Stop Wasting Your Life & Do Something (6 page)

Chapter 15

Healthy Thinking

Here’s a concept you may not be aware of….

You are not your mind.

Ever had a thought you didn’t want? If you’re like most people, this probably happens all the time. So if you don’t want it, and didn’t request this thought, why are you having them?

Because you’re not your mind! Thoughts pop in and out of your head all of the time, whether you want them to or not. Don’t believe me? Then try and stop thinking for one whole minute.

The thing about your thoughts is that you can look at them, realise what they are, and then either be affected by them, or ignore them. If you WERE your thoughts, then you wouldn’t be able to do this would you!

So now that you know this, how does this help you to enjoy healthy thinking?

This is one of those things that fall into the ‘Simple, but not necessarily easy’ category. By that I mean that the process is simple, but to actually follow it strictly and consistently takes practice and discipline.

As James Allen says in ‘As A Man Thinketh’, your mind is like a garden. If you allow it to do as it wishes, and run wild, it will become a mess of tangled weeds. If you tend it, and look after it, it will become a beautiful garden.

Here’s an example:

You’re at home doing the washing up and a thought comes into your head. You’re thinking about your day at work, and a difficult conversation you had with your boss. You’re thinking about how you’d like to tell your boss where to go, and stick his job up his ‘You know what’.

You feel yourself getting tense and wound up as you think about it.

Now if you were to stop time and realise what is actually going on here, you are letting your mind control you. Just as the weeds will take your garden, your mind has taken you over. Negativity is spreading through your body and making you feel bad.

The reality of the situation is that you’re washing up, and probably in a nice, warm homely environment, but your mind is twisting your body up and making you feel awful.

This happens to us so naturally, that 99% of the time, you won’t even be aware that it is happening. Because you are so used to being attached to the contents of your mind, and being associated with your thoughts, you won’t normally realise that this is happening. It’s automatic.

The first step is to be AWARE of your thoughts. A great way of doing this is to practice mindful meditation.

Allow yourself ten minutes for this exercise.

Sit down at a table, and put your hands down flat in front of you. Now just relax your body and try to clear your mind. Do this for a minimum of ten minutes. Every single time a thought involuntarily comes into your head, observe it (but don’t become attached to it) and then let it go.

What happened?

If you’re like most people, you probably started thinking after about 2 seconds. You may have started thinking about what you’re doing, and thinking that you shouldn’t be thinking. Then, after a while, other random thoughts popped into your head. Some of them you could just observe, and some of them you became attached to.

You then probably realised that you were becoming attached, and quickly got rid of the thought.

How did it feel? Did you find that for the first time ever, you were aware of your thoughts without BECOMING your thoughts?

This is something you can practice at any time. You don’t need to close your eyes, you don’t need to be sat down, and you don’t need a table. You can just pause your hectic mind, and become aware of what is happening in your mind.

When you practice this more and more frequently, you will find it becomes second nature to be more in control of your mind. This frees your mind up from negative thinking, and allows you to just BE.

You can then decide on your thoughts.

This is healthy thinking. You can choose the thoughts you have. You can choose the thoughts you wish to get attached to. You can decide whether or not to allow yourself to become attached to a thought you deem negative.

The trick here is to practice this every day. Sitting at your desk at work, become aware of your thoughts. Driving down the street, become aware of your thoughts. Standing in a queue at a shop, become aware of your thoughts.

Practice, practice, practice!!

How else can you have healthy thinking?

Well you need to think in a healthy way about yourself. If you struggle with this, I recommend One Hour To Positive Self Esteem, as that book is purely dedicated to this topic, and will help you massively.

Here are a few ideas though.

Your thoughts are made up of images, sounds, feelings, and inner dialogue. If you can control, or at least start to control these, it will have a massive impact on you. The images and movies you hold in your mind and your inner dialogue will control your emotions. Your emotions will control how you feel, and this will control how you act and behave! As it can be the most destructive way of thinking, let’s look at internal dialogue!

Internal Dialogue

This is the voice in your head. Don’t pretend you don’t have one, as we’ve all got one. It’s turned on pretty much all of the time, and is always there. The voice you’re hearing in your mind as you read this page is your internal dialogue.

As described above, you also need to become aware of what you are hearing in your head, as well as the images and scenes you play out in your mind.

Does your internal dialogue ever put you down? Does it say things like; “You’re such an idiot sometimes!”, “It’s not worth going for that promotion, you’ll never get it!”, “Why would a person like that be interested in you?”

If it does, this is not healthy. You can train your internal dialogue to be more positive by being aware of what it’s saying. If you can stop yourself becoming attached to the content of what it’s saying, then this will stop it having a negative effect on you.

As soon as you catch it saying something you don’t like, stop it, tell the voice in your head to be quiet, and then replace the negative comment with something positive. Over time, this will act like pouring clean water into a glass of dirty water. The unclean water (thoughts) will eventually make way for clean water (thoughts), and you will no longer have this problem.

Does your internal dialogue silently berate or criticise others? If it does, the process is exactly the same. Stop the thought as soon as you become aware of it, and replace it with another thought that is positive. You will be amazed at how different you begin to feel about yourself and others when you stop listening to everything your mind comes up with!

Chapter 16

Healthy Associations

By healthy associations, I am talking about people. The people you spend time with to be more accurate.

This includes your friends, your family, your spouse, your children, and your work colleagues.

We all have people we spend time with. The question you have to ask yourself is: Are they a healthy person to be around?

If, whenever you see a certain individual, you end up getting drunk, do you think that’s a healthy association?

If, whenever you see another individual, you have great discussions about philosophy and business, do you think that’s a healthy association?

If, whenever you see another individual, you take drugs and go out to nightclubs, would you describe that as healthy?

If, whenever you see a different individual, you go exercising and training, would you say that one is better?

If you want to know if an association is healthy or not, just ask yourself these questions:

One – What you do when you’re with that person?

Two – How do you feel when you leave that person?

Three – How does that person like to spend their time?

Four – How does that person treat other people?

If the answers to those questions are positive (and you’ve answered them truthfully) then it may be a very positive relationship.

If the answers to those questions are negative (and you’ve answered them truthfully), then it may be a destructive relationship.

If it’s a destructive relationship, you may want to limit your exposure to that person. This doesn’t mean that you have to point out their impact on you and tell them that you can never see them again. This simply means that you spend less time with them. If they invite out to the bar, tell them you have something on and can’t make it.

If the relationship is a positive one, how can you increase your exposure to this person?

Ok, so that’s your current associations. What about associations you’d LIKE to have?

Who would you like to get around that you don’t currently know? Is there a local business club you could join for inspiration and friendship of the positive variety? Is there a book club where you could find some friends of like minds?

Could you create associations with people at work that you admire?

Could you find a group online that holds webinars or teleconferences?

Could you find a mentor?

Anyway, you get the picture. Think about it, and make a list of your top ten closest acquaintances. Write down how much time you spend with them, and how they affect you. If it’s positive, then great. If it’s negative, then you know what to do!!

Chapter 17

Controlling Your Desires & Impulses

So to finish off on Health, let’s look at our desires and impulses.

I don’t mean our natural desires, such as food, water, shelter, love etc.

I’m talking about our desires and impulses for things such as unhealthy food, alcohol, spending too much money on things we don’t need in order to treat ourselves etc…

I always think of our desires and impulses like the cartoon where there’s a devil on one shoulder telling us to go ahead and do something we know we shouldn’t, and an angel on the other shoulder, telling us to be good.

Which one do we listen to? How do we control these?

Well one technique I use is to ask myself who’s in control! I know that this is basically talking to yourself, but because we KNOW we’re talking to ourselves, it’s not a sign of madness!

When I feel the urge to stray from the path, and have a cheesecake, or miss my exercises, or eat some meat instead of a nice healthy vegetarian meal, I ask myself the question ‘Who’s in control here? Me, or my desires?’

And although my desires do win from time to time, normally I win. I can override the desire to have/do what I know I shouldn’t (cheesecake is the hardest battle).

This happened just this evening. It was nice and warm in my house, and it was freezing cold outside. I have set myself some exercise goals this year, and one of them is to run a certain number of miles. I needed to run tonight, but because it was so cold, my mind (the devil side), was telling me not to go out. ‘It’s too cold, you can go tomorrow’. As soon as I became aware that my mind was trying to trick me out of my run, I got my trainers on, and went for it.

Again, you have to remember to use this trick which is the difficult part, but the more you practice being aware of your thoughts, the easier it will get to become more and more in control of your (negative) desires.

Another method of controlling your desires and impulses, is to become present. When you feel yourself really wanting to do something that you know you either shouldn’t, or is self destructive, you can try this.

Just stop where you are, stop what you’re doing, and concentrate on your breathing. Just become aware of your ‘in’ breath, and then aware of your ‘out’ breath. Don’t think about your breathing, just become aware of it. This will immediately interrupt the desire, and allow you the time to start thinking from a place of no desire.

When you do this, you will stop the noise and internal chatter in your head, and immediately gain control of yourself once more. This should give you a few seconds to then make a choice from a place of calmness, instead of a place of excited impulsiveness.

Section 3

Wealth

Chapter 18

Money

What is money?

Money is a means of exchange. It is a reward for service rendered. It is also very important.

Have you ever had a time when you’ve had no money? It wasn’t much fun was it? I know I’ve certainly experienced these times and I didn’t enjoy it very much. I couldn’t go out, I couldn’t buy any food. I couldn’t put petrol (gas) in my car to get to work so had to walk.

Whilst money isn’t as important as health or happiness, it’s certainly one of the most important things in modern society. Without it, we cannot pay for hospitals. We cannot go on luxury holidays. We cannot pave the streets. We cannot buy cars to drive on the streets. We cannot buy food or water.

I think we’d all agree that it’s pretty important, but what is it?

Well in times of old, money was gold and silver. You would use real money to buy goods and services. These days, money isn’t made of gold and silver; it’s made of paper. If you went into a shop today and tried to pay for something with gold coins, they’d probably think you were a bit mad. Money is basically a common means of exchange that can be used by all people.