Building Mental Strength
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By Randy Gage in Critical Thinking, Success, Prosperity.
Most people are aware that they can build muscle and sculpt their physique through the method of physical exercise. Not so many seem to understand that their mental state can be improved by exercising the right thought patterns. This can play out as becoming a better critical thinker, an improved problem solver, and even actually increasing your intelligence. You essentially transform your thought process — how you view, evaluate and respond to stimuli.
At my TRIBAL Event, Greg Williams asked a lot of questions, in order to discern how I think, and how I came about to think the way I do. This was quite a transformational process in my case, moving from victim to victor thinking — and changing my default approach from why something was impossible, to possibility thinking instead. I could analyze this subject for days. Really. Because I think this process is one of the most important changes you can make in yourself to become healthy, happy and prosperous.
So actually, we are going to spend at least a few days analyzing this. I’m going to cover it on a special podcast Wednesday and do a series of posts here on the blog. Hopefully you’ll partake in both platforms and get some penetrating insights into your current thought process, what you may want to change, and then how you make that transformation.
Let’s look at a few critical elements of how you do this…
Number one on the list won’t surprise you. You have to create a default response that whenever you are presented an important choice to make — that you question the premise first.
Your boss says you can stay in your current position and not get a raise. Or you can get a 20 percent pay increase if you will relocate to a division in another state. That might seem initially like an either/or situation. But you can always quit that job and get another. Or open up the vinyl record store you’ve been dreaming about for ten years. The either/or premise wasn’t really valid.
Your parents tell you that you need to take on student loan debt and go to college, because that’s the only way to guarantee a great job when you graduate. That may have been true at some point, but it’s certainly not true today. It’s a bad premise. (One that is harming millions of people right now.)
The second element to changing your actual thought process to become conversant in, and practice “possibility thinking.” (HT to the late, great Reverend Robert Schuller for this concept.) He pioneered the possibility thinking mindset when he wanted to build the famous Crystal Cathedral. Instead of dealing with the potential difficulties and improbabilities, he went straight to possibilities.
If he needed a million dollars, his thought process was: We need one person to donate a million dollars, or two people to donate $500,000, or four people to donate $250,000, or ten people at $100,000, etc. It may sound simplistic to you, but I promise you it actually opens up possibilities. Even when you’re absolutely certain something is impossible, ask the question: But if it were possible, how would it be possible?
What you’re doing with these techniques is actually changing the approach you take in thinking about something. And this immediately changes the results in virtually every area of your life. You could start doing these two things today, right? Please think about it, and in the podcast and tomorrow’s blog I’m going to suggest some others for you. Until then, love to hear your thoughts.
-RG
Tags: mindset, thoughts, prosperity, Reverend Robert Schuller, possibility thinking, thought process
Originally published at www.randygage.com on April 3, 2019.
