How you train your mind matters.
Does anyone else feel like the voices that we have in our head are constantly fighting one another? Depending on what is happening, I frequently go through some sort of internal struggle, especially when it has to do with starting a task. I usually am ok when I have started, because I choose tasks that I enjoy doing, but it is the starting that is the most challenging for me. This struggle is something we all go through, and sometimes it becomes overwhelming because you know what you should do, but you don’t always do it. Why? What makes the difference in the times that we choose to do something that is beneficial for us, versus the times that we don’t?
As I started asking myself this question more and more, I learned to pay attention to what I was doing with my mind. I looked at my physical behaviors first. As a person who has always been into health and fitness to an extreme level from my Division 1 soccer playing days to my professional dance career, movement has been one of the most important attributes of my life. Or so I believed. Having a deeper look into my behaviors, I had actually been training my mind just as much, if not more than my physical body. I would create mental exercises challenging my will power and ways to challenge it’s strength in times of weakness before I even knew that that was what I was doing. If I was running on a treadmill for 30 minutes, as soon as the timer would go off I would immediately press 10 more minutes without giving myself time to talk myself out of it. During anything physically challenging, I would set these intense thoughts up in my head. I wanted to be my best. All the time. There was no room for negotiation. I didn’t have time to give myself excuses because I knew to compete at the highest level, someone was out there doing more than me and doing it better. I would create emotional scenarios that would fill me with desire and a sense of needing to push a little bit more every time. I would tell myself that I would get cut from my soccer team if I ever fell out of a plank early. Or if I missed too many shots in a row while I was practicing that I would never play for the US National team. These extreme situations created such poise in my approach and it is what I knew pushed me to continuously practice, because those situations were not options I was willing to live with. If I didn’t do my best in every situation everyday, I knew it. And because I knew it, I held myself accountable.
I noticed the more I held myself accountable, I got two different reactions from people, and this hasn’t changed since entering the dance world. I either inspired people beyond belief, or I was criticized that I took what I did too seriously and was too intense. Thank the Universe that I never listened to the second group. While it bothered me, I never quite understood it. All of the people I looked up to trained like this. All of the people I was inspired by, I would listen to their interviews and be floored at their work ethic and determination to do amazing things. I really was just blown away by their ability to wake up everyday and do it so consistently that it created real results in their lives. That is what I wanted, real results. When I started receiving criticism, it was when I was around people on my soccer team who didn’t want to run an extra lap when I wanted to. It was when someone didn’t want to stay an extra 30 minutes to practice on the field after we were done with a two hour session. I didn’t care, I wanted more. I never understood why I was criticized, but I later learned that it was never me, but a reflection of how that other person thought. Maybe I was over the top sometimes, but I knew what I wanted and that was the way I went about going after it. Training was always so fun for me. It was something I couldn’t get enough of, whether it was soccer or dance, or even working on my business. I wanted to understand how I could contribute more time to it so that I could be the best that I could be. I recognized from a young age that I would only get one chance to live this life out, and I wanted to spend it doing things that I was passionate about and not even take the chance at not being able to do that. I knew the two difference makers were going to be the amount of time that practiced and how much I pushed through the no’s. It was my belief in myself. I trained my mind so hard to believe in myself every second of the day. Even when I knew I was awful at something, if I enjoyed it and it excited me, I knew I could get better at it with time and practice. I was training my mind to be so resilient in the smallest of ways, so that way, no matter what was being thrown at me, I knew I could side step it and see the possibility rather than the improbability.
After some time, there was something about overcoming a mental challenge(that was usually crafted on purpose by me) that seemed so satisfying. As much as it may have sucked in the moment, I used all of my mental ability to block that thought and feeling out of my head. Knowing it was going to be hard was easily the first thought that came to mind, and the decision to succumb to the power of this challenge was nearly the first choice many times. I had to learn how to overcome this initial reaction. So, I trained my mind like a warrior. Except I quickly realized that I had a couple different warriors in my mind. One one side, I had the one that wanted to see all of my goals and dreams pursued and accomplished. And on the other side, the one that was ok with that not being my reality. I realized that whichever one I gave more time and focus to, that one would be stronger and more resilient than the other. I knew it was a choice and a sense of deep passion and willpower. I knew I had to fight to stay consistent in training the one that wanted to see my accomplish my goals.
I guess you would say I was practicing mindfulness in my early teens. I was very aware of where I spent my time and what I was doing. I often skipped parties and time to hang out with my friends in order to practice. Usually, I only wanted to hang out with my friends if they wanted to practice. Thankfully in my neighborhood, all of my friends played the same sports as me, so we practiced quite often and I attribute that to a lot of my consistency. As I got older, more and more people wanted to practice less and less. Soon I was on the field or going for runs by myself, and I loved it. I loved every second because I was so focused on being so thankful that I could play everyday. It made me so happy every time I got the chance to touch a soccer ball. That translated to dance, where every time I got a chance to listen to music I would listen to it for hours on end. I became obsessed with these practices because I knew it was the only way. My parents taught me discipline, and I took it to the next level. My conviction to what I wanted to do was deadly, and there was no one or nothing that was going to stand in my way. If I wanted something bad enough, in my mind you could never stop me from getting it.
It became so apparent to me that that was how my life was going to work, I only thought about this warrior. As soon as the other warrior would start to come into my thought and begin to take over all the work I was putting into the resilient one, I would notice it and shift my mind off of this thought. This sounds like it was easy for me, but it wasn’t. What made it easy was the constant practice. Everyday there was a situation or two where these two warriors had to confront each other. In the beginning, I didn’t know which one would win out, it was pretty much a 50/50 shot depending on who I was around and what was happening that day. Yet the more I did it, the more I realized a very valuable and powerful idea. The more I practiced, the better I got a strengthening the “positive” warrior. The more I practiced, the less effort I had to put into gathering my energy to choose. This gave me more energy to pour into what I need to focus on.
The initial choice to listen to one warrior over the other was a huge step. A huge step in the understanding that I am in control. I am in control of how I used my thoughts and actions. I can choose and select what I needed to do and accomplish. Every time I practiced this, I never worried about the outcome. I only worried about getting past the first line of resistance. Once I got past the first line of resistance, I knew that I had the power to push on until the warrior began to come back into focus. When the “negative” warrior would begin to creep back in to my minds focus, his power was much weaker and I was able to the push him out easier. When this internal battle wasn’t present, this is when the action or task that needed to get done, could get done to my best ability in that moment. I realized I was fully present and focused. In those moments I would be able to focus my energy on what I had to do, rather than fighting to see if I was actually going to start it or not.
Starting the action is always going to be a challenge. At the start of the battle, the warriors are at equal distance, but your clarity should also be at equal distance. It takes the same amount of effort to choose the positive over the negative. It just needs to be selected. It doesn’t mean that you won’t be challenged by the negative warrior because you will be. You will be challenged immediately. They both want to win. It is up to your conscious ability to choose which one will initially win out. Then you must remain as focused on that “positive” warrior for as long as possible. When this choice becomes a habit, that first line of resistance will take less energy and you will see that the strength of your will power has been increased. This is not automatic in anyone, and takes a considerate amount of clarity and conviction. But when you find this conviction and practice it, you can more easily challenge the negative warrior with much more ease and force.
Our mind works the same as our physical body. If you are to just bicep curl with the right arm, and didn’t very little with the left, in a few days time you will not see a significant difference in size. However, if you give it a few months time, you will see a significant difference in size between the left and the right. The same goes with your mind. If you spend more time training one side, whichever side you focus on will have more strength. Once you grasp that this is how it works, you can then learn to control it through practice. Daily habitual practice in small forms is the most sure fire way to create an automatic response that benefits you consistently. The faster you can create an automatic response, the faster you can pour your energy and focus into the actual action instead of using this energy up on getting into the action.
You only have a certain amount of energy, and for this energy to be used effectively, it needs to be concentrated. The goal should be to allocate it as intelligently as possible to create behaviors that work in your best interest that will manifest the particular result you want in life. You want to waste as little energy as possible as you will constantly need to replenish it through food, inspiration, and rest. Both creating and utilizing your energy efficiently will be a skill you will forever work on if you want to be the best you can be. Finding what works and what doesn’t through consistent daily practice will help you create an understanding of yourself that suits your needs. While you don’t want to rush, if something matters to you, you want to bring it to life as quickly as possible so that you can enjoy it and help it flourish for a longer period of time. It is never too late to start training your mind to work in favor of the future you want.
Start small, and start today.