How are you going to be up to the not-too-onerous task of getting the very best out of life if you are mentally unfit? Unfortunately, many years of research confirms that the normal mind is not just unfit for effortless living, it has been living on a diet of clapped-out old movies (from your childhood) all of your adult life. It’s the ultimate couch potato. And, if, for all of your adult life, you had sat like a lazy slob on a couch, would you really expect to be able to spring from your couch, put on your trainers and go out for even a light jog? You’d kill yourself in the process – and, sadly, that is what normal people are doing – dying to be a success!
However, life is not a light jog – life is more akin to a marathon and, if you don’t take the appropriate regular exercise, you will simply not be able to stay the course. The amazing things is, though, if you do bother to take even a little mental exercise, you will suddenly realize that life is not, in fact, a marathon at all – it’s only our unfit normal crazy mind that makes it so. In the right state of mind, life is a gentle, enjoyable and effortless stroll in the park. Have you ever experienced the peace and calm of that stroll? Have you ever experienced the effortlessness of carefree living? If you haven’t, it’s because you’re an unfit mental slob and it’s your own fault.
How do you change all that? Does it require massive effort or discipline? Not at all – all that is required is just a little commitment on your part. Believe it or not, it only takes a few minutes each morning to get your head in the right place – perhaps a little longer for a start if you want to give yourself the solid foundation from which you can springboard to effortless living. And ten minutes each morning will change the other twenty three hours and fifty minutes – you simply won’t recognise your life.
What exercise am I talking about? You simply need to re-train yourself to pay attention to reality. At present, as I’ve already said, your subconscious mind is stuck in a rut. It’s obsessed with your past and it uses what it learned during your formative years to make sense of today. The results? Pick up the newspapers, see how so many normal people behave so badly – from domestic violence to wars, from petty theft to the barefaced greed that has all but dismantled the economies of many of the world’s so-called developed countries. Look at your own life. Your subconscious mind’s efforts to make sense of today lead to anxiety, stress, worry, ill-health, dissatisfaction – the list, in fact, is endless. Letting your subconscious mind run on auto-pilot is making nonsense of your life – you’ve got to come to your senses.
Research strongly suggests that our ability to be happy, focused, effective and successful is correlated to our ability to pay attention to the here and now. If we leave the running of our lives to our subconscious mind, we end up paying no attention to the here and now and the results are, at best, not-too-bad, at worst, disastrous. As I said, you must re-train yourself to pay attention. I say ‘re-train’ because, as children, we were experts at it.
What do you need to pay attention to? Not your goals, not the outcomes that you want to achieve – you need to pay attention to the here and now. Nothing else. It is in the here and now that life is lived. Today’s actions create tomorrow’s ‘reality’. What you do today determines whether you succeed or fail. And, at present, your normal mind is pretty much doing nothing other than going through the motions of living. Instead of automatically reacting to your perceptions of reality, you’ve got to start taking action. You’ve got to start taking action for yourself – nobody else will do it for you.
How can you re-learn your innate ability to pay attention? Meditate. Meditation disciplines an otherwise undisciplined mind. Meditation enables you pay attention to what your five senses are telling you. Meditation breaks the link between reality and what your subconscious mind makes up in place of reality. Meditation is the key to clarity of mind – and armed with a clear mind you can and will change your life effortlessly. Meditation is the prerequisite to effortless, happy and successful living.
Willie Horton has been enabling his clients live their dream since he launched is now acclaimed two-day Personal Development Seminars all the way back in 1996. His clients include top leaders in major corporations such as Pfizer, Deloitte, Nestle, Merrill Lynch, KPMG, G4S and Allergan together with everyone from the stay-at-home parent to sports-people. An Irish ex-banker and author of To Succeed Just Let Go, he lives in the French Alps from where he travels the world as a much sought after motivational speaker and mentor. All his work, his free weekly personal development videos and articles, together with his highly-acclaimed Personal Development Workshops are online at Gurdy.Net