Are you seeking a breakthrough somewhere in your life?
Especially if you want to achieve something with who you are?
It’s easy to get stuck. We get so used to acting and thinking a certain way that nothing will really change because we are not changing those. As the famous phrase by Henry Ford goes, ‘If you always do what you’ve always done, you will always get what you’ve always got’.
Us humans are, by genetics, predisposed to living by the norm. Otherwise known as convention. It’s a survival reaction instinct. If we do what everyone else is doing we increase our chances of staying alive, and perhaps even thriving. It’s why every time a trend develops (coffee shops, internet marketing, yep Bitcoin too etc), people pile on the bandwagon and it all becomes saturated.
It seems a sensible behaviour, but it’s those who break with convention who often breakthrough into a far more memorable life.
And that’s as true in history as now.
What’s in a name?
With billions of humans on Earth, how truly different is a different name.
Where everyone used to be called Martin or Megan, parents today are trying to outdo each other with more bizarre names for their offspring like Glade, or Magenta or Meteor. They may sound cool, but this very rarely creates anything notable by having the snazzy name alone.
But one person who DID make a mark through her name was Lucy Stone.
I can guarantee virtually no-one will have heard of her, but she made a huge ground shift in what she did with her surname. A shift that millions of females have followed since without ever knowing about her pioneering stance.
So what was so unconventional about her?
It’s the mid 1840’s in the USA and it’s very much a man’s world. But not for independent Lucy. As an advocate and promoter of women’s rights when she got married she did something no other woman had ever been known to have done. What do you think it was?
The answer – she refused to take her husband’s surname and continued to be known as her maiden name. She wanted to stand as a individual rather than be hidden behind her male partner’s title. She broke the mould and went on to win the rights for women to divorce abusive husbands and that wives could earn independent income that was theirs rather than belonging to their husband as tradition dictated.
Lucy Stone made a stand with her own name and broke convention to further women in the world.
Forget what they say.
Fancy a beer? A craft beer?
They are pretty popular these days. Go to any town or city and you can find a pub or bar with a quality ale available. But it wasn’t always that way. Just ask Martyn Hillier.
In 2005 he saw a gap in the market no-one else saw. Or even believed existed. In the small village of Herne in Kent, UK, he decided to open a micropub at The Butcher’s Arms, the old butchers shop. The term micropub still isn’t that widespread today. Twenty years ago it didn’t exist at all. It did in Martyn’s mind.
His concept was to start a small pub with seating for just 12 people where you could only buy cask ales. That was it. No lager or other beer types. He also banned live music, jukeboxes, serving any food, and no TV’s showing sport. In fact the only two things you could get there was a fabulous real ale and conversation due to the intimate nature of the size of the pub. That was against all trends, and everyone’s advice not least the bank manager.
The Butchers Arms has just celebrated its 20th anniversary and is still going strong. It’s now firmly on the beer tour for ale aficionados with drinkers coming from all round the country for a simple pint in quaint surroundings and happy chat with others.
Martyn broke with the typical convention about the size of a pub and what it serves. It succeeded and so did he as he was awarded an MBE in the 2024 Honours List for services to business and hospitality. Today there are over 500 micropubs in the UK. He didn’t break the mould, he made it.
Like Lucy Stone, Martyn Hiller knew his mind, the unconventional one.
The Alternative Approach.
The world hasn’t been chocked full of people breaking with convention.
Those that have done so though have furthered their lives in very visible and incredibly unforeseen beneficial ways.
They faced the blocks and opinions and restrictions that signposted they should follow the usual routes and actions. The same ones that had left them precisely where they were to begin with. Stuck. Unfulfilled. Not honouring themselves.
And that’s your cue. If things haven’t quite worked out for you maybe it’s time to breakthrough those imagined limitations and do something avant-garde, braver, or plain opposite to the norm.
Hey, maybe the only alternative you really ever needed was to take the alternative approach all along.
Because the biggest breakthrough just needs to be in your mind.
References – Wikipedia – Lucy Stone.
TamaraWhite.com – Lucy Stone.
Micropubadventures.co.uk – herne-the-first-micropub.
The Sun Newspaper – Thurs Oct 23rd – Ale’s Well That Ends Well.
Photo attribution – Free to use under the Pixabay Content License by Vika_Glitter.
With the best will in the world we all believe that we are generally strong minded.
Yeah, sure there are times of stress and challenge when we’re not so mentally tough, but overall we would say that we’ve got reasonable thinking. But, everybody has regular weak thinking they don’t even realise occurs at certain points.
We tend to identify our weaker mental moments with dramas and sad happenings – relationship issues and break ups, losing a job, financial woes, Christmas and a sense of pressure to make it right, and losing family members. It’s OK and normal to expect our minds not to be in their best place at such times.
But, right in front of our eyes every day, week, or month are reoccurring hot spots we fail to notice that are the real culprits in our mental state. The ghosts in our machine.
And that’s precisely what this post is for. Finding your weak thinking hot spots.
Weak spots be gone.
We are going to shake down your schedule.
Shake it down and shake it up. In your everyday are the triggers that flip your mind from, ‘I got this’, to, ‘This has got me’. And we’re going to discover those little critters. So, let’s get on with it.
Firstly, you have to go day to day.
If you are REALLY committed to this (you are, aren’t you?) and getting rid of your weaker mentality, grab a piece of paper and write out the full seven days, Monday to Sunday, day by day on the left hand side. This is going to table a typical week. Your usual weekly experience when there are no holidays, special events, national breaks like Easter and similar. Nothing but the humdrum days when you do what you always do.
Start on a Monday and reflect on what usually happens from the second that alarm goes off and the week calls. When you open your eyes and think about what you are about to do and what’s ahead. Because I guarantee you that this is where it all kicks off. Right in that uninspired/frustrated (*fill in you descriptive word) mind when Monday morning arrives.
What are your routine thoughts and beliefs?
‘Why am I doing this?’.
‘I’m hate my life’.
”I am worth nothing, look where I’ve ended up.
‘I am never going to be happy’.
Those early mindset messages are your first mental red flags. They set up the rest of the week based on their theme. You MUST bring them out into the open and know the ones that juggle around your head.
They are the ones running the show.
Day by Day dynamics.
Carry on and snapshot the seven days.
Begin to identify your tiring or lacklustre or stressful times that are limiting your thinking. Known situations that leave you feeling less than optimistic or in a funk.
Maybe it’s the team meeting every Tuesday that drags your mind down into the dumps. Or Friday’s after work when you used to go for an end of week few drinks that you can’t afford to do anymore. Perhaps it’s those phone calls to your grown up kids that live away from home now.
You have repeat offenders in your world (your head). They keep stealing a positive outlook from your mind, thieves who make you feel victim to something. The good news is it’s an inside job. When you discover the days and times and specific scenarios that are dogging your mind, you can begin to put them right.
So, to make them right, get writing!!
From this exercise you want to shine light on TWO big results.
- When your mind is lapsing into weak mode.
- What you then think and feel.
Truly one leads to another.
When it’s all written up keep that naughty mind calendar and have a good look at it. Spy the weak thinking spots. See and solve.
You want a new week and less weakness!
Hot space instead of hot spots.
Now you’re going to stop the drops.
A daily diary, a reminder on your phone, a check set on your email calendar. Whatever it takes to keep your head up and strong reminding you not to think wrong. Something that’s got your back while you get your mind back on its A-game. A kind of substitute voice saying, ‘You got this’!!
Then when you have mastered this turn your attention to the other well established head busters that you find your mind begins to weaken on.
Your birthday – hey, you don’t feel you get the love anymore.
Wage talks each year with the boss – you always cave in and never negotiate the pay rise you seek and deserve.
Christmas – you spend too much trying to please while everyone else gives you cool but less expensive stuff.
You know the type. You’ve been there before. Often. Anniversaries. Events. Holiday occasions, even family gatherings or first dates etc.
These road blockers to your mental progression in the year have to be factored in too like this. Your pesky mind deflators that keep coming round you let flatten you time after time. Yep, you gotta add a good dose of honesty here. You won’t be beating any scenario you keep allowing to beat you up inside on a constant basis.
Take a look at them all. It may not be as many as you fear when you read this post. There may just be a couple of doozies that dunk you in doom that you finally have to face down. Your life may have come down to little hot spots of lowdown thinking each week interspersed with a couple of other weaker moments across the year that have got in your mental space. Picking them out enables you to get that space back. A good space. A strong space. Hey, even a hot space.
In one week you are going to start being less weak in your mind. Where will you be in one year??
Photo attribute – Free to use under Pixabay content license by Simedblack.
We all have a mind. And we all use a mind.
But, the majority of us are using our mind wrongly in ways we don’t realise. That’s because we do it every single day as an unconscious habit so that we barely notice it. Thinking that has developed into an unhealthy pattern.
Some limit us very little. Personal trains of thought that can be annoying or quirky but do no overall harm. There are others though that change everything. They kill our hopes, depress our moods, and redefine our life to the negative. Of these, there are 3 keys ways we use our mind wrongly that keep us stuck on the floor rather than climbing much higher.
So, read on and see if you too use the trouble making three in your mind.
Like most people, chances are you do.
1. They believe their thoughts.
It is a modern myth that thoughts can’t be stopped.
The belief (a thought in itself) is that the thoughts are created by the mind which is formulating them all on its own. It’s like a ghost in the machine and out of control. The result are thoughts we don’t like or agree with but have to accept. We are victim to them rather than the owner of them.
That idea couldn’t be more wrong.
Thoughts are generated from our own patterns of thinking. Over time this develops strong neural pathways across areas of the brain like a trail worn away through the woods due to regular use. Without realising every time we have a negative or dismissive or despondent thought, the neural pathway is triggered to fly these to our conscious awareness. The response to this trigger are thoughts that seem to come from nowhere we believe we don’t want. Except we effectively delivered them in the first place.
The good news therefore means as we started the whole ball rolling, we don’t have to believe them at all. We might have changed our viewpoint since we constructed our previous neural messages or circumstances may have changed from when they were initially formed. Or perhaps we have just matured up. We can always change what we want back again. Simply keep telling yourself when a thought pops in that you don’t like, ‘I don’t believe that, I believe this’, and add the new thought then and there in its place. Replace, renew, reinstall.
You will be on your way to building new neural pathways with every new thought you have like adding a brick to a sturdy wall.
2. They use them to fear rather than to imagine.
The future hasn’t happened yet, so what will happen?
A question first encountered by our neanderthal ancestors as they fumbled their way through early Earth. For them though there was a very real prehistoric threat that they would end up as some creatures dinner. It’s pretty obvious we don’t live in such times anymore. Well, not physically, but mentally many people still do.
Modern mindsets remain in threat mode on a virtual permanent basis. They have become overstimulated due to 24 hour news, the negative media, fake social media posts, constant world issues that now effect local lives, and a general worry about where life is going. Fear has become their not very good friend. The one their mind spends far too much time in the company of.
Remember, the mind can be directed.
It obeys what we use it to look for. And it’s looking for not the very best. With constant everyday use at seeking the wrong, the worrying, the dangerous, and the problematic, it has become skilful at finding them. Or to be more exact, finding them when they are not even there. Thus we live in a mindset of vague concern and background trepidation forever anticipating some downfall is coming. We hear T-Rex’s hunting for us.
The mind needs to be reversed. If we can see all manner of potential harm it can also be switched to finding all manner of possible good fortune. It’s only a matter of guiding the mind to see where the sun could shine and not where the dark clouds could gather. They are one and the same just the other way round.
Let the mind wander to imagine the best and beneficial, the fantastic and the fantasy.
It’s good for our health, good for our mind, and very good for our future.
3. They use it for the trivial.
We typically have 30,000 thoughts a day.
That’s a lot. It seems a lot more when you consider that at least 75% of those thoughts are often of the same variety. And that variety, when not relating to concerns as mentioned above, are usually centred around the unimportant and trivial.
We waste our head space with thinking that just doesn’t matter to our lives.
You know the sort. Hey, you may have the sort. Frustrated with traffic. Down about the weather. Work colleagues being annoying. Our sports teams performances. Politicians we don’t like. A favourite TV show has changed times on the schedule. Busy at the supermarket on the days we are free.
In the big scheme of things (having a better life), they are basic and negligible for ruining our future. They mind wind us up, but they ae hardly earth shattering. Everyday pains rather than major hurdles to happier life.
We focus our minds so much on the trivial it hasn’t got time or a chance to start contemplating something different. Something like following up our ideas for a business, working on investing to retire early, writing the book or the music we always wanted to, and other various good life building actions.
The mind can’t work well when it’s held prisoner by minor nothings. It works best and most potently when it’s free to fly to greater possibilities.
Dump the dump thinking, harness the higher mindset.
Three to be free.
There’s your three to be free.
Three antidotes to bad mental activity. Three keys to developing a mind that’s going to help you, not hold you back. Get your head back in the good game by using your mind for what it’s meant for. Potential, advancement, and progress. There’s another three, the three you will end up with if you get started today and using the mind right.
Why wait, your future will only be waiting if you do.
Photo attribute – free to use under the Pixabay content license by martymaine.
Five thoughts, ideas, insights, or quotes to power up your mind to think differently and creatively about life and who we are. Put all previous thinking away and open up a brand new world of the Supermind. YOUR SuperMind.
This week – Obesity.
We need food to live. And add some on for fun and pleasure. But, just enough so that we balance the two nicely as our overall diet. We also have to ensure that we don’t overeat to keep our health in good shape. Well, that’s what we SHOULD do, but more and more people certainly are not. Human obesity is showing a sharp increase so this week at SMS we are going to consider this growing problem.
1. Easy Food, Easy Calories.
Worldwide obesity has doubled since 1990 and some 1 billion people are now classed as obese. This is a rapid rise in such a short span of time in human history. How come? Well, also in that time we have seen a massive increase in takeaways, food deliveries, and supermarkets open for long hours. Food is easily available and always nearby or on our plates without any effort. What comes easy too are the calories contained within this often not so healthy food option buying. Should we curb the ability for us to access food like this in some kind of regulation before it’s too late?
2. Consequence for Calories.
Health services everywhere are straining under the pressure from this obese epidemic. They have to deal with all the myriad of health conditions overeating causes in people from diabetes to poor mobility as examples. It seems the view is that somehow health providers will solve the issues that people have created themselves by their eating habits (I know some nurses who will confirm this). Trouble is the very same people come back again and again with more issues from not changing their behaviour. So, should their be a consequence for those that consume up appointments and treatments like they consume food? Should there be a limit of care for people who simply won’t help themselves?
3. Too Young to be Too Heavy.
Adolescent obesity has quadrupled since 1990 and in 2024 over 35 million children under 5 were already overweight. This is shocking and scary. The most shocking of all is children don’t get to choose what they eat, they require their parents to allow and pay for their meals. Children of the past were given the odd treat as part of a balanced, sensible diet. Not today. Again quick and easy seems parental preference too often. How do we encourage parents to cook better? Or is there another reason, such as adults are working longer and longer hours than ever and so have less time? How do we help children eat well again?
4. Bad Food Not Bad People.
People have lapsed into bad food choices. Yes, one is because it saves time and effort, but also, it can’t be denied, some of it tastes good. Food companies have created dishes that have an addictive quality. No wonder then that the average person keeps coming back for more, especially as they can get it almost everywhere. As a world, we are hooked on this. We don’t mean it, we’re not bad people. Addicts for the taste and favour. And there’s the problem. How can we remove or quell the addictive nature of foods that are causing the obesity issue?
5. Benefits for Better.
Right now our minds clearly don’t see the benefit in not being obese – better health, feeling more energetic, not needing medication etc. Our taste buds override this. The benefit is attached to the enjoyment not the ongoing improvements. Quick hits are far more inspiring that longer term positives. Maybe it’s time for other benefits as an encouragement to change diet. What benefits or mini reward can be given to those currently obese so that they improve their eating AND stay that way? How do we change behaviours with a benefit, especially for the young?
Ok, that’s another SuperMind Saturday done. Thank you for being here for the SuperMind time. Keep thinking about these through the week to open up more of your mind and to solve some of the issues mentioned. Consider more, generate ideas more, think on bigger possibilities more, activate your connection to your personal higher mind. Employ your SuperMInd and Super Think. You have more answers and ideas than you ever previously thought possible!!
See you next time for more super thinking.
References – World Health Organisation – Obesity and Overweight.
Photo attribution – Free to use under the Pixabay Content Licence by paulinapuchalska88.
Would you like to change your life?
Change it like you have never done before?
Well, you can. It only takes a change of mind first. That change is in your subconscious mind.
Being honest, I’d say you have probably heard of your subconscious but have no idea how it operates in your head or even if it operates at all. Well, let me tell you, it’s very real and alive and working in your background all the time.
And mostly it’s working to undermine you by spreading bad news in your head.
So, let’s bring it out in the open and turn it into a confidence booster rather than a party pooper.
The Bad Voice.
I want you to think of your subconscious as a voice in your head.
It’s that one that whispers the kind of crappy advice such as, ‘Be careful, it will all go wrong’, or ‘Don’t bother, you could never do that’, and general doom and gloom messages. In other words, it’s very subtle like a thief in the night, but it’s also very skilful at doing what it does. That’s because all those dreams and plans you never followed through with, or the ideas you still have that you talk yourself out of, have therefore been the subconscious influencing you. Persuading you NOT to go ahead or give it a go.
Alternatively, it also grabs you in a pincer movement. It pumps you full of fears and negatives in general about the world, predicting that almost everything could be a threat and that either you or your life might meet some downfall. Recognise either? Or both?
Firstly, you may now be thinking how does it do it? And secondly, that’s because you are not truly aware of how it’s stopping you.
Ok, consider something you want to achieve. Be a successful lawyer. Win the heart of that girl/guy in accounts. Run a half marathon. Become a retro 1960’s dress designer. Open a specialist ice cream parlour. The type of future where you will better yourself for yourself.
The first thoughts you have of your aspiration will be based on what it would be like; how good it would feel, yourself being fulfilled, popular or well off, and the like. The normal conscious thoughts.
Then naughty subconscious interjects like a nervous parent. It reminds you of anything and everything that could be a pitfall. Except it turns them into a likelihood. And guess what goes through your mind? The guy or girl rejects you in front of everyone or you won’t run more than a mile and people will point and laugh at you. Your ice cream sucks and you lose a fortune.
It happens in the blink of an eye!
Millisecond madness.
The trouble is all this above occurs a millisecond after your initial idea/imagination of what you want. It jumps into your mind and hijacks your feelings and beliefs. As a result, after that happens a number of times you give up, convinced it’s all a waste of time and you the biggest waste of all. However my friend, it’s YOUR subconscious mind so you have one task up your sleeve to prevent it ruining things….
You have to retrain it!
You see your subconscious is part of you that’s been left to run amok unchecked. A bit like teenagers having a house party without supervision. It’s got out of control because it only remembers all the times when situations turned against you. It’s a guard dog that reads everyone as a danger. It requires retraining.
As it’s yours, you are the one who is boss. The leader of your mental pack that tells it to heel, sit down, and obey. Naturally, only in a nice way though.
Act with belief and begin communicating with your subconscious. Upon finishing this post pay attention to your subconscious. Wake it up. Imagine something better for yourself. WAY better. Scale it up in your mind. Make it the top outcome, a brilliant ending. As you begin your subconscious will stir like a sleeping lion and bite back.
It will bear it’s killer teeth by pushing every bad scenario at you. But, you are now prepared. Here is your moment of truth.
You are going to fight back.
Fight the good fight.
Some fights are worth winning. This one 100% is!
The moment you spot those poor predictions and bad feelings rising you are going to replace them.
Firstly, when the initial negative thought hits, you are going to firmly state, ‘NO, that is not true. This is..’
And at that point reiterate in your mind that you will succeed. Add self-confident thoughts and sayings. Examples could be, ‘This is me as I am meant to be’, or, ‘This is what I want, and I fully deserve all of it’. Make the effort to feel good emotions about your aims and desires so that they will link to the thoughts and vision. Connect them all up. One new set of subconscious instructions. The new mindset norm.
Secondly…KEEP AT IT!!
This is not a one day or once a day or week exercise. Persist. Repeat. Day after multi-day. IT IS GOING TO WORK!!
Soon (a few weeks maybe, slightly longer for the majority) your subconscious will start acting in a confident manner. It will start to encourage and drive you. Optimism and excitement surges and increasingly bursts through. You feel good about the future. The lion is turning into a pussy cat.
And if you never let up doing this, you will be a super subconscious capable of anything. God, imagine where you could be in a year from now?? So, do it!!
Set your mind to it, your subconscious mind.
Create that mega confidence in there and ride the new mental wave to somewhere very new.
Photo attribution – free to use under the Pixabay Content License by messaoudmessaoud043.
