It’s truly exhilarating when people engage in activities they’re passionate about—nothing beats the feeling when passion ignites! And yes, of course we still can have feelings and thoughts; we aren’t robots! We are just mastering them instead of letting them master us, because failing to do so leads to the following consequences:
Avoiding Good Things, Losing Own Potential
The scheme of the mind’s never-ending story is formed by the thoughts you entertain. Take, for example, the inner dialogue you have with yourself. Perhaps you were subtly influenced in your childhood by thoughts that you weren’t good enough. Eventually, this led to the belief that you are not good enough. This thought has now become your reality; you believe it is true. This belief leads to internal dialogues where the words might change, but the substance remains the same: “I am not good enough.” This further reinforces the thought. When there’s an opportunity to do something you fancy, this thought suddenly pops up. But before you realize it, it generates a new thought in a microsecond that is easier to accept as a reason to reject the opportunity. This new thought might be, for example, the bad world economic situation. However, the reason for rejection was that you believed the “not good enough” thought was true, leaving you in a situation you don’t enjoy, such as staying in a bad job. Can you see how, as a ruler, the mind creates problems instead of solving them?
Negative Feelings
The same situation applies with thoughts that come from external sources. The main external sources of thoughts are the people you interact with, the media you follow and the environment you live in. These sources form thoughts based on their needs and beliefs, which are adopted by your mind. Again, the situation is the same: if you don’t recognize these thoughts when they pop up in you and believe they are true, you are drawn into traps that these thoughts set for you. Often, these traps are not pure pleasure and cause anxiety, worry, insecurity, addiction, hopelessness and low self-esteem. You might notice this around you without discussing it with others.
Doing Things Badly
Choose any action you need to perform, whether it’s cleaning, cooking, exercising, painting, building a house, managing people, selling, building a business, brainstorming or raising children.
Now, take a negative feeling, for example, caused by an argument with your spouse, colleague, or manager, or an opinion from a politician or relative, or just a feeling you have.
Are you doing what you have to do better with or without that feeling? Of course, without. But can you? The same is true for thoughts like ‘this is difficult’, ‘I cannot do this’, ‘why me’, etc.
Drop the feeling or though now; you are just doing it without extra burden.
Does the way you see the situation affect the result? For instance, if you see it positively, are you doing enough and if negatively, are you doing too much? How can you know that you are seeing the situation clearly as it is?
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