Your thoughts are more powerful than you know, and your mind is like a muscle; therefore it can be strengthened; or weakened. The right training can significantly increase the power of your mind. Don’t believe me? Let’s look at 2 experiments.
In the first experiment school children were given two plants. They were told to compliment the first plant and to insult the second. A month later the compliment plant thrived, but the insulted plant decayed.
In a similar experiment Dr. Masaru Emoto said thank you to one jar of rice, called a second jar an idiot, and ignored a third. Jar #1 fermented and gave a pleasant odor. Meanwhile jars #2 and 3 rotted.
In short, what your mind hears it believes. What you say to yourself, therefore, is of the utmost importance.
So, are you the flourishing plant or do we need to add some water.
Increase your Mind Power
What others say about us has a huge effect, but when’s the last time I called someone an idiot to their face.
Actually wait, I did it this morning. Picture a quiet, serene city street, 5:45 am. I not so elegantly try to put something in a trash barrel when BOOM!
I knock it over.
‘You idiot,’ I said. To myself.
Because I dropped a barrel when no one was around.
The person who insults us to our face most often is… ourselves.
Yes, from time to time I act like an idiot; but study after study proves that negative thoughts NEVER improve outcomes. So why so many negative thoughts? Why are we such idi… Caught that one.
Psychologists call this the negativity bias. We naturally scout for and fixate on threat. Why? Because we’re wired to survive, and the world is filled with things that can kill us.
Can we evolve beyond this? Is there a way to train our mind and predictably increase it’s power. Yes. Firstly, work on those usual suspects: Meditation, gratitude, self compassion and, yes, physical activity all help overcome negativity bias; however, In the words of Gordon Morton, ‘Familiar hells are preferred over strange heavens’ leaving too many of us stuck in negative thought patterns.
The Strange heaven of Increased Mind Strength
Muscles need exercise to increase strength.
And every muscle needs a different sort of exercise.
Your mind is a muscle.
What kind of strength workout can you give the mind?
Warning- these exercises are tedious. Like stretching. Or running.
But like the aforementioned they are proven to work. Evaluate core beliefs, practice positive thinking, and tolerating discomfort to sharpen the sword that is your mind.
So talk to yourself the way you’d talk to the plants. What you say, either out loud or in your head, makes a profound difference.
And now for a mind strength magic trick.
I ask my friend Ian to say he is strong 5 times.
I ask him to hold his arm out. I push it down.
It won’t budge.
I instruct him to say ‘I’m weak’ 5 times.
I push down.
His arm lowers.
I’m not pushing any harder. I promise.
That, folks, is mind power.
And mind weakness.
Try it at home before you call bullshit.
Undoubtedly your mind believes what it hears.
Thoughts become things.