Make Your Mind Your Ally

Our Mind is fascinating. When our mind is conscious, we are aware of whatever is happening. Yet, at the same time, we are also not aware of many things that we do. Just remember the occasions where you drove from your house to your office, without even being aware of the experience.

Our Mind is like an ocean where there are perennial waves of thoughts. Some thoughts hit the shores of our consciousness and then retrace back into the depths of our subconscious. 

Like the Ocean, our Mind has its rhythm, patterns, and tendencies. 

We Publish A Book A Day 

Many scientific studies reveal that, on average, we have close to 60000 thoughts every day. A typical novel has about 60000 words. So, it’s like our Mind is publishing a book every day. 

One particular research published by the  National Science Foundation also indicated that 80% of all our thoughts are negative. And more importantly, 95% of our thoughts are repetitive, i.e., 95% of the thoughts that happened yesterday will happen today and tomorrow. The playlist of the thoughts playing in our Mind is fixed. Unless we infuse a source for new thoughts through new experiences and conscious learning.

In 2005 Robert L. Leahy, a Professor of Cognitive Psychology at Cornell, published a book, “The Worry Cure: Seven Steps to Stop Worry from Stopping You.”

In this book, there is some interesting information about the nature of our worry. Scientific studies conducted by the author and his team indicate that close to 85% of what we worry about is imaginary and never happens. And more importantly, when researchers dug deeper into the impact of the 15% of worries that translated into some reality- 79% of the respondents indicated that they could handle the difficulty better than expected, or that the problem taught them a lesson worth learning.

The book concludes that 97% of our worries are baseless and are a consequence of a negative and pessimistic perception. These unfounded worries are a significant source of stress, tension, and exhaustion for our Mind and physical body.

Manage Your Thoughts to Manage your Mind

Thinking negative and being pessimistic is a natural adult tendency that comes from all the negative limiting beliefs and an environment with an overdose of negativity.

We can move our mental state into a more neutral and positive zone by consciously reducing the negative thoughts. Since 85% of our thoughts are negative, the easiest way to break the clutch of negative thoughts is by minimizing our flow of thoughts through mindfulness exercises, paying attention to the breath, sitting in meditation.

How to shift our minds from negativity to positivity? Feel gratitude, Focus on the task in the moment, foster connections, and appreciate.

If you are not investing time to slow your overactive Mind at least for 30 minutes every day, let this post today convince you to invest some conscious effort towards this vital practice. It is for your well being.

Our Mind is our biggest challenge or our biggest ally, depending upon how we manage it. Managing our Mind is a skill that will help us in our journey of personal and career growth.

You may not be able to tame the ocean of your mind. But you can certainly learn how to navigate your way to your life goals.