The Resilient Mind - 3 Way To Develop A Resilient Mindset - Simba Nyazika

Episode Date: December 20, 2022

Learn 3 tools to develop a more Resilient Mind. Remember, developing a Resilient Mind is a process. It is a set of habits that need to be engaged in on a consistent basis. Book: ⁠⁠The Core Principles of Success⁠⁠ Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

I'm going to be teaching you how you can develop a more resilient mind. I'm going to be sharing with you strategies that utilize the latest scientific research on how we can change the way we think. The first thing you need to realize is that your brain is wired for survival. It is wired to focus on the negative things in your life because it is those things that can affect the survival of your life, whether it be physical or emotional, emotional. An example that illustrates this is that even if let's say you go and you have a job

performance review and they tell you nine things that you're doing well in one area you need to improve on, most of us will tend to focus on that one area because that one area might result in us getting fired. And so that initial knowledge that the default mode for your brain is to focus on the things that it needs to survive, to focus on the quote-unquote stressful or negative events should allow you to gain at least an awareness of why it might be difficult for you to think positively, or it might be difficult for you to change the way you think or the way you feel. However, the beautiful thing about the human mind is that we always have a choice. We can choose to move and think and act in ways that are not consistent with the survival mode that the brain

is usually in because of the conscious mind and how we can use your conscious mind to impress your subconscious mind which you are going to be talking about a little bit later so this session is going to be for you if you struggle with thoughts of anxiety thoughts of fear thoughts of uncertainty if you struggle with self-critical thoughts if you feel stuck if you want to change some aspects of your life whether it's the job you're doing the relationship that you're in the country that you're living but you feel like you are stuck and you're unable to move this session this recording is going to be for you because i'm going to teach you exactly what you need to utilize so that you can start shifting your mindset and actually get the results that you want

One of the key things to remember is once you learn the tools that we're going to be sharing today, you need to apply those tools consistently. They need to become a part of your behaviors, a part of your habit. A major mistake a lot of people do is that they'll learn a tool, they'll learn a strategy, they'll implement it for a week or so and then they stop implementing it. Or some of you might have heard the common phrase, it takes twin one days to form a habit. Well, after those 21 days, if you stop doing the thing that is consistent with that habit, then you're likely to revert back to your default mode of operating. Because no matter what, your brain needs to be focused thinking and feeling something. And so if you want to change and develop a more resilient mindset,

you need to start taking control of the thoughts that you have, the emotions that you're feeling, and the actions that you're taking. And so the first thing for you to be able to do that is you need to start becoming aware of the thoughts that you have in your mind. You need to start becoming aware of the self-talk that you engage in when you are interacting or when you are going through your day-to-day activities. Are the thoughts you're having encouraging, positive, compassionate? or are they critical, self-deprecating, discouraging? Almost people, the thoughts that they have in their mind tend to be disempowering, tend to be very critical. And this is very important because when it comes to our minds,

our minds does not know the difference between something that it's experiencing externally. For example, something that someone is saying. to us, this is something that we might be saying to ourselves. And a thought experiment that clearly highlights this. If you are not driving, close your eyes. And I want you to imagine that in front of you, you've got half a lemon and half an onion. With your right hand, you're going to pick up that lemon and you're going to bite into it. As if you are eating a juicy, delicious orange.

You're going to put that lemon down, then you're going to pick up the onion. And you're also going to bite into it and chew it like a juicy apple. And as you're doing that, I'm going to take my long nails and I'm going to scratch them across a blackboard. Open your eyes. There is no lemon. There's no onion. And my nails are short. however when I do this in person with my students

I see real visceral reactions to the thought of them thinking about eating those foods and so when we say to ourselves we are not enough when we say to ourselves I hate myself when we say to ourselves nobody likes me our brain our mind is going to treat it exactly as if someone is saying it to that

and so this should get you to some extent excited because now you know that if you can change the way you talk to yourself you can actually start changing your physiology something that is very very powerful so the first thing that you need to become aware is what do you say to yourself how do you talk to yourself what are some of the things that go through your mind on a day to day basis.

And for some of you, it might be in specific situations. Maybe if you have to talk to someone, your self-talk becomes more negative versus if you are talking to someone else. Maybe at work your self-talk is going to be different than the self-talk you have at home. Become aware of the way you talk to yourself because awareness is the first step of change.

And once you become aware of what you say to yourself, the next step is asking yourself, how would you like to be talking to yourself instead? So if you find yourself at work and you are feeling a lot of self-doubt, a lot of I'm not enough, I'm not smart enough, I don't know enough,

which results in you not speaking up in that situation, ask yourself, what don't you like to be saying to yourself instead? And examples of what you're saying to yourself? you could be saying to yourself could be I know my material I've been here for however many years I've an education in this everything I say does not have to be perfect it's okay for me to provide a suggestion that people may not adopt I'm okay if I make a mistake if I speak up and so changing and shifting yourself talk is very powerful because it will change not only the

thoughts you're having but how you're feeling in that situation situation. And as it changes how you're feeling in that situation, then it's going to change how you behave and act in that situation, which influences how people respond to you. So once you realize how you talk to yourself, ask yourself what you want to be saying instead. And you probably want to be doing this, causing the recording and writing it down on a piece of paper. once you decide and figure out what you want to say yourself instead every single time you notice every single time you become aware of the negative self-talk

you want to repeat that positive or that new self-talk at least three times and the three times is a matter of teaching your brain and practicing that new behavior practicing that new thought pattern because if you have been successful, saying negative self-talk for the last 10, 20, 30 years, then it will take some time to change your neural pathways to the new self-talk that you're starting to practice. And so you need to

repeat that new self-talk again and again and again and again until it becomes a habit, until it becomes your new default way of talking to yourself. Did you know that it is possible for you to have your mind in the morning telling you today is going to be a great day. When you're in situations that are stressful, you're having the self-talk to say, I thrive under pressure. This is when I shine. The more pressure I get, the more I get to learn. Having that self-talk is very possible with enough practice, with enough repetition. So take that new phrase for your self-talk and make it part of your new practice. practice, make it part of your new habitual thought patterns so that you can internalize and embody

that new version of your self-talk. The second thing that you want to do in terms of developing a more resilient mindset is to realize that when it comes to your mind, there's two aspects of it. You've got your conscious mind, which is your awareness, a part of me that is a way of me talking to you at this point. But then you also have your subconscious mind, which is subconscious, which we are not aware of. But within our subconscious mind is our habits, our memories, our behaviors, our views, our paradigms. And so a lot of research has shown that the conscious mind accounts for about 5% of our total mind,

while the subconscious mind accounts for 95%. and this is very, very important because the quality of your life is determined by the quality of your thoughts and more importantly, the quality of a life will be determined by the quality of the thoughts within your subconscious mind. And so the second step to realize is you can train your subconscious mind through your conscious mind to change the thoughts that you're are having to change the way it is feeling and you've already talked about the initial strategy of changing your self-talk. The second component of changing your subconscious mind is to realize that your body is just an aspect of the subconscious mind.

I'm going to say that again, your body is just an aspect of the subconscious mind. This is a lesson that is taught very eloquently by Dr. dispens us so feel free to look at his material to read up further on that but realizing that your body is a representation of your subconscious mind tells you that you can actually do things you engage in specific behaviors and habits towards your body that can help you accelerate the process of developing a more resilient mindset and so anything that you can do to improve your body, anything that you can do to make your body healthier or go a long way in helping you develop a more resilient mindset.

Some of the examples include ensuring that you are getting adequate sleep, whatever that looks like for you. Because we know based on the neuroscience and psychology that when we do not sleep or we are sleep deprived, a lot of the prefrontal cortex functions such as attention, our cognitive processing speed, memory tend to get more impaired. Our reaction time reduces. And so sleep is one of those aspects that is important for us for our body and our mind to be functioning well. Other components include eating as healthy as you can, reducing unhealthy foods. ensuring that you're engaging in activities that are good for you,

whatever those activities could be. For some of you, it might be some form of physical exercise. For others, it could be yoga, walking. Some of you, it might be going for massages or hanging out with friends. Whatever those activities are, you want to structure your week to ensure that you're engaging in activities that help your body feel good. because when your body feels good, it is easier for your mind to feel good. When your body feels good, it is easier to think positive thoughts.

And when your body is feeling tired, it's feeling unhealthy, it's feeling lethargic. And that's going to impact the way you're thinking because, as I said earlier, your body is only an aspect of the subconscious mind. Finally, actions. Engage in actions that are consistent with creating an environment around you that fosters developing a resilient mindset. And you can do this by becoming very conscious of the information you let in to your mind. Do you know that IBM did a study and they found out that the conscious mind, the conscious part of your brain, process is about 50 bits of information per second. Now, if you're not a computer scientist, that number may not mean anything to you,

but the important component of the study was that they realized that the subconscious mind processes 11 million bits of information per second. So 50 bits per second for the conscious mind, 11 million bits per second for the subconscious mind, 11 million bits per second for the subconscious mind, which means that all the information that is around you, whether it's media, the people around you, the advertising, whatever it is, you're only aware of a fraction of it, but your subconscious mind is picking up and digesting and internalizing

millions of bits of that data into your body. And so part of building a resilient, mindset is to take complete control of the information that goes into your mind. This means becoming aware of the music you listen to, becoming aware of the people that you're listening to, becoming aware of the things that you're watching on social media. Because you really want to become conscious of, is this material helping me develop a resilient mindset, or is this material actually weakening the strength of my mind? One of the things that we know and is becoming very evidence is that there's a lot of apps out there that actually weaken our mind and weaken our attention span.

Weaken our ability to have mental willpower. And so if you do not have some form of structure around the information you're taking, then you might try to focus on something or you might try to start changing your thoughts or maybe be more. resilient by not thinking about the negative stuff that's going on in the world or in your life, but you have a difficult time doing so. And that is usually because we have not taken the time to actually strengthen our minds. We have not done the work to actually make our mind stronger and be able to have more conscious control on it. And so if you want to develop a more resilient mindset, you have to become more deliberate about the information you are taking in. And this is one of the purpose of the podcast that you're listening to.

Because if you decide that in the morning when you wake up, you are listening to some of this information. When you're in your car, you're listening to some of this information. During lunch, you're listening to some of this information. Driving home, you're listening to some of this information. Before you go to bed, you're listening to this information. and you do that day in and day out, eventually the nature of your mind is going to change because when you're not even thinking

when you're not trying to focus on it, what is going to be top of mind is this information. And only then can you start internalizing it because you're inundating your mind with this information. Another way of putting it is we know that the way propaganda works and it has been used in the past is by repeating a message to a population multiple times

until the individuals with people in that country end up believing that and that's the only thing that they can think. And so here, you're using the same technique but for good. You are basically propagandaizing, if that's even a word,

your mind with powerful, empowering, compassion, and information so you can change the way you think so that you're different, thoughts are positive so that your default thoughts are empowering so that your default thoughts are resilient and so this is one of the core techniques that a lot of people that have got a strong mindset utilize because almost every single moment of every single day they are listening to something empowering they are reading something empowering they are attending events that help them change the way they think

and if you can apply this into your life for the next year, it will absolutely revolutionize the way you think. And it will revolutionize it in this way. One of the things that you'll notice is that if you're a person who thinks negatively most of the time, those negative thoughts are going to start getting replaced with the information you're taking in. And the more you listen to that information, the more you find yourself just, thinking of this new information, thinking about, hey, how can I change my mind? Thinking about how your thoughts influence your reality.

Thinking about how your emotions are very powerful tools to creating your life. Thinking about how you can change the nature of how people respond to you based on how you are changing your demeanor. And the more you think about it, the more are going to see the evidence in your own life. And so take all this material that we cover today. we listen to it if you need to and then ensure that you shift your structure, you shift your environment so that you're able

to actually develop a resilient mindset. So the three things we cover today is one become aware of your thoughts particularly your self-talk and start changing and shifting them into the self-talk that you want. Two

your body is a component of the subconscious mind and so you want to do things that also feel good for your body. And when you take care of your body, it also helps you take care of your mind. Three, act in ways and engage in behaviors that help feed your mind positive empowering material. And how do you do that? Ensuring that a big chunk of the information you're going to be taking in on a day-to-day basis is empowering, is inspiring. And you can do that by listening to podcasts, reading books, or surrounding yourselves with people that resonate with this message.