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How you feel about the world and your place in it can have a significant impact on what you can achieve in your career, and in your life in general. A positive perspective supports your efforts. A negative perspective undermines them.
What if I told you there was an easy way to make significant improvements to your outlook on life? What If you discovered that there was a simple way to improve your attitude and help you feel more positive? And what if, best of all, it took almost no effort. Would you want to know about it?
There is a way, and it’s not some new miracle drug. It comes from paying close attention to what you put into your mind.
Most people have no idea how much toxic mental material they really consume in a day. From the minute they wake up to the time they go to bed, they’re bombarded with negativity, fear, anger, anxiety and more. The news tells them that the world is going to hell. They listen to a co-worker complain for the umpteenth time about his job. They tune in for angry talk radio railing against the wrongness du jour.
It may not seem like much in any individual moment, but taken in total, day after day after day, it adds up.
Keep a “mind diet journal”
When you think about what you expose your brain to – the information, ideas, attitudes, etc. – do you think the cumulative result is positive or negative? What if you shifted it, even just a little bit, more toward the positive?
Tim Sanders, the author of one of my favorite books, Love is the Killer App (if you haven’t read it, you should) was kind enough to send me an advance copy of his new book, Today We Are Rich: Harnessing the Power of Total Confidence (despite the title, it’s not a get-rich-quick book).
One of the things Tim talks about is being aware of your “mind diet,” which consists of the information and ideas you are feeding your brain. He offers an idea I love, one that will give you a much more accurate (and possibly surprising) picture of what you really feed your mind. He describes it as a “mind diet journal.”
In your mind diet journal, he says, “log everything you are reading, listening to, or watching” over the course of several weeks.
Then, “Record the source, the author (if applicable), and the tone (positive, helpful, neutral, negative) of everything you take into your mind. Next to each entry, note how much time you spend on it. The same goes for people you spend time with. Log their names, their tone, and how much time you spent with them. Also…note how much time you spend on the Internet on activities not related to work.”
Once you have done that, he writes, “circle all the negative or useless information and influences you’ve ‘consumed.’”
The idea of being aware of what you are feeding your brain is one I have been talking about for years. I love this approach though, because it forces you to pay attention and get clear about what is really going on. And it’s only when you are truly aware that you have the potential to make changes for the better.
Nourish your mind
If you have ever changed from a diet that was high in junk food to one packed with more nutritious food, you know what a difference what you put into your body can make in how you feel. It’s the same with your mind.
Making that change isn’t just a matter of reducing the negative mind food. You also have to replace it with positive mind food.
Several years ago, I started doing positive morning reading. I noticed that spending 15 -30 minutes with a positive, inspiring, or uplifting book had a significant impact on how I experienced my day. The benefit far outweighed the investment. Compare that with spending that same 15 – 30 minutes watching the latest news about how screwed up the world is.
http://mapmaker.curtrosengren.com/2007/11/jumpstart-your-.html
If you want to more habitually reach for healthy mind food rather than toxic junk, make it easy to do. One way to do that is to make a Mental Health Food Menu. In each of these categories, make a list of positive mind snacks you can reach for:
- Books
- Movies
- Positive, enriching, uplifting web sites / blogs / etc.
- Magazines
- Recorded talks / Audio books / etc.
- Speakers and workshops
- People to spend time with
Make it a point to pull something from the list on a regular basis. Let it help you plan your activities. Look for opportunities to incorporate something from the list (during your commute, on the treadmill at the gym, during your lunch break, etc.).
What you feed your mind is an incredibly important part of what your life has the potential to become. Making a conscious effort to ratchet down the mental junk food and consume more of what is enriching and affirming will pay enormous dividends, both in the short-term and the long-term.
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