Let’s talk about your mindset. We all have that inner voice that we listen to all day long. You spend all day talking to yourself and not in a crazy kind of way. Unless you would consider everybody to be a little crazy, then I guess we’re all a little crazy. But everybody has an inner voice and you talk to yourself all day long, throughout every task that you're doing. When you're walking, talking, working EVERYTHING. You are constantly talking to yourself. All kinds of stuff goes through our minds, our brains are always working. Here is where the issue comes in.
Is your inner voice helping, or harming you? Most people’s thoughts are not helping.
Do you doubt yourself? Do you think things like “I’m too lazy” or “I’m too stupid”? Are your first thoughts usually negative? You can work on changing your thought process. You can control the significance you give to different thoughts that cross your mind.
Your mind is one of the most powerful tools in this universe. It’s capable of great things. This isn't just some “think positive thoughts” mumbo jumbo. While thinking positive is good, this is much more than that. Science says that the way you talk to yourself has a huge impact on the quality of your life. There have been a number of studies done on this subject.
The internal language you use determines what your point of view is. This is not a new concept. It is hundreds and hundreds of years old.
This has been talked about in ancient texts. It’s been written about in books, talked about in podcasts, and many other media. James Allen speaks extensively about it in his book ‘As A Man Thinketh’ originally published in 1903. (BTW, if you haven’t read that book I HIGHLY suggest you pick up a copy and read it.) As you can see, I’m not the first to talk about this and I most certainly won’t be the last. Why do you think so many people talk about it? There must be some truth to it.
The reality is your mindset is a crucial part of your happiness and success in this world. It is holding it back more than you know.
Because as much as positive self talk can improve your life, the opposite is obviously true as well. Negative self-talk has a negative impact on your life. It affects your mood. It can make you feel helpless. And then that affects those around you. If you're in a bad mood, it will most likely rub off on the people around you. Have you ever had a negative thought creep its way in, and then the rest of the day you’re in a funk? You know then how it can affect you and spiral out of control.
Self-talk is more important than you realize. I'm not talking about just positive affirmations here. You know, looking at yourself in the mirror and saying I am a lion or, you know, whatever positive affirmations you have. While I'm not knocking that, it does work for some and has its place. That is not what I’m talking about here. James Allen talks about the power of the way you think being your reality. In other words, I think therefore I am. I know you've heard that saying before. There is some weight and truth behind that statement. It’s not just arbitrary. So what does it mean? And how does any of this stuff from so long ago apply to today? In simple words, if you think you’re a lazy piece of shit. Then that’s all you will ever be. The things that you think will be your reality. If you think you will fail, you will surely fail. It doesn’t just stay in your head. Have you ever overreacted to a situation and thought “This is the worst thing that's ever happened to me.”? I've said that probably hundreds of times in my life. But yet, here we are. Sometime later. Looking back, was it the worst thing? Chances are it wasn’t.
There's a Buddhist parable known as the Second Arrow that talks about dealing with suffering more skillfully. Any time we suffer a misfortune, two arrows fly our way. Being struck by an arrow is painful. Being struck by a second arrow is even more painful. The Buddha said: “In life, we can’t always control the first arrow. However, the second arrow is our reaction to the first. The second arrow is optional.”Picture yourself walking through a forest. Suddenly, you’re hit by an arrow. The first arrow is an actual bad event, which can cause you pain. There is a second arrow. The second arrow brings more pain and suffering. Can you avoid the second one? The second arrow represents our reaction to the bad event. It’s the way in which we choose to respond. The big takeaway from this is that while bad things may happen in your life, you have the ability to avoid making them worse, you can “dodge the second arrow” so to speak. When bad things happen we have a habit of compounding the misery with our reactions to it. Your mind is just that. Yours. You can control it. You can choose how you react to a situation.
You just got fired. You can sit around, mope, go into this ‘woe is me’ thought process. You can worry about how you will feed your family, pay the bills, etc. OR you can accept that you were fired, that you can’t change the past, and get back out there to find another job and do whatever it takes to provide for yourself and your family. One of those men will suffer more than the other. Which one do you want to be? It’s in your control. The second man will not be feeling sad, or depressed about the situation. He has chosen to not let it get him down and to keep hustling to do what he needs to do. This concept applies to all areas of your life.
If you were working on a project and you're thinking: “this is too hard”, “what if I don't finish this on time”, or you start worrying about all the different ways that it could go wrong. Then the harder it will seem. The more likely you are to not finish on time. The more likely it is that something, if not multiple things, will go wrong. As opposed to the opposite, thinking that you can do it. That you WILL do it.
Often we don't even realize that this is what's happening in your head. How many times have you stopped to think about what you’re thinking? Sounds kind of inceptiony, I know. But do you notice when you’re constantly doubting yourself? You’re honestly making things harder on yourself. You’re creating more suffering than what needs to be. Try and catch yourself next time you’re having thoughts like this. And try to change the narrative. Notice how your mood will change. Think about the tasks that you dread doing on a daily or weekly basis. Folding laundry or taking the dishes out of the dishwasher for example. Both of those are VERY easy and mindless tasks. Would you agree? It doesn’t take a lot of skill or hard work to do either of them. And they can usually be done fairly quickly. Yet for some reason most of us have them built up in our heads to be this daunting task that we dread doing. How many times have you put off doing laundry until absolutely necessary? Or did the laundry and then leave it unfolded for days? Maybe you’ve left dishes in the sink overnight. Maybe the clean dishes sit in the dishwasher for the entire day. Doing the laundry is literally as simple as loading clothes into a machine and pressing a button. Yet somehow, that is one of the most hated chores in almost every household. Then after it’s all done, have you ever looked back and thought that it was the toughest thing you’ve had to do? It’s laid out in your mind to be a terrible task, then when it’s done it doesn’t seem that bad. So why do we dread it? This one goes back to a conditioning that we are taught from a young age I believe, but that’s neither here nor there. The fact is that if you would stop thinking of it as a horrible task, and think of it for what it is, a simple routine that is easy and necessary, then it won’t seem so bad.
This is obviously a very simplified example of the idea but it still holds true nonetheless. The way you view things determines the level of difficulty, the likelihood of success, and the amount of suffering that comes with it.