CLEANING UP OUR MENTAL HOUSE

“Your mind can be likened to a house that has been cluttered over the years with thousands of unnecessary pieces of furniture, pictures, ornaments, and other things, all strewn around and piled everywhere. The result is that, although the outside of the house may present a good appearance, the inside is a mess of confusion and disorder. It is impossible to accomplish anything under such conditions, for you cannot go after one thing without stumbling over another. There is no order. No purpose. No progress. The first necessary thing to do, then, is to rid that house of all but the furnishings that are essential to your success.”
—John McDonald from The Message of a Master

​Imagine a house that looks pretty good on the outside, but when we open the front door and take a step in we see it’s cluttered with thousands (!) of useless and unnecessary pieces of furniture, pictures and other junk piled everywhere.

Welcome to a disorganized mind.

It’s time to clean up!

Modern neuroscientists say that the way we clean up our brains is by “pruning” the old, less useful patterns and “sprouting” new, healthier patterns of thought and behavior.

How do you declutter/prune?

QUIT thinking the same old thoughts and doing the same old things.

START doing healthier things and having healthier thoughts.

It really is pretty much that simple. Not particularly easy to do, but the mechanics are shockingly simple.

Do YOU have habits of thought or behaviors that no longer serve you?

What negative thoughts and behaviors are currently cluttering your mind? Seriously. Pause for a moment and capture a few sub-optimal thoughts + behaviors that just aren’t serving you.

These thoughts + behaviors are no longer serving me:
___________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________

Fantastic.

Time to move that junk out of our mental house as we clean up and optimize!

Source: brianjohnson.me
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