The Mind Pie

There’s a saying that “Effective management always begins with successful self-management”.

To that, I say, “Effective self-management always begins with successful mind-management”.

The Goal of Mind-Management

For me, successful mind-management means attaining the ability to nurture and sustain a healthy mind that works in the direction of your life dreams.

Let’s say that your life dream is to become a millionaire that runs his/her own businesses without compromising your own physical health, precious time with your spouse and family, and can still spend time on hobbies and interests.

Then, successful mind-management means the ability to build up and maintain the mental fitness to be able to handle the stress, critical thinking, and knowledge management that’s required to reach and fulfil that desired lifestyle.

Similar to any other personal development endeavour, you need to build a personal system with rules that will improve your mind-management:

Here are 2 mind-management rules I currently follow:

Only allow positive and constructive thoughts to enter the Heart of my Mind 100% of the time.
When I am physically ill or mentally unwell, I only listen to my active thoughts and tune out my passive thoughts.

Let’s break it down.

Our minds have 3 distinct sections:

Conscious-Subconscious Layer
Thought Freeway
Heart of the Mind

Conscious-Subconscious Layer

This is the outer layer of the mind that generates thoughts.

It absorbs, processes, analyses & remembers all sorts of experiential data to spit out either logical facts or creative abstractions.

Within this outer layer, 30% of it is made up of the Conscious Mind (CM). The other 70% of it is made up of Subconscious Mind (SM).

The Subconscious Mind (SM) is more powerful, is more hardworking and is responsible for generating a lot more thoughts.

However, it is difficult to understand the structure and formulation of those thoughts. They may even be illogical. They are called ‘Passive Thoughts’.

The SM generates ‘passive thoughts’ because these thoughts come out of a black box without any intentional effort. They seem to pop into our brains from nowhere, with no clear structure of how they were formulated.

Meanwhile, the Conscious Mind (CM) is less powerful than the SM. It is less patient, gets tired easily and is naturally lazy.

But the thoughts the CM generates have clear structures and can be rationally understood. They have clean logical pathways about how they were formed. They are called ‘Active Thoughts’.

The CM generates ‘active thoughts’ because these thoughts require intentional effort from us, and will not be generated otherwise. We have to will them into existence through deliberate mental effort.

What’s key to realise here is that:

you can control 30% of what active thoughts are generated, but you cannot control 70% of what passive thoughts are generated.

Whatever they are, 100% of the thoughts produced in this layer are sent into the Thought Freeway.

The Thought Freeway

This is the layer where the active and passive thoughts roam free without any associations to your core. These thoughts manifest themselves through the many voices that exist in your head.

Most people are able to clearly observe the Thought Freeway when they are lying in bed in the dark, and there’s nothing else but them and their thoughts.

You’ll notice some voices come out of nowhere. Some recall memories of your past. Some talk about ideas of your future. Some express concerns about your current self, your past, your future. These voices are your passive thoughts generated from your SM.

You may also notice that some voices start talking about what you want to do tomorrow, what your friend’s message actually meant or what you really think about your current lifestyle. These voices speak logically and demand focus. These voices are your active thoughts generated from your CM.

While these active and passive thoughts roam and speak freely, they all begin by being suspended in the Thought Freeway with no clear substance or effect to your core.

But the moment you allow any of the voices to affect your core, they become YOUR thoughts.

The moment you associate any of these thoughts with yourself, they enter your Heart of the Mind.

Heart of the Mind

The Heart of the Mind (Heart) is your inner voice. It is distinctly you.

While you may have many different voices that roam freely in the Thought Freeway, you only have ONE voice in your Heart.

This singular inner voice represents your beliefs, your convictions and what you truly resonate with.

The Heart voices only the thoughts that the Heart allows entry.

So, whatever thoughts from the Thought Freeway that you allow to enter your Heart will become your true thoughts.

Good or bad, they will be the thoughts that your Heart believes.

So, if you allow kind, empathetic and inspiring thoughts to enter your Heart, then your inner voice shall be so as well.

But if you allow angry, anxious and depressing thoughts to enter your Heart, then your inner voice shall be so as well.

Your thoughts make up what you believe in your Heart.

And if your Heart does not believe that you can live up to your dreams, and if your inner voice tells you that you cannot become the person you desire to be, you would have lost the fight before the battle had even begun.

So, how to better manage your thoughts and mind?

Let’s discuss two ways to improve your mind-management:

1. Learn how to distinguish your inner voice in your Heart from the voices in your Thought Freeway.

I first learned how to do this through Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) exercises, but what has been key from my experience is visualisation.

To achieve this;

First, focus on understanding the structure of The Mind Pie. The mental model of how there are different layers to the mind, and how thoughts roam freely in the mind before being allowed entrance into the heart, is helpful in forming a clear mental visualisation.
Second, you should know the associated physical locations of your thoughts and your inner voice. The many thoughts suspended in the Thought Freeway physically manifest themselves as voices up in your head area. Meanwhile, the Heart of the Mind that manifests itself as your inner voice can usually be felt close to your chest area. Realising that the two types of voices are associated in two different physical locations will also help you with sustaining a strong visualisation of your mind’s structure.
Thirdly, practice introspection and frequently observe your own thoughts and the different voices in you. Through consistent practice, you will gain the ability to distinguish which voices are the inner voice of your Heart, and which ones are merely voices from the many thoughts in your Thought Freeway.

By picking up this skill, over time, you will be able to decide 100% of the time what thoughts you allow to enter your Heart so that you can distill your inner voice.

2. Reprogram your subconscious mind via self-talk

Most people reading this will think: “I can actively think of positive thoughts using my Conscious Mind (CM), and then feed it into my Heart.”

Indeed, that is a surefire way of contributing good, constructive thoughts to your Thought Freeway and consequently into your Heart of the Mind.

But no. While viable in the short-term, that method is unsustainable.

Because your CM only generates 30% of all your thoughts. Because your CM always requires active mental effort. Because your CM tires out easily. Because your CM is lazy.

Active mental effort to generate positive thoughts is NOT a winning long-term strategy for mind-management.

Instead, consider employing the tireless, hardworking Subconscious Mind (SM) to work for you.

If you and I can devise a system that makes our SMs continuously generate positive thoughts to be fed to our Heart, then that’s a long-term strategy we should invest in.

One way to do this is by reprogramming your SM via Self-Talk.

2-week Self-Talk Exercise for Beginners

Here’s a simplified method from which you can start implementing Self-Talk this week:

Step 1: Observe your own thoughts and self-talk for 3 to 5 days.

What are some negative things you frequently say to yourself (either in your head or out loud)? Write them down.

As an example, here’s my list of negative self-talk I had a few weeks ago:

Am i doing enough?
Im a bit tired today
A bit slow with learning
A bit slow at executing things
It’s already late
Im weak
It’s already X time
Im tired
I haven’t done this yet
I’ve done well this week, BUT… (not good enough)

Step 2: Group and categorise your negative self-talk.

These were my top 3 negative self-talk categories:

Low confidence in work quality: Am I doing enough? I’ve done well this week, BUT… (not good enough). Im not as good as I used to be.
Low energy level: Im a bit tired today. Im tired. Im weak.
No time: I haven’t done this yet. Im a bit slow with learning. Im bit slow at executing things. It’s already late. It’s already X time.

Step 3. Transform the negative self talk to positive self talk.

Write them as a bunch of sentences that address each negative self talk category.

Make sure to fulfil the following too:

Are they in the present tense?
Are they specific enough to your context?
Are there any loopholes or undesired side effects?
Is it easy to recall and use?
Is it practical?
Is it personal and honest?
Does it ask enough of you?

Here’s the example of the positive self talk I produced for myself:

High confidence in work quality: I am always conscientious in producing work of the highest quality that is realistic to my skill and knowledge level. I recognise that mastery is built by incremental improvements from everyday efforts. I am happy with the work I produce, and I am appreciative of the opportunity to produce quality work.

High energy levels: I am a strong person and it is easy for me to get up and do productive things. I have a lot of energy to do things throughout the day and doing those things reenergises me even more. I know that rest is important for refilling my energy levels, and I am able to detach myself from work when I am resting.

Plenty of time: I am patient in taking time to do things and understand that many things in life takes time. I am responsible for choosing when, where and how I spend my time. I choose to spend my time in a way that brings the greatest benefit to my life.

Step 4. Record and listen to your Self-talk.

Listen to them 3 times a day, everyday over 1-2 weeks.

See how the positive self-talk changes the voice in your head, your behaviour and actions.

***

The above is a simplified version which I executed for my own purposes.

But, I highly recommend you read Dr Shad Helmsletter’s book on “What to say when you talk yourself” if you’re interested in fully reprogramming your subconscious using his Self-Talk method.

This was a bit of a lengthy one, but I hope you found the breakdown of my 1st mind-management rule useful.

If you have any questions at all, please do reply to this email and I’ll try and help clarify/explain further.

Next week, I’ll cover my 2nd mind-management rule of

“When I am physically ill or mentally unwell, I only listen to my active thoughts and tune out my passive thoughts.”

Till next week,
Ruiz

The Mind Pie – Part 1