Day Three Hundred And Ten!!!!!

Switching Your Mind Set


We have a tendency to think that our personality, our intelligence, our abilities, and our personal characteristics are not only things we are born with, but things that will stay the same for life. In reality they are not fixed. The brain grows stronger with use, and when we learn something new or practice a skill, the cells that communicate with each other in the brain are used more and connect more often, which strengthens your brains ability. The things that you might have once found hard to do become easier and easier to do with practice and slowly grows into being able to take less effort to do. 


As soon as you start to set your mind to learning something new or practicing a skill, it means that you have literally changed how your brain works. When we have a fixed mind set we have convinced ourselves that we will never be able to change. The people that have fixed mind sets stick with what they know, while at the same time are trying to avoid challenges. People with a fixed mind set tend to give up quickly and easily, listening to their negative self-talk in order to maintain their fixed mind set. They avoid things that they find difficult and believe that they don't need to keep practicing their new skills.


Those that have a growth mind set believe that they can learn, change, and develop new skills. These are the people who thrive on challenges and see mistakes as an opportunity to learn and improve, are more persistent and are better equipped to deal with set backs. These are the people that know that hard work and practice will help them reach their goals. 


Do you ever find yourself being in that fixed mindset? It is important to be able to change your fixed mindset into a growth mindset. It is important to think about this in regards to taking on your new lifestyle with the Keto diet. So the difference in thoughts goes like ‘I can’t do this.’ into ‘I like a challenge.’, ‘I give up.’ to ‘I will use these strategies.’, ‘I have failed.’ into ‘this mistake will help me to improve next time.’, ‘I will never be able to lose weight.’ to ‘I have to persevere.’


It is important to be able to stay in the present moment, to be aware of your feelings whether they are based in anxiety, worry, or fear etc. To be able to recognize that these feelings are your bodies alarm system and your alarm system is telling you that there is something really important that you need to pay attention to. These feelings come from your thoughts and these thoughts are about something that has not even happened yet, and the feelings are alerting you to look at your thoughts. 


The question then becomes, what is the problematic story of your future that your mind is creating? It is really your imagination that is firing into action, therefore, once you realize this you are bringing your awareness and consciousness into the present situation, which in turn creates a gap between you and what your imagination is doing. Once you realize this, you are now creating a space between your imagination to what is actually real. It is important to be able to take a few breaths to anchor yourself into your body and then to attune to the mindset that you actually want to have, a growth mindset.