Nurture great thoughts for you will never go higher that your thoughts” – Benjamin Disraeli
I found this quote in one of the book that I am reading. How so accurately true, and inspired a new piece under the Teach me To Fish series.
(well, I have always wanted to start an entry on ‘mind matters’, but I just could not find the right ’starting’)
Anyway, few people realised, that already stored in them – immense capability and talent. From the day people were born, they have over 100 skills imbedded in them. As they grow up, those talent slowly withered away because people do not nurture it. They do not practise it. By the time they were an adult, all that is left are mere 2 or 3 talent, and even that – were underutilised by most people!
I believe a lot of it came from poor mind conditionining. Mind conditioning means a continuous practise of internalising an idea or thought in an individual, either consciously or unconsciously. For example, if a boy told repeatedly from small that he is no good, (if he did not consciously change his thought/his environment), he is most likely to believe that he is no good as an adult.
Through the few years of my adult life, I see little effort was put on the ‘nurturing’ of the mind. Emphasise were always on the professional knowledge, geared towards commercialism – hence, the mind, the poor mind, was neglected.
As I talked about on my first entry in this series, successful people of all areas, think differently from average people. This, in my opinion, where most average people find confusing. They do not know what made the successful people so different from them. I think the answer lies within their inner workings of their mind.
‘What the mind can conceive, the body can achieve’ is this great quote from the book Think and Grow Rich. What your mind believe you can do, your physical body, somehow or rather, in one way or another, will find a way to achieve it.
This is the thought of successful people. Now when I say successful, it does not mean just financially or in material. It comprises of all sorts of success, depending on each very own definition of success. People who are successful in finding happy relationships, it’s because they see in their mind that they are in a happy relationship and that they deserve to be happy. Relationship where there’s mutual respect, honesty, kind words, and unconditional love.
Now how do we train one’s mind to ‘conceive’ or to ’see’ what we want to achieve?
One way to do it is via visualisation. Now what does that mean? It means you see it in your minds eye, that you have already achieved what you want. You imagine it, clearly and precisely down the the very last details.
Most international atheletes used this technique to train. For example, a runner, they visualise in their minds eye already crossing that finishing line, feeling the wind on their face – clearly and precisely. And you know what, when these runners are monitored while visualising, their body responded the same way as in when they are actually running. Pulse quickened, adrenaline heightened – but all they did was just sitting on a chair wired to a machine, visualising winning a race! It shows, that human body does not know what is real or what is not. They will only respond to what the mind see.
That’s why when you were scared, you perspired, your breathing became shallow for your body is ready in fight or flight motion – but in reality, nothing happened. It’s just your cat, scratching the door. But because your mind, creates this scary image of burglar trying to get in the house, helped by the countless series of CSI you have been watching – you create a whole thriller episodes in your head and your body is responding exactly to it.
So, there’s one. Visualisation.
Another one, is affirmation. Again, what does that mean? It means stating the intention of you wanting to get/ or achieve something repeatedly.
The act of ‘affirming’ trains our mind to focus on task to be done. Also, by stating it again, and again repeatedly we conditioned our mind to accept all that we want. When our mind locks it in, it is easier then for it to process ways, and hows for us to achieve it. It’s also because what we focus on expands.
I found this concept pretty similar with the teaching of my faith, the ‘niat’. ‘Niat’ is an intention to do something, Everyday before prayer, we state a ‘niat’. We do it 5 times a day, everyday. Now that’s a repeated intention, and it’s an affirmation. The way I look at it, our Creator, The Most Knowledgable of All, has prepared us the foundation of success. He has taught us through our prayer to Him, the concept of affirmation. The concept of if we do something, repeatedly, we will be able to gain the benefit. In prayer, the benefit is of course it nourish our spirituality. Thus, it really is up to us, to take the concept and apply it to other areas of our life to achieve our goals.
Well, I have more techinques and knowledge that I learn bit by bit from reading, and videos and seminars that I went to. These 2 techniques were the one that I first used when I first started to learn more about the mind when I was about 18. I can tell that these 2 techniques really works and I will tell you about my own experience using them in the next entry!
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Image from here.
Image 2 from here.
Copyright © Naziehah 2008
