They say the brain is set on repeat about 95% of the day.
Your brain may be saying great things like, “I am awesome,” or it may have the latest Cocomelon song on repeat. I usually have the latter going on. (If you have no idea what I’m talking about, you’re blessed.)
According to the National Science Foundation, 80% of all of our thoughts are negative.
If my brain is duplicating the same negative thoughts over and over, it makes me wonder… “How have I been conditioned to think?” If our brain is consistently on autopilot, then it’s accurate to say we are mindful of our thoughts only a tiny part of the time.
That’s a scary thought. Maybe it’s a reality we don’t fully appreciate because we are too busy stuck on repeat. Hmmm.
As I’ve been creating the content for a Brain & Body Detox program, I’ve been thinking a lot about assisting my clients with understanding the importance of mindfulness. So much that they will take a pause and write down or recognize what thoughts are occurring in real-time.
If you know what your thoughts are and where they come from, you are doing better than the majority who are stuck on repeat.
Being mindful can tell us from where our anxieties, anxiousness, and irritations are coming. It notifies us when brain fog is occurring. Mindfulness is impactful because we can’t change a harmful habit we don’t even realize we’re doing.
As I’ve been going through the Q&A process and identification stage of brain health with my clients, I have noticed three key mindsets that keep popping up in a lot of discussion and answers provided back.
I will unpack them here because I think speaking these mindsets (that are universal to us all) into existence gives them validity. Recognizing their power then permits us to remove them from our lives altogether.
Here we go.
I am labeling these on my terms, but you will soon recognize them as something you may struggle with as well.
The “cheat / treat” mentality
This first one is so accepted into our culture. I’m not sure how it became so prevalent (I recognize these justifications from as young as I can remember). Still, I believe most everyone living in blessed conditions has to grapple with this way of thinking.
During the conscious or subconscious “treat” mentality, when one does something well or particularly hard or outside one’s comfort zones (e.g. working out 5 days in a row), that person is likely to move toward a negative habit as a “treat” or “cheat” in response to their accomplishment (e.g. eating a huge piece of chocolate cake or downing a bottle of wine).
It is the justification of moving toward behavior with negative consequences because of the “achievement” of making healthy choices over a specific time.
When you start to unpack the actions and consequences, you soon realize it is truly a “cheat” moment. You are cheating yourself out of positive outcomes from making the next healthy choice and will quickly stagnate your growth or go backward because of the “cheat/treat” decision.
I know several people are going to reject the concept outright and justify the justification. (Been there!) That makes total sense because bacon and chocolate cake tastes good! A buzz after a glass of wine feels good! Sitting in front of Netflix and checking out for a few hours feels right after a hectic day.
It’s the next day or hour or minute that it doesn’t feel so good.
The most effective way to combat this repetitive cycle is to flip the “cheat/treat” mentality on its head.
We should absolutely treat ourselves and celebrate when we meet our goals and accomplish hard things! As long as the “treat” is genuinely born of self-love and has no negative consequence (e.g., going to lunch with a friend, a long walk/bath, a new outfit), we can and should indulge in this behavior!
The “I can’t / I won’t / I don’t” mentality
This is inclusive of any thought or reaction that pops up for us when faced with a challenge or foreign concept that takes us to a negative space. They all fall into this same category.
“I can’t stop drinking for a month.”
“I won’t be able to run a 5k by the end of the year.”
“I don’t eat that way. I don’t like those sorts of foods.”
We could also add the “I wish I could” to the list.
The thing about these automatic responses is that they immediately become true when we allow them space in our minds.
Maybe you really “aren’t a runner,” and you have severe physical roadblocks to that becoming a reality. Or perhaps you’ve told yourself that story so many times, as you’ve watched others cross the finish line of a marathon with ease, that it has now become true for you.
If we tell ourselves, “I can’t,” – we won’t.
If, instead, we open ourselves to the possibility of what can become true, we might actually do it.
Trying might introduce something else we didn’t expect and start to follow instead. If we don’t begin, the things that will show up over the journey will never happen. We might be missing out on something incredible.
The journey itself.
We don’t know what we’re truly capable of until we give it a try. Maybe a dozen attempts. Maybe showing up and being consistent over a significant length of time is the only way to honestly know if we can and should be on that path.
Most of the time, the only thing standing in our way is our lack of will and determination.
The “managing others” mentality.
The last one is my favorite to talk about because this has been a significant lightbulb for me only recently. The impact of even understanding that we think this way is a game-changer.
It all has to do with the story we tell ourselves and it directly reflects how much we care about what others think of us.
I like to describe it as “managing others,” but it’s ultimately trying to control other people’s insecurities about what we do.
Let me explain.
When we undergo big changes, like picking a partner, starting a new career, or attempting a significant lifestyle change, we decide. We ultimately determine what is best for us and proceed accordingly. Then we have to deal with how everyone else feels about that. We have a lot of opinions thrown our way. Sometimes these are positive and encouraging.
The ones we worry about and spend time on are the adverse reactions. The disapproving looks and scoffs at our dreams. The unsolicited advice. Our feelings get hurt.
It has happened so many times if we are advanced enough in years that we hesitate to make decisions. We think about all of the people we care about who would have an opinion and go through the interaction in our minds to how they will respond.
We spend so much time playing out the fake conversations that we make them true for ourselves.
We may even be defensive when talking about our dreams because we expect people to receive them in a certain way.
It doesn’t matter if this story we tell ourselves is true or not.
That doesn’t change anything. Because we can’t control other people and how they feel.
Sometimes people get upset about you chasing your dream because they can’t themselves. Sometimes they try and dissuade you because they love you and are afraid of you getting hurt.
It doesn’t matter what “they” say and why they have their opinion. The only thing we can control is making the best decision and shutting down the outside noise.
Don’t spend the energy worrying about what other people think. Don’t get sucked into someone else’s insecurities about the decision only you can make. Spend your energy on making your dreams come to life and aligning yourself to your values.
The best thing to remember, as we speak these mindsets to life, is that if they are recognizable, then there is something we can do about them.
If we can give them power over our lives, we can take it away too.
