The mind consists of many different parts that can each exert influence on your behavior. "You" may want to change how influential a part of your mind is. For example, the part of your mind that cares about getting enough calories and nutrients may urge you to eat rich fatty foods, but another part of you recognizes that in the long run, excessive over eating will ruin your health and your physical image. [1] To control your mind, exerting self-control over behaviors you want to change is key.
You may have tried to control your thoughts at one time or another. With the aid of self-help books, perhaps you really tried to “Be Positive” and “Show Negativity the Door.” And this may have even worked for a while. But sooner or later, you probably found yourself back at the starting point. I’m here to tell you that there is another way. And that is to become the CEO of your own mind – skillfully directing it to live in harmony with the other players of self - body and spirit.
If you follow the six steps below, you will be the master of YOU in no time.
STEP 1: MAKE PEACE WITH YOUR MIND
You may not like what your mind does or the way it conducts itself. In fact, all that negativity can be downright irritating sometimes. But the fact is, you’re stuck with it and you can’t (or wouldn’t want to) just lobotomize it away. In the Book, The Happiness Trap , Dr Russ Harris uses the example of the Israelis and the Palestinians to illustrate your relationship with your mind’s negative thoughts. These two old enemies may not like each other’s way of life, but they’re stuck with each other. If they wage war on each other, the other side retaliates, and more people get hurt and buildings destroyed. Now they have a whole lot less energy to focus on building the health and happiness of their societies. Just as living in peace would allow these nations to build healthier and more prosperous societies, so making peace with your mind – accepting that negative thoughts and feelings will be there -that you can’t control them, can allow you to focus on your actions in the present moment, so you can move ahead with your most important goals without getting all fouled up. You don’t necessarily have to like the thoughts or agree with them – you just have to let them be there in the background of your mind, while you go out and get things done.
STEP 2: OBSERVE YOUR OWN MIND
The saying “Know thine enemy.” is also applicable to our relationship with our own minds. Just like a good leader spends his time walking through the offices, getting to know the employees, so we need to devote time to getting to know how our minds work day to day. Call it mindfulness, meditation, or quiet time. Time spent observing your mind is as important as time spent exercising. When you try to focus your mind on the in and out rhythm of your breath, or on the trees and flowers when you walk in nature, what does your mind do? If it’s like mine, it wanders all over the place – mostly bringing up old worries or unsolved problems from the day. And, if left unchecked, it can take you out of the peacefulness of the present moment, and into a spiral of worry, fear, and judgment.
Mindfulness involves not only noticing where your mind goes when it wanders, but also gently bringing it back to the focus on breath, eating, walking, loving, or working. When you do this repeatedly over months or years, you begin to retrain your runaway amygdala. Like a good CEO, you begin to know when your mind is checked out or spinning its wheels, and you can gently guide it to get back with the program. When it tries to take off on its own, you can gently remind it that’s it’s an interdependent and essential part of the whole enterprise of YOU.
STEP 3: BELIEVE IN YOURSELF AND THAT YOU CAN CHANGE.
If you don't believe that you can change you're not going to try nearly as hard as if you believe success is possible. So, make sure that you're using positive thinking to face your problem. Try to keep in mind that you can change the way you think, that you can improve.
Studies show that individuals adopting this "growth" mindset are more likely to make desired improvements than those who view their traits and skills as fixed and unchangeable.
STEP 4: STOP JUMPING INTO CONCLUSIONS. This is a thought trap that involves thinking certain things without any evidence to back those thoughts up. For example, someone who jumps to conclusions might think that a person doesn't like him without any evidence supporting that assertion.
To stop jumping to conclusions, you can pause and think more before reaching judgments. It can help to ask yourself questions about the thought. For example, you can ask yourself if you really know that the thought you are having is true. You can also ask yourself to identify specific pieces of evidence that would suggest that the thought is true. Using the prior example, someone who thinks a person doesn't like him might ask himself to identify particular conversations with that person that provide evidence for the claim.
STEP 5: RECOGNISE THE TRUTH.
The only way to combat a lie is with truth and right now is the time to seek out what the truth about you is. At this stage is where I pray, read my Bible, and ask God to reveal to me the truth about who I am created to be. Your process may be different. I might also talk to Lisa or a close friend about this. I’ve worked with counselors and I work with a coach who can offer me an outsider’s perspective. Whatever route you choose to take, you must determine the truth.
Once you have the truth ready to go, write the truth next to the lie. Write the truth in the first person and write it in positive phrasing. So, instead of writing, “I am not a failure,” write down, “I am a successful person who has accomplished many great things.”
“Whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things.” ~ The Apostle Paul, Philippians 4:8.
STEP 6: ASSOCIATE THE TRUTH INTO YOUR CURRENT SITUATION.
It helps if you think of real events in your life that back up your truth statement. These events could be related to your current situation or they could just be times where you experienced the truth statement in your life.
Suppose you have a meeting with your boss coming up that is making you anxious. Ideally, it helps if you can think of at least one really great meeting you’ve had with her in the past for this exercise. However, let’s suppose you’ve never had a good meeting with your boss – that’s highly unlikely but let’s go with it. And now, you have a meeting coming up with her that you’re absolutely dreading.
Here’s what I want you to do, think of a similar meeting that you’ve had with someone in a position of power that you would consider a success. Maybe it was a leader at your church or a boss at a previous company you worked at – it’s doesn’t really matter.
The goal here is to prove to yourself that you are capable of having successful meetings with superiors or people of influence and power. Now, what I want you to do is to allow yourself to go back to that meeting in your mind. Re-experience it and see how you feel. Did you laugh during the meeting? Was it lighthearted? Was it productive? What about that meeting made it successful?
Now, use that memory to reinforce the truth you wrote out in step five above. If you need to go back and revise your truth statement a bit, do it. Make sure it aligns with how you feel about yourself when you think of this memory.
Finally, combining the truth statement, the feelings and the success from the previous event, I want you to imagine that your upcoming meeting happens just like that previous event. Feel the confidence you have as you walk to the office, smile as you shake her hand, feel the calmness in your heart and mind as you discuss the topics, and so on. Do this as many times as you need to.
The power here is not that it has the ability to directly change or control the other person in the room. But it does have the ability to change how you present yourself and respond to that other person. This will likely alter how you interpret the events of the meeting and possibly how that person reacts to you.
SUMMARY
To be a successful CEO of your own mind, you need to listen, get to know your employee, acknowledge its contribution, realize it's nature, make peace with it, implement a retraining or employee development program, and treat it kindly. It will repay you with a lifetime of loyaly and service to the values and goals that you most cherish.
Thanks for reading this post.
@Mykel412
God bless us all.
Wow...this was really helpful bro...keep more of it coming @mykel412
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This is a great one @mykel. I really love the pictures you used. They were really great in conveying your points!!!
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