A well used one we have all most likely heard in our life at some time or other.
It goes, ‘You are as young as you feel you are’.
Sounds great, but did you know that it’s actually true?
This is not just some positive affirmation, it’s a type of command from your mind which controls your body. When that order is obeyed, and it always is, the mind starts ‘persuading’ or initiating the body in renewing itself. Yes, this happens biologically to some extent, but this persuasion actually heightens and speeds up this process.
It becomes a belief that becomes a response that becomes a kind of regeneration.
Want to know more?
Great, let’s keep as young as possible through the mind.
Young after your time.
Have you heard the other well known phrase?
This one says, ‘You are old before your time’.
That people begin to consider they are old (even if they are in their 50’s) and so effectively become an elderly person in their demeanour, mindset, and even their movement. Suddenly, all manner of aches and pains develop, their eyesight worsens, and they are always tired.
Maybe you know somebody like this!
Their whole body lives and feels the label the mind has put on it.
It is similar to people who have a killer mindset where they are a victim all the time and destined to lose in any situation. They project an aura of loser before they start anything. And so, they never start anything. They remain small, insignificant, and forgotten. Again, living the mental label.
Well, I’m not thinking like that, and I recommend you don’t either. You aren’t old before your time, you are YOUNG before your time. And this is the precise message your mind should hold as it sends the very same definition to your body. To every cell, muscle, corpuscle, gene, and organ.
It is the same when confidence is oozing through your veins. You are full of beans, high in energy, and feel you can take on the world. You feel alive and dynamic. That is the mind powering it all.
And your mind can also help power your feeling younger again.
But don’t just trust me. Trust the scientists who have actually done tests on many people that prove feeling young transfers to your body.
The proof is out there.
Feeling young helps staying young!
Mentally mature, physically young.
The great advantage of age is wisdom and understanding.
Longer years of living have provided these benefits. But these mental advantages come with an aging body. To most people, the second outweighs the first.
Well, to some maybe. That’s not what scientists have discovered. Two specific studies prove my point powerfully about thought and age.
In 1979 Ellen Langer of Harvard University experimented putting 75 year old men back in a 1959 type environment and asked them to think ‘as if’ it was that year again and they were that age. This famous ‘counterclockwise’ study only lasted 5 days, but in that time all members experienced pronounced improvement in hearing, memory, vision, posture, joint flexibility, IQ, and physical strength. IN 5 DAYS!!
The other was by Yannick Stephan of the University of Montpellier who studied 1352 men and women aged between 50 and 75 years of age. Those that felt they were younger than their age were found to have better cognitive results even 10 YEARS LATER!
The other side is also true as Yannick reported from his studies. He found ‘those who tend to age themselves have a higher than average risk of cognitive decline’. Or in short – believe you are old and your body will agree.
There you have it – science confirms.Feeling young can almost reverse the aging process and CERTAINLY delays it.
There is a new truth that is being revealed.
Science is proving that what comes naturally to the young, comes mentally for us as we age.
Feeling young works wonders!
Feeling old, think again!
The mind is the fountain of youth we have been searching for.
Yes, it’s been within us all along.
For those over 50 years of age, altering the mindset to believing they are much younger, sees the body equally believe it. The mind says you are in your 40’s or even 30’s and the body does its best to support that in almost every single area possible.
So, how do you do it?
Pick an age. Be realistic, selecting being ten again isn’t going to achieve results as it’s too far past. If you are 55 choose being 35 and reactivate feeling like you did then. Truly believe you are as energetic and active as you were at that point and imagine as you go out each day it is the 35 year old you that is doing it.
Superimpose THAT person onto yourself today in your mind. THEY will be living your life now. THEY will be undertaking your duties and schedule. Keep that younger age person in mind in all you do. Blend time in effect. You are STILL 35 right now.
Keep this up. Day after day. Thought to thought, belief to belief, imagined activities you have to do to imagined activities you are doing.
Soon, it may take a week or two for us less scientific sorts, you will feel a difference. Record them and all areas of the body that have shown improvement. Then repeat, and go again and so on.
In the months ahead your body is going to live a journey back in time led by your mind.
Your younger days are on the way back – I can feel it…make sure you do!
References – National Institute of Health – Aging as a mindset.
Universite de Montpellier – Feeling younger to to age less quickly.
A supercomputer housed in their brain ready to do phenomenal things.
But most also believe that it is only the geniuses and super intelligent that can really use it to create what has never been seen or never been done before.
And it is that fact that is preventing every day people doing something notable or very different that makes its mark and changes their life for ever. But not others. They brought something amazingly new. It’s not that they aimed to cause a shift in thinking or a stir, it is that they did it their way because it’s what their mind showed them. They originated and formulated an epic difference.
The impact was instantaneous.
You possess the very same mental capacity and capability as they did.
To take your individual mind and create something that has never existed and bring it to life. Something people could still be talking about many years later.
For starters let’s take one man who managed to do just that and changed the face of sport in the biggest arena possible.
The Unique Olympian.
The most famous golden Olympic moments tend to be related to world records.
Mega displays of athleticism that become the best ever witnessed on Earth.
But, one moment by one athlete still stands stellar towards the top of Olympic history before any medal was anywhere near being awarded. What did you think he did?
It’s 1968. The Mexico Olympic Games. A young 21 year old American Oregon State University student runs up to take his first leap in the high jump. It is what he did next that shocked sport and rewrote the technical books.
The traditionally applied high jumping technique saw athletes face forwards and spring over the bar like taking a hurdle on the track and twist in mid to avoid the bar. But this man threw all that out and brought innovation to the Games. His unique style was to jump backwards off the wrong foot and arch his back over the measurement bar.
The Fosbury Flop was born and still remains the chosen style of high jumpers nearly 60 years later.
In an instance Dick Fosbury reinvented high jumping and our approach to tried and tested styles. He was radical, innovative, and plain bold.
And not only did he win the gold, yes, he also set a new Olympic record. He was the best in the world through a technique he developed in his mind because he couldn’t even qualify for the event at high school using the regular methodology.
He could have believed he was simply no good at high jumping.
But he thought otherwise, he thought individually.
What is art?
Fine art had a certain style.
Historically it was influenced chiefly by abstract expressionism such as Cubism and the classic styles. There had been variants but they never strayed far from the established workings.
But, times were changing and consumerism was on the rise due to a growth in popular advertising. The design elements of contemporary brands were appealing to a wider section of the public through their colours and shapes and vivacity. This was far from art of course. Not to one man
He saw that a burgeoning industry could also represent a fresh form in the artistic field.
For him they weren’t separate entities, they were one in the same.
He took these everyday product items and reworked them into special subjects that originated a brand new genre of art. He created art that no other mind could ever had imagined previously. Art was changed forever and a new sub culture exploded onto the scene.
That man was Andy Warhol. A genius today; a rebel, and outlier, a maverick back in the 1960’s. Perhaps the first influencer we ever knew with his bright silkscreen Pop Movement designs.
Another who had an individual approach he wasn’t scared of presenting.
So, what about you?
Always the original.
There is a famous advice that says – you were born an original, don’t die a copy.
But in a world of fitting in, that’s precisely what the vast majority of us do. Regular job, nice home, partner and kids, reasonable car, some weekly hobbies and interests, a holiday or two a year, retire, then die. All pretty much along the same themed pattern….be like most others are.
However, I believe there is a Dick Fosbury or Andy Warhol in us all somewhere in our own way.
And our own mind is where that person sits awaiting permission to come to life. Some idea, service, fashion sense, video recording skills, writing ability, artistic work, and business offering is in there. You just haven’t accessed it because you want to jump like Dick did or present art like Andy did with it. To be different and stand out. To unlock your individual mentality and let it come to life.
Truth – you have always been an original, so why act or live like you are everyone else?
You were born to be different, stand out, shake things up, move the goalposts, break the mould and more. In your mind what you conceive is some of that. Go win your own gold medal at being you. Go paint a whole new world with your life.
Be the one-of-a-kind you were meant to be. The one your mind knows you are.
You only have one job now…
Open your mind and be individual and incredible all in one.
References – Olympics.com – when high jumper Dick Fosbury changed the game forever.
Myartbroker.com – Andy Warhol original influencer artist.
Have you ever watched a film about, or ending in, a trial?
In it a defendant is in the dock charged with some serious crime or terrible deed. As it’s a major offence they are tried before a jury. Ordinary members of society picked to be a fair representation of the public.
The trial sets out the various accusations and evidence against the accused, while the defence will attempt to disprove and cast doubt on these facts.
The judge – a very learned and respected individual under the law – presides over the proceedings. Their role is to ensure a fair, just trial is granted and that all correct legal elements were presented as the trial was conducted.
Trial done and all evidence and counter arguments delivered, it becomes the turn of the jury to deliberate whether the defendant was guilty or not guilty. This ensures that fairness and equality were afforded to the implicated prisoner.
Judge and jury independent from each other to assure fair play.
But, just imagine what we happen if the judge decided he was also the jury? That they are the decider and potential executioner in one?
Well, you don’t need a court room for this scenario.
Many of us have a judge and jury mind that works exactly like this!
Guilty as believed.
Some would say that life itself is a trial.
A test we have to continually get through. One that feels like a prison to some. No matter what they have done, or tried to do, in certain situations, very little has gone their way. From love to money, career to plain old good luck, all of the happy outcomes have gone to others.
This is the first flaw in thinking.
It perceives life is being personal. That it is singling them out to experience the worst, while plenty more get given the best. The end result? They have become a victim and born to lose. Once that sets in, the judge and jury mindset won’t be too far behind.
A mindset that is convinced that whatever they want to achieve, they are not good enough, talented enough, or lucky enough. From dating to daring business ideas, they sit in judgement over themselves and pass sentence. Guilty as charged on all negative things that make them never win at anything.
Except the real crime here is to be guilty in belief.
Guilty of deciding both as the judge and jury that a bad future or outcome lies ahead for any wish or goal. So kill it now. Lock it up before it has any chance of escape. Don’t let it out. It can never ever be in public again. It is wrong and must be kept away and protected from the world at large.
The judge and jury mind has spoken. Or thought.
You are free to go.
If you experience this train of thought, worry not. It does not have to be a life sentence.
You can break the chains of this mindset.
This is the second flaw in thinking.
If you can think it one way, you can rethink it back the other. You have to use just one voice. Your own that wants to do the thing you wish – get the date, open the shop, get promoted etc. Use that ONLY.
Be alert for the second voice in your head that starts whispering negatives and how it will all be a disaster. The one that shows you all the awful images to match. You know the ones!
Quell that, tell it to shut up, go away, and encourage your goal focused mind. Keep reminding yourself this is what you want, that it’s right for you, that it’s going to be OK….and all those types of promising statements.
And go even further and break those shackles of inaction – DO the idea/take the first step and throw caution to the wind. Make the call, register a business name, approach your boss about stepping up. Go after it. Release yourself by not ever judging yourself in advance again.
The world will never ever judge you the same as you do in your head. It’s actually waiting for who you are. It always has been. So, go wow it.
Become a free mental soul. Big yourself up, not consign yourself to defeat. Think BIG. Be bigger. Go do. Go be.
Clear your made up bad name and clear your blameful head. There is a big future for you.
And the jury ISN’T out for that. You are free to GO, GO, GO!!
Years and years of repeated patterns of thinking have hard wired your thinking. This means that what you believe, you tend to continue to believe, Which transfers to what you see, what you consider is happening, and what it will all result in.
So, does this mean it can never be changed?
That your mind is stuck in one set mindset?
The short answer is no. The longer answer is also no.
For any situation all you need to do is to train it to reframe it.
Create a new picture.
Modern technology allows us to almost do anything with an image.
We can resize it, recolour it, cut it to remove parts, and add anything to it. In effect create a completely different image from what we first have.
The good news is we have an ancient technological counterpart as part of us that achieves the very same thing with events in our life. Our mind. The ultimate editing and enhancement tool. It’s a kind of genetic software that gives us power to alter any current image of life we have in our heads.
One that can flip a scenario to paint a very different picture.
Also known as reframing. It’s a mental miracle worker.
Imagine something that happened to you in the past. Find one that was upsetting or confusing or similar emotion at the time. To help you (and keep it less distressing or too much of a bad reminder) I will use the example of you being overlooked for promotion. For the third time (but please keep your own to follow as we reframe).
That hurt. It felt like rejection. Personal even. And that you were not valued at all. You couldn’t let it go. Your heart wasn’t in your work and you lost any enthusiasm for the role. In fact, your interest in the career field suffered and you became rather lost. One decision by a few others, became a life time of bitter decisions by you.
If you could change how you viewed it at the time, you could have changed everything that resulted in the following years. And this applies to your past situation that floored you.
How could your mind be changed then?
We see with our beliefs.
You think that you see with your eyes.
But, you don’t. You see with your beliefs. I have covered this mindset trait before in the post about Mindsight.
Whatever you go through, nothing is there bar the meaning your mind attaches to it. Or as Shakespeare wrote in Hamlet, ‘Nothing is either good or bad, but thinking makes it so’.
The mind does not know what is real or not. It relies on definition of reality from us. No matter what occurs, we give it a label, add an emotion, and inform the mind accordingly. Which is why 10 people can see the same situation and all process it their own way.
But, this is good news. It gives YOU the power to relabel or reframe anything that is happening, has happened, or will happen.
So, where do you start with this?
Go back to the past!
Win the game.
It’s not easy to reframe what you haven’t yet met.
Better still to go over past occurrences and practice your reframing.
It goes something like this – your school sweetheart dumped you after 5 years, but it enabled you to grow up, become responsible, and find a partner who will match that more mature you.
The career you so wanted to succeed in fell apart, but you ended up discovering new skills you didn’t know you had that have served you well.
In short revisit old troubles and reframe the upsides that came out of them.
They may not have been there at the time, but most definitely resulted from those upsetting moments.
You will be reframing your mind to kick the habit of negative remembering in favour of beneficial recognising. Good outcomes always arise out of most scenarios if we reframe our mind to look for them. They are there, maybe not instantly, but most certainly eventually.
Continue to return to old haunts that bothered you and reframe them. Don’t let up. After a short while your mind is going to love it and feel its natural. Then simply take on today in what’s proving a hang up now. You have no future proof this time but view it all like your past victories after pain.
Good things came and they are going to again right now. Reframe today as the opportunity presenting itself for unseen, but guaranteed to appear wins ahead.
Let’s finish with this that shows how well it works – instead of being 40 and wishing you were 15 again, think if you were 75 wishing you were 40….which you are!!
That’s the reframe game.
Play it to paint masterful new pictures in your mind and life!
To be able to tell what will happen for you and even the world?
If you said yes, then you are in good company. Millions of people around the world would love to be able to see ahead in time. In fact, some would go even further. A British 2015 survey by YouGov discovered 61% of those asked would want to actually travel to the future as well.
We clearly want to know what the unknown has waiting for us.
The topic on whether, as mortal humans, we have the ability and power to see what is to come has been debated for centuries. Early in history these gifts were believed to be bestowed only on special holy souls. The Gods decided our lives and the priests and seers were the ones allowed to witness their decisions and opinions.
But, times change.
Over the years a growing interest in spirituality over religion has reopened the debate. Are there other unseen worlds? Can we see them or experience them? Are we psychic and can bend time and space ourselves? Is time real or can we view it both back and forward?
Who knows, but one truth does remain.
Our mind is a special zone that the future lives in.
Design not Destiny.
Seeing the future is viewed as seeing destiny itself.
The trouble is we believe that seeing time to come as being able to view events that are destined to occur before they do. Destined, unchangeable, meant to be. We never consider that we can create HOW these events will happen in our minds first.
Less destiny, more design.
But, there have been individuals who know the mind can concept and shape the future, rather than accept what the fates supply.
One such man was Buckminster Fuller. An advanced mind that considered advanced development. He was a philosopher, inventor, architect, writer, visionary, and designer all in one mind. He looked decades ahead and formulated how society could live.
Among his creations from the 1920’s onwards were Geodesic domes (used even today in design and industry), and prototype future cars and homes. He was also one of the first to predict mankind relying mainly on renewable sources of energy long before it was ever advocated.
Consequently, he was always mentally living many years into the future. Not to guess or predict how we would live, but to design, direct, and shape it.
To this day many in industry and government refer to him and his visions of life to come and use some of them still!
He wasn’t a prophet, he was a high level pro at applying the mind to the future.
We are always creating the future.
We don’t need a unique mind like Buckminster’s.
Nor do we have to wait for another person like him to come along. There are enough of us out there who have dedicated their mindsets to forming the future in some way. Some you will have heard of.
Tim Berners-Lee – famously envisaged and built the fledgling internet and shared information between computers in a kind of web as well as the first browser.
Jules Verne – predicted the use of submarines, space travel, and helicopters to name but a few.
Bill Gates – started Microsoft with his vision for ‘a computer on every desk and in every home’ running his software.
Fei-Fei Li – a modern future mind, the ‘Godmother of AI’ who has led the way in the development and use of Artificial Intelligence.
Ordinary humans employing their minds for extraordinary creation. Ordinary people when they began, ground breakers when they finished. No trying to zone into the future fates through trance or meditation or spiritual practices. The future as they saw it was squarely in their mind and brought to life.
As humans there are many of us always creating the future. People you are going to hear about in the years ahead as reality catches up with their vision of things.
And you can join them!
What’s on your mind?
Everyone has ideas and bigger beliefs.
They sit there in our mind acting as guides to the future. Rather than some mental crystal ball revealing events and situations deep in time, they show what YOU can make of your future.
This is the super normal ability of the mind, not some supernatural window into another timeframed existence we get a glimpse of. It knows you inside and out; your abilities, character, views and beliefs, your whole psyche. And in doing so it presents to you possibilities and options to evolve that individual to its best level in life.
Your mind is gifting you your future if you were to accept it. Not the Gods or the spirit world.
So next time you wonder if you can see the future, pay attention to your mind, it will present you with your best self realised.
The real key to the future is that you then want to go and meet yourself there. We all have that ability to create, build, form, develop, and invent. Mind that you do!
Or as Buckminster Fuller wonderfully said,
‘We are called to be architects of the future’.
References – YouGov – society- back future british people.
And we are all different. One person’s mindset isn’t fully the same as another’s. As a result we think, believe, see, and act differently.
But, there is ONE mindset that millions of us the world over do share. One that is present every single day that destroys our happiness and joy in life. It’s very common and if you haven’t got it…you will probably know someone who clearly has.
For every goal, wish, hope, or dream, this mindset will kill it all.
It prefers instead to live in the past. A negative past it keeps on looking for and deciding will never change and projecting it onto the here and now.
A mindset that unhappily personalises everything that did happen, and is still happening.
The poor me mind.
Our minds don’t see what there is to see. They see what we believe is to be seen.
An event, situation, or conversation can occur and ten people will all view it differently. Each individual’s mindset projects a different personal meaning onto the actual reality.
However, ONE mindset many hold that covers most scenarios that they become involved with is the ‘Poor me’ belief. The self attached tag they place on themselves each time. Even if all seemed fine at the time, their mind will work overtime to kill this. It will announce how wronged or unwanted or always suffering the person was….and always is.
No matter how anything turns out, they are meant to be wounded and hurt.
Why?
Because they possess the Victim Mindset.
Self sabotage in our head.
The No.1 killer of mentality and any self confidence and worth is the Victim Mindset.
It defines so many of us as the permanent casualty and loser in life. We may wear a smile for others to see, but underneath we feel worthless and unappreciated. At worst we consider we are ugly, unloved, and deliberately singled out for poor treatment.
The inner victim is always awake and self sabotaging our life.
The victim mentality kicks in often. The boss at work is grumpy – it’s always against you. Traffic is hell again – it’s typical, happens to you more than others. Your Amazon order goes astray or they send the wrong size – yep, you knew something would go pear shaped.
In almost any scenario the victim mindset is present. Rarely does it take a back seat. The odd snafu that most believe will hit us all randomly some days, to the victim mindset is permanently guaranteed to find them any day. Others get the odd hassle, they get the regular full force.
There are no accidents or mistakes or ‘one of those things’.
The victim keeps choosing to be the victim.
How to be a victim no more.
Having a Victim Mindset is to participate in a victimless crime.
A mental crime without anyone getting injured. The only hurt is in the head. The only thing stolen is peace of mind.
It is to make yourself a full victim by wiring your mind to seek out being constantly negatively singled out. Every situation is a crime scene waiting to happen with you slap bang in the middle. But, it can be broken and you can be free.
The answer lies at the start and the end.
In any given scenario the second something occurs (usually less luckily for you) or a comment made literally SHRUG YOUR SHOULDERS. At the same time say (if in private) or think, ‘That’s not me’, three times. It sounds illogical but it’s breaking up the mind’s link to the belief that it is always you that gets to experience tough stuff. Then, leave the moment alone and carry on as if everything is normal.
DO NOT REVISIT – this is the killer for many because they keep going over and replaying the scene again and again. But badly. They become the victim in it. SO DON’T. What’s gone has gone. Focus ON the right now and how much better things can become day after day. Look forwards to something.
Repeat, repeat, repeat. Break the mental chain.
(**NB – To further help with this I’m going to post about the magic of Reframing the mind in a few weeks. It is a game changer!!).
Freedom awaits.
It’s time for freedom!
If you have a victim mindset you have millions of fellow mental victims out there too. You don’t want to be like them anymore. You want to enjoy life. To never making yourself the one to blame or be punished ever again.
You never were. You BECAME the victim. A role you chose to play. One you got used to accepting.
So, accept a new one. Tell your mind you are singled out for joy, good surprises, great people, and more. Tell it and keep finding proof so your mindset kicks in and says, ‘Yes that’s you’.
Keep that up and you are going to turn it all around.
The success mindset is not far away!
Photo attributions – Free to use under Pixabay Content License by Leix and Ryan McGuire and Shooinau.
