Have you ever heard of someone being in a ‘real state’?
Typically this means that their state of mind has become distressed or confused and this has spread to their emotions and actions.
We often use the phrase but don’t understand the full underlying mentality that creates it. The reason is that the vast majority of us never get that far down the mental road to arrive there. Sure we have the odd upset, but we never become so worked up that it spills intensely over.
But, there IS one mental state that millions of us around the world experience every single day that is equally dramatic. The trouble is it’s less an outburst that requires immediate attention. It’s more of a lurking influence in the background that takes over our life.
That state is one of negative expectancy.
And it is one I know well.
The wrong ‘what happens next’.
Our minds are our security system.
Not only do they think, remember, direct, and hold information for us. They also act as our defence mechanism. A mechanism that can become over alerted and predicting threats if life puts stresses on it. Pressures that lead us to expecting negative events to happen.
Prolonged periods of challenges can tip our mental state from balanced to increasingly pessimistic.
A pessimism that sets in and determines our outlook.
One that I never realised I had developed until a recent trip to St Louis in America.
My last decade has seen challenging home and work circumstances, financial demands, and health scenarios that led me to being less than an hour from potential death. Rather than looking on the bright side, my mind read this as a growing sense of danger.
It began to live in a state of negative expectancy though I put down my feeling listless, unenthusiastic, edgy, and frustrated to a heavy schedule.
A trip to the USA would sort that to see family. All went smoothly, very smoothly, until the second day of my break. Out of the blue being treated to a fabulous meal in a plush restaurant, I felt nausea, a bit dizzy, and very hot. In short, a panic attack. An experience I had not had for decades.
But, this time I was in reverse. My mind was so concerned that I had a few days of everything being great, it got spooked that a bad happening was bound to occur based upon my previous few years of life. It went into full negative expectancy and formed a subconscious worse ‘what happens next’.
Because when it’s like that, good is just as often going to set it off as bad.
What we expect, we get.
The mind does not know reality.
It can be easily convinced or fooled into believing that what you think (and then imagine), is 100% true. Through regular repetition it becomes sure and set that the views it holds are absolutely how things are and nothing else.
Examples will be someone who fully believes their partner is cheating on them (when they’re not) will see evidence everywhere. Or an insecure person who becomes certain that all their work colleagues are talking behind their back every day.
When our mind gets locked into a specific belief pattern, it won’t let go.
What we expect, in our minds, we get.
I think we all know this well and have gone through some form of this in our lives. Maybe like me though, you haven’t noticed it creeping back in or starting in the first place. That’s because it’s subtle and in the background. Until a very simple situation triggers it like my high quality night out in Missouri.
If we have it long enough a basic event can trip us up. Even a happy one!
But you may not have got that far yet. It may already be affecting your mindset and you haven’t picked up on it. You feel it’s merely that you are being dragged down by life’s ups and downs. Or you make some excuse why you don’t want to go out with friends anymore or do the activities you used to enjoy.
Well, it’s less ‘you’ and more that negative expectancy has formed in your mind. An expectancy that’s shutting down all the good that is on offer in life to protect you in case things turn out wrong.
So, let me show how to change that round in your favour.
Scale it up not down.
Negative expectancy is an automatic response in silence.
Without realising it becomes our fixed attitude as we don’t challenge it. It simply defaults to it. Let’s see if you have this mental habit.
Think ahead about an event or situation or even how life will turn out in general.. On a scale of one to ten in either direction (feeling great/positive v feeling anxious/negative) on which side would you put your thoughts and what score? You can even be specific to see if it’s a certain subject that floors you. So repeat this exercise about finances, health, relationships, work….anything most people will have in the mind almost daily.
So, how did you score it? Where were you on that negative/positive scale?
If you were brutally honest then you were on the negative side of things with scores 5 plus on that scale.
When you have a negative expectancy set in you will be at least 5 on most, if not all matters, you think about but DEFINITELY if you look at life ahead generally and mark that over 5. Overall thinking that is low or pessimistic or even lapsed into fear develops into a firm negative expectancy. And that mental trait is what is robbing you of joy in life.
Time to reverse it.
Short term super thinking.
You are not going to crack positive future thinking in the short term.
Well, not long term positive expectation. You CAN easily begin to change it in the short term. Like training for a running race and needing to steadily get fit, you can build up your better mental levels.
Begin thinking about an event (a work day you always worry over/always on edge awaiting the credit car bill etc) a week before the date. Start small and simply keep repeating that it’s going to turn out really well. Just that for a few days. Two or three days in continue with that thought (or you can even say it to yourself) but add a couple of images of how it will turn out.
Keep them bright, happy and again short. You want a few seconds of you smiling or laughing or people around you pleased you are there. Again, nothing more.
The day before be brave and ramp it up. Keep the previous two mentioned above but throw in some sounds now (good sounds such as someone saying ‘Yes’ or clapping). Then add them all together in one picture. Finally, on the morning of that day get up and do 10 minutes of this and make it bigger and full of colour in your mind like a huge advert by the highway.
This has to be a regular part of your schedule (like your breakfast or latte from Rockys Coffee Stop). A week of upping the mental expectancy that finishes with a big boom image in your mind. An image that will erode your old negative expectancy until it takes over as the weeks and months pass by. OH YES THIS WORKS!
So, welcome to the good thinking side of life now. You’ve got what you need to walk down a new mental road. A better, more confident road. From one state to another.
A state of positive imagination and mental excitement I expect you will find there.
Photo attributions – free to use under Pixabay Content Licence by Smiln32 and Vilkasss and Nika_Akin.
What is your vision for how things will turn out and your future?
Very few people can avoid this. It’s an element of the mind’s workings that it pictures likely and possible events so that it can help keep us safe and alive.
Vision and imagination are core elements of our mental process.
The trouble is that most people don’t realise that this is occurring automatically as we go about our daily lives. Operating based upon the views and considerations we put in there. And most of them aren’t very positive at all.
And so we end up seeing our once hoped for good future slowly disappear in front of our eyes.
So, here is how and why a strong vision is the key to lifelong lasting achievement.
The Future from the past.
Many people predict the future.
Most of these however are basing it on how today will turn out. In other words, adding some extra developments to build from current times. It’s perhaps less a vision for the future as a plan for next steps.
It’s far more impressive to see a future that in no way looks anything like today.
That’s what Jules Verne accomplished. You hear or read his name and old fashioned tales of trips to the Moon that have featured in films come to mind. Victorians travelling on basic boneshaker rockets to the stars as if it was that easy.
But, he was far more accomplished than that actively predicting where science and technology would end up. End up from the fairly limited understandings they possessed at the time.
He spent long hours in the BNF (France’s home of all published works) fuelling his mind with scientific journals. This led him to expanding his own ideas and publishing them, these visions and concepts at the time seeming far fetched, even crazy.
Not to him. He clearly saw submarines, helicopters, air conditioning, skyscrapers, and most famous of all, moon trips on advanced space ships that could break the Earth’s orbit. His books have been translated into 150 languages, far more than Shakespeare can claim!
He was revolutionary in vision. A strong vision that improved his life until the end.
The Beginning not the end.
Strong, powerful vision sees the end result, not the current situation.
It’s one very ill people often utilise. And Bob Champion was one such person.
He was a successful National Hunt jockey riding hundreds of winners. Then in 1979 he was struck down with cancer and given only a 30% chance of survival at best. The treatment was invasive and debilitating and nearly killed him then and there. At the same time his beloved mount, Aldaniti, had suffered a terrible injury in a race and the vets recommended he should be put down as it was his 4th bad injury.
Both were in dire straits.
But Champion always believed that the horse would win England’s prestigious Grand National race with him on board. And while in bed seriously unwell he began to imagine just that. Something that appeared to have about 0% chance of ever coming about.
His vision got him fighting. It gave him a goal and dream to pursue.
He did recover and back to health and immediately went to see his pal Aldaniti, who was now amazingly doing the same. He told the racehorse’s trainer his belief about the race and luckily he also thought it could be possible.
In April 1981 both Bob and Aldaniti lined up in the race and powered to victory. Bob is still alive and going strong himself 45 years later! His story was even made into a successful movie called, naturally, Champions.
Everything he saw in his vision came true.
A champion vision in every sense.
Have the vision, hold the vision.
It’s easy to have a big vision.
We can all conceive some dream scenario for ourselves. One where our life is rosy or stunning outcomes have manifested. But, two factors are a MUST in ensuring these imaginations turn out as conceived.
You have a crystal clear vision of what you seek to bring about and keep holding it no matter the challenges (hold ’em, don’t fold ’em as they say in cards). If you truly believe in your final aim, don’t drop the ball in your mind if things get tough and
The initial vision must be founded on strong ground not fantasy. If you aren’t very good at football, seeing yourself as the world’s best player is setting yourself up for a fall.
Bob Champion WAS a jockey and Jules Verne WAS a writer when they set out on their quest to personal achievement. Both lifted themselves up from a sold platform underneath them that was there already.
The basis of strong vision is found in a strong individual with a strong awareness of who they are and what that person can accomplish.
Only Picasso knew he was Picasso. Which is why many pretenders try to copy the original and never get near. The same in business, music and life as well as art. Mastery is often being the only one doing what only you sought to do that your mind kept showing you.
Personal individuality expressed via a vivid mental picture is the key to a pinnacle life achievement. That and abiding by the two factors above. Whether you want to create a new hot drink or form of clothing.
Be yourself, be fully clear what this you wishes to create, keep that image alive in the mind, and stay the course to your own mountain top. History proves this – Picasso couldn’t ride racehorses. Verne could not paint Cubist style art. And Champion could not pen about futuristic machines.
What they could do and chose to do, their own strong vision helped take them somewhere memorable.
And if you use this too, you could follow them to lifelong triumph.
That it never seems to have the capacity for good ideas, positive beliefs, and lots of energy for life?
Well, if you do, you are not as unusual as you think. Your mental experiences are mirrored by millions of people worldwide. People who believe that they are just meant to have lower mental skills than others. Or, more damagingly, that there is something wrong with them in the head.
If you feel either, or both are you, take heart because your mind isn’t flawed. And neither are you. Your mind is simply not working effectively and efficiently, like an old piano that needs tuning or old car in need of a service.
If you read on you will find the 5 reasons that your mind isn’t working as actively as it could.
Ones that can retune your mind and give it an overhaul so it’s firing on all cylinders again.
Let’s look at those famous five of the mind.
1. It’s all clogged up.
Think of your mind like a computer or mobile phone.
Every single day it receives bits of data and information from facts and figures to opinions and viewpoints. It has to process these so that you can understand life and function healthily and safely in the world. But modern life is chocced full of fast paced stuff coming at you minute by minute. That all needs your mind to work it out.
There’s reason No.1. Like a computer, your mental system has simply gotten clogged up holding too much mental space. Computers slow down, crash, and freeze when they are overloaded with data they can’t compute.
Your memory (as with a computer) is full and it needs to release old info or stop the flow of the new to start functioning again.
Old beliefs may need to be rethought. Schedules or jobs written down so they are not whizzing round your head. Anything that frees some room in your mind so it can breathe. Start with some Micro Positive Thinking to unstick your mind.
No.1 – unclog your mind and free some head space.
2. It’s not been used for you.
No two minds are the same.
We are all built differently. Some slightly so, others in more pronounced fashion.
This means our minds are wired to support us personally. Now, I don’t know about you, but I’m a creative sort – full of ideas and concepts, always seeing possibilities, and exploring options. However, I have friends completely the opposite of this. They are logical and methodical, some incredibly mathematical in nature, a couple who work systematically (A = B and so on).
Now how well do you think my mind would work if I tried to be like them? Yep, I’d be lost. Or, let me put it another way. What if they were trying to paint like Picasso? Or Picasso attempted to think up a new system for train timetables? The results wouldn’t be pretty!
Neither would be using THEIR minds in the way they were personally built.
And the same most likely now goes for you too!
No.2 – use your mind how you personally are.
3. Too much distraction action.
Just another five minutes.
What you tell yourself as you scroll on your phone or playing online games. Or watching yet another show on TV. Hey, even speaking to your bestie about the gossip for the third time that day (for at least an hour).
In this 21st Century society with its myriad of gadgets and technologies, there is always something right where we are vying for our attention. And we fall for it time after time telling ourselves it’s for only a short while. Except it never is.
These distractions are using up your concentration and mental bandwidth.
Mental faculties that could, and should, be used at creating and building and improving your circumstances, are being used elsewhere. Distracted away to get to Level 25 at Forest Fairy Fantasy or an extra episode of the new cool drama or finding out what Brad told Matt about you (since yesterday).
Your distraction action is high so your good mental usage is low.
No.3 – too much mental distraction activity is using your mind.
4. Not enough repair care.
Imagine you are someone who goes running.
And let’s say you do this every single day for hours. Sure you would be fitter and faster and leaner. But, and it’s a huge but, you would also gradually collapse with sheer exhaustion and injury if you didn’t have enough rest. Consuming up energy constantly eventually takes its toll. It’s not limitless. What you use up is going to need to be replaced. It doesn’t just fall out of the sky (as in the Forest Fairy Fantasy game).
Now replace the word running with the term ‘using your mind’.
You use your mind a thousand times more often each day that anyone who runs. If runners get depleted and have a low ebb, then your mind is guaranteed to follow suit. But, you often plough on into a never ending loop of tasks, and distractions, and no useful activities that drain your mind’s energy banks.
You have to commit time and space to more repair. More sleep, more quiet times, less overthinking and worrying or worse (yes, less news would help with that!!!). Any down time for the mind that lets it repair and recharge.
No.4 – take more care to repair and refill your mental energy.
5. It’s been used to worry not wonder.
Your mind will think. That’s a fact.
We have multiple thousands of thoughts a day. Those thoughts are part of the mind working and staying in use. However, it only can think as directed. Remember, it’s a computer and programmable (it’s the No.1 way the human mind is like a robot).
And the programmer and the controller is you.
Modern pressures (wars, cost of living, increased demands on time and everyday stresses) have gradually pushed you to looking at life in a less than enthusiastic way. Pessimism and anxiety have become the programme that has been input into your mind. One that you repeat multiple times a day if not per hour at certain times.
This is heavy. Heavy and hard and draining.
You need to catch yourself doing it and hit the switch. Find ways to look for the little positives, the daily joys and simple pleasures in your world. Focus instead on the good things that are there that so make life worth living. They DO exist, you have not let your mind notice and appreciate them.
The wonders that will dwarf your worries.
There’s your new 5 mental insights into your mind. The ones that will help shift it from dull to dynamic and from listless to lively. And if you see them through, some changes will occur almost instantly in how your feel mentally.
It’s time to move your mind, it will move your life with it!
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 – Capitalism.
Since the 1950’s Capitalism has been the means by which most societies function and run. This is where private operators create and manufacture products, goods, and services that are then offered for sale in free markets with the price eventually decided by supply and demand. After World War 2 it was seen as the shiny new concept that would guarantee a better standard of living for all and greater financial freedom for the majority.
Yet, here we are a matter of only a few decades later and millions around the world are suffering from this very same system that was meant to alter their life for the better. And that means SuperMind Saturday has to turn its thinking onto the subject.
1. Who has really won?
Capitalism sold itself as the way everyday people could improve their life. If they ‘bought’ into the system – produce, purchase, profit, produce more, purchase more and so on – they, and all of us, would end up winners. But the end result today is more everyday working people and families in debt and struggling. Winners once have become losers now despite following the capitalistic way. Which leads us to the stark question that must be faced.
Who has really won from Capitalism? And who will keep winning if we continue to follow it?
2. Capital end game.
The design of any system is to achieve a goal. Some goals are included in the overall plan. They are part of the structure of the system so that the overall targeted result occurs more efficiently or readily. So, bear that in mind whenever you are told about ‘the system’ you may get involved with or brought into. Now, let’s look at capitalism. Yes, it’s about a wider range of production that is freely available. This is part of the structure as mentioned above. But what is the end game? Where is it all leading?
Is Capitalism merely for the few to have more capital? Is that its real end game?
3. Done to debt?
There is a well known phrase which says, credit where credit is due. In real terms this means credit given to those that have worked and earnt it. But in finance circles it has become credit where credit is available. This change in ready made credit has been what has driven all of the extensive consuming in the last few decades. But that credit for those who have less earnt it has only added to spiralling debt as people purchase to keep up with others (I have looked at debt separately in SuperMind Saturday). Truth is we’ve been done to death financially and become drowned in debt.
Has Capitalism just been an excuse to increase debt? And who do we all owe to and pulls the strings?
4. Technological threats.
We are all well aware of the growing use of technology. Technology has been expanding in almost every area of our lives. It’s promoted as being helpful to us; giving us more time away from tasks and duties so that we can live more and enjoy it. But……if technology is replacing what we did, it means we don’t do it anymore. And those tasks we don’t do are jobs and employment. From technology to AI, what people did high-tech is taking over from humans. Capitalism is funding and leading this. Less people to pay and support, less administration and costs. What does that REALLY lead to? More profits and even more money!
Has technology become the reverse threat to us under Capitalism?
5. What ‘Ism’ would work?
Capitalism has been the widest ‘ism’ in use for modern life. It has taken over the others that existed at various times in history and in various parts of the world. There has been socialism where everything is in collective ownership and puts social welfare for all as the priority rather than private profits for some. Of course there has been communism too. This promotes a classless state with common ownership (usually by rulers) and resources distributed to meet need. Plus, at the other end of the spectrum we’ve seen fascism and idealism to name but two. But, we are in a mess and need something soon before it all collapses. To the end…
What ‘Ism’ should we now adopt? What hasn’t been tried or what new idea could there be?
Ok, that’s another SuperMind Saturday done. Thank you for being here for the SuperMind time. Keep thinking about these. We need more minds thinking about this issue and the others issue on SuperMind Saturdays. Why? Because it’s needed. Because the world requires new thoughts and ideas. Perhaps YOURS!!
It’s a prediction that’s been made for a few decades. From the film screen to book pages and even art nowadays, robots will replace us. Replace and take over if you believe such omens as shown in The Terminator and I-Robot.
Whether you believe that forecast or not, one thing is for sure, robots are increasingly more active in our lives.
And with the advent of Artificial Intelligence, in the very near future the human mind is going to be more obsolete in use.
Well, that’s another prediction. But, we are already robotic in one way mentally.
You, me, pretty much everyone of us.
We all are robots in our mind so read on to find out how…and why!
Personally Programmed.
Robots, like computers, are programmed.
They have an operating system that runs software that contains their orders, the programme that defines their actions, which they stick to. We have developed the technology to programme robots to make, build, and manufacture and to make themselves in effect with robots creating robotic machines.
The robot simply follows the loaded programme instructions.
And that’s where we come in and turn into robots.
Our operating system is our mind. The one that runs our life with it’s physical brain loaded in our body to carry out the mental instructions. But, where does the mind get those instructions? Who sets the programme?
Well….we do.
Over our many years of life we continually gather a massive range of beliefs, views, information, insights, perceptions and (hopefully for most of us), wisdom. Now some of these come from direct experience – mistakes, regrets, successes, discipline, effort etc. But added to these are another whole range of outer influences – how we were raised, our environment, authority figures from teachers to family and more, from society, from the media, and , increasingly, from social media and the internet. We are easily influenced creatures.
We bank all of this mix mentally and it forms a type of rule book on how to approach life, behave, and be who we are. Like a recipe in a cookbook except ours is a lifebook.
Therefore, unlike robots, we are personally programmed. No other human carries the same programme inside them. Ours are unique to each of us and the mind, like the robot, obeys these rules and guidelines on life formed from what we put in there.
But that’s where it goes wrong.
Not because we are robots out of control, but BECAUASE we are human!
The Robot Mind.
Our robot minds get to work as soon as we wake up.
The moment our eyes open after sleep and our awareness kicks in, the mind also begins switching on. As it does so it flicks into operating mode and all those background beliefs and views etc that we hold (both bad and good) start to run the show.
When we get up and begin to move, the mind is immediately being powered by that underlying software. Our mind, effectively, is on automatic like an airplane on auto pilot. In fact that analogy is perhaps the most accurate way of explaining it. The captain has control and can override the pre-set auto pilot but often he doesn’t and let’s it do its job.
And guess what happens? The plane ends up where it has been programmed to be. Just like us.
Which is why we seem to lurch from one same issue to another.
We are pre-set to live, act, think etc in our mind that same way like a robot honouring its guidance system. Pre-set and pre-ordered by everything we hold in our mental file about ourselves and life. Our mind is our robot counterpart. The trouble is we aren’t aware that we are cerebral cyborgs who can change how we operate.
We contend that it’s fate or bad luck that keeps leading us down wrong roads and finding wrong people on the way.
If you take a look you will see how you repeatedly think and react like a robot.
A always equal B say in relationships or X never fails to lead to Y in your finances. Work and career may start at point A but are never meant to progress passed point B. In short, you’ve decided most of your destiny in advance and programmed yourself like a robot to follow it through to the decided result.
Even if you SO believe you haven’t. YOU HAVE!
You are continually completing your programme. The one that kicks in as soon as the alarm goes off. The one that runs unconsciously on your behalf so that you barely notice how it’s conducting your life.
So, ask yourself when you get up what your expectations are for the day? What do you believe will happen to YOU? What money or love or even life itself will continue to deal you as a hand?
The robot in your mind has those answers and is directing you in every moment based on them. The ones you put in there in the first place. You need to re-write them by reconsidering what you believe about you and life. That will re-write your own self programming and update your mental instruction guide for life.
It’s time to be more human and less robot. To think and reflect and update what that person sees and believes. And to then upload the updated view (software) into your mind so a new life can be initiated. Or a new destination input in your life auto-pilot.
Robots may begin to take over the world, but don’t let yours take over your mind.
