Estimates say the average person has at least 6,000 per day. This equates to 6 per minute during our waking hours.
That’s a whole bunch of thoughts going round our mind.
But not just our mind as those same thoughts also affect our body.
If you feel nervous you can experience a bad stomach. If you are really stressed, headaches are common. Or if you are mentally tense your muscles and back can tighten right up.
Our mind is the key to what we think and therefore what our body also receives.
Thinking can damage our bodies but also damage our beliefs about ourselves. Double damage. They are that powerful. Powerful enough to be killing our potential and worse still…
Our thoughts could be killing us.
Crazy thoughts making us crazy too.
Having big dreams often makes others think we are crazy.
You say you want to claim Everest or be a pro tennis player and they will laugh at you. They seem a long shot but are totally plausible if phenomenally difficult to pull off. After all, others has shown it can be achieved so why can’t you achieve it?
But the true realms of the crazy are when our thoughts don’t warn us strange things are, if not dangerous, downright insane.
One famous person in history suffered from this warped mindset. And he was crazy because it was even in his name.
In 1850’s America the white settlers had begun spreading across the country looking for gold and resources as well as individuals wanting land for their own homestead. This brought them into contact and conflict with the indigenous native Americans. One tribe who we are greatly impacted were the Lakota and one young brave member who saw the white man’s brutality first hand.
When he witnessed the murder of chief Conquering Bear by troops from Fort Laramie at the age of 14, he had visions in his sleep that he was meant to lead and protect his people. He also believed that he could not be killed in battle if he didn’t wear the full tribal regalia or take any war trophies. This instilled in him a mindset of invincibility that death would not claim him until he was an aged elder.
His name was Crazy Horse.
He aligned with other tribal leaders and spearheaded many raids on settlers and soldiers for twenty years. It looked like his belief was proving to be true. Until it wasn’t. One day in 1877 after an arrest a fight ensued and Crazy Horse died from bayonet wounds to his kidneys.
Perhaps one of the most famous deaths from a wrong belief.
Historically wrong.
Humanity has a habit of bad beliefs.
There are a number of other stories of well known figures who experienced an untimely end due to their own thinking.
The 16th Century scientist and statesman Sir Francis Bacon was convinced snow could preserve meat. On one snowy day travelling through Highgate he stopped to buy a hen from a local trader which he stuffed with snow believing the cold within the snow would keep the meat fresh. He often spent time out in the snow to study the subject. But he spent so much time outside it lead to pneumonia and his death.
The great American dancer Isadora Duncan had a certain belief that ended in her unusual passing. She was a proponent of free movement and expression and believed that her fashion sense should reflect that. She took to wearing very long scarfs as her ‘look’. One day while riding in a car he scarf caught in the rear wheels pulling her from the vehicle and breaking her neck.
And of course you have read the ancient stories about Icarus and King Canute whose beliefs were as crazy as they come.
It still goes on today from hobbies to lifestyle choices to wanting to be famous on social media.
But there is one way our minds can kill us that anyone and everyone can suffer from!
Mind related malaise.
Life today is as pressured as ever.
From the frenetic pace of things to demanding schedules. From busy workloads with lack of time to the never ending expense of bills, we are peppered with much to fret over. If it’s not the daily toil it’s the worry of everything falling apart that hangs heavy on our minds.
And that creates one big end result – Stress (which I have written about before in SuperMind Saturday).
Stress is when mental pressure gets filtered into the body. And so our ability to handle stress is also our ability to keep ourselves healthy. If we believe we can’t handle what we are about to do or have to face, stress results and the body suffers.
Typical health effects of not managing it are – bad sleep, irritability, muscle tension, depression, skin complaints, raised blood pressure, heart palpitations and worse.
So, if our beliefs aren’t positive and resilient enough, the effects can acutely harm our health, and as witnessed by many hospitals, actual death from prolonged exposure can result.
This is called ‘stress related’ but I think a more accurate term would be Mind Related Malaise.
The mind has believed something the wrong way that the body has negatively taken the full force of.
Our mind has become a killer.
A balanced brain.
So, what should you conclude from this?
To never follow big dreams and let absolutely nothing that bothers you get to you?
That would be equally crazy. We need to have higher goals that push us to get the best out of who we are. And we can’t protect ourselves from the tests life throws us. To destroy both is to almost stop living and kill life itself.
One of the greatest abilities is what we should aim for. Getting a balance between the two.
To be able to push on for better while not letting our beliefs about what we encounter to adversely touch us.
The ultimate mindset, yes, but one to, well, keep in mind.
Because what doesn’t kill us makes us stronger.
We just have to work on it not being our minds that do the killing.
Reference – Queens University Gazette – Discovery of ‘thought worms’.
History.co.uk – Who Was Crazy Horse?
allthatsinteresting.com – The Strange Deaths of Historic and Famous People.
From the never ending price increases of everything to war and abuse everywhere, we feel unsafe, not secure, and under threat from every corner.
The place this hits home most of all is in our minds. Our mental centres have to process every element that we are seeing, hearing and experiencing and they are often crammed and overloaded.
In turn this makes our mental strength wane. We lose the ability to feel good about life and are weaker at dealing with events and circumstances. And that tends to register as a huge negative. The message to our minds is a clear warning that we are losing it. We are caught in a struggle and believe mentally that we won’t be able to cope.
Well, as someone who has been there over 25 years ago when mental health wasn’t as important as it is today, I can tell you that this is untrue.
In fact, it was the other way round. That’s because my mental frailties only existed because I wasn’t aware of the good news caught up in the seemingly failing mindset. As they say, if I knew then what I knew now I wouldn’t have been sacred, I would been very encouraged.
That’s what I’m going to do for you. If you’re feeling scared about your current mental tests, read on. I’m going to share the 5 MAJOR reasons why this could be the start of a great mindset for you.
So, here the fab five for your mind if it’s currently a bit out of shape!
1. There is nothing wrong with you.
When I experienced my own mental health struggle I had just been through an extreme time.
I was in my twenties and my father suddenly passed away. Soon after I lost my prized job in sport, money and income became hard, and my partner left me.
Now, that can tip many people over the edge.
With such a rollercoaster of emotions, especially painful ones, it’s natural to lose your way. But, this is totally natural. Feelings of hurt and happiness always partner us through life. Sometimes it’s sunshine, other times it’s rain. Sometimes feeling great, the next feeling pain.
I say this because I personalised my difficulties. Everything that happened to me was either my fault, or I contributed to it. In short, I felt that it was payback and there was something wrong with me. Or, more precisely, I was wrong in every way and I deserved it.
As the years passed I understood that this was BS. I just couldn’t accept things happen and they happen to good people as much as bad. It’s called life and life brings its ups and downs. So don’t get down on yourself. It’s nothing to do with you. You’re not going mental and you’re not mentally flawed (after all a hassled head may save your life).
There is NOTHING wrong with you as a person!
2. Life throws curve balls.
Remember when you were young and you thought life would be amazing?
Yeah, me too. Almost all of us did.
We really knew nothing of the world. Our parents had pretty much sheltered us from its harsh reality. And then we went out into that reality. We soon learnt that the dream was never how actual life was.
Sure, the first four or five years were exciting. Got a job, got some money in our pocket, got a few partners, and got some fun going on. Hey, this is only going to get better and better.
But soon schooldays got left behind and adult days took over. There was no protection anymore that our parents provided. We had to deal with the full face of swimming for survival ‘out there’. Job was no fun, underpaid and stressful. Break ups with partners were par for the course. The party atmosphere was over and true life started throwing even more for us to juggle with.
That’s what life is best at. Chucking stuff at us we just weren’t prepared for.
Stuff that throws us off.
Life is full of curve balls that play with our heads.
3. It shines a light where it needs to be shone.
We tend to live life on automatic.
The modern human doesn’t have to worry about dinosaurs or marauding invaders from other tribes every day like our ancestors. Our concerns revolve around our traffic jammed commute, email inbox at the office, or paying the spiralling utility bills.
Today our mind focuses on these and not any other study of our lives. Our ancients had to check if their spears or axes were sharp enough. We just check if we have a good broadband speed.
Therefore we tend to live on repeat. A kind of mental Groundhog Day. And that’s when we drop the ball.
We give our attention to a narrow few elements in our life and ignore many others.
That’s where mental struggle comes in. It finds our blind spots and weak points and shines one big light on them to highlight where we’ve taken our eye off the ball. And this light blinds us in the mind with our personal headaches of issues that keep cropping up.
Issues that say ‘you are getting depressed about putting on weight’ or ‘you have no social life because your job you hate is consuming all your time’. Big clues aren’t always easy to spot. Mental struggles assist in this.
They switch on a lightbulb in us at what needs fixing.
4. It encourages you not to do life alone.
Most of us don’t like to trouble others with our problems.
We keep them to ourselves for feeling foolish or failing in the eyes of those around us in our lives. And so these problems fester and grow and begin becoming big trouble themselves. We even keep our mental difficulties from our partners and closest friends.
This is the perfect breeding ground for mental struggles to thrive. With no outlet or comfort we lose perspective and this magnifies our struggles even further.
As such our failing mental health is down to a failing to allow others to support us and care.
Us humans love sharing the good times but baulk at sharing the load when it’s heavy within us. If we could break that behaviour, we could all deal with our mental weights far better, not to mention quicker.
Truth is others would love to be there for us. They would readily be by our side to help us figure out what’s ailing us. Plus show their love and loyalty so we can overcome the sources of our mental pushes. Only our misplaced pride is getting in the way.
While some can go further into their shell at such periods of pressure, if we can recognise they can be a call to share what’s on our mind, we can build a stronger mindset that isn’t holed by life. Because, we are not meant to live life alone.
A good head often comes with letting a good friend help.
5. They give you boundaries.
When is enough, enough?
Often that’s a question we don’t ever ask ourselves so we never know a rational answer.
Instead we plough on with our lives doing this and that, pulled this way and pulled that, until we finally can’t take anymore. Traditionally it was called burnout but it’s been called many things from hyper exhaustion to a breakdown.
Whatever the definition or label attached, it still typifies that we push on regardless past sensible stop points. Signs that point to our schedule being too full, our energy levels too used up, our mental calm too destroyed, or our bank balance too low.
We didn’t heed the pointers that were clearly there.
But, constant mental struggles when seen from a bigger picture bring almighty feedback.
They show you the boundaries that you have crossed on the way to mindset mayhem. Trace back and you can identify certain moments when you should have stopped, said no, cut back spending etc etc.
If you can do this without self blame or guilt you will be on your way to a kind of lifestyle upgrade that ends up with a better mind as well. Boundaries are there for a reason. Being able to act with reason means you won’t cross them again. You will also have specific trigger points in your awareness that, if they ever pop up again, will warn you where you are.
Boundaries take us from one place to another.
And mental struggles provide us with alarms that we have reached those boundaries.
If ever there was a reason.
So, if ever there was reason to not be scared of mental struggles, here they are.
Not just one, but five that can give you back full mental control. And with that a real sense of the sun shining into your life again.
And do they work, really work?
Well, as I said at the start of this blog post that I went through deep mental trials of my own decades go. These 5 were what I created to get back my best mental state and to return to life to thrive.
Thrive so successfully that any mental intensity has hardly touched me or holed my life again.
And there’s the main reason why you shouldn’t be sacred of mental struggles either!
Please note – this post is for people who are beginning to experience mental tiredness and mild anxiety with everyday issues and challenges. If you have suffered from mental health issues for many weeks and months, please seek qualified medical health and support to help you aid recovery!!
From personal phones and computers to complicated systems that run our infrastructure, we are a highly high-tech world.
We have created machines that can calculate, organise, manage, and inform at a level far greater than ever before. And we are continuing to do so. Which means the modern ideas revolve around their operation and use.
Apps are multiplying faster than humanity every day. AI has arrived at full speed and is the becoming the No.1 tool of use by business. The next generation is already here with driverless cars being trialled on our roads.
Technology seems here to stay and our future.
Traditional has had its day. Or has it?
No matter how advanced we become, we will always require simple. It remains a key element of life.
Which means if you have a great simple idea, you should always follow it through. It could be highly lucrative.
Simple sound, big success.
Sounds are everywhere.
After all the world is nosier than ever.
But, we tend to filter out virtually all of them. Our senses are now more alerted to pings on our phone or updates on our car sat nav of trouble ahead. Everyday, simple sounds just don’t get a look in. We now only switch onto a small range of sounds.
One songwriter managed to do that one day and turned his band’s fortunes right around.
He and his fellow group’s members were in Miami recording an album. It seemed a long process. Every day they would cross a causeway bridge over water to the studio. As the car went over the expansion joints it made little clickty-clack sounds a bit similar to a train crossing tracks.
The tired singer had tuned out of normal thinking as the album was proving longer to record than hoped. And so, that morning his ears picked up the little rickety beat from the creaking over the bridge.
This struck a chord with him. He began to hear a rhythm in the clicks. A beat formed. And a song was born and he used it as a major intro into what was to turn into a worldwide smash.
That artist was Barry Gibb. His band were The Bee Gees. And the song title he created from that trip was Jive Talkin’ (listen to the intro!!).
Within months the song was No.1 on the US Billboard chart and would go on to make millions of dollars.
All from a simple everyday sound that triggered an idea.
Everyday inspiration.
The everyday things around us are where I ideas can be found.
I’m going to use sound again to prove this point. But sound in a different way.
The late, great, already missed Dolly Parton had been cast as one of the lead roles of an upcoming movie called 9 to 5. She had also been asked to write a song for the film to go along with the title. She was drumming up ideas in her head and scratching her acrylic nails together. Immediately she realised it made the sound of a typewriter and the daily grind for many women workers.
This gave her the beat and being the legendary writer she was, the song also called 9 to 5 soon followed. The tune made No.1 on both the Billboard and Country charts and to this day it creates over $6million in royalties per year.
All from scratching her nails to think of how to start the song.
It seems very basic, doesn’t it? But that IS how it works.
What we hear, see, smell touch, or taste each day has the power to transport us into a whole new idea and world. It works because if we relate to it, most people on the planet will too. It’s not obscure. It’s not rare. In fact, it’s there all the time but no-one has paid attention enough to do anything with it.
Our senses will know these simple things and immediately pick them up.
Simple sensations like these are undiscovered gold that we have not mined enough.
How simple can YOU get?
You have heard the phrase, ‘how simple can you get’?
Right, let’s personalise and come back to you. How simple can YOU get? What simple things could YOU turn into a business idea, product, or even individual offering that you get known for?
There are literally millions of options that people dismiss every single day that can be turned into a workable business idea.
Your love of something that has led you to knowing all about it, for example. Let’s say you can rustle up hundreds of dishes with sweet potato or paprika. Or how you can teach people to sing in ten steps as you’ve already shown friends.
If you STOP thinking along the lines of regular ideas that have been done you can win. If you START looking at what you possess and are niche at (niche is really ‘specialist’), you can become a master of it.
Imagine the flutes you make out of wood for local kids being a larger enterprise. Or how you love doing your hairstyle in old retro cuts could span out into tutorials for others or even courses for salons.
So shine up what you think is too simple in your mind and start offering it to the world. Dismiss any thoughts it needs a huge market because it could turn into a cult following, and then you are made. Simple can just be STUNNING!
The possibilities are endless with simple ideas. The end results can be limitless.
Little mistakes. Huge mistakes, Stupid mistakes. Lots of mistakes.
That’s because we are human and we’re not perfect. They are part of life itself. As long as mankind is present on this planet, mistakes will always happen.
Most of us get angry or worried when we make a mistake. Usually this is because there may be consequences for our error, or because there already is. Typically then we fear making a mistake as this means something has gone wrong or definitely soon will.
We just don’t like or welcome mistakes. In any walk of life.
Except one.
The higher minded among us. The big goal setters and go getters. The ones with aspirations and a determined vision who know mistakes will happen as part of their endeavours.
Who are these people? The successful achievers.
And here’s why they love mistakes so much.
Mistakes SHOULD happen.
Everyday people tend to believe mistakes shouldn’t happen.
We beat ourselves up when we make a faux pas. Or get frustrated at our silliness. And when dealing with companies and organisation who mess up, we get annoyed and disappointed.
But, not everyone does.
There are those whose minds see mistakes as one more step towards their aims. One more thing learned, discovered, or given feedback. For them mistakes are merely updates. These are the people who go on to bigger things because they don’t allow themselves to be held back by failures or errors.
And there are some very famous examples you will know well.
One inventor famously made the quote, ‘I have not failed 10,000 times. I have successfully found 10,000 ways that will not work’.
That fabulous attitude was owned by Thomas Edison. The pioneer and creator of the lightbulb. But what is lesser known about him is that he held 1,093 patents on various inventions. From the phonograph to a talking doll, a durable battery to the electrographic vote recorder (an early voice recorder…very early!),
Edison demonstrated a clear cut don’t-give-up mentality. His notebooks contained over 4,000 various ideas and inventions he believed could be built.
While he was a great innovator, another man was a great sport.
Always take the shot.
The typical guy or girl on the street is reluctant to risk much.
They may have a very attractive business proposition. They may have a new product. Or simply a fresh service they have seen a gap in the market it can fill. But they hold back actually rolling the dice and taking a shot at it.
Others have no choice, shots are part of the very game they play.
Famous people become famous because they do famous things.
Witness the story of a young basketball hopeful in the 1980’s. At the age of 18 he was drafted to play for the Chicago Bulls. The pressure was immense at the pro level. But, he was an instant hit. The Bulls made the play offs that season after missing them for a number of years and he went on to lead all the averages in the NBA.
Roll forwards to the end of his career. When he finally retired at the start of this century his roll call of honours was staggering. Six NBA champion medals, 14 times NBA All start player, and 10 times NBA scoring champion among numerous accolades. This was Michael Jordan.
But to achieve all that he had to make a huge amount of mistakes. As he noted in this famous quote –
‘I have missed more than 9,000 shots in my career. I’ve lost almost 300 games. Twenty-six times, I’ve been trusted to take the game-winning shot and missed. I’ve failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed’.
Even the world’s best ever knows mistakes builds champions.
Meaningful mistakes.
The key to success is the meaning behind them.
Errors and mishaps doing silly stunts just to get TikTok traffic perhaps isn’t truly meaningful. Neither is having an accident by driving too fast to show off your sports car. Dumb stuff that leads to dumb results.
The pursuit of higher and nobler goals which creates mistakes, well that’s a far more meaningful endeavour. Setbacks in the process of reaching for greater goals and personal good should be expected. And definitely viewed as signs that you are moving ahead.
Attempting to build a brand around your cartoon character design and your first few marketing promos bomb. Review, gather yourself, and go again, it’s par for the course. Seeking being a culinary expert in the use of spices in food and you can’t quite perfect the right combination balance for your signature dishes. Test and taste, test and taste, and they will eventually come together.
Anything that leads to a lasting advance will contain mistakes without fail. They are how you get there.
Such personal projects are where mistakes meet meaning meet magic in the end.
Mistakes are the anchor for all the most successful souls that pulls them back so they can find ways up the progress ladder. But only when they are scaling the heights to a milestone not a plaything.
And that, my friend, is what you have to do too.
Make mistakes with real meaning!
Success is a mistake away.
Could a mistake make your life?
Yes, 100% so!
But the vast majority of us are scared of those mistakes. We fear being embarrassed or losing all our money, of having a dreamed dashed or even that people won’t like us if we become a success.
That’s OUR mistake.
Mistakes mature us and our plans and ripen them into something that we can harvest. No-one who has succeeded has done so immediately. They have had to commit time and efforts to realise their wish. So expecting to be an overnight winner is the real error if there is one in our minds. The failed attitude that isn’t prepared to fail even for one day to live a great life further on down the line.
Mistakes mean we are one day, one improvement closer to what we yearn for. And that’s the proverbial journey of a thousand miles the famous Chinese philosopher Confucius taught the world. A step, not into unknown, but into the bigger future we want to experience.
Don’t let yourself be someone who won’t make a mistake.
Because that’s the biggest mistake keeping you from every success you want.
References – thomasedison.org – Thomas Edison Inventions.
We all get a stress head full of hassle on a regular basis.
God knows the number of times I’ve woken up with an already thumping head due to my life and work schedule. I’m sure you can recognise that too. Some may argue it’s the price of modern life. I’d say it’s been around for decades and probably will for plenty more.
Our heads are our computers. They run our show.
They arrange, support, calculate, scan for threats, store information, remember information, and generally are like a 100 PA’s.
Boy, do they do a lot!
However, just like overworked assistants they get stretched and pressured and it all becomes hassle. Too much hassle. The head almost hurts and feels attacked from all sides.
When we are hassled we get anxious, angry, and forgetful. We just don’t like it. It causes major stress as I’ve written about in SuperMind Saturday.
But, there is one very telling reason why you should welcome hassle.
It may be just about to save your life!
High level hassle.
Sit back and enjoy the flight, is what the captain of our plane tells us.
So, sit back we do, pop on a movie, get fed some meals, recline in our seat, and leave our stresses on the ground for a while.
That’s what Peter Hogenkamp and his partner did on his late night Cross Air flight from Berlin to Zurich in November 2001. He was tired and really needed to get some shut eye, but the three members of the Dutch-German all girl group, Passion Fruit, were being noisy and disruptive in the seats in front. They had been at a gig that night and were still in electric mood and excitedly fired up.
Hassled and with other seats available they switched rows away from the annoyance hoping to get some rest before they landed.
Not longer after flight 3597 plunged into wooded hills 2.5m short of the runway killing all but nine people. Peter and his partner Jacqueline and one member of the band survived.
Peter was so hassled he changed seats, but this changed his whole life by saving it.
This is how hassle works. It may not be some message from the angels or the fates favouring you. What it will be is forcing a change that can save you from a lot of future problems and, potentially, save your life.
Hassle may be help all along.
Late but alive.
We have all been running late for work.
Whether it’s sleeping in, kids delaying us, or traffic snarl ups, we’ve all turned up behind time. Often this leads to little consequence bar a minor ticking off, but once in a while it prevents us losing far more than a few minutes work time.
That was what was going through Prasad Govenkar’s mind one morning as he struggled to get to work without being late. His alarm clock decided not to work and he spilled coffee down his shirt in the rush to be ready.
Worse still the trains were delayed due to signalling problems on the line. He was hassled and prepared himself for the rebuke from his boss in the city for not being at his desk as usual.
But those hassles that played out in his mind would be the very saviours that kept him alive.
The city was New York, the date was September 11th 2001, and his office was in the World Trade Center.
The collective stress of his non-functioning alarm, black coffee mishap, and train hold ups that had his head racing, soon had it racing for a different reason. Fundamentalist terrorists flew 2 passenger airplanes into both Twin Towers with the loss of nearly 3000 lives. All those in and around Prasad’s office space were killed.
Hassle had once again stepped in so he survived.
Minor not major.
Now I don’t want to paint a bleak picture here.
Any hassle you go through doesn’t predict some bad omen has been prevented from getting to you. The truth is even if they make us tear our hair out, most hassles are only short term annoyance and irritations. They are usually minor not major.
There is another point I’m making.
Hassle may be a re-direction.
It provides feedback about our life that, if we were to consider more, is trying to get us to evaluate things.
Traffic delays yet again on our commute may ask if we’re doing the right role in the right place. Or similar if we have continual staffing shortages that push up our workload. Or our partner always changing plans and we never know what we’re doing half the time could be a hint that the relationship might not be the one for us.
These won’t kill us as such, but they hassle us to get our attention.
I actually think hassles may secretly be wake up calls. They dial up the frustration so much we just want out of the specific scenario or life situation that it links to. After one too many awful days in a job that doesn’t appreciate us and there was no pay rise, we decide it’s finally the point to start our own business. We’ve tried to mend old family wounds with family members we didn’t create, but after another painful gathering, it’s best friends only for us now.
And the biggest alarm clock of all with hassle – heath alerts.
They usually come with body and mind related effects – migraines, anxiety, etc but also extremes can lead to more serious symptoms. At which point you get the message that this has got to stop for the good of your wellness.
Hassles can be our friends you see!
Hear the hassle.
Hassles effectively shout at us. They don’t do whispers.Or subtlety.
We all notice them, which is a good thing inside out. The skill is to look beyond the presented problem to the bigger picture of why that keeps showing up. If we can spot the background truth we are on our way to positive change.
Leaving the house for the wrong job 20 mins earlier to miss the jammed roads meaning less sleep just ain’t it. Working out that the current job or hours is the culprit will give you leverage to make changes.
Being annoyed by your partner’s constant change of schedule so you are going to have it out with her once and for all may not be wise. The true baddie in this just might be you in the people you continually date in the first place that treat you like this.
So, take a wider look at your repeat hassles.
They DO point the pathway out of them through proving you are on a wrong turning somewhere. And, hardest of all, that it has been your own choices, actions, and beliefs that had landed you right in the middle of them.
Hassles don’t start your headaches, they come to end them.
Because hassles change lives, guide lives, and even save them!!
Most people do but only on the little everyday things. Ones that never change their whole life. Most change their minds on what to wear, what to eat, their favourite night spot, and general stuff that isn’t Earth shattering.
It’s not that we are scared to change our mind, we are just to used to only using it to get by and run our daily schedules.
But, few ever change their mind completely in ways that alter the whole shape and path of their life.
I’m sure you haven’t either.
We humans tend to be creatures of habit overall. Some may explore and be more adventurous, but the majority of us stick to a narrow range of experiences. And a small range of thoughts. Our mindsets are fixed and become stuck in repeat patterns.
There is a phrase that says, ‘You are only one decision away from a whole new life’.
And that is true because that decision is to change your mind.
Making the Write Decision.
We all love a trip to the movies.
For the escapism, for the entertainment, for the incredible stories we see. Some are that incredible because they aren’t just off the scale, they are off the planet. One of which became one of the best known of all sci-films. But only because it’s creator changed his mind.
A young teenage enjoyed writing. But he told himself he could never make a living from it and so decided to make a career as a software engineer as it was a well paid role in those days.
But time changes everything, and it also changed his mind.
He continued it as a hobby in his spare time until one day he decided he would write his own novel and self publish it. This was the best decision of his life.
This book was The Martian and the author was Andy Weir. The book went on to make the New York Times bestseller list and, of course, it was made into a Hollywood film starring Matt Damon. The film alone made $630 million worldwide with the book selling over 5 million globally.
All of which because Andy had a mind switch and believed in his writing and did something about it.
A changed mind about something he always loved, kept doing, and always wanted to explore.
Maybe that mirrors you too?
Making a Meal Out of it.
It’s not just one thought that can change your life, one meal can too!
In her mid-thirties one lady was lost. She had tried various roles in secretarial work, governmental posts, and advertising. None of them inspired her and she felt unfulfilled and stuck.
Until she had a French meal at a restaurant in Rouen. Being a keen culinary person the various tastes and textures changed her mind about food as a career. She had always enjoyed concocting her own recipes and now a green light switched on in her imagination.
At first she failed her exams at the prestigious Le Cordon Bleu. Her mind though was fixed and she persisted even though her fellow students believed she could never make the grade.
Not long after she released her own cookbook – Mastering the Art of French Cooking. It flew off the shelves in her native USA as Americans rushed to try French cuisine for themselves at home. She was 49 by then but she had never changed her mind back from her original decision.
She was Julia Child who went on to form a whole empire around food. When she passed away in 2004 she was worth $38million.
All from a nice meal and changed mind about her ability to create her own versions that others would love.
That’s the one change in life that can work wonders.
Heading in a new direction.
Review those true success stories above.
Two people who took a personal interest and changed their mind about what they could do about it.
You will find the same with a whole range of comedians, singers, artists, writers, inventors, and all type of business owners. The idea, the love, the skill, was always there. It was only when their mentality did a 180 did it set them off on a whole new pathway in life.
I did the same when I was in my twenties and quit my job to follow my love of being a tennis coach. When I retired in 2016 I had been a world qualified coach who got to play at Wimbledon, compete against Greg Rusedski, and been on court with Prince William in my career.
Not bad for a local working class guy who gave up a good, secure employment to go after what his mind believed he could.
And so over to you. What is, or has been for some time, spinning around your mind that you never used to think you were good enough at to make work? Or that it could never be turned into a regular income?
Revisit it. Change your mind about it. Think again.
See it as if your are already there doing it. And go do it. Like Andy and his sci-fi and Julia and her french style cooking.
You truly can change your life if you change your mind about one little thing that’s already in you. A thing you CAN do or CAN be something.
And can start as soon as you alter your mind about it.
Change your mind and change the whole destiny of your life for all your life.
