What are you thinking about right now?

Well, if you are really paying attention to what you are reading right now in this blog post, you are thinking about what I am writing. However, once you stop reading what slips into your mind?

At times we think we can think and focus on several things at the same time, but that is not true. Our mind has a limited amount operating space. The more things we try to focus on, the more cluttered our mind becomes and the slower it works.

Think about your computer or smart phone. If you have too many programs running at the same time, your computer or smart phone becomes slower. To improve its performance we need close down programs and even delete apps we do not use.

Our mind works in a similar way. If you are working and also thinking about your responsibilities at home, or the sports game last night, your efficiency will go down.

In football, when a quarterback is thinking about what his coach will think of his performance, or if the crowd will cheer for him, do you think he will do well? No, he won’t. When he is about to receive the snap, all he is thinking about is the formation the defense is in and what coverage or blitz they may perform. By occupying his mind with relevant information he is free to make good decisions.

When we know what is relevant to our performance and what is not we can free our mind to make the right decisions and perform tasks correctly.

 

Positive vs Negative

Occupying our mind with the right information doesn’t only include finding relevant cues and focusing on them when we are performing. We need to learn to occupy our mind with the right things at all times.

As we grow up we are taught not to do things. We are constantly told “don’t do that,” or “No, that’s not right.” Our minds are taught to try and learn from our mistakes. This is the wrong was to approach life. Yes, we need to know what we can improve, but we need to occupy our mind with positives. Positives include: strengths, what works, the good things that happened, and uplifting feelings.

Research has shown that we improve and grow much quicker when we focus on what we do well, rather than focusing on our weaknesses. The highest performers in the world don’t only work to improve their weaknesses— they rather put an emphasis on leveraging their strengths.

We need to consciously train our mind to focus on at least 3 positives to 1 negative. As we improve, our mind will build the muscle memory of focusing on the positive and soon we will be subconsciously occupying our mind with positivity.

 

Application

Take the time out of your day to deliberately write down 3 of your strengths (at least). They can also be 3 things you did well that day, but it is important to start building the habit in your mind to focus on the positive of the day. This can be difficult at first. That is okay! Remember that our mind has been trained to focus on what we are not doing well, the whole idea of this exercise is to retrain your brain. The most important thing is that you start today.

The Fearless Mind Mental Strength Journal has this exercise built into it. As a member of The Fearless Mind Resource Center you can access the journal from your computer at thefearlessmind.com or your smartphone with the awesome Fearless Mind app in the apple and android app stores.

 

The Fearless Mind resource center is a critical mental tool for any individual wanting to improve their performance in athletics, business, or personal achievement. Each subscriber gets over 32 individual mental training videos, access to the Mental Strength Journal, the statistics page, and The Zone, a special area with exclusive video content uploaded weekly all for only $20 a month. Click here to sign up

The Fearless Mind also offers personal mental strength coaching. To inquire about getting a Fearless Mind coach to work with you personally click here: http://thefearlessmind.com/personal-coaching/