Category Archives: self discipline

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Too many mind.

To dig deep, you have to dig deep.


My grandfather told me … 

Yes, not who are you… no, what are you?

My grandfather told me when I was very young that – “You are what you constantly think about every day. “ My grandfather was a bit of a philosopher as I later inferred.

Well, great. I guess, we had better think life-affirming thoughts then, shouldn’t we?

I think so.

Thought has power.

Thought has power.

You’re probably aware of that already… but how do you use that power – consciously?

Thought has energy. What is Energy? One would immediately think of an energy drink. Energy does not vanish., it is never created nor destroyed. It does not disappear. It persists for all of time. All of eternity. Energy transforms from one medium to another or many.

To think, really think .. is probably the hardest thing To do in life

Energy is life.

Energy TRANSMUTES.

Energy transmutes from one moment to another. Energy is the life-blood of life itself. Without energy,  I would cease to exist. You would cease to exist. Life, as we know it, would cease to exist.

So, it could be argued that energy is life and that would make Einstein one of the greatest thinkers that has ever walked this earth.

Why?

Simply, because I think he came up with a formula that fundamentally sums up Life. And what formula would that be, Paul? Well, I’m certain everyone who is reading this knows this following formula:

Energy (E) = Mass (m) x (C x C),    where C = Speed of light

Or, in layman’s speech – E = M C squared.

In the Quantum world the Experimenter becomes part of the experiment.
That is the “hard problem” of the Quantum

Everything is energy, including your thoughts. 

So, if life is Energy, then based on the formula above, everything is energy – all matter, and matter being gas, liquid and solid…. & everything in-between.

Energy is everything and everywhere and omni-present.  It could be said that Energy is God, because God is omnipresent too. The formula above describes that of classical physics but in Quantum Physics, the energy of a particle in its simplest forms (photon, proton etc) within a system is summed up in another famous formula by Physicist – Max Plank:

That Energy (E) = the wave vibration of the particle x Plank’s constant.

Phew, what is that Paul, some of you may ask?

Well, it simply says that everything is energy and that each sub-system of a system, for example, a particle, has a certain wave frequency and oscillates at that wave-length. It should also be noted that Quantum particles can exist in two or more states or locations simultaneously and can be mathematically described by a Quantum wave-function. Interesting findings by science, isn’t it? So, energy is everywhere. Everything is energy, including your thoughts.

So, What does that say? What does that tell us about thought?

Everything has a frequency, everything has a resonance. What is your resonance? What resonates with you?

Are your thoughts … Oscillating in a wavelength that is healthy?

Well, we have got to ask ourselves what frequency of thought we are on and if we are oscillating in a wavelength that is healthy. If we are not, can we and what do we need to do to change our thought operating frequency (from negative to positive) and make the change to a different thought oscillation, making this your default. Your default way of thinking.

So if everything is energy, I also think we have got to devote more thought ( as I’ve established is a form of energy) … devote more thought to energy itself but in particularly, in our management of energy.

Back to my opening statement about thought.

What are you?

You become what you think of, everyday.

It is said that any thought held unwaveringly in mind, or any thought held constantly in mind through focused concentration and brought into the conscious mind often enough, seemingly, attracts to it those qualities of the human mind which it most resembles. Basically, you become what you think, every day.

A thought is like a seed put in the ground, that produces a crop that is of its kind and how healthy it turns out depends on the nutrients and caring it has from its internal and external environment.

Therefore, one must watch one’s thoughts.

It is dangerous to allow the mind to hold any thought which is destructive. Why, because, such thought will manifest itself in the physical sense, sooner or later. Be careful, I say, be careful! Just like the seedling needs constant nutrition and nourishment from the sunlight and healthy soil to keep them alive, so does the qualities of your mind. Without proper nutrition and nourishment, everything that lives and grows, dies.

Everything.

Feel the interconnectedness of everything
Live 4 2day

Nutrition for the mind is as important… than nutrition for the body.

The qualities of the human mind also dies, if one does not nourish it and constantly feed it the nutrition it needs to live and develop. Nutrition for the mind is as important, if not, more important than nutrition for the body. How do you do this, I hear you ask?

Simple. Keep it simple, stupid (The KISS principle I learned from one of my business mentors).

Like, any plant would: learn to become more aware (of your thought/thoughts), concentrate and think about it, making the correct choice and then apply (or use it). My philosophy of the Triple A can be adopted here. Refer to an earlier blog for an elaboration on the first A: Awareness.

Are you a spirit… a soul … a leaf 🍃 of consciousness in the vast seas of consciousness?

No one has ownership of your mind, but YOU.

No one has ownership of your mind, but you.

Yes – YOU!

You do not need anyone else in this world to help you manipulate your mind so it will function as you want it to. You also have control over your mind, no matter where you are in life, which phase you  are in life, but provided you exercise the right rather than allowing others to do so for you.

Better control and ownership of your mind and choosing to exercise these factors will allow you to free you of the curse of all fears and stagnation. And why is this important? Well, because I believe that there is a growing hidden epidemic in mode-day societies (one of many) and that is many are suffering from –

Too many Mind.

We’re all swinging like a pendulum .. continuously moving between two points – activity & non-activity/ entertainment/rest . Creating waves 🌊…in the universe

Clutter to the mind is akin to weeds are in a garden.

Your mind is made up of the hardware and the software.

The software keeps changing, keeps getting updated, every day, every second of the day, for some. What happens when you fill your tummy up with so much crap, when you eat too much ….

Well, you feel like crap, don’t you?!

Well, that is also what happens when your nutrition for the mind is also crap. If you keep feeding it crap, you will think and ultimately act like someone who is physically ill. But like I said earlier, who has ownership and control of your mind?

You, yes – YOU!

Not managing your food for your body well enough, can make you very ill, just like mis-managing your nutrition for your mind. This leads to chaotic thoughts, which ultimately causes increased clutter & “noise” in the mind, which then leads to bad decisions, because of lack of focus, which then causes distress in the physical world.

Clutter to the mind is akin to what weeds are to a beautiful garden. The weeds feed on the limited resources and sometimes overgrow and overtake the area, affecting the proper growth of the desired plants. Even killing them off.

So, watch your thoughts, I say. Be the best gardener you can be for your garden! Thoughts, positive or negative GROW STRONGER when fertilized with CONSTANT REPEITITION. Remember this.

My idol.

Too many thoughts = Too many mind.

Too many thoughts = too many mind. 

Very similar to that age old saying – “too many cooks spoil the soup.” That I heard adults saying when I was a child. If you have too many thoughts … too many mind … running chaotically through your consciousness … you muddle up the soup .. muddle up or clutter up … your most precious resource: your Mind.

Clutter doesn’t do much more than cloud up or congest one’s life. One’s mind. Its like a ship with too many destinations  and being paralysed with motion as it has too many competing travel plans. I’m not sure who said this but some thinker, I think it was Einstein, that taught us a big lesson: he felt it was more important to use your mind to “think” than to use it as a warehouse for facts.

That if you could record the information somewhere, then do so, hence freeing up your mind for more important decisions. So, do just that. Don’t use your brain as a storehouse of information, it will just cause unnecessary clutter. Instead focus on the thinking or thought process behind the intelligence. That is why my kids are amazed that I have over 35,000 unread emails in my gmail inbox. I chose yo filter out unnecessary “stuff” and stopped weed from using up my brain cells and cluttering my mind.

Let your light bring colour to the world. Focus 🧘🏾‍♂️ your thoughts 💭 on the area you want the rainbow 🌈 to land

The ability to know how to get information is more important than using the mind as a garage for facts.

The ability to know how to ‘get information’ is more important than using the mind as a garage for facts.

What really matters is not how much intelligence you have, but HOW YOU USE what you do have. The thinking that guides your intelligence is much more important than the quantity of your brainpower. In other words, the thinking that guides your intelligence is much more important than how much intelligence you may have.

Does science have the answers?

All the answers to the truth? The answers we may have to harvesting the mind? What truth is this? What is truth? What is science anyway … it could be seen as a makeshift, a means to an end which is never attained?

Could nature be truth? Could the universe be truth? Where is the source of our knowledge? Do we know everything? Do we think we know something? Are we, as human beings, so arrogant to think we know something … our so-called meagre knowledge … and maybe, missing out on the advantages of actual ignorance.

A man’s ignorance may not only be useful, but can be seen as beautiful. Sometimes, knowledge can be worse than useless and worse still – ugly!

A butterfly 🦋 knows when to fly and when to sit and feed.
Timing is everything in their life.

Where and how can you harness your mind?

So, where and how can you harness your mind, de-cluttering it in the process. Well, one way, is to get you dreaming again … to spark your imagination. To do this, you could try to fall in love with nature. Become one with nature. Become one with the universe. Let nature become one with your spirit – your subconscious. This would allow the mind to be fertilized and bear fruit in the garden, the garden of your subconscious, the fruit of which is imagination.

How would you know which of your thoughts is valuable: a clue could be any thought that comes to your mind, that is anything, but what you thought….& resonates with your heart ❤️.

That is imagination. Imagination is key: A key gift to you in your journey through life.

So become more aware of your thoughts, and then, catch that ‘aha’ thought that you weren’t trying so hard to think about. Unthink to think (refer to an earlier blog on this).

Until next time,

P.

Tesla, Einstein’s hero was so “in-tune” with the Energy & understood HOW to harness that Power energy

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The Power of Habitual Self-regulatory behaviour.

I love Pirates … I love skulls.
Why the skull? Well, it holds and protects the most important organ we have –
Our brain. The organ that allows us to think and do and feel whatever it is that we desire.
Thank God for skulls.

Good, Winning Habits

One of the goals in life, as I see it, is to develop a lifestyle that is appealing and inspiring to you and simultaneously setting a healthy guideline and example for those who look to you for guidance and encouragement in their own lives. If you don’t see this as a goal in your life, that is totally fine. It is your life, after all.

I think, the most important thing is to believe in yourself, but more importantly believe in the person you imagine yourself to be. On a daily basis, as sure as you brush your teeth the first thing in the morning, you need to develop a habit of simulating how you imagine your life to be … of projecting that image of yourself that you would most like to become and living and breathing that ‘person’.

That is key.

All habits are learned. That means that just as you work on developing good habits, you can also, unintentionally, develop bad habits. Losing habits. Losing habits like self-criticism, smoking, excessive drinking, overeating, laziness, anxiety, depression, sloppiness, dishonesty, cruelty and insensitivity, amongst many others are all developed in to a part of a person’s character through deliberate and relentless practise. So are positive good, winning habits – learned and retained through the same deliberate practise!

It’s a choice. So, choose well.

Lets make a concerted effort to deliberately practise the latter habits – good, winning habits.

To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment.
– Ralph Waldo Emerson.
Building a World Class Natural Physique takes patience and deliberate practise of key daily habits.

Life ain’ts a dress rehearsal

Life is like a big stage or theater and we play many roles. We do our very best to learn these different roles and play them to the best of our ability. We soon find out that the better we play life, the better life gets for us. Part of this comes from understanding and becoming aware of you, of yourself. When you get better at playing the various roles you’ve been asked to play in life, life gets better for you.

When you work on improving your self-awareness, you begin fantasizing or dreaming your own new ‘scripts’ or better roles, as if your life were a magnificent, epic motion picture opening on all the big screens around the world. Breaking ‘box-office’ records, as you walk down your red carpet.

Play it well, my friend, play it well. Your dreams … your thoughts … your scripts … your epic movie has been written, produced, directed and starred in by no one else but YOU!

There is only one catch: life ain’t a dress rehearsal!

Each second of the 86,400 seconds in each day allows you to get to know YOU, better. Do so. Start by becoming more self-aware. Sometimes, in life, to move ahead, one needs to take a step backwards … so, try stepping back from your own life … and take a long, quiet walk … along pathways in a mountain …or in a quiet park … on the beach.

Absorb the beauty of nature and all its wonders, through all your senses. Bask in its beauty. Become one with it. Then, make an honest assessment of what you are doing, where you are going in your life and most importantly, who you are becoming.

Helping someone achieve his best, in one of the best ways I know how: through increasing self-awareness.
Vv.

Love Life and it will love your back

Then, stop!

Stop to appreciate and be in awe of your own uniqueness, of your strengths and beauty. Sit still or stand still. For a second. For a minute. For 10 minutes. Become aware of the one truth that you and many, may have not have stopped to fathom to date and that is that – you have been selling yourself short in evaluating your own potential in the whole stage rehearsal of life.

Do me a favour. Stop feeling sorry for yourself. Stop whinging. Look around you. There’s enough whingers in the world today, already. Stop it. Please. Stop pitying yourself! If you’re breathing right now, than it means that you’re alive.

You see, when I take my first breath in the morning, I say thank you to my God, my universe and I jump our of bed, asking myself, who am I going to help and serve today! Yep, I do that every single day. Giving thanks constantly for all my blessings … on a daily basis.

If you’re alive than nothing else, in my opinion, tops that. You’re alive! If you feel like whinging, don’t! If that is the case, then, you’re enjoying some degree of health and vitality. Just for a second or two, put yourself in to the shoes of the many millions of people around the world that are suffering. Every single second. You cannot and should not complain about life, then!

Love life and it will love you back.

Be YOU.
As YOU are.
Accept the uniqueness … and weirdness that you know you are.
Embrace YOU.
Never imitate.

Keep dreaming

I tell anyone that wants to listen that the mind is the most powerful tool that we all have. You become what you habitually think all day. You effectively create to a certain degree, your own horoscope. Your own luck. You are constantly becoming what you are thinking about every waking moment – so it is very important to focus and put your concentration on things and habits that will add to your life. To your feeling of self-worth.

You need to be clear on your desires or dreams and FOCUS on these and not on fears.

So, watch your thoughts. Keep dreaming.

Hold your dreams steadfastly in your mind and focus on them. Let go your fears. Let go ALL fears. Fears do nothing but cause unnecessary stress in your life and this may cause anxiety, depression, ulcers and all sorts of diseases. Stresses, uncontrolled and mis-managed manifests itself in the physical, in the form of diseases, and part of this management comes down to self-awareness as you should also know what your stress tolerance levels are, too.

Its important to keep dreaming. Why? Because they are effectively goals. What are goals? Dreams with a deadline. Set your goals. Set your game plan. Set your game plan or course in the sea of life. Set it with worthwhile goals that are progressive and realistic. Notice, I have said progressive or incremental and realistic. It is very easy when setting goals to not address this two very important factors. Without satisfying these two factors, ones dreams is merely wishful thinking or worse still, delusional thinking.

Very common in the world today. You see it live and well on social media, tv reality programs and just daily living. People struggling to differentiate between positive goal setting and thinking and delusional thinking.

Those who dream … to be different … and aim to share their unique selves with the world, to help … get the love back in return.

Setting goals

I find it easier to put my goals down on paper.

I do it around this time of the year for the next year. Work this in to your New Year’s Resolutions if you’re setting some for 2014. You don’t need to tell anyone. Just you. For you. Try it. Put in down on paper and write down specific daily tasks and weekly and monthly that are aligned to your mean and end goals.

Your subconscious mind and the universe will conspire to help your achieve your goals. Just try it (setting goals, that is) and see. However, this needs discipline but if your heart is in it, if your heart is anything, you will find that you will almost likely achieve the dream or goal.

Real discipline as I see it is being able to imagine you have already achieved the goal even if you haven’t yet. Discipline in the physical daily habits is one thing. Discipline in simulating in your mind the achievement of it is another. This is not easy. Matter of fact this is darn right difficult. It takes a lot of practise. Your brain has to be re-wired or hard-wired and this is done by deliberate practise. It is worth achieving though. It deserves practise.

“Why? ” I hear you ask –

Allow your mind to ”connect’ with infinite intelligence.
With consciousness.
It is like nothing you’ve ever experienced before.
The subconscious mind is part of the ‘mind’
Question is: what does the conscious mind do that the subconscious mind doesn’t

Instant gratification

Because, I believe one of the biggest problems facing human-kind today is ill-discipline of the mind.

You can see it everywhere in everyone’s insatiable desire for instant gratification. No one believes in delayed gratification anymore. No one believes in the old fashioned value of ‘patience’ anymore. Its great for business and commerce, as youngsters want the latest gadgets – NOW, not tomorrow or next month. Now!

Lack of discipline. Lack of mental discipline. This is why discipline is necessary. Because discipline, as I have read somewhere in the past, is the ability to ‘practise within, when you are without’. We can summarize this very important philosophy on the achievement of goals in life like this:

Visualization + heart + effort + internalization = Realization.

As I close on this blog, keep in mind, amongst your many other archived thoughts, that you, yes, you are no more than the accumulated picture of your thoughts and actions.

I. AM.
GOD?

So, if you haven’t already thought about this yet, I learned from a wise man once that we –

“have to be very careful of our thoughts, as this determines our actions; be careful of your actions as it determines your habits; be careful of the habits you adopt, as it determines your character; and finally, be aware of your character as it determines your destiny.”

If you want to be loved, be loveable

So, you see, where you end up in life begins and ends in your mind. Become a better manager of your mind, my friend. Become an expert at managing your mind. What you achieve out of life and where you end up in life, depends heavily on it.

It does not matter which race you are, what creed or place in society you were born in to, understand one basic and critically important life rule:

“If you want to be loved, be loveable. If you want respect, set a respectable example!”

My early days in the catholic church taught me that one should treat others as you want to be treated. I’m certain other religions teach a similar thing. Matter of fact, I think, even if you didn’t belong to any religion, you would innately, think the same. I try and apply this every day. Great and simple teaching I think. Try it. See what happens.

Love life and life may just love you back, better.

I hope you believe in hope. It is a great word that encompasses many good things. Things like faith, courage, good, love etc. Its all encompassing. Just like the universe is. Anyway, I would like to wish all you readers the best that HOPE has to offer you, Each and every one of you, in 2014. Your hope for a better you. Your hope for a better future. Your hope for a better life. Whatever it is. Your hope is dependent on you. On your thoughts. On you mind.

Your Homework: Quiet your mind.

Until next time.

 

Cheers & Ahoy!

The old Cap’n Viking Pirate Evangelist Muscled Monk … & habits

Life is like a Merry-go-round … we’re all turning round and round … within seat-belts, and boundaries

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The Pendulum of Life

We’re all swinging like a pendulum .. continuously moving between two points – activity & non-activity/ entertainment/rest

How does “How are you equal Busy?”

“How are you?” someone would ask you during the day.

“Busy” you may find yourself replying.

Busy.

We’re all guilty of that, being ‘busy’, I mean. How busy is that? How busy is busy?

I guess it would seem, that it is better to be busy than not busy. It depends. This isn’t a blog about how busy you are in comparison to everyone else. It isn’t a blog about not being busy. It is, however, about the two things we seem to swing back and forth every day of our life.

These two things are like two points on a line or two points on a pendulum in a clock. I introduced this thought in my most recent blog “Unthink, to think”. Specifically, the two points on a pendulum of life that we swing back and forth on are:

1) Activity

2) Recreation

We swing back and forth between these every day. Tick, tock, tick, tock. Goes the clock. Your clock!

Keep your pendulum swinging … because to be stuck at one end is not life-affirming

The ebb and flow of the tide

I’d also like to think of this pendulum our lives being as similar to the tide of the open sea moving out and then back, in. The ebb and flow of the tide. Repeating and never stopping.

What would happen if the tide stopped? Well, I would think that there may be a serious problem with the earth’s gravitational force, for one, and our time, our life on this lovely earth would be, up. Hmmmmm …. Not a very good ending.

The same would happen if your pendulum got stuck at one end or the other.

What is it that keeps the clock going? Well, it’s the pendulum of course. Just like the gravitational forces that keep the tides of the seas moving, so does the pendulum keep the clock ticking.

We’ve got to be aware of the forces in our lives and it’s impact on our energy and ability to keep our pendulum swinging.

We all need our Re-charge point

So, back to us. To our lives.

You see, if we represent the pendulum, we have to be aware of  how much time we are spending at each end of our clock and not lose ourselves in the busyness of life. We need to keep swinging, ever so skilfully between the two ends – of activity and recreation.

Activity in this context is anything that we do that is not recreation. The most common being paid work, house work and work-related activities – travel, research, meetings etc.

The essential component of recreation, is recreate, which means to refresh by means of relaxation and enjoyment,  and as to restore physically or mentally. Is there a place or activity that you do, that ‘re-creates’ or ‘re-energizes’ or ‘re-charges’ YOU?

One of my re-charge points is my hour of weight-training I do 5-6 days per week. Apart from the myriad of benefits exercising with weights and living a bodybuilding lifestyle does for the body, mind and spirit, I feel a sense of improved vitality and an extra spring in my step, after each workout. At its very essence, life comes down to energy management – everything is energy. Just like our many electronic gadgets need re-charging every day, so do we.

We all need a re-charge point!

Orderly chaos. We need to be better managers if the fusion of chaos & order

Keep swinging…

I also see these benefits with everyone I train at my gym. They may commence their session with low energies, feeling tired or depressed, and they leave feeling 100% better with new determination to take on whatever life has to throw at them. I see this every day. Every day. Don’t leave it to your yearly vacation. You should be doing this every day. Yep, every day. Once a year is not near enough.

It is better to work on managing your energies, instead of your time. We have an energy crisis in the world today. Start by becoming a better manager of your energies and you can avoid your pendulum stopping or getting stuck at one end, before its too late.

Ask yourself, where your ‘re-charge’ point is? Where do you ‘re-create’ yourself? Where do you go to escape the hustle and bustle of life? Where do you go to escape? It could be in the car home from work listening to some soft tunes. For some, it could be the golf-course, or for some, ironically, could be the commuter trains and buses from work. For others still, it could be the garden, the pub or your church.

If you don’t have one, don’t fret, try reaching out, maybe you can use just absorb the beauty of the morning, the quiet of the evening, the touch of friends or the smile from strangers, or may be, just the strength of silence to stop. Yes, that’s right – stop!

Take it all in, including a deep breath, fill your lungs up and then keep pushing on.

Wherever it is, whatever it may be, hang on to it. Hang on to that re-charge point. It is vital to you maintaining your sense of vitality.

It is vital to maintaining that delicate balance between activity and re-creation. It is vital to keeping your pendulum of life swinging.

Keep swinging, I say, keep swinging. Back and forth, back and forth. Don’t stop. Tick, tock, tick, tock!

The alternative: six feet under before your time, is not that attractive.

Thanks

yours in iron, mind, heart 💓 & muscles 💪,

Paul e 💝alentine

Keep your pendulum ticking. It relates to the ticking of your heart 💓. Your life.  

Become better at “being comfortable at being uncomfortable “ to keep your pendulum ticking … & your life, living

 

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Unthink, to think

Eliminate and de-clutter the ‘noise’ that has been uploaded in to your brain since the cradle

 

What are you?

You are many things: you’re human; you’re a girl/boy? You’re male/female. You’re a dad/mum. But who are you. What makes you? Who are you?

Nope, I am not asking you – ‘what are you?‘ or what you do for a job …  you’re not an accountant, not a plumber, not a lawyer. I’m not asking what you do, I’m asking what makes you the real “YOU”.

Hhmmmmmm …?

Feel your emotions.
Think through and with your heart.
Listen to your íntuition

 

Tick, tock, tick, tock!

You could say that you are the accumulated thoughts and choices you have made in your life, thus far. Your are your connectome. You become what you habitually think and do. Maybe, you are like a pendulum; the accumulation of the daily swing between activities and recreation.

Tick, tock, tick, tock.

Responsible for transmission of critical electrical, chemical & hormonal messages -internal communication

 

The Power of Habit

To assist you in attempting to arrive at your answer to this question, I believe, one needs to un-think to think. How do you unthink? You may need to unlearn what you have learned. You may need to un-school what has been schooled. Maybe just for a few seconds or if you’re brave enough for a few minutes or a few hours.

How do you do that?

Well, like many things you have become an ‘expert’ in, you may need to rack up the necessary hours to become even remotely good at this. One of the keys is to ‘quiet the mind’.  Just like all habits, the POWER rests in the consistent and persistence application of the particular habit. That is the POWER OF HABIT! As a little aside: choose your thoughts and hence, your habits, well.

Try this Unthinking routine 5 minutes before hitting the sack at night:

  1. Lie still in bed
  2. Try to eliminate all unnecessary noise – audible noise.
  3. Clear your mind of all thoughts. Try. Try again.
  4. Quiet the mind: you do this by eliminating ALL THOUGHTS. Try. … Try again.
  5. This isn’t easy. Matter of fact, it is darn hard.
  6. Don’t stress if you cannot quite your mind. Turn the light off and go to sleep.
  7. Try again tomorrow.

To unthink, one needs to get in to a state whereby one ‘quiets or slows the mind’. The essence is to accept that;

    • all thought needs to be eliminated
    • be fully aware of your presence
    • all senses are heightened
    • you are in the present moment – no other place but here – now.

Your are your brain neuro-pathways

 

Becoming a thinker

You will truly be in the present moment if you are able to ‘feel’ someone reach out to touch you whilst having your eyes are closed. That is your test. You are able to see what you’re not physically seeing with your eyes, that’s when you know you have quietened the mind. Then, and only then, can you start to learn to UN-THINK. Just like muscle, you cannot build this over-night but will take many years of concerted deliberate effort.

That is the start of becoming a thinker. Try it.

Seemingly easy, you will find it is a most difficult thing to do: TO THINK!

True?
Neuroscience is still at the level of where medicine was in the 1700s
A long way to fully understand who we are….
Who “I AM.”

 

To Un-Think helps you be the best you can be

Keep trying.

Why?

Because it is one of the most important things you can do for your  life. After receiving the clarity when you un-think, you will think for yourself rather than continue to carry biased, unfounded, prejudiced thinking around with you. The old thoughts may have come from people or experiences that have crossed your path in life thus far, of which that may have influenced your current choices. Pause.

Think.

Think again.

Not thinking may hinder your ability to achieve your goals. To un-think helps you to be the Best you can Be.

Stopping to reflect, is a vital key to adjust your attitude if you need to.

 

Don’t give up

Keep practising. Don’t give up, even when you don’t feel like you’re making any progress.

Learn to do it right.

It’s worthwhile getting a competent mentor. Learn from someone who knows, not from someone who doesn’t. No one can teach you something they do not know.

I have a neighbour and friend who started playing golf as a teenager and he regrets not taking lessons from a professional at the start. He spent 20 years playing less than his best and was constantly frustrated. More recently he had lessons from a competent professional. It took a lot of time to unlearn the bad habits he had learned, he had to re-think everything, re-learn the basics.

He had to un-think what he had previously learned, and learn a better technique. He is now enjoying his golf and has dropped his handicap considerably. He had experience – yes, 20 years of getting his golf wrong, because of whatever reasons that held him back from asking for help from someone who knew the right way.

There is always a ‘right way’. Find it.

Never give up.
I took me 10 years to reach the top of my chosen sport in the world.
Never give up

 

Perfect practise makes perfect

Practice does not make perfect.

A great coach once said that “Perfect practice makes perfect”.

Like I tell my daughter, if you’re going to do something do it right, not some of the time – ALL OF THE TIME. Perfect practise makes perfect. There are many people who practice ‘wrong’ for many years and don’t improve or achieve their goals.

Practise thinking winning thoughts.

 

Think BIG!

We are all, ordinarily – human, most of us, love being so. I know I do. This new habit of unthinking just might make your ordinariness seem extraordinary and might reveal the champion that is inside the REAL YOU.

Bring the Real You – out!

If you are scared, don’t be. There is nothing to fear. Take as much time as you need; it’s your life, your pace. Life is too short to keep hidden from the eyes of the world. And I am not just thinking of ‘your little world’, not just your circle of friends and family. Not just your street, suburb and community.

If you’re going to do this and take the risk to think for yourself you may as well, do it with a vital element in mind and that is to: THINK BIG!

As the great Leader, Nelson Mandela said –

“Being and thinking small serves no one … you must think big”

The whole world is waiting for the Real You. Unleash him/her! Who knows what your actions may have over another fellow human being in the world. There is more that the Real You can offer your World. Get up and give.

Get up and share the Real You. The World is waiting.

Thank you for reading this far.

Until next time,

 

Cheers & ahoy!

The old Cap’n Viking Pirate … & a re-think of thinking

(Paul)

Front double biceps at my favourite beach here in Sydney, Australia.
Enjoying the sun and the creator that it is.
Be not like the moon, be like the sun.
Take time out of ‘work’ to enjoy your surroundings.
Vv.

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a better life, action, adaptation, ageing, asking questions, awareness, Beliefs, better choices, change, choices, Energy, examined life, game of life, habits, Imagination, life, long-term perspective, needs, risk, self, self discipline, self improvement, self-respect, truths, Vitality, you, your life

Managing your funnel better

Less abdominal fat is not only poses less health risks for you, it gives you a more aesthetically pleasing physique. Knowing what ‘to leave out’ in your diet is vital to achieving a tight mid-section

Friends for life.

I’ve met a lot of intelligent people in my life, the smartest person (Intelligent and wise) I have met (thus far) passed away earlier this year at 82.

We were friends for about four and half years or so. I considered a friend for life. You know the type, I hope you’ve got a few friends that you can honestly look at and say, yes, you are a friend for life.

Our friendship lasted for just over four years.

We had all the characteristics of good friendship – honesty, trust, care, inter-dependence, willingness to provide a shoulder to lean on when one needs help, forgiveness and a genuine desire to help the other become a better person.

I miss my friend. A lot.

One of my good old friends at the gym

Opportunities disguised as challenges

He taught me much and I, him. We shared. Stories. I was fascinated with his stories of life. Not necessarily his life, but life in general, in particular where he saw ‘opportunities’ and others saw ‘challenges’.

Guess who got the rewards? Yep, “nothing risked, nothing gained”, he would tell me. Made me realise that life was a big exercise in “Risk Management” … but I won’t go in to that right now, it can be a topic for later.

Retired Ex-Australian Wallaby & Waratah’s Captain – Phil Waugh doing triceps press-downs and “feeling the essence” with perfectly performed repetitions.
A great example of a human being striving to be the BEST he can be – for himself, first and then, everyone else. All day. Every day.
If he can, so can you using my framework.

Work hard at adding life in to your years, not just life to your years

Back to my dear friend … I saw him 3 times a week (Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays) between 10:30 & 12 noon, in my gym – for our usual chats and his exercise. We had an arrangement: he listens and follows everything I say to keep him alive and I get an hour coffee and mentorship every Friday morning after his session with me.

Having only six months to live (as told to him by his doctors), my good old friend lived for another four years. He took care of the little mosquitoes, the daily habits and this along with other factors helped him live longer.

I got him to work on his breathing, sense of balance, strength, agility and keeping the ‘whole body’ in mind. The usual services that a typical gym owner and manager would provide.

Basically, make him exert enough effort to his skeletal and smooth muscles, to help make his daily activities just that little bit easier and more pleasant – like walking, walking up stairs, carrying shopping bags, doing a little gardening and breathing better.

He certainly lived a long life, but he was more interested in adding “Life to his years”, in the years I had known him.

 

Choose what to leave out – choose wisely

He was so diligent in his approach to exercise that he came in for a workout on his 80th birthday. He sat on the reclining stationary bike to warm up and I got everyone in the gym to sing ‘happy birthday’ and cheered ‘Hip hip, hooray!!’.

I think he enjoyed the attention.

One of my favourites – the Most Muscular pose.
Circa 2007.

After the singing, we started our chat and I thought I’d ask him in honour of his 80th birthday what was the one thing he could share with me that he learned in his last 40 years that he hadn’t known in his first 40 years. He stopped pedalling for a few seconds, looked up to the gym ceiling and said …

“Work on being a master of your funnel, Paul!”, he yelled whilst catching his breath.

“Don’t stop cycling, mate, keep those legs pumping!” I said

  • “Don’t think, answering my question gives you permission to stop moving.”

He smiled, gave me a look, and happily continued.

“What do you mean?” I asked. “What funnel?”

He called out, over the music in the gym, “I learned how to cut out more bul#@it in my life, Paul!”

This was very interesting, coming from a man who had a huge part of his career in advertising and strategy, advising large companies on selling. Matter of fact he ran a company that employed 200+ people, which he successfully sold along with another business he started after that.

He had also acted as adviser to some of the most prominent businessmen Australia had ever seen. One such high wealth individual he advised for more than thirty years was Australia’s Richest Man at one stage – Mr Kerry Packer.

This retired friend of mine did alright for himself.

Attitude is key at winning in the Game of Life.

Rid your life of ‘stuff’

He then proceeded to say that in life, we get bombarded with so much ‘stuff’, and now more than ever, due to the proliferation of the various media types, one has to be more diligent in ‘policing’ the many sensory stimulants entering our minds through what we see, hear, who we talk to and the groups we mix with.

We have to exercise vigilance in self-regulating behaviour, in particular, with regards to the impact exposure to all this modern-day living ‘stuff’ (or in his words “bul#$@it”) has on you.

A lot of this ‘stuff’ does not really have any place in your life, and really does not in the whole scope of life. We have 86,400 seconds in a day. Use those seconds wisely.

Try this suggestion; Limit your television viewing to stimulating, special shows. If you make television watching a habit, you can become narrow-minded, tunnel vision sets in and creative imagination will vanish. All the better if you can record or download them and watch when it fits your schedule instead of someone else’s.

See how you feel in 1 week.

A famous company slogan goes something like this …. “Life is short”… we could all heed the advice from my wise friend and assess how well you are using your own funnels in sieving out the irrelevant ‘crap’ from your lives NOW … not 40 years from now.

Maybe, just maybe, we will not only add years to our life … but more importantly, LIFE TO OUR YEARS!

 

Choose wisely … & have fun,

 

Cheers & ahoy!

 

The old Cap’n Viking Pirate … & cutting out more bullshit from your life

Learning from the best at something, to be your best is the quickest way to get to where you’re going.
No one can teach you what they don’t know.

Explaining the fine points of re-engineering the physique and increased self-awareness through enhanced ‘mind-muscle’ connection..

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