Thinker Muscles
The most powerful function of the human is the executive decision-making power, the power to think and do what the individual wants and also in most cases achieve higher than the individual’s physical capacity, and not mere survival.
These executive functions usually arise from the brain, but at times, from the stomach muscle called the “gut” – a strong feeling we believe that it will work even though others feel it will not – and at times from the feelings inside the “heart” to pursue.
These 3 muscles – Brain, Gut & Heart – are the thinker muscles in our body that help in making us live the superior life.
For any muscle to become strong we need to perform routine exercises with these muscles. The same is applicable for “Thinker Muscles” also. One should make the thinker muscles stronger and smarter by participating in continuous learning, trying new things, and also keeping the physical body healthy.
Together, the function of these 3 muscles forms the mind.
A strong mind lives in a strong body.
Qualities of the mind:
- Mind makes judgments quickly.
- What you have chosen to get is what you get.
- What you visualize as the future becomes reality.
- Likes pleasure, not pain.
- Always chooses familiar things as the first option even though there may be better options out there.
By understanding the above qualities and tweaking when needed to correct from the wrong direction, we can make our thinker muscles stronger and more direct to execute smarter.
Belief:
Beliefs are the product of the choices you have made and the events that happened in your life. Your life experiences create the belief system.
Beliefs shape our lives, it is so powerful, that it can drive an individual in a positive or negative direction. Questioning the beliefs will provide a realization of one’s own self.
What are the beliefs you have about yourself, life, family, friends, work, future, death, after death?
Why do you have those beliefs?
Is what you believe in sync with what you want?
If what you believe is not what you want, what are the changes you need to make to ensure your belief is in sync with what you want?
Being truthful to your inner self to the above questions can provide clarity to your destiny and asking this more regularly will help you to self-correct the path you are traveling to achieve your wants.
Emotions:
The eight basic emotions are Joy, Surprise, Trust, Anticipation, Fear, Anger, Sadness, and Disgust.
Understanding that Fear and Anxiety are just feelings and not reality can help in boosting self-control to better handle a situation.
Fear freezes action.
If you want to induce action, you need to create a world for yourself which provides quick gains.
Gains should be a social incentive, have an immediate reward and showcases progress.
Anger is the outcome when the expectations are not met. Normal behavior is to react with retaliation.
Amygdala, the right side of the brain, processes fear, triggers anger and motivates us to act. It alerts us in times of danger and activates the “fight or flight” response. The right side of the brain tries to judge whether a current situation is hazardous by comparing that situation with your collection of past memories. If it vaguely matches a previous negative event, your brain immediately raises warning sirens.
Researchers have also found that the prefrontal cortex (front part of the brain) controls reasoning, judgment and helps us think logically before we act.
Whether you can have your Amygdala react or prefrontal cortex act in a situation is determined by how much control you have over your brain.
The brain is a complex organ which can be tweaked for an advantage when you understand its functions and be in complete control of the situations.
You can practice attaining a steady state of mind by being aware of your surroundings and being able to let things go. Meditation will definitely help to achieve that steady state of mind. I have a simplified practice prescribed under “Section 2- Yogic Practices” to get a greater control of the mind.
Feedback:
We constantly receive comments from different sources about us, about the work we deliver and many other things. Depending on what we receive, from whom we receive and why we receive, we process those feedbacks differently.
When we receive feedback we either feel positive, agitated or neutral.
How we feel about the feedback is only half of the equation. How we want to use the feedback and how we want to respond to those feedbacks is the other half and that reaction is completely your choice.
The choice of action we take will fall under any one of the following:
- Attack,
- Self-doubt,
- Expand, or
- No action.
Think about the things that have happened to you and what kind of decisions you arrived and if it could have been done differently.
A comparison is a form of feedback we do knowingly or unknowingly, and most often it demotivates rather than being an advantage for the individual growth. Understanding the negative talker from within or outside, and ensuring to stay away from those will help to focus on the growth rather than going into the negative spiral of self-depression.
Instant gratification:
The “pleasure principle” is the driving force that compels human beings to gratify their needs, wants, and urges.
“What decides the purpose of life is simply the program of the pleasure principle.”
– Sigmund Freud, Austrian neurologist
Instant gratification is the desire to experience pleasure or fulfillment without delay or deferment. In other words, it’s when you want something, and you want it now.
When we don’t get fulfillment, our psychological response is anxiety or tension.
Because of this nature, we may end up making unexpected expenses and mistakes.
Knowing that instant gratification is just a feeling and can be subsided when questioned, will help us to be in control of the mind.
Ask the following questions and try to answer them when there is a sudden urge to do things. It is not easy, but if you can answer and the need still exists, go ahead and pursue it. If you decide not to pursue you may save yourself from a waste if time, energy, and money.
Do I really need it or is it just a luxury or an impulsion?
Do I need it now or can it wait?
What alternate options exist?
Once the need is satisfied or subsided, it is not the end. You are still going to get a new gratification sooner or later.
“Instant gratification begets instant gratification.”
– Neil Patel in Entrepreneur Network
Instant gratification can be a powerful tool when rightly used.
DiSC is a behavior assessment tool based on the DISC theory of psychologist William Moulton Marston, which centers on four different behavioral traits: Dominance (D), Inducement (I), Submission (S), and Compliance (C).
The DiSC model provides a common language that people can use to better understand themselves and adapt their behaviors with others — within a work team, a sales relationship, a leadership position, or other relationships.
This website provides in-depth information about DiSC: https://www.discprofile.com/
Resilient Viruses:
There are things which will stay in our mind for quite a long time or even forever.
Idea: A new concept which is sprung in the mind and somehow you are not having a push to do it. This stays in the mind as a resilient virus and makes your mind restless. Whatever way you try to make it go away, this will keep pulling you to do something about it so that a determination has arrived.
Unfinished Job: When you know a job you are supposed to finish is not fully done to your satisfaction unless it is totally given ownership to others to handle, it is going to keep bothering you until you take time to finish it. All pending jobs also fall in this category.
Pain: Depending on what caused the pain, it might stay in the mind for a very long time. Over time this can calm down, but the effect will continue throughout a whole lifetime. The only way to reduce its effect is to make ourselves occupied by doing other things bigger than yourself.
Brain Power:
From the day we are born, all the experiences we had are stored in the brain. The things we have repeated, again and again, are easily accessible as though it is at our fingertip and we are able to perform those activities efficiently. The things we rarely have done fade over time from memory.
Whatever we do, it is stored in the form of neural connections. The more we repeat what we do, those connections become stronger. Stronger connections are recollected quickly, while feeble connections are not accessible and are forgotten. This exercise of memory muscle building is called neuroplasticity.
All new thoughts creates connections. When repeated, these connections become stronger. The stronger you believe in something, the more it becomes your reality. Whether we like or did not like the thoughts, when repeated, connections were made stronger. The brain does not differentiate between good and bad connections. It stores everything to shape one’s behavior.
The quest to conquer the brain is never attained.
“The human brain is a funny thing: it’s very susceptible to tempo and melody.
You put the right words to it, and it becomes very influential.”
-Ray Stevens
Neuroplasticity is at work throughout life. What we want to keep in our brain is completely our choice.
The power of a human brain is not confinable.
Rightly employing such an infinitely powerful machine is smart.