Master your mind:

Master your mind.

If you can understand yourself better than anyone, you’ll have a supreme advantage over the rest of the world.

People don’t do the job of figuring out their own mind. They don’t understand how their brain operates because a lot of what we do is based on our subconscious, childhood experiences, environment and people around us.

Humans mimic their environment. If they’re environment is positive with good people, people tend to associate with that. If they’re environment is negative filled with people who constantly put them down, they’ll believe that.

The mind mimics what you give it.

It’s like your body.

If you eat unhealthy food for long periods of time, you’re going to have serious health problems.

Same thing with the mind.

If you feed your brain negative information, your mind will be negative.

So how do you master your mind?

For me, it started with meditation.

It started with looking at myself 10 minutes a day to really understand how my mind operates.

Meditation calms you. It brings you to the present. It allows you to keep your emotions in check. It forces you to understand yourself unlike anything else.

Most people don’t meditate because they don’t want to do the work. They don’t want to look at themselves. They don’t want to do the hard work of going deep within their own mind.

There’s a reason for everything you do, whether consciously or subconsciously. Most people don’t understand how important our subconscious is to our thoughts and therefore our actions. The subconscious is built through years of experiences and it’s very hard to change.

If you were brought up in an environment where all you saw around you was alcohol, drugs and crime, you assume that is normal. Because you don’t know anything else as a kid, your subconscious internalizes that experience as normal.

People don’t appreciate how much their environment influences who they become. If you see good, hard working people every day, you’re more likely to become a good and hard working person.

They don’t understand how significant your early childhood experiences are to your life. Oprah recently wrote a book on it called ‘What Happened to you’ which details how important those early experiences are to the direction of your life. She discusses her own childhood experiences and how much that influenced her subconscious, even as she was ascending to be one of the most famous people in the world.

Everyone is always dealing with something, no matter how successful they are in life. We all have demons that are hard to understand and most people choose to never face them. Instead we bury it deep within our subconscious and deflect our emotions through vices like sex, drugs, and alcohol.

It’s hard to do the work of understanding your mind, but it doesn’t mean it’s not worth it. This is why therapy can be so important as you can speak to someone without judgement about your life experiences. I’ve never been to therapy but writing has been my therapy.

It’s allowed me to clarify my own thinking while trying to make sense of the world. Some of the things I’ve written so far are personal feelings that even my family doesn’t know about.

So how do you understand yourself?

A few tips.

Write. Journal to yourself every day. Start with 30 days, either as soon as you wake up or before you go to bed. Write about anything you want. Make it as long or as short as you want. It can be about that day or about an embarrassing experience you had in school when you were 12. Don’t judge yourself, just write.

Meditate. I personally use Sam Harris’ app but Headspace and Calm are good ones as well. Most people stop meditating because they can’t sit still for 10 minutes. That’s ok, the first few months are brutal because it’s hard to stop your mind. When your mind has been racing 100 miles an hour your whole life, trying to settle it down is like trying to stop a bullet train. You won’t do it initially but over time, you can slow it down. But you have to commit. Once you commit to the process, you will slowly uncover your mind.

I’ve only been meditating for 3 years and I still feel like a beginner. Nonetheless, I’ve learned things about myself that no one else could’ve taught me.

Go to therapy. If you’re able to afford it, go talk to someone who has an unbiased opinion and will not judge your life. Sometimes it’s hard to talk to friends or family about your problems because their perspective will always be biased. Speaking to someone who doesn’t know you can help you clarify your own thinking and feelings.

These are a few of the things I’d recommend, but it’s a personal choice. You need to find something that works for you. But commit to understanding yourself.

Once you understand yourself, you understand the world.

I guarantee you that mastering your mind will be the best decision you will ever make.