Your mind is your friend right? It helps keep you alive, keep your heart beating, alerting you to danger, communicating with the people you love. But what if I told you your mind is not interested in helping you succeed. Would that help explain a few things?

If our minds were interested in helping us succeed, they would not freeze when we want to say something to that cute person. They would not get nervous and want to die, instead of asking for a raise. They would not get sick on the day of the big presentation. You thought that was a coincidence? Nope, your mind did that! And they would not fight so much to be right instead of having peaceful, loving relationships. One of the biggest obstacles standing in your way of success is your mind! But you can change it into the biggest driver of success. Those who are successful know this and have created ways to do just that. I’ll share one of those ways later.

Our minds actually go into ‘fight or flight’ when presented with new situations or challenges. This is the fear response instinct that kept us alive when we were a more tribal civilization and had real threats to our survival like lions and bears. Our circumstances have changed—a lot! But our mind’s way of operating has not. Today, your boss may be the “bear". You may avoid him or her, get nervous when you need to speak up or not behave the way you know you should. Your mind is working against you!

This fight or flight response activates a part of our brain in the back of our head called the amygdala. The blood and resources go there when you are scared. Where do the resources get drained from? The frontal cortex- the thinking part of the brain. This, my friend is why we act like idiots when we are in the fight or flight mode.

If your mind’s job is not to help you succeed? Then what is it’s number one job?

To keep you safe. Knowing this changes everything. How safe is it to ask for a raise? Not too safe if you could get rejected. How safe is it to start a new venture? Even though it’s your dream business? Your mind will absolutely work against you as you go to “unsafe” activities on your way to your dreams.

So what’s the fix? Well the biggest part of the solution is simply awareness. Now that you know that your mind only wants to keep you safe and alive on the planet, you can begin to look at situations differently.

Learn to speak your mind’s language. Your mind is not impressed with Tony Robbins or any of the speakers on Mind Valley or TEDx. It’s not interested in motivational speeches or inspirational stories of how this person lived in their car for 3 months until they made it big. If your mind could choose what videos to watch or books to read it would be more along the lines of warning labels and home security system manuals. It would be interested in “How to create an impenetrable bunker with enough meals for 3 years”. Knowing this, you can start to learn how to translate your goals into language your mind loves. Here’s what you might try: (Tony Robbins totally teaches this :) ) Let’s say your goal is to ask a girl or guy out.

Your mind will say something like this ”Don’t do it! You will surely die! If she doesn’t love you, no one ever will and you will die alone. Just like your uncle Bob.” The mind is a drama queen.

All of us have gone along with this before and come to the conclusion that “Yes, I will die, and how could I have been so dumb as to think I could ask her out.”

Or-what’s more common- we proceeded despite the mind’s objections. Without consulting our minds first. This is when we get into trouble. You go to ask the girl out and you are so nervous you feel like you might die! You stutter and just sound like an idiot- because you are an idiot (well at that moment you are) All the blood is in the amygdala (fight or flight) and NOT in the frontal cortex (thinking brain).

Here’s what you need to translate to your mind: “Thank you mind so much for trying to keep me safe. The truth is I am much more likely to die alone if I DON’T ask any girls out. I am completely safe to do this and I will be safe with either outcome. Doing this is SO good for me because then I’ll be closer to finding out who I am supposed to be with long term. So I love as’king girls out.” (Of course you don’t really love this, but your mind is a drama queen, so use strong words) You could even say, “I feel amazing when I ask girls out.”

To this your mind will respond: ‘Ok, you Love this? You WANT to do this? You believe this is safe and best for you? Ok, then I better help. Have you thought of wearing that shirt that makes you look thinner?’ This won’t happen instantly, but it absolutely will happen.

So now you have helped get blood back into the thinking part of your brain. Woo Hoo!

When you use powerful words like love and choose, or statement’s like ‘It makes me feel amazing! I’m so excited about it.’ The mind responds really well. The trick is to keep up these words even when you don’t feel like it. After a couple of weeks the mind will start to catch on and help you in ways you never thought of.

Experiment on yourself. Try saying something like “I love salad. It might take a couple weeks, but you’ll find yourself actually loving salad. Try it with a relationship, teenager, spouse. Your brilliant mind is a force to be reckoned with- especially as you train it to work FOR you!

If this is an area you are feeling really stuck in, please contact me and we can see if an RTT session might be helpful. I believe the majority of our issues we have, we can work out by ourselves. I’m here for those that are stuck along the way and need more support to work things out.