Eating healthy is hard, working out is hard, waking up early is hard, going after your dreams is hard, and sometimes even believing in yourself is hard. But what if I told you there was something that could make all of these come with ease. What if I told you that if you worked on this one thing, it would make you unstoppable in achieving your goals, keep you on track with your healthy eating and exercise, and suppress all limiting beliefs about yourself?
That one thing does exist. It’s your mind. Specifically, your mindset. It’s the one thing that can totally make or break your day. It’s the one thing that determines whether you are going to react, or respond to the various stimuli all around you. It’s the one thing that dictates how you will perceive your life.
Building a strong mindset is crucial in today’s world. There is so much digital distraction and deluge that we get sucked away into thinking negative thoughts and limiting beliefs. Today I’ll share with you 10 tools that I use to keep my mind strong, resilient, and on top of it’s game.
#1 Eat brain food
The most important thing you can do to build a strong mind is to give it the proper fuel that it needs to function. Sugary and processed foods do not fuel the brain, they make it age faster. What does fuel the brain and keep it in tip top shape are whole foods (fruits, veggies, legumes) and fats. Our brains are actually made up of over 60% fat, so eating high quality sources of fat is extremely important.
Try incorporating these brain foods into your diet:
- Avocados
- Olive oil
- Cashews
- Almonds
- Walnuts
- Blueberries
- Salmon
- Coconut oil
- Grass-fed ghee
- Egg yolks
#2 Identify your limiting beliefs
The biggest thing in your way of building a strong mind and achieving your goals is yourself. Observe whether or not you have a growth or a fixed mindset and keep that in mind as you start to make changes. Those with a fixed mindset will tell themselves over and over that something as simple as getting better grades on tests is not possible for them because they just aren’t smart enough. Those with a growth mindset see limitless potential – they can study better, ask more questions, go in for extra help, and work their way up to a better grade.
The first step to ridding yourself of limiting beliefs is to give that negative voice in your head a persona. Make it something annoying and gross and picture that voice as someone you would never ever listen to. Giving your limiting voice a persona makes it easier to shut it down. Next, become aware of some limiting or negative thoughts that might come up throughout the day and implant new beliefs in their place.
Instead of saying, “I’m struggling to make any money and it’s going to be so hard to get out of my financial situation.” say…
“I let money and opportunities flow to me through various outlets.”
These subtle shifts make a radical difference in the way you talk to and value yourself.
#3 Look at your environment
The saying goes that you become like the 4 people you hang around the most. If your friends are supportive, inspiring, working on their own dreams, then chances are you will be too. If your friends like to sit around playing video games, gossiping, sharing rumors, drinking every weekend, chances are they will pull you into it too.
Your environment is huge when it comes to mindset. You need to make sure that you are spending time with individuals who build you up, challenge you, and keep the positivity alive in your life.
If you don’t have a close circle of people that provide a great environment for you, stick your face in books. Make the greatest authors your friends – learn from them and as you grow you’ll start to attract like-minded people right to your doorstep.
#4 Practice Gratitude
Practicing gratitude will retire your brain, make you happier, and if done consistently, can really transform how you show up for yourself and others in your own life. There’s this cool part of the brain called the Reticular Activating System which makes your brain notice things most important in your current situation. Practicing gratitude brings feelings of positivity, optimism, hope and compassion to the forefront of your mind so the Reticular Activating System has no choice but to look for more. You literally start to see more opportunities and feel more positive all the while building a stronger mindset.
Where you once had limiting beliefs with your old mindset you’ll find exactly what you wanted available to you because your brain will pick up on the stimuli of opportunities that it was filtering out with your fixed mindset. All because of a gratitude practice!
Just 3 things you are grateful for in the morning, 3 things you are grateful for at night. It’s a crazy easy action with a crazy huge return so it is definitely something you’re going to want to add into your rituals if you want to cultivate a stronger mindset.
#5 Create Routines
Train your brain to follow a schedule with everything you do. You don’t need to be eating the same salad everyday for lunch, but you should set consistent bed, awake, and eat times. The more structure you create and stick to, the more disciplined and resilient your mind will become.
I think the most powerful routine I’ve created to this day is my morning routine – I learned it from the book, The Miracle Morning by Hal Elrod. His mornings consist of 6 things called the SAVERS. Silence, Affirmation, Visualization, Exercise, Reading, And Scribing.
Every morning I wake up and I scribe, which is just journaling, my gratitudes and 3 things I am looking forward to today, then I read my affirmations from another great book, Think and Grow Rich, next I meditate for 10 minutes, then keep my eyes closed and visualize what I want my life to look like in 5 years then I bring those feelings and actions to the present, I do that for 10 minutes, I read about 10 pages in my book, and then I go do my workout. All of that before 8/9 am and then I can get to work extremely focused. It’s just the most amazing start to a morning and it really sets the tone for a great day.
#6 Visualization
Visualization is a fantastic tool to help you strengthen your mindset. When you visualize, you bring the feelings and the thoughts of what you desire and want to the present moment.
Think of situations where your mindset might hold you back. Maybe it’s right before you have to give a presentation to a large audience, or while doing a hard project that you’re starting to want to give up on. Close your eyes, and visualize that situation going exactly as you want it to be. You give a perfectly clear presentation, you push through on the hard project, you wake up each morning and say what your grateful for then attack your day.
Really bring the feelings of these actions out and then visualize yourself in the present moment. What can you be doing now to be that person you visualized. Use this tool daily for the best results.
#7 Realize mistakes are not failures
Whenever you make a mistake, don’t think of yourself as a failure. Don’t get discouraged. Honestly, get excited. Get excited that you’ve learned something new all on your own and that you can do it better next time.
It’s also important to give yourself permission to do imperfect work. Sometimes we just don’t get started with our goals or dreams because we don’t know how and we want the plan to be laid out perfectly. Unfortunately, that’s often not how it works. Instead, think of one small thing you can do today that will inch you closer to those goals.
There’s a concept known as “tiny habits” in which you learn a new habit over the course of a few months. Let’s say the habit you want to adopt is cooking at home everyday. Well, the first week of developing this habit, all you’re going to do is put a pan on the stove. That’s it. The next week, you’ll put the pan on the stove and then google a recipe. That’s it. The next week, you’ll put the pan on the stove, google the recipe, and grab a piece of paper and pen to write down a grocery list. You keep adding the smallest actions until you finish the task.
What’s interesting with these tiny habits is that rather than shoving something new into your life, they make you so fed up with waiting that you get pulled into doing the new habit just to avoid going crazy with yourself.
So when working on your mindset, realize that small actions every day yield greater return than big strides than may not last for long.
#8 Practice Affirmations and Mantras
Affirmations are a great tool to strengthen your mindset. An affirmation is simply a statement that you repeat aloud to yourself every day, even if it’s not yet true, until your brain starts to finally believe that it is true.
Affirmations works because our body achieves what the mind believes. Through constant repetition, we can implant any sort of belief into our subconscious mind.
Here’s a few affirmations that you can try:
- I am confident, courageous, and brave
- I speak with clarity, energy, and vigor
- I am living my best life
- I wake up each day with passion and purpose
- I am healthy and vital
- I eat the most delicious foods that nourish my body and mind every single day
- I hold the power over my own life
- I am enough
- I am capable of achieving my goals no matter what anyone thinks
- My mind is strong, resilient, and positive
- I am open to the possibilities each day brings
- I do not let the emotions and actions of others dictate how I live my life
#9 Exercise
Exercise builds discipline, and strength; strength of the mind and body. Many people don’t associate exercise with anything other than to look and feel good. While exercise can accomplish that, it has many more benefits:
- Can help prevent and heal depression and anxiety
- Improves sleep
- Clears the mind
- Improves memory
- Makes you feel good about yourself with endorphins
Incorporating an exercise routine into your week is a great way to keep your mind in great shape and prepare you for the challenges to come.
#10 Get adequate sleep
Sleep is one of the most underrated methods of healing, learning better, and feeling better in today’s society. Our gadgets keep us up long past our bedtimes. Sleep is crucial to building a strong mindset because it is the time where our bodies rest, recover, and sort through the events of the day. Our brains literally organize themselves as we sleep. If we compromise that, we compromise our thoughts and therefore our actions.
Here’s some tips to get better sleep:
- Turn the electronics off an hour before bed and keep them in a separate room
- Make sure your bed is made and your bedroom is clean everyday
- Exercise 3-4x a week
- Wear blue light blocking glasses at night
- Try a magnesium supplement
- Read before bed – don’t look at screens or do intense exercise
- Use a lavendar essential oil
- Go to bed and wake up at consistent times each day
Wrap-Up
Our greatest asset is our mind. The exact same day can be experienced totally different depending on where your mind is at. That’s why it’s crucial to be working on, strengthening, and building a resilient mind everyday so that you can handle whatever life throws at you.
Let me know if you’ve used any of these tips in the comments!
Or, do you have any tips that I missed?
