Written by: Paul Corke, Executive Contributor
Executive Contributors at Brainz Magazine are handpicked and invited to contribute because of their knowledge and valuable insight within their area of expertise.
“You either control your mind, or it controls you.” – Napoleon Hill
Do you ever think about how powerful your mind is? The Human Brain is 30 times faster than the most powerful supercomputers. Trillions of actions happen every second of every day and it is so powerful to complete those actions that ensure that we survive and thrive in the world we live in even though it is challenged by millions of pieces of information every second.
The subconscious mind is a powerhouse and because of that, we tend to attract into our life what we think about the most.
The mind is like a computer. It can be programmed by the thoughts we put into that computer, and our experiences throughout our life create default settings because 96% of the time, we run on autopilot.
The great thing is some of those default settings are positive and enable us to thrive, but some can be negative and have a negative impact on our lives, especially as we run those negative patterns and programs on autopilot.
When we think about the power of our mind, have you ever lost control of your thoughts?
So, you watch a scary movie and before going to bed you can hear all kinds of sounds you would not normally hear, maybe even think you have seen things, and then struggle to sleep. Perhaps you go to every meeting at work with ease, but as soon as the meeting is with the CEO, you worry, can’t sleep thinking about the meeting and you’re really nervous before you meet. If we let our mind control us, it will if we let it free but not only that it will impact our health.
When we are feeling good, enjoying life, laughing, or excited the brain, we release endorphins, serotonin, oxytocin, and dopamine, the feel-good chemicals in our brain, whereas when we are stressed and worried, it will release adrenaline and cortisol. The impact these chemicals have on our body can be positive or negative and over time through worry, we can create psychosomatic illnesses with our minds if we let it.
The quality of thoughts will dictate the quality of your life and tapping into the power of your mind is critical to your success.
An experiment was conducted where a skier’s muscles were wired up and brain activity measured, and it was found that when the skier was actually skiing compared to when they visualised themselves skiing there was no difference in brain activity, and it fired off the same patterns in the brain. In simple terms the brain cannot tell the difference between visualisation and real life, as mentioned in my previous article, You Are Not Your Mind.
Now, why is that so powerful it means that we can program our mind through the way we think and how we visualise and can create new default settings and patterns in the brain.
Continue to think negative thoughts and run negative default programs and get those negative outcomes in your life or alternatively, replace the negative default settings with new empowering programs and beliefs to get positive outcomes in your life.
So here are some simple actions you can take:
Identify negative thinking patterns or beliefs that are holding you back and write down why.
Think about what the opposite positive beliefs and thinking need to be and how they will benefit you.
Think about the daily actions you need to take, i.e., thinking positive first thing in the morning, repeating affirmations, and taking positive action.
Think about how you can create new routines to embed your new positive thinking, i.e., use notes, visuals, music, and listen to or read positive material.
Surround yourself with positive people who you can talk to about your new behaviours and beliefs and who share those too.
Meditate to focus on the ‘New’ You and visualise in your mind the best version of yourself.
Focus on the good in situations and not the bad.
See the best in people and not the worst.
Talk about ideas and not people.
Keep your focus going through routines of healthy exercise and diet.
Use your imagination to visualise and create the life you want.
And keep smiling.
“Whatever you hold in your mind will tend to occur in your life. If you continue to believe as you always have believed, you will continue to act as you have always acted. If you continue to act as you have always acted, you will continue to get what you have always gotten. If you want different results in your life or your work, all you have to do is change your mind.” ‒ Anonymous
Paul Corke, Executive Contributor Brainz Magazine
Paul Corke is an author, a keynote speaker, and considered to be a leading expert on mindset, innovation, and leadership. He is currently recognized as the No. 1 Health and Wellness Thought Leader & Influencer with @Thinkers360 and is also the Managing Director of Leadership Innovators an innovative leadership consultancy. He previously spent 25 years in the corporate world with award-winning results specializing in organizational effectiveness, employee engagement, talent management, and leadership development with experience in the UK, Ireland, Europe, the US, and the Middle East.
Paul is the author of Reframe Your Mindset: Redefine Your Success, has a podcast series to support the book and has created The Mindset Journal all based on what he calls ‘The Mindset Equation for Success.’ Paul uses his research into the mindset and positive psychology along with the thinking from his books to provide thought leadership, leadership model design, leadership assessment, and solutions to help organizations build their leadership capability.
Paul has successfully built a leadership development strategy and provided solutions in the industries of Financial Services, Retail, Automobile, Charity, Information Technology, Education, and Local Government. His mission is to develop leaders the world now wants to see whilst also making a difference through B1G1working towards the UN Global Goals to help those in need across the world.
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