Meditating is like going to the gym for your mind

When you see or hear the word “Meditation” what springs to mind?

For me, whenever I read the word ‘meditation’ there’s an immediately insatiable urge to take a long, deep breath. And, I do it. It’s a good thing.

The power of daily meditation cannot be understated. It’s a way of developing an easily accessible super-power. With great respect to the exponential power of daily meditation and why it’s like going to the gym for your mind, today I am sharing with you three things:

1 What is meditation?

2 Why is meditation powerful?

3 How do you meditate consistently?

What is meditation?

How people describe meditation will likely vary depending on where you were born, your upbringing, and the culture you live in. I personally love meditating. It is both deeply personal and a non-negotiable daily habit like brushing my teeth. Although compared to fighting cavities, meditation is changing my life, for the better. Meditation is a vastly subjective, as well as objective, verb; a thing humans do. With a wide spectrum of lived experiences, it is both a deeply personal practice and an enlightening habit, that’s simply a matter of fact; one of the daily human essentials.

Here, I am saying that at its core meditation is a gentle form of focused attention. It’s a way we can attempt to reduce external distractions. How our environment affects us, whether you’re aware of it or not, has a massive influence on our mental wellbeing.

Like a computer, meditation is a process of managing inputs and outputs. Its ability at solving problems by mathematical number-crunching lies in the quality of what it’s fed. The characteristics of stimulus entering our ‘system’ influence what exits, or flows out of us. ‘A new study from Queen’s University in Canada suggests the average person has more than 6,000 individual thoughts every day’ [1] With this in mind, what kinds of thoughts do you think could arise if our brains are consuming let’s just say ‘unhealthy stimuli’? ‘Anxious or racing thoughts, negative self-talk, worry, and overthinking are hallmarks for people who know the challenges of dealing with mental health diagnoses like anxiety and depression.’ [2] It’s worth noting that ‘there are 3.78 billion social media users worldwide in 2021’ [3] and this number is growing. ‘It is estimated that the average amount of time spent on social media per lifetime currently stands at six years and eight months’ [4] Think about the impact of this for a moment.

Why is meditation powerful?

A reason why many people meditate is because it generates desirable outcomes. Meditation is powerful because it increases your ability to transcend external environments and internal emotions. Most importantly with daily practice meditating builds mental agility so that your mental health becomes stronger. Now, more than ever, the world needs humans with super-strong mental health.

We all know that brushing your teeth every morning yields healthy teeth and strong gums don’t we? Just ask your dentist or a parent of young children. You and I have likely been brushing our teeth morning and night without a second thought. It’s simply an ingrained and accepted habit. It’s a good thing.

Initiating a daily habit of meditating will not bring immediate benefits. Similarly, going to your local gym for the first time will certainly not result in muscle gains straight away. But, that one decisive action will definitely bring immeasurable long-term benefits if you are patient and persistent. For example, known outcomes of regularly meditating include the following:

The brain functions better with meditation.

Meditation reduces stress.

Meditation can keep us from aging.

Meditation can improve one’s attention span.

Meditation can improve your memory

Meditation can slow down, or even prevent, some neurodegenerative diseases.

Meditation can help to reduce blood pressure.

Meditation can sometimes be more effective than sleep.

Meditation can be a more effective painkiller than morphine.

Thousands of people have overcome addictions using mindful meditation.

Routine meditation can make making decisions easier. [5]

It’s important to emphasise that ‘consistent meditation is more important than lengthy meditation’[5] because committing to an initial meditation practice of one to five minutes is better than sporadic and lengthier sessions. So, what are you waiting for? It’s time to add just 5 minutes of meditation to your busy schedule, is it not? A gentle suggestion is to create a recurring ‘meeting with yourself’ on your calendar to be utilised for meditating. Go on, do it right now, I’ll wait…

How do you meditate consistently?

A question that’s often asked by people new to the idea of meditation is “How do you meditate?” This is followed by a dismissive statement of “I can’t do it because I can’t empty my mind” From a perspective of non-judgement I like to firstly ask “Why do you want to meditate?” and offer an enthusiastic invitation to give it a good crack! With an authentic desire to learn and improve and a healthy commitment to persevering, I firmly believe that anyone can meditate.

It’s a fallacy that one must empty their mind for meditation. Meditating is really more about allowing your mind, along with all its 6000 fantastic thoughts each day, to transcend the seemingly constant chatter of your brain’s computing. For example, thinking about picking up the kids from school in the afternoon to what to make for dinner, not to mention that awkward conversation you had with your boss yesterday. Whether we are consciously aware of it or not, our thoughts are deeply interlinked with our internal emotional wellbeing and our external physicality. The two are not mutually exclusive.

Once we begin going to the mind gym daily we are learning how to accept and release the plethora of thoughts, ideas, worries, and our growing to-do lists. We start to develop the magnificent ability to simultaneously calm our mind and body. Sounds great! But how?

There are many ways to learn how to start meditating and I’m sure you’ll find your preferred way. I’ll share with you what’s working well for me. Ok, I’ll break it down into three parts:

A Breathing

B Visualisation

C Mantra

Breathing

Start by closing your eyes. Focus purely on your breath. Slowly inhale through your nose and count 5 seconds. Exhale slowly out of your mouth for 7 seconds. Repeat 3 times until you find a rhythm, and then continue breathing steadily without counting.

Visualisation

Imagine with your mind's eye wispy clouds that are blowing gently across the sky. If a thought springs to mind do your best to attach it to one of the clouds and then release it by letting the thought leave with the clouds (This is easier said than done and with practice will become easier to do)

Mantra

Pick a mantra (a keyword repeated with your inner voice) such as “Uh-hum” Now, see if you can lightly utter this mantra in your mind at the same rhythm as your steady breathing.

Simply repeat A, B, and C in a continuous loop. Practice every day starting with 1 to 5 minutes and adjust from there depending on how long you want to commit to. Remember consistency is more important than the length of your meditation.

There you go. You’re meditating!

"One of the best things that I love about meditating is the focused time to get to know who I am. Not the role I play in life, such as a father, brother, partner, friend, or colleague. But, the real me."

The beauty of this meditation practice is that you can do it absolutely anywhere at any time (except driving, of course with your eyes shut!) Although it is doable without closing your eyes too. You can do it in bed before you go to sleep, early in the morning before you get up, or even in the shower. You can even do it at your work desk midway through your day.

If you get distracted by various sounds, feelings, or thoughts, (you will) gently come back to the mantra and whisper it quietly to yourself like the rhythmical pulse of your heartbeat.

One of the best things that I love about meditating is the focused time to get to know who I am. Not the role I play in life, such as a father, brother, partner, friend, or colleague. But, the real me. Not even ‘me’ as Adam Bowcutt, the name I was given by my parents. What I mean here is my essence. Call it what you will; soul or energy. If this isn’t making much sense right now that’s ok because it moves beyond intellectualising. It’s absolutely beautiful. You’ll see and feel it. I assure with patience and persistence you’ll get to know the real ‘you’. This is sometimes confronting for some people, although it’s totally worth it.

I firmly believe that once more people practice daily meditation, and become mentally stronger by building mental wealth, and getting to know and love themselves, the world will become I much better environment for us to thrive in individually and collectively.

Now, go ahead and take a well-deserved long, deep breath. You’ll feel great.

Thank you for your focused attention.

Adam Bowcutt Mental Health Advocate & Author

References

[1] Silvia Pittman (2020) Mental health, The Mighty

[2] Silvia Pittman (2020) Mental health, The Mighty

[3] Oberlo (2021)

[4] Milos Djordjevic (2021) Global Social Media Usage Statistic, sLetter.ly

[5] Sean Jackson, Jennifer Koebele, and Zawn Villines, Online Psychology Degree Guide

5 Powerful Ways to Help You Start Thinking Strategically

There’s only one growth strategy: work hard -William Hague

Strategy builds confidence, because you have a solid framework and action plan of what to do and, more importantly, what not to do. With clarity comes power, and with power is strength. You’ll gain mental strength, because you’ll know exactly what you’re focused on and why.

It’s like a pilot plotting a course to their destination. Careful and strategic planning is considered before take-off. Safety, weather, weight, fuel, and other variables come into play. For example, a pilot is skilled in the technical aspects of flying a plane. She is also skilled in map-reading, leadership, and collaborating with her team, especially the air traffic controllers. Once the plane is airborne after a successful take-off, the captain must now manage and control the plane to get

all passengers to the agreed destination safely and in good time. All of a sudden, there’s a faint shudder, and the aircraft tilts violently, with no warning. What happened?

Now to ensure the safety of all four hundred passengers, the captain must

adapt to a potentially life-threatening situation with calmness, speed, and

clarity.

Strategic thinking is all about using the power of your mind to execute your

Strategy. ‘What is my strategy?’ you ask. Patience, my friend. We’ll get to

that. But first, let’s go back to our captain, piloting the 300,000 kg flying

chunk of metal hurtling through the sky at 900 km/h. What is going through our pilot’s mind? Panic? No. If this captain panics and loses control of her thoughts, four hundred humans’ lives are at risk of being lost too. So now is the time to see if the strategy works in reality. All the years of training, flight school, leadership skills, growth mindset, and technical mastery comes into play. This is it.

In a calm and controlled manner, our captain makes a critical assessment of

the situation in the most effective way she knows. I leave the technical details

to your imagination. Then our composed pilot delivers a clear message to the

passengers: ‘Hello, ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls. What you just

experienced was a result of a small foreign body entering one of our engines.

I’m here to reassure you that everything is going to be okay and it’s under

control. You may feel some unfamiliar movements of the plane. Please do

your best to remain calm. Our highly trained flight attendants are here for

you, as am I. Thank you for choosing to fly with ...’ You get the story.

Now the story ends successfully, with our courageous pilot flying the plane to

the nearest landing strip by following emergency protocol. You see, it’s all

part of the strategy.

Turns out a griffon vulture had flown directly into one of the jet engines! It

was a serious emergency situation. With leadership, critical thinking,

calmness of mind, training, and execution of a strategy, our captain literally

saved four hundred lives from death.

The importance of strategic thinking cannot be underestimated.

How will you incorporate strategic thinking into your daily life?

1 AWARENESS

Thinking strategically is massively important because it helps you open your mind in thinking of a way that is more likely for you to reach your goals connected to your core values. So in a sense, it’s a way of thinking by zooming out and observing the observer. You are the observer. You’re thinking about your environment, in your environment. However, when you begin to think strategically and practise strategic thinking, you begin to observe the observer. You can look and think from a different perspective, which in turn will help you realise that thinking strategically is beneficial not only for yourself but also other people. So it’s a practice. The more you practise, the better you will become.

2 GOALS

An influential aspect of strategic thinking involves your goals, what you will do?

SMART goals

S is for specific.

M is for measurable.

A is for attainable.

R is for relevant.

T is for time-sensitive.

Smart goals enable you to be specific about your goals. It’s highly likely

you’ll be able to achieve them, because you have clarified exactly what your

goals are, and clarity is power.

Now write down your goals on a piece of paper. Writing on a piece of paper

ensures 80 percent of retention, so your goal starts to act yourself into your

mind and your psyche. Once you’ve done this, you can create your strict

action plan by thinking strategically. So start to purposefully write the following letters on a clean sheet of paper or simply type them up on your smartphone or laptop.

S _______

M ______

A ______

R _______

T _______

Why do you want to achieve this one smart goal?

Why is it important to you?

Then write it down.

For me, the most important purpose for my goal is, one of my goals is to spend quality time with my son, Zachary. That’s my purpose. My purpose is to spend quality time with my son, because my values are family, love, and spending time with my son. Time is more valuable than money and two children. Love equals time, time spent with them.

3 WRITE

Then you write your results. What results do you want? Be specific. For

example, I would like to spend two hours every other day with my son

outside in nature. Be as specific as possible, and then you can write one to three results—specific results—you want to achieve. Then you write your

purposeful action plan. So what specific actions are you going to take with respect to purpose and results you want to achieve? What actions are you going to take? For example, schedule time in your calendar at 4 p.m. I’m going to spend time between 4pm and 6pm. I’m going to pick my son, Zachary, up from the daycare. I’m going to go and play football with him in the park for two hours. That’s the action plan.

You can create one to three actions that you’re going to take, then from those actions, you can break them down into priorities. You can prioritise the action, to most important meeting and least important, and then you can categorise them into two times. Then you can schedule them. What gets scheduled gets done.

Thinking strategically is massively important to reaching your goals. Use your SMART goals to realise your strategy. Execute your strategy to get to your goals, whether they are short-term or long-term, and they’re really purposeful and important to you. By thinking strategically, it increases your motivation—relentless motivation—and increases your energy. And energy is awesome.

4 QUESTION

When you think strategically, it’s massively powerful in how you create your

reality, your personal reality, and your personality. It improves focus, because you’re focused on where you want to go, what you want to do with your life. Your daily life for your entire life. This includes, business, relationships, and financially. Clarity is power. So what is strategy, and what is thinking strategically? It’s opening your mind to a way of thinking about how you’ll get to where you want to go. What you will do and what you won’t do determines your long-term strategy. It’s a dynamic action plan focused on a long-term future outcome or result.

Ask yourself these questions:

What’s most important to you?

What are your core values?

Where do you want to be in five years’ time or even ten years’ time or

beyond?

Building a foundational structure helps you plan out your strategy, what you

will and won’t do. Here’s an analogy. An aircraft and pilot leave the airport.

They know the coordinates. They know where they need to get to, and know

their destination. Beforehand, they have a strategy and a goal. There are

various situations and variables. For example, the weather. The weather could

change. For example, slight adjustments need to be made during the process,

so the pilot might have to adjust the route slightly. However, he’ll still get to

the destination, being adaptable and making slight adjustments, focusing on

the process to enable the outcome to happen which is the destination. Benjamin Franklin said ‘Failing to plan is planning to fail’, so make sure you have a great plan in place by thinking strategically about what you can do. Once you’ve answered your questions honestly and authentically, you can reverse-engineer an action plan, your dynamic action plan, your strategy. Work backwards, say, in five years’ time, four years, three years, two years, one year, up until today. Then you’ll have a great framework to execute your plan.

5 MEDITATE

Start to meditate. Meditating regularly gives your mind and body a gap of

time and space, some space and time to connect with who you are, your

mind, and your body, and it really helps you zoom out of all the noise, of all the chatter that’s going on in the world, in your world, and all the

distractions. This helps you refocus and gain balance in mind. It helps

creative thinking and being able to execute your strategy.

Thinking strategically is massively important in realising your life goals by implementing a dynamic action plan with what you will do and what you won’t do, connected to your values and goals. Have fun with it and be patient and enjoy the process.

Three challenges for you:

1. Meditate for two minutes in silence, focusing purely on your

breath, simply inhaling and exhaling. If thoughts come to you,

racing thoughts, observe them and let them be. Imagine your

thoughts are wispy clouds that are moving across the sky with a

gentle breeze.

2. Think of a creative idea. Think of a random object. Do your best

to connect two seemingly random ideas together. To create a new

idea, write down on a piece of paper two random items that come to

mind. For example, it could be a banana and a cloud. Then think of

an idea from those two items.

3. Think of your last argument with someone. It could have been a

colleague, or it could have been a family member or partner. Think

about how it made you feel, and then think in hindsight about how

you could have implemented a strategy. How you could’ve thought

strategically to create a better outcome for both parties to create a

win–win outcome. Write it down. It’s one for your archives.

Thank you for reading!

Adam Bowcutt

Please feel free to also read: 5 Simple Ways to Become More Creative; Boost Confidence & Add Value

Adapted from Confide: The New Psychology of Confidence. How to Power Up after Experiencing Depression

3 Important Skills to Develop Mental Wealth

Building mental wealth is critical to long-term well-being, mental health and intelligent productivity.

Mental wealth is a powerful combination of growth mindset, mental fortitude and abundance mentality. With consistent action, awareness and focus you'll begin building a solid foundation of mental wealth. It is important to develop skills that maintain its steady growth, because your life, and those dependent on your purposeful actions and courageous leadership, depend on it.

"All life is an experiment. The more experiments you make the better" - Ralph Waldo Emerson

1 Lively Listening

Important because: Listening is arguably one of the most important skills with respect to building mental wealth because it offers a powerful base to launch off. By developing aptitude in active and lively listening, growing acute awareness of our immediate surroundings is inevitable. Ideally our environment, both external and internal, must collaborate so that the context of meaningful conversations, what you're thinking and saying, is in agreement. Antagonism here often disrupts conversational flow because our inner voice and outer voice are conflicted. Of course, depending on the depth of relationship between you and whom your conversation partner is, varying levels of formality are expected. What's key is genuineness, because people nowadays can spot a 'fake' a mile away. Being respectful and saying what you're thinking is a nuanced skill in itself. By practicing lively listening in real-time and by being fully present, mutual respect, and most importantly, trust, is built. 'Active listening is all about building rapport, understanding, and trust.' [1] Remember communication is a two-way exchange.

Solution: 'Next time you meet someone, take a moment to check what colour their eyes are. Why? The reason is that the two seconds it takes to do this allows time for you to really look into the other person's eyes. By checking to see what colour their eyes

are, you've focused purely on them. They will sense this. They will automatically feel your focus and attention' [2]

• Can you remember the eye colour of the last person you chatted with? If you're speaking with and listening to one person, briefly check what colour their eyes are.

• If you're contributing to a group discussion, focus on one person per idea so that they feel listened to and not simply a number in a crowd. For example, if you're addressing a question on a specific topic.

• Clarify comprehension: For example, say: "So that I'm fully understanding you, what you're saying is ........ Is that right?"

• Be generous in using open-ended questions to encourage others to speak freely. Once they do, make sure you're genuinely curious about what they're saying. We can certainly learn more if we are willing to truly listen to others. Absorb this rich source of information and once you pause for thought ask yourself "why are they saying this right now?"

"The most important thing in communication is hearing what isn't said" - Peter Drucker

• In preparation for improving lively listening skills for the long-term, listen deeply to yourself. ''It’s essential that you observe the tone you use in your internal dialogue. Adopt the type of tone that a loved one would use if they were reassuring you.' [3]

2 Lifelong Learning

Important because: You don't know what you don't know. This is logical right? 'By learning something new we build confidence because our understanding deepens' [4] and with deeper understanding comes greater competence. Once you commit to lifelong learning you become unbounded; with knowledge and wisdom (applied knowledge) you are creating your personal reality, whatever you choose to become now and into the future. Essentially, you can change your personality (personal reality), benefitting yourself and those you influence. Additionally you'll build strength and be more effective at processing information, which means your ability to acquire, and apply, new skills will improve. Your mental wealth will definitely grow because your span of control will widen, meaning you're less likely to feel incapable. Being skilful is empowering. You'll learn to lead yourself, in turn lead others and be of significant service to others and the wider community. It's a great thing.

Solution: Adopt a growth mindset so that you learn to become intrinsically motivated to learn for the sake of learning. To start to adopt a growth mindset when facing any problem, start saying "I don't know how to do this yet." Yet is the most important word here because humans have an ability to learn almost anything [5]

• Read more! Pick up a book and start reading now. Set a timer for five minutes and practice reading non-stop without distraction. Focus on absorbing the words and key messages. Reading regularly helps your brain retain new knowledge. Surely that's worth five minutes a day?

• Choose a new hobby to learn. It can be absolutely anything. A few examples for you: Skateboarding, Gardening, Cooking, Jogging, Investing, Volunteering, Writing, Dancing, Languages, Meditation etc. Most importantly, start, and make sure you apply a growth mindset because you will get better with practice. (A list of 50 hobbies for more inspiration HERE)

• Get a mentor or coach. Specifically one that has deep experience and measurable results in the area you want to learn. You'll save valuable time and energy because being mentored or coached enables a direct approach to learning compared to being self-taught. There are benefits to teaching yourself new skills, although it could be a wiser choice to seek expert guidance, especially in the early stages.

“Research shows that you begin learning in the womb and go right on learning until the moment you pass on. Your brain has a capacity for learning that is virtually limitless, which makes every human a potential genius.” – Michael J. Gelb

3 Consistent Creativity

Important because: Practicing consistent creativity shifts our thinking and behaviours from consuming to creating. The benefits of developing this valuable skill are two-fold in helping develop mental wealth; first, a consistently creative mindset adds value because instead of depleting value by using it, you're creating it for others to use. Second, creativity reduces stress, anxiety and depression. 'The average person has about 60,000 thoughts in a day. A creative act such as crafting can help focus the mind, and has even been compared to meditation due to its calming effects on the brain and body. Even just gardening or sewing releases dopamine, a natural anti-depressant'.[6] Instead of sporadic creativity what's most important is consistency because over time, with a disciplined approach, you'll gain refined skills in your chosen creative pursuit. Purposeful productivity is intelligent creativity and is fun too, you're more likely to repeat enjoyable habits because they're fun. An associated benefit is increased mental and physiological energy.

Solution: Take a hot shower,'the absolute isolation of our morning shower makes an excellent incubator for ideas.'[7]

• Make sure you write down your fresh ideas as soon as you think of them, this way you're more likely to execute on them because you've shifted them into a state of reality instead of just a passing thought.

• Schedule regular day-dreaming sessions into your busy day. 'When the researchers compared the results, they found that the participants who reported more frequent daydreaming scored higher on intellectual and creative ability and had "more efficient" brain systems as measured by the MRI, compared with those who said they daydreamed less often and had "less efficient" brains' [8]

"The future belongs to those who learn more skills and combine them in creative ways" - Robert Greene

In summary three important skills to develop mental wealth are lively listening, lifelong learning and consistent creativity. Honing these skills takes time although the desired results will certainly be worth your patience. Have fun practising the suggested solutions including momentary eye-contact, regular reading and taking a hot showers and you'll be closer to being mentally wealthy for the long-term.

Written by Adam Bowcutt Author of Confide & Work is Mental

Feel free to also read: 3 Ways to Build Mental Wealth

If you're interested to learn more please go ahead and visit adambowcutt.com.au or https://www.mentalwealth.world

[Sources & References]

[1] Psych Central: Become a Better Listener By John M. Grohol, Psy.D.

[2] Confide: the new psychology of confidence: how to power up after experiencing depression by Adam Bowcutt. Xlibris Publishing

[3] Psychology Today, The Power of Your Internal Dialogue by Jill P. Weber Ph.D.

[4] Rebuild Stronger Confidence and Increase Energy by Author Adam Bowcutt

[5] Confide: the new psychology of confidence: how to power up after experiencing depression by Adam Bowcutt. Xlibris Publishing p.77

[6] Forbes: Here's How Creativity Actually Improves Your Health by Ashley Stahl

[7] Fast Company: 7 Surprising Facts About Creativity, According To Science by John Paul Titlow

[8] Live Science: Do You Daydream? You May Be Smarter and More Creative Than Your Peers by Samantha Mathewson