It’s all in your head.

The scary thing is that we are simply not programmed for succes or happiness. Our minds are the scariest gremlins all year round, not just on Halloween! Our heads are filled with tricky and sticky webs of bad expectations, misperceptions, and miswanting our mental ghosts constantly weave.

Last month we learned about the how and why of living intentionally. How we need deliberate, perpetual, affirmative ACTION to affect change in our lives. Following your passion and purpose and creating an inspiring life is not for the faint of heart… it takes a serious dose of courage and perseverance! Change starts with awareness. Your wholesome life starts with clarity. The strategy to a fulfilling life are series of intentional actions.  Once your compass is set, anything or anyone that will bring you off course needs to be ignored. It takes unwavering commitment. 

This is where life gets tough. You know this very well. When you read through the RESET BOOK, you will learn from GI Joe that knowing is not enough… We are not programmed for change and success. But, instead of fighting our own nature I suggest we embrace our mind’s limitations and learn to work with them instead of fighting against them. Knowledge is only potential power, but learning to go with the flow instead of swimming upstream will bring you peace of mind. I am posting this Wholesome Blog on #WorldMentalHealthDay2021 because understanding creates compassion. (Compassion actually literally means “to suffer together.”) 

An open mind is a healthy mind. 

Acceptance of our limitations will enhance serious advancements in our human evolution! We are not programmed for success, our minds are not wired for happiness. We don’t learn from our experiences and improve over time either. We never seem to accept how resilient we are and keep mispredicting our own potential. Our human thinking continuously underestimates our psychological immune system. 

Scientifically speaking human brains come in two varieties: either they come as a fixed mindset or growth mindset. These mindsets have all kinds of consequences for how we learn and how we react to failure. Carol Dweck, a researcher at Stanford, found that people fall into two categories in terms of beliefs around learning. A fixed mindset believes we are born with a set intelligence and skill set you can’t do much about. You just happen to have certain skills, or you don’t. And everything in life reveals whether you are smart or not. Growth mindsets believe that we might be born with some basic abilities which we can improve overtime through hard work. In other words, intelligence can be trained and basic abilities can be developed through dedication and hard work.

At times you will be struggling with new things, because that’s the very nature of learning. What they discovered was that fixed mindsets were focussed on whether they gave the correct answers or not. While growth mindsets were eager to find out the correct answers to learn from them. Fixed mindsets lost their confidence and dropped out of classes when their grades were bad. But when Growth mindsets did poorly, they ended up working harder and improved their performance. Growth mindsets think that to get better will require some hard work. And they believe that when they put in more effort it will make them stronger. 

The moral of the story? If we think we have the ability to improve, we will! Growing pains are a part of expanding our awareness. So remember to dial your mindset to growth and expansion while remembering the necessary struggle of the caterpillar to become a butterfly. 

Annoying features of the mind. 

In the book The How of Happiness the author ,Sonja L., explains how half of our genetics determine whether you are a glass half full or glass half empty kind of person. Surprisingly only 10 % of a person’s overall level of happiness can be attributed to our life circumstances. What we think would really ruin our lives, like a car crash that turns us paraplegic, actually only influences 10 % of our overall happiness. The life events that we think would determine the course of our lives, turn out to be the smallest component of our wellbeing. 

The good news for us is that the other 40% is under our control. This final part seems to be affected by our actions, intentions, and habits. Through intentional, and effortful activities we can become happier. That’s why life coaching works! You have the power to change 40% of your happiness through intentional actions.  

The bad news is our mind is a tricky scoundrel and delights in sending us astray. It seems to be programmed to deliver us information that has us working towards the wrong things. These built – in misperceptions send our instincts and intuition the wrong way. Unfortunately, our minds are not wired for happiness.

The Mind’s mischievious programming: 

Misperception, Miswanting, and Misprediction. 

We believe a certain job, a particular salary or grade, a specific house, that fancy car, that perfect body will make us happy. These misconceptions of the mind, have us chasing the wrong goals. We need to be hyper vigilant to tackle these annoying features of the mind and remind ourselves constantly that most of the goals we have in mind, will simply not make us happier . 

Our minds are mistaken about what we want and how happy it will make us. Dan Gilbert has coined this detrimental way of thinking ‘miswanting’. Our minds are never satisfied and instantly bored. Our mind is never satisfied because it is constantly making social comparisons to absolute reference points that set us up for disappointment. Additionally, we get used to stuff fast. Dan Gilbert states in his book Stumbling upon Happiness: “Wonderful things are especially wonderful the first time they happen, but their wonderfulness wanes with repetition.”

We anticipate we will be happier with buying material things, versus experiences for example. The initial excitement of a new purchase wears off quickly, however. The house and the car stay the same every day, and will therefor not fulfil us long term. Invest in experiences instead: they are less susceptible to social comparison and hedonic adaptation. 

“To my mind, the greatest reward and luxury of travel is to be able to experience everyday things as if for the first time, to be in a position in which almost nothing is so familiar it is taken for granted.” 

Bill Bryson

Know Thyself. 

What’s even worse than sending us astray is that we don’t even realise our minds do this to us. In addition, interestingly enough, our mind never seems to learn from its mistakes! We keep  overestimating the emotional impact of future events, both in terms of intensity and duration. We think something is going to be better than it is, and last longer than it does. This is true in both positive and negative mispredictions: we estimate something will be better than it actually is, or worse than it actually will be. We don’t learn from our experience and improve our mispredictions over time either. We never seem to accept how resilient we are and keep mispredicting our own potential. Our human thinking underestimates our psychological immune system. 

During the 40 day reset program you will be practicing several strategies to reset these annoying features of the mind. The strategies explored in this RESET book will need to become a habit if you want to be happy and feel fulfilled. 

From now on live you life intentionally! Create the life you want to live wholeheartedly. A Wholesome Life is enjoyed with a peaceful mind in a vibrant body through intentional action. 

Best Regards in Heath and Wellbeing, 

Nathalie Francois

Wholesome Life LLC

Feel Good. Be Good. Do Good. 

Everyday this month: 

1. Pay attention to how you react when you make a mistake. Reframe “urgh I am just not good at this” to “Hmmm, what can I learn from this mistake?” 
2. Be vigilant of the phrase :”I know that!” It’s the most detrimental sentence you can think. It closes you off from growing. 
3. Observe your thinking. Do you recognise any miswanting and misperceptions?
4. Bonus task: Practice meditation every morning for at least 10 minutes to calm the mind. Just sit quietly and observe the mind. Explore different styles to find out which one is most centering to you. Check out the Wholesome Thinking Page on my website to find out more. 

5. If you have found these free coaching tips valuable, show your appreciation here. Thank you!

6. Want to find out more? Buy the RESET book – starting today it is available in paperback!