Mindset is a funny muscle, it is something we can’t see in the mirror and only know we are in a bad place when we’ve reached rock bottom. Literally it impacts everything we do in this world. It is how we treat our kids, loved ones, teammates, and even the ever important barista.

Given it is a muscle we can reshape, build it up, and use it to our advantage across all aspects of our life. If we want to build a hospital in Rwanda, it gives us the optimism, confidence, faith, and resolve to push through the 1,000s of NOs and bad news. If we want to start a business, it again gives us internal fortitude, a will to survive, a will to seek solutions when others would say “well the world doesn’t want me to do it”, and it gives us kindness — kindness to ourselves.

Kindness to Ourselves

What a phrase, what a realization that we deserve kindness and that it is ours to give! The exploration of self is done in the shared road that our physical selves are experiencing day in and day out. The difference is that if we don’t take care of ourselves physically; we eat processed foods and then we get chronic diseases; or we workout and eat well and we are then enjoying hiking and playing with our kids’ kids in our 60s and 70s; or we simply choose to not work hard and educate ourselves, and simply remain at the same professional level forever — WE SEE IT.

WE SEE physical rewards, when they are too late

Your family SEES it. More importantly, YOU see it. You see the impact. Sadly some behaviors don’t make their “reward” known until there is no turning back … let’s break that down. When you DO anything you get a REWARD. It may not be what you wanted or good, but it is what you earned.

DO → REWARD
Eat Poor → Gain Fat; Live a shorter life; Chronic disease
Stop educating yourself / bettering yourself → Remain at same job level, forever
EXERCISE Daily → Be more mobile and active into old age

These are physical and sadly once you get to old age, you can’t unwind this clock. You cannot repair or put yourself back together to gain other rewards. This however isn’t true with your mindset and mental health!

Mental health, forever available to you

Your mind is forever adapting and responding to it’s environment. It literally feeds on what you give it and as a result the amount of kindness we give ourselves, the better we will enjoy happiness in the current moment and achieve our best self. Mindset is clearly influenced by the following:

  • Circle of friends, are they building you up? Are they complaining and focused only on the negative (run run fast away)
  • Parents and siblings — are they encouraging you to exceed their own status or are they, dangerously similar to your negative circle of friends
  • What we consume — did you know your mind is hugely impacted by what you read and see?! It’s a huge deal, and that is why you see marketing and news tactics to push extreme negative emotions — we respond with attention. There is a huge amount of good in the world, so much so that a newspaper today shows the majority of the bad in the world. That is it, that is what was worth reporting, and when you do the math — those 50–100 pages is barely a drop in the bucket of what ACTUALLY HAPPENED at large in the world.

What I am trying to say is — the news as reported is negative and it is all that they can do to share this information. This represents such an astronomically small value in the larger scale of good happening in the world, that it is nearly worthless and of no value to your time.

This is true for your social media feeds, but you know what is interesting on this medium — it shares you what you like. So, if you have negative in your feed .. take the 2 seconds to ‘block that type of content’ or person. Then SEARCH and like what you seek — do you seek happiness, rock climbing, travel adventures, pandas, anything … you’ll notice that NOW your social media is serving content related to these topics that give you VALUE. Bonus, this also begins to rewire your mental state as you are no longer anxious about social media, having your loves reinforced, and maybe learning / being exposed to new opportunities to go out and enjoy these directly.

Kindness in our mind

Let’s be kind to ourselves, improve those inside voices, but also begin feeding this muscle with media that supports what we desire.

To begin with …. let’s seek out music that inspires, motivates, gives you hope and opens the mind to new joys. If you are listening to music about breakups — good news, you’ll be wallowing and reinforcing your grief. If you listen to growth, work effort, and stories of change — you’ll also reinforce what you need.

Bottom line, our mindset is a muscle. It is our most powerful muscle — the WILL power of your soul and the unlock to every ambition in our lifetime. How you nurture and support it is your choice, but when moments are dire in your life this is a free habit that can turn around every negative situation. Better than that — it can exponentially improve the good in your life, and who doesn’t want more good and happiness in their life!

Please like and share if this provided you any value!

As usual, if you liked this article, please support me by clicking LIKE and share it with your own feed! This is the best possible way that you can support me and my pursuit to share my insights, ideas, and research. If anyone has anything to add or comment on in this article, please feel free to share it with everyone below in the comments section! Learn more about me at my homepage at www.jamesdeluccia.com, LinkedIn, follow me on Twitter @jdeluccia, and soon listen on my podcast and Alexa skill briefings in the coming weeks!

About Me

I am a father, study of human behavior, strategist, cybersecurity veteran, and a coach and mentor on a journey to give more than I receive everyday. I lead teams globally, build products, and daily an executive for a leading company where I serve the largest companies in the world using the largest cloud deployments in the world impacting the financial services, healthcare, and fintech industries. I provide these publications and content through my media agency to deliver insights and advantages. Mindset, mental strength, mentorship, personal improvement, health, fitness, and humanist ideas are drawn from personal research and practice. Everything read and heard is my original works and my own perspective. All rights reserved for noted authors and sources. I produce research and strategy, as well as provide advisory services that include inquiries, briefings, consulting projects, and presentations on published findings as well as bespoke speaking engagements where I often keynote at conferences, seminars, and roundtables annually.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *