On his 82nd birthday, the Dalai Lama shared these words.
“Our existing modern education system is oriented toward materialist values. We need an education about inner values to lead a healthy life.”
In school, you learn a lot of things. How to read, spell, do math, color. It’s considered essential to know how to make a living for yourself and you may never learn to live in a way that you feel at peace. Content.
Certain mindsets set the foundation for making a healthy life a reality.
Being calm, confident, and courageous are values at the root of mindsets that help you in any area of your life. And these minds support the growth of creative and compassionate minds.
Imagine for a moment what life is like when you don’t feel calm, confident, or courageous.
What would it be worth to you to grow these minds now?
The good news here is that putting yourself in these mindsets is a skill. It has nothing to do with your DNA. It’s a matter of making new choices.
And, you’ll benefit to notice how your external environment is not a reliable source of stability or contentment. It can all change with a single phone call, a diagnosis, taking the wrong train – in a split second.
The roller coaster ride of happiness and then discomfort is not good enough for you. Building your foundation is a sure bet for a happier life.
It takes shifting your focus from the outer world to your inner world.
You create your state of being. It’s fully in your control. If you think through any experience in your life, you’ll find it’s coming from your own beliefs, stories, the meaning you’re attaching to everything. Once you go inside, you can make huge impacts that are impossible from the outside in. And this does apply to work too!
Here’s a simple method to build a solid foundation.
Step 1: Identify Positive Mindsets to Grow
Three foundational mindsets – calm, confident, and courageous – will help you in all areas of your life and to grow other positive mindsets. It’s important to find what’s true for you because than you’ll really commit.
Say you feel a creative mindset is more important. Ask yourself if it’s ok to be creative and not calm. If the answer is yes. That’s the right one for you. Get comfortable with three core positive mindsets and commit to increasing your skillfulness with them.
Step 2: Create Do-Able Practices to Gain Familiarity
Once you commit to at least 3 mindsets, start developing ways to put them in practice. Build your foundation. One of the best ways to deepen your skill is to meditate on the mindset.
To begin, you clear your mind. Then, you contemplate the benefits and disadvantages of holding that mind. For example, remember times you felt calm and how content you felt. Then, remember times when you felt over-excited or agitated and how content you felt. Convince yourself of the truth and breathe in the feeling of calm deep in your heart.
Other ways to practice are through visualizations, reframing, and future pacing. You can easily google these coaching processes and then start creatively making little practices.
Step 3: Practice in Small Ways Every Day
Next, take your practices and see how you can weave them into your day in a practical way. Say you decide to do future pacing. This practice involves looking at a future event and imagining yourself going through it with a foundational mindset. You could set a goal of finding one event in the day to practice.
Continuing with calm, you could future pace a performance review with a team member. You’d see yourself moving through it in a calm way in a 30 second to a 1 minute movie in your mind.
Step 4: Share with Others
As you go on your learning journey, share what you’re experiencing with people. It deepens your learning by expressing yourself and understanding the experience of others. It may be helpful to find the right environment for this. Meditation centers are a good place. Or, go online to find communities where you can exchange thoughts and ideas. Get creative.
Step 5: Find Strong Role Models
One of the easiest ways to learn positive mindsets is to model others. This can happen naturally by spending time with them – whether it be in person, exchanging mails, reading their books, watching their videos, learning about their lives on or off-line, keeping photographs near you. Keep them in front of you in some manner throughout your day. Be inspired.
When you’re mind is at peace and it’s content, you’re happy. Calm, confident, and courageous minds are peaceful. And, with effort, you can build the abilities to maintain these positive mindsets. All it takes is the choice and the commitment.
Your Turn: What is a do-able daily practice to grow your calm mind? Please share in the comments. Your insights are appreciated. And, they are part of being in community with others.
If you have the wish for others to be happy, it’d be great if you could share this email with them.
Peacefully,
Jennifer
