Have you ever wondered about that little voice in your head? What does it do to you and your way of thinking?
In reality, it’s possible that it mostly does you harm. It puts up invisible self-sabotaging barriers for you. What’s worse is that it creates habitual, unconscious negative emotions in your body that can lead to real physical pain over time. Eckhart Tolle, the author of “Practicing The Power of Now”, calls this “the pain body”.
The good news?
It’s just your mind, NOT YOU! That voice is just one of your brain’s many tools. It can be turned off. And by doing that, you also gain the power to consciously choose your thoughts, emotions, and responses to the outside world.
In this article, I’m going to tell you how to first shut that voice off so it doesn’t bother you and how to make your mind work for you. You’ll get actionable insights on how to make fast changes, delete horrible, life-long habits, and set your mind to put you on the fast track to success.
Freeing Yourself From The Toxicity of Your Mind
Studies suggest that humans think between 12,000 and 70,000 thoughts daily. Around 80% of these thoughts are negative.
With this number, it’s easy for your actions to turn into habits.
Keep in mind that thoughts coupled with feelings become emotions. Emotions, when felt frequently and consistently, become actions. Actions then become habits that shape our entire lives.
This makes it important that you free yourself from negative, self-sabotaging thoughts and self-talk. Replace them with positive, empowering thoughts that can move you into a better, happier place.
How?
By becoming intensely in the “here and now” and shutting off that chatterbox in your head. You can do that through physical activities, like Yoga or meditation.
Meditation trains and strengthens the “choosing muscle” in your brain. By monitoring what goes on in your mind, you become intensely focused in the here and now.
With daily practice (10-20 min), meditation can remove the toxicity from your whole being. It can help you shut off your senseless thoughts and bring focus into the present. Meditation has an amazing 76 scientifically confirmed benefits.
See Also: Questions and Answers: A Beginners Guide to Meditation
The most important relationship in your life is between you and your mind. It’ll make you or break you so make sure you build a healthy and strong relationship with it.
5 Hacks to Make Your Mind Work For You
The majority of people are stuck in the same, limiting ways of thinking and feeling throughout their entire lives. These limiting beliefs, fears, habits, and thoughts consistently disempower and damage them.
Mohammed Ali said: “A man who sees the world the same at 50 as he did at 20 has wasted 30 years of his life”. Remember, what you think and feel frequently, you BECOME!
The good news is that there are powerful mind hacks that can help you break the chain and let your mind work for you. Here are five of them:
Your Mind is Hard-Wired to Like Pleasure Than Pain
“The secret to success is learning how to use pain and pleasure, instead of having pain and pleasure use you” – Tony Robbins.
What does that mean?
If you want to change, your current situation has to be more painful than the pain of change. That can happen either by circumstance or through your own effort.
For example, if you wanna stop the habit of procrastinating, one of the best minds hacks you can do is to think of what may happen if you don’t change it.
Take, for example, the following:
– The more you procrastinate, the more time you waste
– Self-loathing
– Loss of self-respect
– Horrible self-esteem and confidence
– Feeling constantly anxious until it’s done
– Less creative
– Poor health
– Less money
– Missed opportunities
– Possibly get fired from your job for low productivity or poor quality of work
– The longer you wait, the more stressful it will be in the end
– Forcing yourself to stress at the last minute
If you wanna change a bad habit, you absolutely have to reward yourself when you act on a new, better habit. That can be done through strong, positive, inner self-dialogue. You choose how you want to reward yourself, but make it pleasurable and good for you.
See Also: 7 Mentally Damaging Habits You Need To Let Go
Your Mind Loves Familiarity
The key here is to make the familiar unfamiliar (through pain) and the unfamiliar familiar (through pleasure). Reward yourself when you do something good that’s unfamiliar to you and watch what happens.
Smoothly Build High Self-Esteem
Do you know what the major reason for depression is?
Harsh, hurtful, critical words you say to yourself- repeatedly.
Do you know the best way to build your self-esteem?
Praise yourself, especially if it feels odd to give yourself compliments. That’s a tough one for many people to do but you have to do it. Your happiness and self-esteem depend on it.
Don’t wait for external validation. It’s not as effective and it rarely comes in sufficient amounts.
My inner dialogue was like poison to me, until I came across Marisa Peer’s video:
Practice your inner dialogue by saying these lines 3 times, with strong emotion:
“I am Lovable. I’ve ALWAYS been Lovable. I am Enough!”
No matter how odd it feels, say it and make it a habit.
Your Mind Gives You Specifically What You Ask For
Have you ever experienced hoping you wouldn’t get sick on an important day and then you got sick? Wished you wouldn’t be late for a meeting and that’s exactly what happened.
Your mind can’t tell the difference between your sentences and ideas. It takes everything as a yes.
So, instead of beating around the bush, the key is to tell your mind exactly what you want. It loves specifics.
Example:
If you want to lose weight, say 5 kg or 10lbs, then soon enough you’ll start seeing pieces of advice everywhere on how to lose that weight. You’ll see and hear them online, from your friends, or at the gym.
What your mind thinks, it attracts.
Two Things To Change How You Feel
How you feel at any time is tied to two things: the images you hold in your head and the words you say to yourself.
Imagine two people preparing to do the same workout at the gym.
One is telling himself how much he hates it and would rather be home, watching TV on the couch. The second one, meanwhile, is telling himself how exciting it is to go to the gym and push harder than last time. He’s thinking of all the benefits he could get from the workout.
The first person was able to exercise but didn’t feel too motivated to do his best. The other person was able to happily finish his workout despite how tough it is.
Don’t let your mind wander with random thoughts. Actively choose good words and imagery. They shape your life.