Episode #56: 7 Ways To Get Your Mind Right

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Getting your mind right, to me, is really taking a step back and saying, “You know what, my success in life is truly based on how strong I feel mentally.” Not necessarily how strong I am physically, what size or shape I am, but truly how strong you feel mentally, your mental stamina because our mind and what we truly have going on upstairs is what guides and directs our everyday actions and behaviors.

We tend to judge ourselves harshly and perceive our wins and losses a certain way. When we have a strong mind, it really controls that attitude, that daily attitude and the ability that we have to focus and get things done, and avoid stress and emotional roller coasters, the ups and downs that really allow us that healthy body from the inside out.

Mindset and mental stamina is what this is about today because when was the last time that you were crushing in life?

Maybe it’s right now. Maybe it’s not right now, but you can remember back to a time when you felt like you were on fire. I want you to think about that because you got to ask yourself in order to get on board with what I’m going to go over today and why it might even be worth it for you to take this advice, and to get your mind right, and to actually implement these seven different strategies for getting your mind right. If you don’t really value this practice or these practices because you don’t really believe in the ways they can enhance your life, you won’t take action.

If people don’t believe that adding pre and probiotics to their gut health diet will help improve digestion, elimination, and overall internal health, they won’t take them. You have to actually believe that stuff matters in order for you to do it. That’s why I do it every day because it’s a value of mine. I believe it. We have to believe that the only way to crash it in life is to elevate our mental strength and stamina.

 

Your first step is listening, listening to these seven different ways of enhancing your mental strength and stamina. The second thing is by taking action and just trying a few of them. Implement one or two into your life. Start slow. Maybe join the seven days of mind management, and get into that program, and put yourself through seven days of that practice and implementation because the best way to become a true believer in anything is to experience it for yourself.

These are going to be very easy. I’m going to run through them pretty quickly because the only way for you to fully get the benefit is if you actually do these things. My majority of this podcast episode is about really influencing you to take a step back and think about how you’re doing mentally, so that you can start to crush it in life. If you want to elevate yourself to the next level, you’ll take these steps seriously, and you’ll do some of these things.

Number one, Meditation.

Now, I know that meditation can be overwhelming for some people, and I actually have some high-performance students right now that still haven’t yet gotten consistent with meditation.

This is what I told a student yesterday, “Listen, if you’re having trouble meditating, I want you to just begin by taking three minutes from your desk each day, just three minutes. I encourage you to go for a little walk, and to not think about work. To just breathe, take three minutes, set your phone alarm and time yourself. Try to create some white space where you’re not thinking about work. That’s it. I want you to do that every day. Will you do it?” She said, “Yeah, I’m going to try that.”

Meditation is creating white space. It’s literally not a crazy practice that you have to completely clear your mind and have a quiet room with yoga music or meditation music playing. If you go outside, and walk around, and just pay attention to the nature, or to listen to the birds, you can meditate. You don’t even have to have your eyes closed, but you have to focus on not thinking about anything else but your present place and state.

You’re trying to create white space, so that all the thoughts that continuously roam around in your mind and go, “Prrrr” all day long. You think about a hundred things, you don’t even realize it. When you take some time and you actually just try to create some space in your thoughts and say, “Wow, beautiful tree. Listen to the birds. What a beautiful sky,” you get yourself into a simplistic state of mind. That’s what it’s about because meditation is a break. It’s a break from all the thoughts and the connections happening in your brain. You’ve got to create white space. It’s good for recovery. It’s good for mental health. It’s a necessity.

Start small. Don’t get all crazy. Don’t think you got to be like 15, 25, 30 minutes meditation. I do 15 minutes a day. That’s it. I’m getting better, and better, and better at making sure that there are no other thoughts going on in my mind. At first, hell yeah, there were. I’ll be like, “Get back. Get back, Turn it back into it. Get back into it. Stop thinking about that.” That’s okay because why is it called the meditation practice? Because it takes practice to be good at these things.

Number 2, movement.

Most people think that exercise is solely, so they can burn calories, and gain muscle, and work off the doughnut they had that morning. I don’t want you to think about your movement solely for those purposes. Really, if you can move every day, get your heart rate up, get your limbs moving, get your legs moving, get the blood circulating, you are fueling your brain with that fresh blood. That circulation is going to totally enhance the health of your brain.

It’s when people are at their desk all day and they’re like shoulders are all up to here, up through their ears, and they’re not really moving their body, you know those people that you work with. You might do your exercise regularly. Then, some days, you might feel lazy. You might be like, “I don’t feel like working today.” Well, then, go for a walk, and do some arm circles, and do some side bends, and touch your toes, and bring your knees to your chest, and do a chest opener. It doesn’t have to be an aggressive circuit training exercise day for you every day, but move, movement. Just keep the movement in your mind. This is going to enhance brain health.

If there is the day where you’re tired, and you’re lazy, and you’re feeling like, “I didn’t get up and get my work done before work. Then, after work, I’m going to get drinks with friends, so I’m not going to have time to work out there,” then you better get out and walk during your lunch break. You better get up out of your chair during the day and do some stretches. You got to move. Don’t let yourself be a clam all day, any day. It’s going to really jeopardize your mental health, and your focus, and your ability to think clearly, and to feel good, and to be happy. These are all things that are triggered by your brain. Move. Get the blood circulating.

Number 3, brain breaks.

Now, this isn’t exactly the same as meditation. This is different. This is multiple times throughout the day. It’s called interval training for your mind. If you’re to strength train all day long, and you’re bicep curling, and you’re squatting, and you never take a rest, how do you think your muscles would react? Yeah, you’d be struggling. You basically get out. You know what, obviously, you’re towards the end of a set sometimes where you can almost not do one more repetition of that move. That is what you’re doing to your brain all day when you don’t take breaks.

When I say, “Get out of your chair, try to clear your mind, not think about work. Go breath, and take some deep breaths, and just take your mind off things for two to three minutes multiple times throughout the day,” it’s important. Those are rest intervals for your mind. They’re highly, highly important. All right. If you don’t believe me, give it a try, just for one day. Just one day, be like, “All right. Setting my alarm for three time during my day. I’m going to get out of my chair. I’m going to take three minutes. I’m going to not think about my work.”

Some people can’t even do that. That’s okay. If you do it once, I’m proud of you. If you do it twice, even better. If you do it three times, you are a master of the mind, my friend. I encourage you to try. Start slow. Don’t have to be perfect at it. Just give it a shot.

Number 4, breathe.

Too often, people do not focus on their breath. It’s like when you’re in a class, and you’re doing exercise, that’s when you mostly focus on your breath because someone is always screaming at you saying, “Breathe. Breathe in. Breathe out. Don’t forget to breathe.” During your day when you’re at your desk, or when you’re watching TV, or when you’re sitting at dinner, you don’t tend to take in the breath.

How often do you stop during the day and take deep breaths? Never? Once? Twice? Do you know how often I focus on my breath throughout the day? Probably four, five, maybe six times a day. Only because I’ve been teaching myself to do it. If I get ready for a call, or a presentation, or a podcast, right before I go on, I’m breathing deeply. Why? Oxygen. It’s called the fountain of youth, people. It is what fuels your body. We know that, but we don’t use it.

People want stimulants. People want caffeine. Guess what, oxygen is your caffeine. Most people that are tired in the middle of the day, because they haven’t been breathing. You’ve been shallow. You’ve been sitting there all hunched in, not really focusing on your breath. Get it in. The reason people tell you to breathe in through your nose is because that is the quickest way to get it into your lungs, and that exchange of oxygen that happened into your blood to get into yourselves, to infuse your body.

Number 5, food.

Food. Brain fuel, baby. I talk about food all the time because, obviously, we all want to be healthy. We want to look good. We want to feel toned and strong. We want to lose unwanted fat. It’s important, obviously, what we put in our mouth, not only for our body, but for our brain. 25% of our calories are consumed by this bad boy. It takes a lot. It consumes a lot. What we feed our self truly dictates how we think. It dictates how we process information. It dictates how clear and productive we can be.

If you have a heavy lunch, there’s a reason you want to take a nap after. Your brain wants to sleep too because everything you just fed it was sludge – That’s a great way to get stuff done. All right. I know I’m being sarcastic, but everybody thinks about food as ways to diet and ways to lose weight. I’m like, “What about food for your mind for you to be mentally clear, and joyful, and feel energized, and be in a good mood, and release good hormones?” It’s all connected. People separate brain and body way too often, but they’re connected, my friends, obviously. You know that. I don’t know if you’re thinking that way.

What you eat is so important. When I talk about the fact that I drink my super food shake every morning, shakeology, it’s my beast. People say, “Oh well. I don’t believe in drinking my food.” I’m like, “Wait, you don’t believe in just getting extra minerals, nutrients, and super foods in your body, then for your brain, and for the cells in your body because, you know what, it’s not about weight loss for me either. It’s not about replacing food. It’s about giving myself more.”

People that take vitamin D, and B complex, and taking Omega 3s, it’s all brain fuel, people, because when you give yourselves that type of nutrition, when you are fueled at a cellular level, quality nutrients, minerals, and things that really make a difference, it all circulates through the brain. Those cells need it more than anything for you to get things done, and for you to crash it, and have that mental focus. For you to be able to truly feel your best, it starts in your mind. Food, think of food differently. Think about it as a way to fuel your brain. Next time you decide what you’re having for lunch, think about how your brain feels about that.

Number six, sleep.

You know I was going to say it. It’s so on the top picks of all of the things that I teach in high performance is sleep. Weight loss is related very directly to our sleep. Obviously, our brain health, our stress, our mood, all of that. It is so correlated. It’s so directly related. It’s important that you realize that neglecting this part of your self-care is going to massive impact how you feel, how you think, how you get things done, how you react, your mood, all that stuff.

Yeah, go ahead, stay up until midnight, get up at 5:00 because you have no choice. You know what, everybody has a choice. Maybe the military don’t because they’re training, or they’re working for something, but you can decide to go to bed earlier. Yes, the excuse of “I just can’t get to sleep.” Bull. I’m going to call bull on you because you haven’t tried to practice and get yourself into a state of rest and recovery. Most people that can’t get to bed early, they are up on their computers or watching TV. They’re like, “Why am I not falling asleep?” I wonder, because your brain is super stimulated by all that screen time. You’ve got to have techniques to start to help you wind down. All in my seven days of mind management, you’ve got to get in there.

Number 7, hydration.

Right now, I’m doing a Crush the Sugar creating challenge. One of the things that I talk about really is not drinking a lot of sugar. I want you to self-evaluate how hydrated you are. Some people are like, “I have tea in the morning. Then, I drink water. Then, I have a sparkling water for lunch, or whatever. For dinner, I’ll do a couple of glasses of wine.”

You have to look at the balance of the dehydrating fluid that you’re drinking, and then the hydrating fluids that you’re drinking. If you’re drinking a lot of sugar, those don’t count as hydration. Just so you know. That’s food. If you’re drinking juice, don’t consider it hydration, even if it’s fresh squeezed or whatnot. For the sake of your brain health, think about water. You got to fuel it up. Your cells, when they are dehydrated, and usually the sign of dehydration come when your body is seriously dehydrated.

You’re like it’s time to really get yourself back on track. Don’t let yourself get to that point. Drink a lot of water throughout the day. Trust me, it’s not easy. It’s a practice.

It’s important that you really, really focus on that hydration because I do drink coffee. That’s a dehydrant. I’m getting dehydrated from coffee, so I got to drink more fluids to combat that. When I was drinking wine, I had to drink way more fluids. When I wake up in the morning, I have one full 16-ounce glass of water before anything else enters my body because that’s when I’ve gone through the most withdraw. You go through withdraw throughout the night. I mean, I do have water next to my bed in case I wake up, and I need some water. If you’re waking up thirsty, your body is so dehydrated. You are struggling and suffering. It’s a clear sign that that 16-ounce glass of water should be on your night stand, ready for you to take down when you first wake yourself up, and then all throughout the day.

Those are just seven quick things. I know I went into detail, but I highly encourage you to start practicing these things because this is how you get your mind right. It starts with that self-care. Then, obviously, there’s so many other ways to get your mind right when it comes to psychology and when it comes to productivity, when it comes to persuasion, when it comes to clarity, and energy, and all that stuff. Yes, I teach it all in my high-performance life club.

Right now, get into The 7 days of mind management. I’m going to post that link here, so that you can get into that, and you can try that out. Get yourself into that routine.

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Then, if you’re ready to take the next step, keep going forward with high performance. Start learning more of those other techniques of getting your mind right, so that you can crash it in life because you know what, at the end of the day, your performance is your legacy.

The way that you wake up, the way that you feel, the way that you behave, the way that you interact with people, the things that you produce.

Those things are important, but they’re hard to do when you’re tired. They’re hard to do when you’re foggy-brained. They’re hard to do when you’re lacking the energy and the mood, and you’re feeling negative, and down, and frustrated, and stressed, and emotionally low. That is not how you crush it, and I want you to crush it. I care about that. I really think that these practices are a great way for you to get started.