How to upgrade your mindset – Part 1

Over the next few weeks I’ll be posting a “series” type blog post that focuses on mindset and some easy exercise we can all do in order to upgrade your mindset so to speak. As I post these topics, I’ll have them all categorized and numbered for easy access if you happen to find a blog post halfway through the series. This topic is one of my favorites and is easily the most important subject when it comes to growth in your life.

Your Results Come From Mental Focus

We all understand that mindset is an important thing, but most of us probably don’t understand just how important. Your mindset (the way think, your outlook, etc.) directs 90% of your success. The biggest challenge is figuring out how to take control of your mental focus.

Don’t believe me?

Lets do a quick exercise here:

• Think back to the last time you felt like you were having a bad day, you probably didn’t want to get out of bed that morning, did you? Now that you’re looking back, the entire day seemed like a struggle, right? 

• Now take a look back and remember a day where you woke up feeling great and full of energy, a day where you felt like you could conquer a climb to the top of Everest. This day on the other hand, seemed like a breeze to you, like absolutely nothing could stop you, right?

Now that we’ve looked back you’ve probably started to come to a few conclusions. Both of those days were more than likely entirely different days. You may have managed to get things done on the “bad” day, and that was more than likely done through nothing but will-power. But how efficient were you in comparison to your “good” day?

What if you could take that “bad” day, and shift your mindset to feel-good, empowering thoughts? You've probably done this before. What if you could do this more often?

What I’ve found through my clients is that daily consistent practices have enabled them to more easily create empowered mindsets. The daily exercises that we’ve focused on so far, are quick and simple exercises, these include journaling, practicing a “mental stretching” exercise, getting in touch with your spirituality (if you are spiritual), focusing on gratitude, looking for and expecting daily miracles, meditation, and deep breathing.

"Whatever you hold in your mind on a consistent basis is exactly what you will experience in your life” - Tony Robbins.

Why journaling?

Journaling is a powerful exercise. By writing in a journal, you are exercising your mental creative force. What you write, tends to manifest in some form in your life. When I journal, I write about things I’m thankful to have. This can be life or work goals, financial milestones, or material things. For example, a few years ago I wrote in my journal every day that I was thankful for getting a new truck. I would write “Thank you for my new Black Highlander with Ash leather” I did this for a whole year. And then almost like magic, I got to a point financially where I could go and buy the exact truck I wanted. The strange thing about this is, when I went in to get the truck they told me there were none available in the color combo I wanted. I told the dealership that I absolutely wouldn’t buy a truck from them unless it was the exact spec I wanted. As I was getting up to leave, the general manager came over and said he managed to find one that was being shipped to the middle of the country, and that he redirected it to get delivered to his dealership for me!

When journaling and writing about things you’re thankful for, whether you have it now or want it in the future. It’s important to be a detail oriented as possible.

The main reason why journaling helps you achieve your goals is something called the Reticular Activating System. This is a bundle of nerves at our brainstem that helps our mind sift through all of the info we intake. The RAS has many functions, but one of the most intriguing is that our RAS tends to filter information in a way that reveals the people, information or opportunities to achieve our goals. The human mind is an amazing thing. 

Let's dive a little bit deeper in to why I love journaling as a mindset exercise.

Establish Future Goals

Writing in a journal allows you to write down your experiences and thoughts, and use them to identify your future goals. Writing everyday experiences helps in identifying various mistakes that have been made or decisions that have proven to be unfruitful. This helps you to clarify the future course of action that is required to achieve your goals.

Problem Solving

Writing in a journal can help you solve some of your problems more easily. Just like talking to a friend about problems helps reduces stress and provides relief, writing in a journal helps clarify the problems in your own mind and allows you to concentrate on finding a solution. Many avid journal writers believe that journals are similar to friends with whom one can share thoughts, problems and feelings.

Self-Dialogue

Writing a journal will result in your taking some time out for solitary purposes and can prove to be an important means of self-dialogue. Journal writers often believe that writing a journal provides them a means to express themselves and dwell over their experiences in life. This results in mental clarity and allows writers to connect to their inner thoughts and feelings.

This is extremely important in my life and for my clients, I focus very heavily on controlling your self-dialogue and taking control of your “Anti-Self”. By writing daily in your journal you can identify where your anti-self is showing up in your life and ways to overcome it.

Writing Skills

An inevitable consequence of writing in a journal is that you will be able to build up your writing skills over a period of time. Not only will you note a drastic improvement in your ability to express yourself but this exercise will also allow you to improve your vocabulary as you find new and creative ways to describe the events of your day.

It’s almost 2020, and even though technology is taking over our daily lives more and more. The ability to write and formulate your thoughts in a clear concise manner is still extremely important. By writing in a journal you’ll reinforce proper writing techniques. This may seem like a frivolous thing, but writing properly and expressing thoughts clearly will trickle down into everyday life. And more than likely will assist in making you stand out at work... Which may end up leading to a promotion. BONUS!

A Memory to Remember

Life changes rapidly and although certain significant events are stored in the memory, many other events tend to be forgotten. Writing a journal will allow you to keep track of your life and the events that took place. The journals can serve to be a valuable piece of writing later in life when you want to sit back and reminisce over the past years.

Personal Growth

Writing a journal facilitates the growth process as you can establish goals, achieve emotional stability and connect to your inner self. Over a period of time, you will start to realize the small changes that affected your life and how writing those down helped you to avoid the same mistakes in the future.

Tap Inner Creativity

Writing a journal can prove to be an important way of relaxing and just letting your thoughts flow. It is not necessary that you write about your day’s experience. Rather you can write about anything that you feel is important for the day. Writing about the ideas that flow through your mind can allow you to tap your inner creativity and might also be helpful for individuals that want to identify their passion or interests.

Hopefully this blog post has given you some more reasons to start journaling or continue journaling. It’s a massive part of mindset and something I truly hope you start to do in the future!

If you need help getting started with journaling please feel free to reach out to me, I would love to give you a few prompts to kick of your journaling experience.