Mindset and Motivation
Anne McKeown, 2MPower Coaching
Transcript from June Wellness Project, Friday June 2
Our very first Wellness Project, a beautiful morning at Clontarf and a crew of 28 participants - what a great start for our wellness community! Like-minded local businesses and people joining together to begin a wellness journey - where will it lead?
Here's what Anne said about the importance of mindset as the first of the 4 Pillars of Health:
Congratulations!
You are here and have made a decision to change which is the first step to any successful goal, the second is coming today despite anything to the contrary in your head.
Today we are discussing becoming the best version of self through the mind.
Conscious and Unconscious Mind Body Connections
Can teach the mind to move the body and teach the body to move the mind – they should not be treated separately. Dieting to lose weight can have implications on your emotions, energy, thinking process. If you go to see a psychologist but are not eating well and moving, then your body and mind are not in congruence.
We know the brain is an organ that needs to be exercised like any muscle. We used to believe it was static and unchangeable, but now through results of neuro-science studies we know that the brain is adaptable and malleable, it can be changed by the mind and our behaviour.
This leads to the question: what is the mind? That’s a difficult question for most people to answer because we can’t see it or touch it, yet it is there underpinning everything. The mind is split into two parts: the Conscious Mind which is your decision maker, objective internal analyser, objective thinking mind. It can only hold one thought at a time and identifies incoming information via the 5 senses.
The Subconscious Mind on the other hand runs the body, stores memories, maintains your instincts and is the domain of all emotion. Do not be fooled into thinking it is ‘less than’ because it is called sub conscious or unconscious mind, it is actually more powerful because we are so unaware of its influence on our everyday outcomes in life.
Like-Minded Community
We are here today creating awareness for healthy body and mind, aided by experts and community, encouraging one another and benefiting from a sense of belonging. Don’t try to do everything on your own, let’s get together regularly to discuss our goals and challenges.
Overloaded Safety Switch
Awareness of the unconscious mind at work, can allow us to realise the battle in our minds: the part that wants to change and the part that resists. The unconscious mind perceives danger all the time, we are wired for the negative, we have the same reptilian brain now as when we lived in caves man. Need to teach mind that we are not in danger all the time. E.g missing bus same reaction as sabre tooth tiger attacking, an overreaction! Our body sees picture of missing bus and takes us straight to late for work, angry boss, no coffee, and then on arrival, we are a mess of worry. Need to stop this train of thought in its tacks. Realise the unconscious mind is trying to keep you safe. Talk to it (yourself) and get back in focus with awareness of your thoughts and your behaviour.
Powerful Pictures
Think of inside of wardrobe: created picture, same as other scenarios. Bad thing is we take negative pictures with us and anticipate what will go wrong. We scare ourselves with negative self-talk, which creates a negative feeling, which results in negative emotions and often negative behaviour. Need to turn these pictures upside down.
For example: You see someone running a red light, you think “what an idiot, that’s dangerous, why did he do that?” You are feeling self righteous and angry. Your thought creates the language and emotion of anger. Imagine if instead, you saw it and thought: “I hope that person is alright, what is happening in their life, are they racing to a hospital?”
An understanding and positive reaction fills you with feelings of warmth, calmness and gratitude. Same circumstance, but you view differently and react differently!
Our Stories
No 2 people view the world the same because of what our parents told us, different to each person, teachers, experiences.
Twins: One successful and likeable. Other felt like failure, life was against her, unlikeable. I asked, when did she first feel like this? Immediately her subconscious mind came up with the answer. She remembered her first day at kindy when she drew on wall instead of in the book. The exhausted teacher responded aggressively, making her feel small and in that moment the twin’s subconsciousness made the decision to hate authority, and resented her sister as “the good girl”. She took this story through her whole life, uni and work was further clashes.
Sister had different experience and doesn’t understand her twin’s anger at the world. Only person suffering was her twin, being hard on herself and causing her own pain.
Talk Yourself Into It
What you say to yourself is not what you would say to others. “I’m a loser, too tall too small, too etc. But you are not too anything, you are just YOU. Need to find the best physical and mental YOU to make life more enjoyable and more fun.
Need to recognise the subconscious mind is holding you back. When needing motivation to push through situations eg. It’s raining outside, you want to go to your exercise class but you also want to stay in bed! Talk to self and tell self how good you will feel if you persist: the exercise, the community, the coffee.
Flip the Switch
Need to flip the switch. Go from unconscious to conscious, become a robot! Because robots only do what they are programmed to do. They do not argue, they follow commands. Help yourself by preparing the night before, in the morning, become robotic and get wheels into motion, then the benefits start to sink in and your mindset is changed. Shifted mental and physical state.
It's time to unlearn old habits and negative stories you tell yourself. It’s time to learn new habits and write a new story for future life. Smoking: cold turkey or procrastination. Depends how embedded that pathway is and on degree of addiction, personality.
Cutting Pathways to Goals
Think of a goal: Need to really, really desire it! What are you willing to sacrifice? Desire needs to be strong enough to overcome subconscious resistance to unfamiliar. We crave familiar. Pathways in the brain entrenched like roads, with certainty at the end. To change road (try something different), need to blaze through overgrown path and keep pushing forward, even if you turn back, as you persist the new pathway becomes clearer. Can take people with you to help you! Your goals come in full view and the old pathway becomes overgrown and the pull back is less strong, and with time we slowly gain perspective that old ways were hindering you.
We underestimate what we can achieve in 3 years and overestimate our 1 year goal, almost as a way of opting out. Need to realise that worthwhile things take time and push out of your comfort zone.
After first time, easier to do it again. Wants more than needs, basic needs are satisfied, so we look for purpose and meaning which is privileged, but painful. Success measured by material goods, need to balance with how we feel on inside to let go of judgement from outside. Start with desire, make sure you don’t doubt.
Doubt the Doubt
Over giving, doubts, need self-talk to unconscious mind and doubt the doubt. Doubt is not always right – need to fight it. We all struggle every day in a different way. Everyone has some struggle, brave ones open up, most wear a mask and pretend they are fine, look fine, talk fine. Show your vulnerability, open up and ask for help and help others. We can all rise together.
Routine is your friend
Commit to a schedule, and take responsibility. Own your decisions and notice how they impact if you achieve a goal or not. Mirror view of self: what is it like living with me, working with me? Challenging emotionally and physically, we know implications of our decisions, and knock-on issues = secondary gain or unconscious gain from NOT putting self out there.
Achieving Goals and Unconscious mind sabotage
To achieve anything in life you need Time, Money and Energy. Mindset will give body energy. Eg Tony Robbins uses movement and energy for positivity and energy. Challenge is to maintain that mindset. Body can uplift mind, breathing slowly can switch off unconscious, and allow conscious mind to make decisions. Taking deep breathe to control runaway thoughts to combat stress, putting you back in charge, allowing decisions for action from conscious mind. Reaction is mostly negative, but can change this thought process e.g if someone projects negativity towards you, you can instead empathise and wonder what is going on in their life and change attitude.
When not achieving goals, others are affected. Need to open about feelings and how to resolve in practical terms. Empowering to others to give guidelines to help you e.g. have a family meeting. By our own behaviour we can be role models to help others live together harmoniously.
Motivation=Motive (why) + Action
Nothing will change if you change nothing.
Get coach for nutrition, mindset, fitness etc to help you see the blind spots in your stories. Need to be shown our behaviour by someone objective. Need to shed skin, get rid of old and build new, give self the opportunity. Healthy Body, Healthy Mind by Depak Chopra. Love and discipline the child within who can hold you back, perpetuate patterns.
Love for self
We are all born beautiful with best of intentions. But stories make us judgemental of others and ourselves. Need to get in touch with our inner child so you can love yourself unconditionally. Find inner peace and look after your body!!
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