This is a big one. In today’s article I want to talk about how to stay focused on goals and how to efficiently make use of your mind. Let’s start with a story.

When I was taking classes for my driver’s license, our instructor told us about the following situation: You drive on a long highway-like alley through the night, everything is dark and there is nothing besides your car, the road and trees beside it every now and then.

Suddenly the road makes a sharp turn and your car starts spinning. Following the glow of your front lights you search for something to hold on, for something to focus on and certainly you will find a positive lock-on on a beautiful tree. What happens then? Right, you will go right-on into the tree, although you wanted to go back on the road.

We have to ask ourselves: Why does our brain work like that? In this case we should have looked on the empty street or even in the vast nothingness in order to prevent a crash so how does this relate to our everyday life? It is simple: Your mind is extremely powerful and controls a lot of what you do. Therefore you have to understand how it works.

Simple Mastermind

As masterminded your mind may be, it is also a simple worker. It has the attitude of Work what is on your focus right now, so you have to adjust this focus. You decide on what to think, what to do. In our example story you can decide whether you want to tell your mind Go, drive into that nice tree! or Dude, the street, this beautiful street!

Again, put this into everyday use: When you feel a little bit down and unmotivated, you have not done much all day, hang around, procrastinate and feel guilty of it. What is your mind likely thinking?Oh man, what am I doing, I’m such a mess, this sucks, I did not to this, I did not do that, yada yada. And by thinking this you are manifesting this reality into your head. You convince yourself that in fact you are a lazy piece of crap. Why would a sane person do that? Because it is the most obvious connection the brain can draw. Here is the point where you come in and throw some consciousness at your mind!

Interrupt these thoughts immediately. You want your mind to form a different reality. Think about yourself going for a jog, doing the groceries, cleaning up the bathroom studying, whatever. Important is that you have a clear picture of yourself doing those things. Make them as real as possible in your head!

While you are imagining this person, you become a lot more like this person than you would become if you were just pitying yourself. Believe me: Your mind is extremely powerful. Once you have convinced it of the fact that you are a healthy living and responsible fun guy it gives you loads of ways to actually become that person.

Powerful Mastermind

Your mind just wants your inner reality and the real reality to be congruent so it gives you power for that. Change comes from inside. As long as your mind says you are lazy and won’t make it as far as others, as long as you live in a reality of limited believes, you can never be liberated.

Again, think of the car story: You tell your mind that you will stir the wheel towards the big road ahead of you, you imagine yourself going back on track and continuing your ride. Now your mind will do everything in its powers to make this inner reality become congruent with the outer reality.

Applied to others

This is for example why negative feedback in general is not the best idea. Bad feedback focuses your mind on your mistakes rather than on your successes. Especially with newbies (in every field) this is important for they need to take their mind off of the possibility of making mistakes. Negative feedback gets you into your head, it makes you start thinking about everything that could possibly get wrong, but that’s exactly the opposite of what you want.

Actually there was a study where they showed people how to use a handgun. One group was instructed like one would assume it: Do not aim at people, do not shoot without aiming carefully, and so on while the other group was instructed differently. They were told things like Okay, this is how you load your gun, this is how you take the safety on and off, you aim like this, you shoot like this, etc. Well, I leave the guessing which approach led to better results to you guys. Needless to say: Positive advice, instruction and feedback are always a good thing. Yes, there are situations where negative feedback will work and yes, you definitely have to talk about mistakes. Just make sure to keep your mind focused on what you (or others) did right instead of what you did wrong.

All in all this post can be broken down to some simple rules:

1. Your mind is extremely powerful. It wants the ‘outer’ reality to be congruent with its perception of reality
2. You can decide on your inner reality. You decide on who you want to be, you can decide on who you are!
3. Do not let your mind fool around, instead be conscious. If you let your mind without supervision it does the easiest thing which is forming a reality in which it can be lazy!
4. If your life starts spinning and you are losing control: Concentrate on your goals and concentrate on the good things you want to achieve. Focus on you as the awesome person. You are strong, you are happy, you are confident and you are conscious. Everything else will fall in place.

That’s my motivation for you guys today, I now suggest you start messing with your mind and experience with this newly gathered information. Enjoy your day!

PS: Do this now: Write “YOU DECIDE WHO YOU ARE” on a piece of paper. Pin that paper to your computer screen, mirror, or wherever you see it often and use it like a mantra. Make it a habit to have this inner image of yourself being who you want to be, living how you want to live. Thank me later 😉