OH! Magazine - Australian Version October 2015 | Page 24

GREG SELLAR MOBILITY OF THE MIND Director of lifehack, Greg Sellar provides these tips to help free your mind for greater success and happiness. n the fitness industry, we talk about having mobility as being able to move our joints and body through different ranges of motion, to enable us to undertake everyday activities. I Gaining greater mind mobility moves us along a critical path. This is outlined by the four Ls which stand for ‘legends’, ‘lenders’, ‘likers’ and ‘losers’. Losers If you concentrate too much on one aspect of fitness (e.g., developing strength), typically you’ll limit the mobility you have around a joint; meaning you’ll be able to move less freely and the muscles become less responsive. The same applies with your mind – if you repeatedly reinforce unhelpful thoughts then you will strengthen the brain’s neural pathways, making it harder to change them. We often tell ourselves the same inaccurate stories over and over again because they’re easier to digest and keep us comfortable in the status quo. But, after about 21 to 30 days of doing so, you begin to entrench behaviours, limiting beliefs and mental roadblocks that then fester to the point where we can grind to a halt. Your thought patterns are like a computer, where unhelpful thinking is the virus that corrupts your software, slows down the operating system, and interferes with installing new apps. In short, you lose mobility of your mind. Every one of us will process approximately 60,000 thoughts by the end of the day, and of those, 45,000 are negative. That means, 45,000 times a day, we’re telling ourselves ‘no’, ‘can’t’ or ‘won’t’. It’s subconscious, unintentional, and an incredible amount of time we spend listening to that little ‘devil with tourettes’ who sits on our shoulder. 24 OCTOBER 2015 ( OH! MAGAZINE ) Losers tend to underperform and be guided by immobile thoughts, such as phrases like ‘I can’t’ or ‘It’s not possible’. A mindset shift needs to take place, which can be achieved by finding value in what you do, embracing challenges and finding inspiration in others. When losers can adopt a growth mindset, they will have successfully made a commitment to truly wanting to change. Likers These folks are happy to think small, or not at all. They’ll typically sit on the fence to keep the peace, and are generally immobile, observing only from the sidelines rather than getting involved. Likers need motivation in order to take the action required to gain mobility. Interestingly, we often have motivation and action the wrong way around – people wait to be motivated before acting, whereas we actually should act first and the motivation will then tend to follow. The key is to just get started! Lenders Lenders are often inclined to operate in ‘action’ mode, but they can fall off the wagon at times. Typically they experience ‘success’ in peaks and troughs, and occasionally form judgements about themself and others. For the lenders, consistency is usually required around actions, in order to level out the win/loss cycles. If you consider those unhelpful thought patterns as a freeway, by adding some consistency you’ll be creating new thinking ‘off ramps’ which you can use to exit the freeway. This will enable you to travel in new directions, in terms of your future thoughts and behaviours, which is great because new and productive habits result in increased mobility of the mind. Legends Legends recognise thoughts as just that – thoughts! They know what they think isn’t reality and that they’re only feelings relating to that given moment. Legends are mindful enough to snap out of irrational thinking, gain mobility and get back on track pretty quickly. Legends also know that they are always going to be a ‘work in progress’, and they recognise that they’re moving towards the point where their mind is free from unhelpful thinking and completely mobile. Dan Gilbert did a great TED talk called The End of History Illusion, where he pointed out that people mistakenly tend to think that who they are right now, is who they will be for their whole life. Legends have mobile minds because they are always exposing themselves to new things, new learning and new ways to live. So, which one are you? And more importantly, which one do you want to be? www.teamlifehack.com ( Performance Coaching )