Mastering Your Mind: A Journey from Struggle to Success
Unlocking the Power of Incremental Improvement and Mental Resilience to Achieve Your Goals
Life is not meant to be easy from the get-go.
But someone who recognizes that can also recognize that by studying life and the very game we are all playing, we can rise up, meet our goals, and become anything we want.
We hear thoughts like this a lot, and then the thought is gone along with the feeling it carried with it. So how can we make something like this stick for the long term?
By actually understanding how important it is to grasp the following concept:
“If you can commit to being 1% better every day and honing in on your craft, you will eventually become unstoppable.”
How does this work?
By splitting your time in half to focus on 2 key things:
Working on your goal, creating things, and adding to your creation library. This can be applied to any goal that you have; simply do more of that thing. (most people get this one)
This next one is where most people fall off the wagon. Dedicate a certain amount of time to lear ning how to do what you do better. Follow other people who are doing similar things as you. You should follow people who are ahead of you, in line with where you are, and behind you in terms of popularity. Study what these people are doing and then try the things that they are doing for yourself. The more you learn, the better you will get at what you do.
I wish I knew about this earlier in my life because I know how much it would have helped me work through the self-esteem issues I was struggling with growing up.
I had a difficult time growing up and going through the schooling system.
I didn’t know how to add value in school and was afraid of expressing my opinions, so most times, I just kept quiet.
Because I was quiet all the time and never really showed anyone who I was or what skills I had, people were not quick to want to hang around me or pick me to be on their team for group projects.
In fact, I was usually chosen last as a partner simply because I was the only one left.
This happened year after year after year, as I was bullied, cast out, and thrown into a group of nerds who were basically just all the people left over that no one saw any value in. It’s not that we didn’t have value.
Everyone does. We were just too scared to explore what ours was and express it. So we all suffered for years because:
“Time doesn’t change things for us. We change things over time.”
I ended up going through most of my 17 years of schooling without many dates, never being able to join the popular group, and always being last on the list in terms of people wanting to hang out with me.
I even had a past friend who would make plans with me and then cancel our plans at the last minute because he found a better option. What a guy!
I obviously thought there was something wrong with me. I mean, why was life responding to me in this way? What was I doing wrong?
It took me decades to finally figure out why this was happening. I had bits and pieces of the reason why but it never came full circle until one day, after I had amassed so many failures, the answer came blasting into my being.
It was such a simple concept, but breaking down the understanding of it was where the real gold was.
So what was this mysterious realization that changed my life?
Our Own Mind Is The Biggest Threat To Our Success
Perhaps some of you know about this, as I had for many years. But I’m going to break this down for you so it makes even more sense:
All those past thoughts that you’ve been thinking for years have shaped your current beliefs about yourself and what you really believe you are capable of.
Those thoughts then went on to generate feelings inside you that you believed and considered to be real because, after all, our thoughts are our own, right?
Those feelings then go on to further shape who you are. It’s hard to change that feeling once we’ve identified with something.
If your thoughts were in fact 100% your own, wouldn’t you be able to control them with your mind? If I ask you to stop thinking for 5 minutes, can you do it?
Realizing that we cannot control everything that comes into our head is the first step.
But.. Our Mind Doesn’t Have To Be The Enemy
One of the greatest realizations is that we have to live with our minds for our entire lives.
Imagine you have this problem where you have a loud, obnoxious person in your family who repeatedly causes problems and is just relentless at all family events.
Ok, so maybe you don’t need to imagine that one; maybe it’s a reality!
In any case, wouldn’t you want to find a way to make that problem easier to deal with so that you don’t have to suffer and deal with that problem your whole life?
You may set boundaries, seek therapy, or limit the amount of time that you allow that person.
The same thing can be done to begin training your mind!
We may not be able to control our thoughts, but what we can do is control how we react to them. And quite frankly, if we choose not to give a negative thought power, continuing this action repeatedly over time will reduce these kinds of thoughts.
After all, a bully at the playground stops once they realize that no one is paying attention anymore.
Setting yourself up for success involves keeping track of the thoughts that come in and deciding which ones you want to respond to and which ones you want to leave at the door.
When a thought comes into your mind, if it does not serve you and the direction you’re moving in, forget about it immediately.
Let’s explore this a little deeper for a minute:
If someone was criticizing you in an unhelpful way, verbally abusing you, and draining you of your energy, would you continue to listen to them?
Or would you set boundaries, give that person less or none of your time, and find a way to replace their presence with something else that spoke more to you and was worth your time?
This is exactly how the mind works when it gets into that “fight or flight” state, (mostly flight). It bombards you with literally anything it can to get you to not take a risk, play it safe, and trust the path of least resistance.
Let me be real with you here:
I spent way too many years trying to challenge this concept and find a way to just power through all the negative thoughts with sheer brute force. Unfortunately, if I blasted through one wall, another one was waiting.
No matter how hard I tried to ignore it or shut it out, it always found me at my weakest moments during the day, or would pounce on me when something bad happened during my day, just to prove to me that it was right.
The Question is:
How can your mind be right if, after you have “listened to all its suggestions,” you’re left feeling miserable, alone, helpless, and maybe even broke? Do you actually think that your mind wants that for you?
The truth is:
Back in the early days of humans, we situated ourselves into tribal groups where we could best excel and protect one another. Our minds have been trained since the very beginning to adopt that “hunter/gatherer” mentality where we either fight for our survival or flee for our survival.
Over time, as life has evolved and we no longer need to worry about getting chased down by a bear (hopefully), our minds still have not grasped the concept that we are not in any real danger.
You see, back when we had a much smaller population and were situated in small tribes, if you made a mistake, did something wrong, or failed, news traveled fast within the tribe, and your reputation was greatly affected.
Sometimes, you would even be cast out of the tribe and have to face the rest of life on your own.
This was a massive fear that people had, and what many do not realize is that today, that same level of fear still lives inside us for that very reason!
Except, this rule no longer applies, and today if you make a mistake and disappoint someone or a group of people, no worries!
There’s another group of people ready to be found who have no idea about your past mistakes and probably wouldn’t hold you accountable for them.
Essentially, there are now endless tribes around us that we can be a part of, and the fear of being alone indefinitely or undesirable for all eternity is no longer valid.
So What Does This Mean For You?
If your fears are no longer valid for the current times, then that means that you can safely change the way you operate and the way that your mind processes information.
Here are some of the best ways I’ve found through trial and error on how you can train your mind to believe in you and stand by you.
Be willing to have some internal dialogue with your mind.
Let’s say you want to be a successful writer and write for a living, but your mind keeps interjecting with thoughts like:
Don’t post that; it’s risky and people may hate it.
Don’t apply for that writing job; you just started; you’re clearly not good enough.
Why are you wasting your time writing? It’s never going to amount to anything. Better to enjoy your life now by watching Netflix.
It’s going to take too long for this to be meaningful. Find something you’re already good at and just do that.
These are the kinds of thoughts that flow through our minds and, unfortunately, prevent us from taking action, therefore destroying our dreams.
This doesn’t have to be your life; you can change the way that this works! And it all starts by answering the mind back. For example, let’s address the first bullet point — Don’t post that; it’s risky and people may hate it.
If they hate it, what’s the worst that can happen? They unfollow you or stop reading your stuff. Are they going to ruin your life? No. Are they going to come and harm you? No. Are they going to destroy your reputation? Nope.
Don’t post your ideas for the people who will disagree with you; post them for the ones who NEED that frame of mind right now.
I promise there are people out there who will agree with you and align with what you have to say. You are not alone in the way you think and feel.
We are all connected on separate journeys, and if you write your truth, you will find your true audience. They will be so grateful that you did not stop.
When you feed your mind back with that kind of information, what you will notice is that the mind becomes more relaxed and drifts further and further away from that “threatened state” of fight or flight.
You are ensuring your mind that everything will be okay and that you are not in danger. At this point, you will notice that your fear to do the thing you were thinking about has diminished a little or may even be completely gone.
Keep in mind that you can repeat this exercise with as many excuses as your mind throws at you until eventually, it runs out of excuses and has been completely calmed down.
Let’s do one more just for another example — Why are you wasting your time writing? It’s never going to amount to anything. Better to enjoy your life now by watching Netflix.
Let’s ask our minds why it would prefer Netflix over a new dream idea that you have. Most likely, it will say something like
“It’s a safer option, you know you always enjoy doing that, so why not? There’s also no risk of failure or judgment, so you are safe. You will ultimately survive this way.”
Well oh genius mind, let’s explore that a little more. Is it a safer option? In some respects maybe but let’s look at the next part.
“You know you always enjoy doing that, so why not?” The mind is trying to tell us that we experience dopamine and happiness when we are doing this activity.
But that’s not the complete truth. In the moment, we may enjoy our show or movie, but later on, we feel massive amounts of regret because we are left unfulfilled, dissatisfied with our progress, and feel like we haven’t done anything useful.
Over time, this continues to eat away at us until we hit a depression and watch more and more Netflix because we believe that it will pull us out of this spiral. On the contrary, it actually magnifies it.
There’s also no risk of failure or judgment, but what your mind is leaving out is that you will always judge yourself, and you will always know that this was not the fulfilling path for you. And lastly, it says that you will ultimately survive this way.
Sure, this may ensure your survival, but what kind of a life would that be for you? I’ll give you a hint from personal experience.
“The awareness of dreams that go unaddressed becomes stronger over time until the very thing you are not addressing has completely consumed your life and leads you further and further into a downward spiral each day.”
I can’t tell you how many of these people I’ve met along my travels. Some of them were even famous at one point in their lives and then fell off the wagon, stopped creating, and now struggle to pass the time each day.
Let’s move onto the next point.
Engage In Some Light Activities To Help Keep Your Mind Calm Throughout The Day
“Oh crap, is this where he suggests meditation? Because I’m sick of hearing about it. It doesn’t work for me. I’ve tried that crap and can’t do it.”
Well. YES, it is actually, and I’m actually going to challenge you here and say I don’t believe it doesn’t work for you. What I do believe is that you have not yet found the right way to meditate so that it actually brings you results.
To be fair, if someone told me to sit down, close my eyes, and focus on shutting down my thoughts, I wouldn’t be able to do it either.
In fact, I still can’t do it. I think this is the reason why so many stop meditating, because they feel this is the only way to do it.
I’d like to offer you a different suggestion. There are actually 2 different options.
Honor yourself by getting comfortable in any way that you like. Whether that is sitting, laying down, standing in the shower, driving in your car, etc.
Instead of the usual chatter activity in your mind which focuses on your stressful life and worries, take a moment and just become aware of your breathing.
This doesn’t require any intense focus, it is simply realizing that you just took an inhale and then an exhale.
This concept always blows me away because the average person takes anywhere from 10,000-20,000 breaths during the waking hours of the day and the question is: how many of those breaths are we actually conscious of?
I’m going to go out on a limb here and say not many. I know for myself I even sometimes have entire days where I don’t remember taking one breath of air! Wild.
So, what does being aware of your breathing actually do?
Well, let’s put it this way. If you’re focusing on your breaths, in that moment you cannot be focusing on any other thoughts, which most likely before were negative thoughts about worry, fear, etc.
What this short activity does is it actually gives your mind a break from all the unnecessary chatter and can break you out of any mood or feeling you’re currently in.
You don’t have to close your eyes to do this, you don’t have to even be still when you do this, you just have to be willing to let go of your current focus and switch it to focusing on your inhales and exhales.
If you do this for a few minutes, it will make a difference. The longer you commit to this activity, the more your state will shift into something more relaxed.
When you’re in a relaxed state, it is much easier to examine your life, problems, and daily goals. By committing to this simple activity, you’ve just agreed to give yourself some quick therapy.
Not a fan of the above option for some reason? No problem. Here’s one more exercise you can try that will do the same thing.
Find a quiet place to either sit, stand, or lay down. I recommend closing your eyes but it is not required for this to work.
Then what you’re going to do is just focus on one word.. SURRENDER. As you are breathing normally, continue to delve into this word and what it means for you. Let your mind do whatever it wants, just make sure to keep focusing on the word.
What might happen is your mind may start to try to make sense of the word. But what is really happening is that the energy of the word "surrender” is going to start flowing through your body from your mind’s command because that is what it is focused on.
This is an amazing practice to explore the art of letting go, which frees us from the pain and suffering of most things that have actually nothing to do with us.
By constantly reminding our mind that this is an option and that this option produces great healing and rejuvenation, our mind will slowly start to trust this option more until it is a default way for us to calm down and reset ourselves into the frame of living that we want.
Just 5-10 minutes of this can be very powerful and change your day. Give it a shot and let me know how it works for you. If you ever need help with any of these exercises or have questions, my DM is always open for you.
The mind is the power source of our being. Think about how crazy it sounds to believe that we don’t need to take care of it.
We have already seen plenty of examples both in our own lives and in the lives around us that an untrained mind can bring about disastrous consequences and unrelenting amou nts of suffering.
Yet, we still find it so hard to even focus on it and take care of it for a few minutes each day?
Why is that?
I believe that the fast-paced life of today keeps us distracted from the things that really matter, and I’ve made it a point to remind both myself and others that we have the benefit and privilege to live in this time of technology advancement, and soon AI. This is a lot of power at our disposal.
It’s our responsibility to adjust to this way of life by taking adequate breaks from the noise, the hustle and bustle of life, and all the sources around us trying to jam anxious information into our minds, which hijacks our thoughts.
By being willing to eject yourself out of the Matrix for even a few minutes a day, long-term, this will recondition you to attain balance within yourself so that you can take advantage of all the wonderful aspects of technology while protecting your mind from all the noise trying to steal away your attention.
I hope you found this information insightful and have some new pathways to explore.
If you’re interested in more about the conditioning process and how it controls you, I recommend that you take a look at my other articles about this topic, starting with this one:
Breaking Free: The Societal Conditioning You Never Knew Existed
Thanks so much for reading! I wish you all a wonderful day.
-N