We all have a mind. And we all use a mind.
But, the majority of us are using our mind wrongly in ways we don’t realise. That’s because we do it every single day as an unconscious habit so that we barely notice it. Thinking that has developed into an unhealthy pattern.
Some limit us very little. Personal trains of thought that can be annoying or quirky but do no overall harm. There are others though that change everything. They kill our hopes, depress our moods, and redefine our life to the negative. Of these, there are 3 keys ways we use our mind wrongly that keep us stuck on the floor rather than climbing much higher.
So, read on and see if you too use the trouble making three in your mind.
Like most people, chances are you do.
1. They believe their thoughts.
It is a modern myth that thoughts can’t be stopped.
The belief (a thought in itself) is that the thoughts are created by the mind which is formulating them all on its own. It’s like a ghost in the machine and out of control. The result are thoughts we don’t like or agree with but have to accept. We are victim to them rather than the owner of them.
That idea couldn’t be more wrong.
Thoughts are generated from our own patterns of thinking. Over time this develops strong neural pathways across areas of the brain like a trail worn away through the woods due to regular use. Without realising every time we have a negative or dismissive or despondent thought, the neural pathway is triggered to fly these to our conscious awareness. The response to this trigger are thoughts that seem to come from nowhere we believe we don’t want. Except we effectively delivered them in the first place.
The good news therefore means as we started the whole ball rolling, we don’t have to believe them at all. We might have changed our viewpoint since we constructed our previous neural messages or circumstances may have changed from when they were initially formed. Or perhaps we have just matured up. We can always change what we want back again. Simply keep telling yourself when a thought pops in that you don’t like, ‘I don’t believe that, I believe this’, and add the new thought then and there in its place. Replace, renew, reinstall.
You will be on your way to building new neural pathways with every new thought you have like adding a brick to a sturdy wall.
2. They use them to fear rather than to imagine.
The future hasn’t happened yet, so what will happen?
A question first encountered by our neanderthal ancestors as they fumbled their way through early Earth. For them though there was a very real prehistoric threat that they would end up as some creatures dinner. It’s pretty obvious we don’t live in such times anymore. Well, not physically, but mentally many people still do.
Modern mindsets remain in threat mode on a virtual permanent basis. They have become overstimulated due to 24 hour news, the negative media, fake social media posts, constant world issues that now effect local lives, and a general worry about where life is going. Fear has become their not very good friend. The one their mind spends far too much time in the company of.
Remember, the mind can be directed.
It obeys what we use it to look for. And it’s looking for not the very best. With constant everyday use at seeking the wrong, the worrying, the dangerous, and the problematic, it has become skilful at finding them. Or to be more exact, finding them when they are not even there. Thus we live in a mindset of vague concern and background trepidation forever anticipating some downfall is coming. We hear T-Rex’s hunting for us.
The mind needs to be reversed. If we can see all manner of potential harm it can also be switched to finding all manner of possible good fortune. It’s only a matter of guiding the mind to see where the sun could shine and not where the dark clouds could gather. They are one and the same just the other way round.
Let the mind wander to imagine the best and beneficial, the fantastic and the fantasy.
It’s good for our health, good for our mind, and very good for our future.
3. They use it for the trivial.
We typically have 30,000 thoughts a day.
That’s a lot. It seems a lot more when you consider that at least 75% of those thoughts are often of the same variety. And that variety, when not relating to concerns as mentioned above, are usually centred around the unimportant and trivial.
We waste our head space with thinking that just doesn’t matter to our lives.
You know the sort. Hey, you may have the sort. Frustrated with traffic. Down about the weather. Work colleagues being annoying. Our sports teams performances. Politicians we don’t like. A favourite TV show has changed times on the schedule. Busy at the supermarket on the days we are free.
In the big scheme of things (having a better life), they are basic and negligible for ruining our future. They mind wind us up, but they ae hardly earth shattering. Everyday pains rather than major hurdles to happier life.
We focus our minds so much on the trivial it hasn’t got time or a chance to start contemplating something different. Something like following up our ideas for a business, working on investing to retire early, writing the book or the music we always wanted to, and other various good life building actions.
The mind can’t work well when it’s held prisoner by minor nothings. It works best and most potently when it’s free to fly to greater possibilities.
Dump the dump thinking, harness the higher mindset.
Three to be free.
There’s your three to be free.
Three antidotes to bad mental activity. Three keys to developing a mind that’s going to help you, not hold you back. Get your head back in the good game by using your mind for what it’s meant for. Potential, advancement, and progress. There’s another three, the three you will end up with if you get started today and using the mind right.
Why wait, your future will only be waiting if you do.
Photo attribute – free to use under the Pixabay content license by martymaine.
Would you like to change your life?
Change it like you have never done before?
Well, you can. It only takes a change of mind first. That change is in your subconscious mind.
Being honest, I’d say you have probably heard of your subconscious but have no idea how it operates in your head or even if it operates at all. Well, let me tell you, it’s very real and alive and working in your background all the time.
And mostly it’s working to undermine you by spreading bad news in your head.
So, let’s bring it out in the open and turn it into a confidence booster rather than a party pooper.
The Bad Voice.
I want you to think of your subconscious as a voice in your head.
It’s that one that whispers the kind of crappy advice such as, ‘Be careful, it will all go wrong’, or ‘Don’t bother, you could never do that’, and general doom and gloom messages. In other words, it’s very subtle like a thief in the night, but it’s also very skilful at doing what it does. That’s because all those dreams and plans you never followed through with, or the ideas you still have that you talk yourself out of, have therefore been the subconscious influencing you. Persuading you NOT to go ahead or give it a go.
Alternatively, it also grabs you in a pincer movement. It pumps you full of fears and negatives in general about the world, predicting that almost everything could be a threat and that either you or your life might meet some downfall. Recognise either? Or both?
Firstly, you may now be thinking how does it do it? And secondly, that’s because you are not truly aware of how it’s stopping you.
Ok, consider something you want to achieve. Be a successful lawyer. Win the heart of that girl/guy in accounts. Run a half marathon. Become a retro 1960’s dress designer. Open a specialist ice cream parlour. The type of future where you will better yourself for yourself.
The first thoughts you have of your aspiration will be based on what it would be like; how good it would feel, yourself being fulfilled, popular or well off, and the like. The normal conscious thoughts.
Then naughty subconscious interjects like a nervous parent. It reminds you of anything and everything that could be a pitfall. Except it turns them into a likelihood. And guess what goes through your mind? The guy or girl rejects you in front of everyone or you won’t run more than a mile and people will point and laugh at you. Your ice cream sucks and you lose a fortune.
It happens in the blink of an eye!
Millisecond madness.
The trouble is all this above occurs a millisecond after your initial idea/imagination of what you want. It jumps into your mind and hijacks your feelings and beliefs. As a result, after that happens a number of times you give up, convinced it’s all a waste of time and you the biggest waste of all. However my friend, it’s YOUR subconscious mind so you have one task up your sleeve to prevent it ruining things….
You have to retrain it!
You see your subconscious is part of you that’s been left to run amok unchecked. A bit like teenagers having a house party without supervision. It’s got out of control because it only remembers all the times when situations turned against you. It’s a guard dog that reads everyone as a danger. It requires retraining.
As it’s yours, you are the one who is boss. The leader of your mental pack that tells it to heel, sit down, and obey. Naturally, only in a nice way though.
Act with belief and begin communicating with your subconscious. Upon finishing this post pay attention to your subconscious. Wake it up. Imagine something better for yourself. WAY better. Scale it up in your mind. Make it the top outcome, a brilliant ending. As you begin your subconscious will stir like a sleeping lion and bite back.
It will bear it’s killer teeth by pushing every bad scenario at you. But, you are now prepared. Here is your moment of truth.
You are going to fight back.
Fight the good fight.
Some fights are worth winning. This one 100% is!
The moment you spot those poor predictions and bad feelings rising you are going to replace them.
Firstly, when the initial negative thought hits, you are going to firmly state, ‘NO, that is not true. This is..’
And at that point reiterate in your mind that you will succeed. Add self-confident thoughts and sayings. Examples could be, ‘This is me as I am meant to be’, or, ‘This is what I want, and I fully deserve all of it’. Make the effort to feel good emotions about your aims and desires so that they will link to the thoughts and vision. Connect them all up. One new set of subconscious instructions. The new mindset norm.
Secondly…KEEP AT IT!!
This is not a one day or once a day or week exercise. Persist. Repeat. Day after multi-day. IT IS GOING TO WORK!!
Soon (a few weeks maybe, slightly longer for the majority) your subconscious will start acting in a confident manner. It will start to encourage and drive you. Optimism and excitement surges and increasingly bursts through. You feel good about the future. The lion is turning into a pussy cat.
And if you never let up doing this, you will be a super subconscious capable of anything. God, imagine where you could be in a year from now?? So, do it!!
Set your mind to it, your subconscious mind.
Create that mega confidence in there and ride the new mental wave to somewhere very new.
Photo attribution – free to use under the Pixabay Content License by messaoudmessaoud043.
Have you ever seen the movie, ‘Sliding Doors’?
It’s a film about a sudden twist of fate.
PR girl Helen is leaving work after getting fired. She drops an earring and in a split second she misses her London Tube train. But, in a parallel universe she makes the train. That subtle difference alters the whole trajectory and future of her life.
When she didn’t make the train she didn’t find her partner cheating on her when she got home. Having lost her job she had to take two part time jobs, found out she was pregnant and eventually realised her boyfriend’s infidelity and meets a sad and tragic end.
In the twist option – she gets on the train and meets a kind guy who finds her earring and they get chatting. After discovering her other half with his secret lover she splits from him but gets closer to the man she met on the Underground. Despite being in a serious accident, love conquers all and there is a happy ending.
I’m sure you are now asking what that has got to do with your mind.
Everything!
Subtle change = Big change.
Slight changes lead to a whole new direction.
Let’s say there are two airplanes flying from San Francisco to Los Angeles. If one of them changed their course by only one degree, it would miss the intended airport by 6 miles. If the flight was between Washington DC and Europe, it would end up in a completely different country than the first plane.
This is the compound effect of a slight change multiplied mile after mile. The magnitude of deviation, as it’s called, becomes greater and greater after each mile.
Now think thoughts and days instead of miles.
One current person down on his or her luck with a friend who is in the same boat. Apply the One Degree principle. Person one aims for happy times but carries on thinking and doing the same as always. Their friend doesn’t. They begin amending their thinking, gradually taking on their limiting beliefs, and generally improving their mindset.
In one year good old No.1 hasn’t gone anywhere. Their fixed lower thoughts have kept them in a fixed lower life circumstances. Not so their pal. They have begun to move in different circles. Their upgraded mindset got them more determined, more active, trying out new things, reaching and connecting more. Their life, day after day, has grown out of all proportion. They now live in a vastly, and more progressive world.
A subtle change repeated becomes a big change experienced.
Opening the doors to your future.
You won’t need sliding doors to open the doors to your future.
You only have to open your mind. That’s where your fate lies. In your own head.
It’s akin to taking one step onto a completely different, but brighter road, with every better thought and belief you have. In the end, just like in Sliding Doors, you will find yourself in a new reality with a totally unexpected, but massively positive, outcome.
Billy Joel trained as a classical pianist and had an ambition to create classical music as a composer. One day though he sat down to watch the Ed Sullivan show. His guests that week were The Beatles. Hearing and watching them he was both moved and transfixed in one. Right then and there he vowed to write more popular music and created a new style. His mind effectively put him on another plane (deliberate pun) so he would land in another music world from the one he had been existing in.
That’s for you too. You can jump worlds from one to another and fly into a very different future by changing your mindset.
‘What I want’, becomes, ‘What I am doing’.
‘Where I have been’, becomes, ‘Where I am going’.
Or profoundly, ‘Who I thought I might be’, becomes, ‘Who I know I am and always will be’.
And even, ‘What I feared’, now becomes, ‘What I am determined to do’.
So slide on into new thoughts, bigger beliefs, and an upgraded vision of what matters to you and what fires you up inside, and open doors everywhere for yourself to go. You have that imaginative power to form a brand new life soon down the line.
SuperMinds use The Sliding Doors mindset to open up destinations they weren’t going before.
Photo attribution – free for use under the Pixabay Content License by Schaferle.
Have you ever heard of mind assocation?
Probably not, but you should definitely get to know it because it’s been running your life for years!
Even though you have little idea what the phrase means, that doesn’t prevent it from being a constant in your life. In fact, in virtually all the thoughts and beliefs you have every single day, mind association is at work. At work and running the show.
What is mind association?
Well, to answer that before we move on, let me ask you a question.
What does money mean to you?
And there it is! In your response.
The Mind Associates, You Respond.
What was your answer to the question?
I could have added others such as what money is for and the biggee, on who it is for. But, that one question is usually enough. The second you heard the question, your mind association kicked in. The mind linked what you have been taught to believe about money or been influenced by your environment. And even the relationship you had with it when growing up all led to your mind associating a specific opinion, or certain beliefs and feelings, about it.
That could be (in the voice in your mind)…
‘Money makes people greedy, they become selfish and arrogant’.
‘I’m sure money isn’t for the likes of me, I will never have any in my life’.
‘Money is definitely all freedom and fun. It makes life more of a pleasure’.
And so on. The mind has associated x (money) with y (what it means) and put the two together to create a viewpoint in your head. Often a very fixed viewpoint you never waiver from. Try telling someone who has experienced damaging affects in family or relationships caused by money (fall outs, tightfistedness, debt from overspending) that money is a positive tool in life. Or another from a wealthy family that it’s a scarce resource.
These effects are hard to dislodge. Even harder is that until I showed you how it’s operating like this, you were completely unware of its presence in your life. You just believed what you believe. Or thought you did.
But that belief was mind association.
Unexplored Thinking.
We never question what we believe and why.
We simply take it as read and react accordingly. No enquiry, no self questioning.
If I told you that if you did you could free yourself from some of your long held problems, you might think again.
There are some very famous MA examples you’ve most likely heard of.
‘All men are a waste of time and can’t be trusted’.
‘Immigrants are usually criminals or here for an easy ride at our expense’.
‘I’m from a working class background, people like me are meant to just be the workers, not success stories’.
In most cases we are beaten before we are started. The end goal/positive outcome is never allowed to see the light of day due to mind association. When an important life area comes to mind (love, success. money, good place to live) the mind immediately fires a negative association as above and shuts the whole shebang right down, right there.
We accept that belief without ever thinking, ‘Hang on a minute, is that really true?’. Our thinking is never explored to seek out the source of those thoughts. One bad guy killed your chance for love but not all men are the same. After all some of your best friends have awesome husbands. The news only features bad immigrants but there are plenty around you who are great law abiding, tax paying citizens.
You get my drift.
Mind association is often a culprit not a good companion.
Time to Think Again.
It could be you need a rethink. Are you game?
If you are committed grab a piece of paper and a pen. We’re going to play the association game.
Write down some of the key areas of your life you are experiencing issues, especially long standing ones. Then simply scribble one or two words you associate with that situation. For example, a girl I was very close to had married young and was very scared at getting seriously involved again after a bitter divorce. Her nickname for me, someone she knew loved her? Pain!
For years in relation to money I would use the word ‘struggle’ (it became so). And on my own list next to ‘Home’ I wrote, ‘basic’ (I only owned a small apartment for 20 years).
Your turn. Be honest, don’t filter out answers. Take the first one/couple that you sense first. Be brave. Braver still ask a good friend or family member to write down some situations from your life (career, family etc) without your prior knowledge. It will be interesting what you associate with them in your answers with no prompts in advance.
It’s eye watering stuff I can tell you. It reveals so much of what is going on behind the scenes in you that’s blocking your happy path ahead. What the mind associates with, is what you experience. Or stop yourself from.
And you badly need to find out so you can get your best prospects back.
Because mind association is running, and quite possibly, ruining your life.
Photo attribution – free for use under the Pixabay Content License by nicolagiordano.
SuperMind Thinking creates super people.
And women have been as super as anyone especially as it’s predominately been a man’s world in the past. Super successful, super inspiring, and supermind thinkers creating super true life stories.
Special women have always been making a difference and forging their own path with their insight and talents. They have carved fresh paths for all of us.
History credits men as having been the main instigators of everything from the car to the internet. That, though, is not only highly unfair to women, it’s incredibly selective. The truth is, women have been equally adept at using their SuperMind Thinking and producing some of the finest and supreme end results.
So, let’s delve into the SuperMinds of Super Women.
SuperWoman is Not a Fantasy.
For too long if you mention a Superwoman, most people would think of the Marvel hero. Or, in other words, a fantasy cartoon character.
Then the mind would then drift to Wonder Woman, an Amazonian princess, and so on. And so average thinking is already going down the wrong road. Superwomen are NOT some fun species or mystical film figure. They are, and have always been, ordinary women who have utilised the full capacity of their minds to forge monumentous results. And these are often amazing creations and developments that men have ended up taking the credit for, or not telling the true story of a woman’s genius that really made it all happen.
Have you heard of Ada Lovelace? Probably not. The device, however, you may be reading this post on or work with every day, was actually down to her work. That is, the computer. Yes!!
Charles Babbage has long been credited as the innovator of the first one. It’s true that Babbage had been experimenting with very basic computing machine contraptions before he met Ada with little success. She was the power behind the Analytical Engine (it’s prototype name) by creating the first programming language so it could actually compute. That first language was even called Ada after her.
Together they pioneered the technological breakthrough the world takes for granted today. In my opinion it’s an injustice that Babbage always get associated as the lone inventor when it was Ada Lovelace who made a dead thing come to life like no machine had ever done before. Even more super was that all of this was in the 1840’s, over 130 years before the computer industry as we know it today, came to wider availability.
As the British Science Museum stated, she..’was a Century ahead of her time’.
That’s a SuperMind of a Superwoman.
Historic Heroines.
Name a well known woman from history.
There are many household names of women in history who made their mark in some dramatic way – Rosa Parks, Marie Curie, Florence Nightingale, Oprah Winfrey, Emmeline Pankhurst just to mention but a few. But, hidden from view have been many unheralded heroines. SuperMind women whose contribution or role advanced humanity. Take these, for example –
Rosalind Franklin – the integral piece of evidence that proved the secret of life that is the double helix structure of DNA, was supplied by Rosalind through her photograph 51.
Elizabeth Fry – the ‘Angel of Prisons’, who campaigned in Victorian times for prisons to have better conditions as well as improving the hospital system in England.
Wangari Maathai – a Kenyan environmentalist who founded the Green Belt Movement and was the first African woman to win the Nobel Peace Prize.
Katherine Johnson – a key critical member of the NASA team on the first moon landing in1969. Her calculations helped correct the trajectory for the flight to the Moon and an accurate site to set down on.
In so many fields of life, women and their amazing minds have been there all along since the dawn of time.
Creating, innovating, breaking through, evolving, and pushing for change. Where would we be without them?
More Women to Come .
Times have changed. Women are a true power nowadays and growing in influence.
The stories above prove how humanity has benefited by the wonderful mindsets, talents, spirit and determination of women. This has just not been recognised enough. Or even promoted in the mainstream.
Well, not here on these pages!!
It’s time for women everywhere to step forwards and be given every chance and respect for their ideas, outlook, and creativity. They have a veritable Universe of potential and possibility within their minds. All of us need to encourage women to unlock this. Let’s provide them with opportunity and platforms to progress their SuperMind Thinking into reality for the good of all of us.
There has to be more women to come who will take us to brilliant places we have never been before. We have to open up their fabulous minds and let everything in there to flow so they can. Minds that are badly needed. THEY are badly needed. This is my call to the world.
Super women and their SuperThinking can change the future for all of us.
References – www.brittanica.com – Ada Lovelace, www.historyextra.com – 100 women who changed the world.
Wikipedia – Elizabeth Fry, Nasa.gov – Katherine Johnson Biography, NoblePrize.org – Wangari Maathai.
Photo attribution – free to use under the Pixabay Content License by This_is_Engineering.
Some people take time to find super success.
Ideas don’t stop and some of the best arrive after years of experience of living. The later mind knows this.
Regular belief has it that younger people are the ones who have the energy and drive to gain success. Older folks have done more of their living and are slowing down. They have less to want or chase, and live in a past world rather than looking to evolve a newer one. Younger men and women see how things can be plus they are in touch with current trends and interests.
Now, that could be true for some more mature minds, but certainly not all. They are still very much in the game. Older heads, for one, are shrewder. They are more patient, more measured. And they have plenty of previous failures and learning in droves to call on. In short, they carry wisdom and understanding.
Match that with a great idea, and pure gold is what a late starting mind can hold.
Finger Licking Fame.
You are 60 years old and your business has been thrown a curve ball.
Your living has been taken from under your feet, what are you going to do? Well, at that age, most would say to shut up shop and enjoy retirement. Not for one old timer.
Harland had been serving travellers his own brand of food since he was 37. At first it didn’t go down well. Despite losing all his money when his venture folded, he refused to give up and worked on perfecting his own unique recipe. Strife then came again when his next restaurant burnt down. Undaunted he rebuilt it but decided to focus instead on faster cooking time to be able to sell quicker by frying his food.
As he reached his mid-60’s he was doing reasonably well financially. Then came the final big hit. A new highway was built bypassing his service station cafe and all but destroying trade. He was down, but not out. He never lost faith in his own recipe and food. When visiting a friend’s burger joint in Salt Lake City, he cooked his special spiced dish for him. His friend loved it and put it on the menu. It went down a storm.
Buoyed by this Sanders got on the road and starting selling his spicy blend and how to add it into the food. He cut deals where he got a small payment for each one sold. Within 5 years he was represented in over 600 locations including Canada, Mexico, and even Jamaica and the UK.
Harland was Colonel Sanders. That spiced food recipe is the heart of KFC!
Finger licking fame came when an old head wouldn’t quit!!
Older is Golder.
Think of a top entrepreneur and the likes of a young Mark Zuckerberg (19 when FB started) or Bill Gates (23 years old when Microsoft launched) tend to be our first thought.
But, research at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology found that a 50 year old business founder was twice as likely to exit their enterprise a successful person (wealthy, left a legacy etc). This data came from an analysis of 2.7 MILLION founders between 2007 and 2014!
This is true across many fields.
Love superhero comics? Stan Lee created The Fantastic Four on his 39th birthday (hardly a cartoon age) and developed the now stellar Marvel Universe world in his 40’s. Legendary Hollywood actor Samuel L. Jackson was a small time bit part player before landing the award winning role in Jungle Fever at the age of 43. He went on to play his most memorable roles as he neared 50 and beyond.
Most famous of all, Ray Kroc was 52 when he bought the basic McDonalds name and turned in into the global food chain it is today from his own vision way back in 1954. And the first iconic everyday brand of the motoring era was started by a 45 year old….Henry Ford, when cars were viewed as pointless contraptions that would never catch any mass appeal. He sold it to the world.
History holds true for this too. Charles Darwin was 50 when he published The Origin of the Species. An activist in his 40’s Nelson Mandela was elected president of South Africa at the age of 76. And James Bond never came alive as a character until Ian Fleming created him when he began writing when he was 44.
You see, slower starters can become fast and big finishers!
The Best is Yet to Come.
The best could yet be to come. If you keep your mind alive.
As the years pass ideas don’t die. It’s us that dismiss them and no longer look to have them. Especially long held ones that haven’t come to fruition. But our long standing desires and goals were Colonel Sanders chicken recipe or Nelson Mandela’s wish to lead his nation. One kept losing again and again, the other languished in jail.
Neither gave up. Instead their slow burning minds continued to fan the flames. Mental flames that one day fired up in real life. They were one of many who saw age as no barrier to achieving their vision. They kept the dream burning bright in their heads. Ensure you do the same.
Long and slow is often the lesser known secret to lasting super success.
References – Fleximize.com – The Story of Colonel Sanders.
KFC.co.uk – The Colonel’s Story Timeline.
Developgoodhabits.com – 35 People Who Became Successful Later in Life.
Businessinsider.com – 30 people who became highly successful after age 40.
Photo attribution – Free to use under Pixbay Content License
