Picture The Future

VISUALISATION

Stay true to your beliefs - visualise where you want to be and never give up on yourself.

Many people reach a lull at some point or other in their lives. We can all feel like we've lost our way and feel like there's no other options available.

At these times, we have to free our minds from negative thoughts. Meditation is a great tool for clearing away the noise in our heads and even a short 5 minutes of deep breathing can calm the mind enough to allow the creative processes to flow. 

Picturing the places we want to be and the things we want to achieve, will help to bring them into reality. 

Do some research on the things you love and create a vision board. Put this some place where it can be seen as a reminder and practice a daily meditation to get this place and all the things you want to happen fixed securely in your mind's eye.

Minding Mindsets

FORMING NOT FOLLOWING

We have a set of beliefs that make up who we are and this belief system is our mindset. Born with a clean slate, like a computer, we have been programmed through early contact with our family unit, schooling institutes, peers and life experiences. Essentially, it is this core mindset that permeates through everything we do, affecting the outcome in all our endeavours.

If we can identify these set patterns, that repeat throughout our lives, we can better see those traits which bring either success or failure. With focussed awareness, we can train ourselves to switch over to the right path for attaining wins and when we see repeated failure, replace the wrong mindsets with new positive ones.

This book by Carol Dweek called Mindset: How you can fulfil your potential will enlighten us all to see past the myth that talent is key and focus on the facts that having a winning mindset is the recipe for success.

Unpopularity

STANDING UP FOR WHAT YOU BELIEVE

Every day, I'm looking critically at myself - physically, mentally and spiritually. I look to others for new teachings, learnings and affirmations that I'm on the right path. In the last 6 weeks, I've already made some significant changes to my habits and improved my output. I've identified areas for improvement and I know that it's going to be a daily, ongoing challenge for me to fight back the urges, stop the old habits creeping back in and stay true to my new lifestyle.

It takes courage to face up to our shortcomings, inadequacies and failings. The small tweaks can be achieved in a short time frame but, to evaluate ourselves properly, we need some quality time to address and deal with any deep rooted issues we may have. Firstly, we need to identify the traits and parts of ourselves that could benefit from some attention in order for us to improve - and as we can be blind to our ways, identification of these facets to our personalities often comes from those closest to us. It can be hurtful when criticism comes from others and we have to assess if it's constructive and a benefit to follow it. We're all affected by what other people say and think - and in the quiet pre-dawn hours (and some middle of the night hours), I've been playing conversations over in my mind and analysing what, why and how to respond and act accordingly to criticism. I've looked at different viewpoints and reasoned. I've chided myself, then countered, assessed and set what must be done. The outcome from all this thinking is, when I can see something is right based on sound judgement and logical reasoning - I must stand up for what I believe in - even if it goes against what others believe in and consequently, makes me unpopular.

Boethius wrote a book entitled The Consolation of Philosophy, which was written in a time when he'd lost his wealth, social standing/power and was condemned to prison, awaiting what he knew to be a violent death. He was in this situation because he'd stood up for what he believed was right. He came to terms with his fate and his writings from that time about 'The wheel of Fortune' were considered to be one of the most important texts to be studied from the middle ages right up to the renaissance period - references to his work can be found in lots of important works including modern day books and films too. Although Boethius had fallen out with the powerful while defending his principles. Even with his possessions and freedom taken from him, he still faced his executioners with the one and most important thing remaining in tact - his integrity.

There is another even earlier example of someone famously falling foul to the powers that be. Socrates was an early classical philosopher who stood up for what he thought was right. He also came to a grizzly end because he refused to give in and compromise what he truly believed in. This guy is another great source of inspiration to me - because he questioned assumptions, rhetorical ideas and the establishment, using philosophical reasoning & deeper logical thinking to find truths. 

I've been reading more of Alain De Botton's books lately - and this one entitled: 'The consolations of Philosophy is a great source for learning about the fates of both Boethius and Socrates. There is a six part series of short documentaries based on this book called: Philosophy: A Guide to Happiness, which can be found on Channel 4 - also written and narrated by Alain - they can also be found on Youtube along with Alain's other great short docs like 'Status Anxiety' but you may need a VPN or Zenmate to watch if you are based in the UK due to copyright issues.

Integrity

STAYING TRUE

I talked with colleagues yesterday at work, about beliefs and the lengths people are willing to go to, in order to uphold what they believe in and in some cases, taking extreme measures. My colleagues had strong opinions and their own beliefs - some of them conflicting with my own and I witnessed first-hand that having strong opinions about what you 'believe' in, can make us a bit closed minded and alienate ourselves from others.

Beliefs are purely mindsets and they can be personal or part of a group, followed like trends - and appearing to change much like fashion styles do. I know I've had beliefs and opinions about things that I've completely changed my mind about over time. Looking back through history, you can observe how popular opinions and beliefs have changed...the world is not flat, as was strongly believed and the Earth does revolve around the sun.

We can create our beliefs by learning from teachers or taking on beliefs from following others - allowing them to 'set' in our minds without first assessing them for ourselves. We often adopt other people's beliefs as a way to fit within a group & society in general. But we need to make up our own minds to what is ultimately going to benefit us, yet remain flexible enough so we can adapt/adopt other and new trains of thought too.

What is really important?

Being in a quiet place gives me plenty of time to reason: what are these ideas, beliefs, opinions of mine - and do they matter? It allows time to reason that everyone has their own beliefs and they may not fit in with our own.

If you're reading this - you're probably, like me, already on a quest for knowledge and starting to think and reason for yourself. So, maybe take a bit of time today and think about what you truly 'believe in'. These strong beliefs and opinions, are they important? Are these your beliefs? Are you following to fit in, or are you being force-fed ideas from peers and other outside influences. If you find you're beliefs are being set in stone because you're caught up in a group mentality, ie. your family, partner & friends are pushing beliefs on to you that are not your own, try and think about what they mean. Are they benefitting you or holding you back?  Chances are, they are holding you back from doing something great. It's within all of our power to change and I now factor this way of thinking into my daily early morning routine. Already, this has given me some positive results - plus, had a massive impact on how I interact with others and where I direct my focus for further improvements.

Sticking to your guns
Hans Berger carried on his research into brain wave analysis for 10 years before making good progress in his field of study. Even though he was for the most part, ridiculed for his beliefs by the rest of the science fraternity, he stayed true to his beliefs until he found answers which led to the discovery of alpha waves, developed the EEG (electroencephalography - a tool for measuring brain waves patterns), which in turn has been used for better understanding the workings of the brain. One particular field this has been used in - understanding sleep patterns

Sleep for success

Having these early starts - getting enough sleep is of paramount importance for improving performance. Understanding how our sleep patterns work and ways to improve sleep is something we should all learn about to optimise the time we spend sleeping. After all, a third of our life is spent in a sleeping state. Poor or lack of sleep will affect us and all those around us, halting us form achieving our life goals.