Today I want to talk about the Seven Deadly Sins of having a busy mind and how to train your mind for high performance and build a growth mindset. And why it's really important to recognise that having this busy mind that many of us think, particularly men, is really important because it's our value basis. If we're always busy, we're always thinking, always doing things. And this is how we get rewarded. Because if people seeing us doing this at work, then we must be really good at what we do, we must be really committed, therefore, we're going to earn more money, we're going to keep our job, whatever it may be, or if you're a business leader, you're an entrepreneur, your team thinks, wow, this person's always, always got things going on, they're always on top of things. Well, I want to share with you today that having a busy mind is not as good as you think it is.
Often being stuck in a busy mind is a consequence of avoiding what really confronts and challenges you.
Okay. So there are two points here. One is that we want to use our thinking mind, our analytical mind, our logical mind, and you'll have heard me talk about this before, is designed for things like business strategy, for operations, for decision making. When we need to use that we also need to use our intuition, we need to we need to tap into our feelings and our emotions, when we also want to feel about how things are working out for us. So when we're in this constant state of this overworked, busy mind, actually, whilst we might think we're getting an endorphin head or a dopamine hit, or we get an adrenaline rush, we can't sustain that forever.
Building a Growth Mindset for Strategic Sprints
It's useful for certain things, but we cannot sustain it forever. Imagine that you're Usain Bolt trying to win the 100 metres. And so you're sprinting, but when you get 100 metres is done, it's finished, you're not going to continue going for either 100 metres 200 metres 400 metres, you cannot sustain the same pace for a long time, what happens is you burn out. So what are those seven deadly sins?
First Deadly Sin: Missing Opportunities
One, you miss opportunities. You're constantly in that lane, you're constantly just focusing on the particular issue at hand, or all these other things which are going on in your mind. So you begin to miss what's going on around, you are only seeing what's in front of you.
Second Deadly Sin: Failing to Reflect
You make poor decisions, because you're not tapping into your intuition, you're having no time for reflection.
Third Deadly Sin: Depleting Your Energy
You're burning energy much faster than you would otherwise do. Imagine, again, Usain Bolt, you cannot sustain that pace, you will burn out faster, you might be very successful in the lane you're in for a limited amount of time. But I promise you, if you are one of those people who thrives on just having a busy mind, it's not going to last forever. The other thing is very hard to relax. I've done many meditation retreats. And one thing I know is when people come in, and they say, you know, I've got a really busy mind.
Fourth Deadly Sin: Mistaking A Busy Mind for Your Power Base. Failing to Relax Your Mind.
And I'm always thinking, they think that's a power base, that is the antithesis of what we want to do when we want to be in a reflective state where we can make good decisions. Right? So not being relaxed is not a quality that you want. Also, it means that if we know that say, you've got 70,000 thoughts a day, maybe 70 80% of them are negative. How many of those thoughts if you're busy mine are actually helping you and how many of those are actually hindering you? How much of that is limiting beliefs and fear base, I must do this. Because otherwise someone's gonna think this is gonna happen, I must do this. Because other people are expecting me to do that. Or I promised that, or I must do this, because it's the only way that I know of staying ahead.
Fifth Deadly Sin: Failing to Recognise When To Stop and When To Accelerate
That is a negative limiting belief. It's no good for you. Not having no time for reflection. That's the fifth deadly sin no time for reflection. Why do we want reflection so that we can tap into our intuition so that we can give our time our body's time to heal from the stress we're putting on them. By having this incredibly busy mind. Slowing down is one of the core, one of the core factors that all of the top 1% of the great leaders most successful people know is when to charge ahead. And when to slow down, there are different gears you do not stay in one gear the whole time.
Sixth Deadly Sin: Not Being Present
The other thing, this is really, really important, particularly if you're a leader or if you have a family is what being present really means. When I say present, I don't mean that you can be in a room with somebody that is not being present, being present is the fact that I'm focused on looking at you I'm actually active listening and observing to what you're saying. And that ties into the seventh deadly sin.
Seventh Deadly Sin: You Stop Observing
Number one was you miss opportunities, why do you miss opportunities, because number seven kicks in, you're not looking at what's going on around you. And you're not being present to what's going on. So all you're doing is talking talk, talk, talk, talk talk, but there's no listening. Because if you want to be truly successful in every aspect of life, in your really want to train your mind for high performance habits, you need to learn to be a better observer, not just a talker. So I hope that helps. I hope you begin to understand that having a busy mind is sometimes useful, but you cannot sustain that gear and that pace wherever because you will fall over.