It is much better to experience life then it is to try and force it to
bend to your will. In one scenario I imagine a man riding a bull for 8 seconds.
The animal does everything it can to remove the man. The man tries to maintain
his dignity as he rides this creature; he does a poor job with the dignity
part. Perhaps he rides but he is working against the world around him. In
another scenario is a man riding a horse. They work together, they respect one
another. This is a thing of dignity and beauty.
When you are experiencing life from a harmonious mindset you are like the
rider on the horse. He has goals and intentions and he allows the power of the
animal to get him to those goals. The bull rider also has goals but he fights
against the power of the animal and the two of them will always be at odds. You
should never be at odds with your mind. Too often we are fighting the bull
because we do not recognize that our mind is not something to be controlled as
much as it is something to be used.
Controlling your mindset is not really about control at all, at least not
in the forceful sense of the word. It is about steering yourself into the
direction that you truly wish to go. Remember that along the way you have been
telling yourself to go in another direction and so at first your mind may be
completely confused and at odds with your new choices. Your mind is so powerful
that it will try to course correct in order to get you back on the path that
you have previously laid out. This is why reorganizing your life and your goal
is so important from time to time.
You put yourself on a path long ago and your mind hopes only to keep you
on that course. It does not matter that you may have made no plans or set no
real tangible goals, your mind took the information you fed it and created a
goal for you based on your direction. So having seen this and understanding
that your information programs your life; it should be easy to understand how
you have gotten to the place you are today. Let me put it another way, consider
the information you have fed yourself, now look at the course your life has
taken. Consider the trajectory that your life is on and you will arrive at the
goals that your mind has set for you while in the absence of anyone to actually
set a goal or plan. Where you are is the
goal that your mind calculated based upon the information you have provided.
So now when you begin to reset the goals that you have for your life, you
are also going to have to reprogram how your mind responds. Many times you have
to back out of the chair and clarify in your mind that you are the one who sets
the course that your mind is to follow. In the same way you are going to have
to convince your mind that this new way of being is the real thing and not
another plan to simply get you off of the course you had previously set
yourself upon.
Let’s make this real. Let’s say that I have a new goal in mind to lose
50lbs. My old goal was to eat whatever I wanted and watch television while I
did so. Many will say, “What a goal.” Yes, but the fact that many people live
like this while only thinking on occasion that they need to lose weight, proves
my point. What you are doing right now is the actual evidence for your goal. I
am achieving my goal happily by watching television and eating because in the
end that is my actual goal.
In order for the goal to change in my life I must first set that goal. I
want to lose 50lbs. Okay… good… but if I sit down with a bowl of chips to watch
a fat burning show my true and actual goal returns and my mind is satisfied
with the slight course correction it has made. At the end of a few weeks I will
not be closer to the goal I set but I will still be enjoying the goal that I
set long before the new one I merely “thought” about.
Quite simply, the setting of a goal means nothing if the intention to
take steps toward it is neglected; so then, following my goal setting their
needs to be an action step that will begin to convince my hard working brain
that this is no passing fancy. I have to start moving away from the old goal,
sending my mind in a bit of a panic for awhile as it adjusts. Along the way my
faithful steed will ask if I really would not rather sit and eat some chips
because that was my goal for many years and I was happy achieving it.
Of course I was not satisfied with that goal, I will tell my mind, and
that is why I am setting this new goal for us to achieve. In a small amount of
time your mind will actually go to work helping you to achieve your new goal
because it has been put on this course and it loves to stay on track to satisfy
you and take you exactly where you hope to go.
Your mind is not your enemy trying to take you away from the things that
you want and need in life. Your mind is the most honest part about you taking
you exactly where you really want to go in spite of where you imagine and tell
others you want to go. When you begin to get real with yourself about what you
want out of life you can begin to program yourself to get there but as long as
you are trying to fool yourself for the sake of what others might think… your
mind will fight against you.
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