over something we don’t want. How much more productive we are when we create what we do want instead!