In this article
Overview
Do you often look at other people and wonder how and what the reason is behind their success?
We normally think they are god gifted, and that they are special human beings with some special gifts and abilities. Or they have better luck than us.
The success can be in a business, sports, education or career.
What we don’t see is the individuals hard work, dedication, focus, concentration and sacrifices in achieving their success or their goals.
The issue
People don’t have any goals in life. They are quite happy and content to work in their comfortable environment that they are so accustomed to and feel happy and secure.
Fear prevents people from taking risks. Fear of losing their security and stability.
Then there are many who feel trapped in their jobs due to their commitments (paying the mortgage, bills, children’s education, looking after the elderly or whatever their circumstances may be) and are afraid to take any risks in life.
What stops us from going out of our comfort zone is our experiences of the past. These are embedded into our subconscious mind.
Every time we think of taking the bold decision, we are in this fear mode, and subconsciously we get all the negative thoughts that stop us.
What separates us from “successful people” is understanding our Mind. Being able to Focus, maintain Concentration, Emotions and Energy. We are gifted with the most powerful tools in life, but we have never realised or tried to understand the benefits and the nature to use these tools to our benefits.
Hacking the mind
The mind is the most powerful tool in the world.
Through the power of the mind we have managed to build the computers, smartphones, electric cars and have invented so many products that we could never have envisaged a couple of decades back.
We have managed to create robots for our assistance. We are now investing heavily in developing in the field of Artificial Intelligence.
All this has been possible with the ability of our thinking, focus, concentration, determination and willpower.
Sense Data
The mind normally thinks on thoughts based upon what you have seen and what you have heard. Your thoughts and the mental activity are based on your sense perceptions.
The sense perceptions are the inlets to the mind from the outer world, and the sense perceptions create the thoughts.
When you dwell on these thoughts, they become your memory.
The content of your mind is decided by your sense perception. As you go on repeating the things which you have seen or heard they will become your habits.
A habit is a set of unconscious thoughts, behaviours and emotions that’s acquired through repetition.
These are strong mental impressions. When you keep thinking of these impressions they are stored into your subconscious mind.
After a little while we as the new impressions are formed, we tend to forget these thoughts, but from time to time they resurface in the conscious mind and these are then known as your memories.
Memories are nothing but recycled conscious thoughts you had. Now they are coming back as memories.
So, this is how the circle goes on day and night. Day after day. Week after week. Month and year and so on.
To simplify and understanding how the thought mechanism is functioning just understand the simple principal; you take in data through your senses, it becomes your mental impressions which are converted into your memory and the cycle continues, going on and on.
Even when you close all your sense perceptions, your memory keeps on recycling the thoughts from your memory.
So that is why they say you are what you think. If your thoughts are negative, you will stay in that negative mode and if you think positive your attitude will be more positive.
Emotions can deceive you
Each of these memories has an emotion.
Emotions are the end product of past experiences. Long term memories are created from very highly emotional experiences. So, the moment they recall those memories of their problems, they all of a sudden feel unhappy, sad and feel pain.
This familiar past will sooner or later be your predictable future. When you have an emotional reaction to someone or something most people think they can’t control their emotional reaction.
Now if you allow this emotional reaction, it’s called a refractory period to last for hours a day, and that’s called the mood. And should this mood continue for a longer period of time say weeks or months, that’s called a temperament. When this emotional reaction continues for years on end that’s then called a personality trait.
Most people are living their life in survival and in stress. They are always anticipating the worst-case scenario based on past experience. They are selecting the worst possible outcome and they’re beginning to emotionally embrace it with fear and are conditioning their body into a state of fear.
So, the emotions from the experience tend to give the body and the brain a rush of energy. Every time they recall the event, they are producing the same chemistry in their brain and body as if the event is occurring at the present with the same emotional signal to the body.
The unconscious mind doesn’t know the difference between the experience that’s creating the emotion and emotion that you are creating by though alone.
Now the entire person’s state of being is in the past. We are a memorised set of behaviours, emotional reactions, unconscious habits, beliefs and perceptions that function like a computer program.
The way to change is to get beyond the analytical mind because that separates the conscious mind from the subconscious.
This is where meditation is very helpful.
Meditate
In meditation you can calm your mind, slow down and start to reflect and being aware of the thoughts and control the quality of the thoughts.
Start rehearsing, close your eyes and start rehearsing mentally the action of what you want as if you are truly present.
The brain does not know the difference between what you are imagining and what you are experiencing in 3D world. So, then you begin to install the neurological hardware in your brain to look like the event has already occurred.
Now your brain is no longer a record of the past. This way with positive thoughts and visualising you can change your life and make it more successful and happier.
Summary
Once you understand this cycle and start to control your thoughts you can achieve whatever you set your mind on.
To change the nature of your mind, you have to become conscious of the input, that is the intake through your senses, what you are taking in.
To get positive thoughts you have to practice and commit yourself in only taking in the good things and not the negative.
After that you have to work on your memories already stored in your subconscious mind so that they become positive as well.
At any stage you can change your thoughts, and when you think the right thoughts, they are converted into the right mental impressions and habits. Bring in clarity in the mind and you can achieve much more in life.
Try stopping unnecessary thinking, all sorts of negative emotions, and have clear thoughts and bring Awareness in the mind.