12 – Mindset Matters

Mindset matters

We can train our minds just like we train our bodies.

Remember the last time you watched your favorite team win a game?

Or got freaked out by a horror movie?

Or imagining something bad happening to someone you love?

What was that like? Remember that.

Notice how your body reacts.

Your heart beats faster. You start sweating. Feeling excited or anxious. It’s as if you were scoring that winning goal, or running away from the guy with the axe.

Nothing is actually happening to you. You’re just watching or imagining stuff. But what you’re feeling is real.

This is because you use the same parts of your brain to imagine things as you do to actually experience them.

To our brains:

  • what we think is “reality”

  • what we observe in ourselves and others is “reality”

  • what we imagine is “reality”

What we think, observe, and imagine becomes “true”.

Whether you’re watching, imagining, thinking about something, or actually doing it: to your brain, it’s all the same stuff.

Your mind is powerful

This is why we focus on your mental game as well as your physical body.
What are you imagining?
What thoughts are you focusing on?
If you focus on your destination and mentally rehearse how you're going to get there, you're more likely to succeed.

If you focus on being a problem-solver, someone who meets challenges with resilience and creativity, that’s what you will be.

Conversely, if you focus on “failures” or setbacks (whatever you imagine those to be), your body and behavior will respond. You’ll feel demoralized and paralyzed — you’ll feel stuck and hopeless.
Remember, we don't take care of things we don't like or love.
    
  
YOU control your mindset and attitude
YOU create your beliefs. Your thoughts. Your perceptions of the world.
And you can change those things. Starting right now, if you want.

Today, ask yourself:
1. What thoughts and mental images am I creating?
2. Do these thoughts and mental images help me?
3. Are these thoughts and images of success and resilience?
4. When I observe these thoughts or images, how does my body respond?