by Charles Barnard
Finding joy in life is all about your mindset. One summer when I was in high school I worked for the Police Athletic League baseball program. In the pee wee division there was a young boy who had a stump for a hand and walked with a severe limp. He was all smiles and you could see his joy every time he came to the field. He was a delight to be around.
Watch videos of Nick Vujicic and look at the joy he has despite being born with no arms or legs. I have worked with students who have been born into some extremely unfortunate circumstances whose mindset was such that they struggled academically, behaviorally, and or socially. They had a hard time finding joy. While they were young, they were still not very healthy – emotionally, spiritually, or often physically. As you are aware, the physical well-being is directly connected to the emotional and spiritual well-being and the spiritual and emotional well-being can be impacted by your physical well-being. It is not enough to teach them about risk factors for poor health. We need to help them to develop the habits, beliefs, and attitude for wellness. Doing this will impact every area of their life.
What is the difference between taking a course and taking a training program? In my opinion, a course provides knowledge while a training program provides knowledge and a system for implementing and applying that knowledge. A course on mindset will teach you about the important aspects of having a growth mindset or financial mindset or health mindset or any mindset someone is trying to teach you about. Articles, books, and most courses – including some I offer – are knowledge based. You learn what you should do and why you should do it and maybe even how to get started, but it does not provide a system to help you get started, stay engaged, and most importantly build the habits necessary to make the knowledge part of your life.
As a teacher and coach, the most difficult part of my job is getting people to follow through and do what they say they want to do. There are usually far more reasons in their mind for them not to do than there are to do. The delicate balance is in giving enough knowledge while at the same time making it simple and easy enough so people can do it with a minimum of time and effort. The whole structure of this mindset of a champion really is about wellness as much as it is about performance. If your mind-body-spirit are not in sync, not balanced, not performing optimally your outcomes will not be in sync or balanced or optimal.
The entire process of building this mindset begins by clearing the ground and creating a system for wellness. It is building this discipline – the habits – that are essential. The longer you wait the more challenging it becomes; I know from personal experience. The process is easy. The knowledge is easy to understand. Applying the knowledge and making it a habit is not easy. The commitment necessary to do that is not easy.
The first order of business for anyone looking to master their growth mindset is to let go of the past. You must find and deal with unresolved negative emotions. The storage of negative emotions in your body is not good for your health. You do not need to have experienced significant intensity of negative emotions for them to have a significant impact on your health. The next step is to address limiting decisions and beliefs. Time Line Therapy techniques are the tool of choice for us because of its ease of use, speed, and transferability (once done you can often do it on your own as a “maintenance” process). The next component would be to align your values and your dreams. With those tasks done you can then focus on the daily rituals that will allow you to then build the mindset of a champion, which is also a mindset of well-being.
Let’s be clear about one thing. We must understand how we spend our time, why we spend it the way we do, and what that says about our values and quite possibly what we fear. There is one resource that has been divided equally to every one of us. Time. We all have 1440 minutes a day to spend. We will spend it. We may spend it by choice – conscious or unconscious – we may spend it by circumstances, but those minutes will be spent. We have to get control of that time and time is something many families feel stressed about, especially when their children are young. Within those 1440 minutes you have to meet your personal, professional or school, civic, and spiritual responsibilities as well desires. Some of our health and performance related issues stem from the stress of how we try to spend that time – we get out of sync or out of balance.
Our rituals are about trying to create systems that will either maintain balance or bring us back into balance when life knocks us for a loop. There are key elements that should be in place. These elements include:
- Prayer-mindfulness-meditation [morning & evening]
- Decluttering mind and space [evening]
- Preview of the day including your purpose statement, your stand, and your calendar [morning]
- Movement [morning & evening]
- Personal growth – learning
- Family/partner communication
- Reflection – journaling [evening]
Prayer, mindfulness, meditation can all be connected. Personally, I believe meditation is about being in a physiological state where your minds (plural intended) and body systems are in complete sync. Technically meditation is said to be about thinking of nothing or completely clearing your mind. Mindfulness is about learning to improve your awareness by focusing on one specific thing. Prayer is about communicating with God. You can communicate with God by directing your thoughts toward God, but I also believe that there is another level of prayer where you can listen to God which would be connecting your internal minds (unconscious, conscious, heart, and intuitive) with the mind of God. Prayer can have several preventative health benefits and while more controversial may have direct healing benefits [for a very academic look at this idea I refer you once again to the book Miracles: The Credibility of the New Testament Accounts, 2 Vols.].
Meditation and mindfulness also have numerous direct health benefits. While not technically meditation, mindfulness, or prayer, the daily use of time line therapy techniques to preserve life lessons that may need to be learned and letting go of any negative emotions or limiting beliefs that may have tried to take root is incredibly valuable for managing your emotions and attitude.
One of the ideas behind meditation is to learn to declutter your mind. Decluttering your mind can be about letting go of negative emotions or it may entail letting go of items on your “to do list”. Some people have strategies where they put “too much on their plate” and get overwhelmed and stressed. Meditation can help by helping you deal with the feelings of overwhelm, but it won’t necessarily help with “putting too much on your plate.” Decluttering your actual physical environment can be stress reducing and it can help with environmental health issues such as dust and mold.
Previewing the day along with your purpose statement and stand helps to ground you and get your mind focused on what you have coming up for the day. It helps minimize “surprises” that can create stress. Planning and knowing your plan for the day helps you be more productive which decreases stress. Reminding yourself of what your purpose is and what you stand for can help fend off potential values conflicts or temptations.
Personal growth means learning. It requires seeking knowledge, wisdom, and truth. Those three things stimulate the mind and a healthy mind helps make a healthy body. Beyond simply “exercising the mind” it can aid in your ability to earn money [depending on what you do with that knowledge and wisdom]. Seeking to become better aids in your ability to make decisions in the moment and improve relationships that are crucial to every area of your life.
Family or partner communication greatly improves those relationships and when done well reduces conflict which reduces stress.
Reflective journaling when coupled with the use of TLT techniques to process events of the day is an incredibly powerful tool for bringing stability. The habit of journaling brings the TLT work to the material by getting thoughts on paper. That process simply reinforces the connection between the unconscious and conscious minds that was done during your TLT work. This daily practice creates stability and better prepares you for managing your life when more serious events happen.
Addressing your fitness, the movement in this list of rituals may or may not be an actual workout but at a bare minimum some deliberate and purposeful movement patterns when you first get up and before you go to bed are incredibly valuable in getting your body ready for the day and ready for sleep. Beyond that general movement you do want to factor in time for a well-planned and thought out fitness program that incorporates the principles discussed in Mastering Your Mindset: Health, Healing, and Disease 003. You may want to seriously consider looking into learning Yoga and or Qigong as those practices may have more direct impact on your body’s energy systems or qi or chakras depending on the philosophical background you are looking at.
The other lifestyle elements that need to be factored into a wellness lifestyle would be nutrition, eating habits, anchors, family time, and me-time. People need to find a system for making sure they eat well both from a nutritional standpoint and process standpoint – remember the ideas of eating slowly, mindful eating, and not over eating. Planning meals, preparing meals, and eating together requires time and communication. Household chores cannot be ignored either. Managing a home is time consuming but needs to be done.
Building anchors into your lifestyle that link positive emotions cannot be overstated. Two very powerful anchors that are easy to incorporate are the use of music and aromas. A home with pleasant smells and sounds is good for the mind and spirit and thus the body. Your routines themselves will become anchors.
The challenge is building these into your life. Creating healthy habits means you can quickly recover if something comes up and interrupts the pattern of behavior. The habits can be quickly reestablished because they are habits. The challenge of creating these habits increases the more members of a family you have living at home. The rewards are priceless and possibly literally lifesaving.
Learn more about our programs and how to put these systems into place in your life. Visit Growth Mindset Training Academy
