The brain is an organ. It has blood vessels and coordinates various parts of our body. It needs energy to work. The brain is the physical place where the mind resides. The mind is hypothetical. Mind is the word we use to determine our consciousness and conscience. Our mind is determined by our beliefs, values, convictions, thought, feelings, emotions, decisions, creativity. Mind often is referred to our reasoning ability, our rationality and our judgments.
- Why to I wake up early each and every day?
- Why do I workout even when i cannot move out of bed?
- Why do I do Intermittent Fasting daily?
- Why do I eat healthy food always and not compromise even once?
- Why do I take time to work on my passion and mission daily instead of relaxing after work?
- Why do I not watch TV or videos or spend endless time on social media?
- Why do I go through the suffering of not just following the masses and by not accepting the social norms?
- Why do I accept the criticism, demotivation, demoralization by doing the right things that I believe but others won’t understand?
- Why do I show compassion and gratitude when life gives me tough challenges and throws me into unexpected situations?
Read Are you Ready to be a Champion? Then Read This
Our brain is an adaptive machine. It can either adapt to the reasons for it to push the limits or adapt to easiness and procrastination based on our decisions and choices. For me it has become an addiction to do more be more. I started accepting that there is more to do in life than just doing a job, eat, sleep, buy things, pay the bills.
I believe that more I do something, the more I can do of that and I want to do. The more I push through the tough situations, the stronger I become. The more I do something that tests my mettle, the more resilient I become. This warrior like mindset of persistence and tenacity percolates into our personal life, professional life and our emotional fortitude.
I also believe that it is true for the opposite as well. Less I do of something that I ought to do, the lesser I tend to do that. When I skip a workout or when I miss an alarm, this becomes a possibility. Now I gave myself a reason to do less of my given potential. By not doing what I promised myself to do, I allow the casualness to creep into my mindset. By quitting or giving up or taking chances to skip any given task that I am supposed to do, I am telling myself that it is possible and it is fine to ignore. There I could get into slippery slope and this attitude reflects on other aspects of life as well.
This is the kind of neural pathways that are spawned in our brain when we push forward and do things that are difficult in your best interests. When we do opposite, our brain’s neural pathways become lethargic and weak like when we do not stand by our own decisions and keep creating excuses.
When I put up against the resistance whether it is mental or physical, I place myself in high self-esteem , my respect towards my determination goes up and hence my self-respect, my confidence improves. This strength gained would translate into courage in dealing with various scenarios in life. This is how I nurture my brain’s reward systems to be excited about getting rewarded for doing the right stuff. Here I am pampering my dopamine receptors (habit and addiction forming hormone) with constructive and productive activities.
When I relax and go casual with ‘Nothing will happen if it is only once’ or ‘This is only one time’ kind of attitude ,the opposite of what I said above happens. Like let me eat that extra scoop of ice cream or let me have 3 more of chocolate brownies or let me just binge watch on Netflix and Youtube compromising sleep or let me hit the snooze button and skip workout today – Here am getting the same kind of Dopamine hit, but i am pampering unhealthy habits. I am encouraging quitting and ‘take it easy’ attitude. Once I know that this is possible, there is a high chance that I would do it again. By doing this unconsciously I am breaking my word to myself and I am not taking my decision seriously. Next it is going to negatively impact the way we perceive ourselves and it lowers our self-respect.
I truly realized that whether I do something or not, whether I want to or not, whether I deserve it or, whether I believe something is important to me or, whether I value something or not – It is all me and the story or explanation I give myself which makes all the difference. I am the one who sold these ideas at different stages of my life and I am responsible to make a critical analysis on those ideas.
Fact is I do not need to be who I am right now, an year or 6 months from now. If I think and believe that taking care of health and fitness is not a big deal, then this is the truth for me. If I think that staying healthy and strong will give me opportunities that gives me an edge over others and live a quality life in future, then this is the truth for me. If I believe that I do not have a certain skill with me right now but I can surely strive hard to improve on the skill, then I will make it happen. Same goes when I think that I do not deserve that skill even if I love it, I will not work on it.
RAISING THE STANDARD IS TOUGH AND CHALLENGING. LOWERING THE BAR IS EASIER AND DOES NOT NEED EFFORT. IT IS ALWAYS EASY TO QUIT, NOT SHOW UP, COMPLAIN, BLAME OTHERS. IT TAKES COURAGE TO STAND OUT, DO AND GIVE OUR BEST, TAKE DECISIONS THAT ARE RIGHT THOUGH UNPOPULAR.
Most of times we choose not to do the right thing – NOT because we CANNOT but because we DO NOT WANT to do it.
It all comes down to how you perceive yourself and what kind of a person you can become when things get tough. What can you do when you are the weakest. It all comes down to those moments in life where you are brought to your knees and you have to pull it through. You must get up and do what is needed. Be the best strong self when you are tired and exhausted.
BE A PERSON OF INTEGRITY AND HAVE THE COURAGE TO PUSH THROUGH.
*Do read the Disclaimer