Why do we make the decisions we make? Why do we do the things we do? Why are we the way we are? These are a few of the examples of the simplest questions that we could ask ourselves, yet we still do so many things and make so many decisions without ever understanding our why. The reasoning behind our actions is where the answers are hidden. So many people want to improve their situations, which they think will help improve their lives overall. Yet those same people are stuck because they don’t know the right questions to ask themselves to really understand why they haven’t gotten to that place they want to be. Improving your life starts by looking at why you haven’t done it yet. When you ask yourself this question, it helps you become more aware of the things that are holding you back. These things holding you back can sometimes be circumstantial, but more likely they are internal issues that you haven’t worked out with yourself. It could be a fear of failure, or a fear of judgement that is crippling you from taking a leap of faith. Worrying about the opinions of others can cause us to second guess ourselves and do things we don’t personally agree with, but we do it anyways because we want to please others. Concern over the opinions of others is not the only thing that holds us back and prevents us from moving forward, there is an even bigger and more problematic issue, which is the controversy we have with our self.
We should all be familiar with the voice inside of our head. Sometimes that voice can be our best friend, it acts as our guide in unfamiliar situations, it provides reasoning when we feel the urge to do something we know we shouldn’t, it serves as the comforter when our feelings have been compromised. The voice inside of us, is one of the few things in life that we have complete control over. That voice though, if we do not give it the proper attention and care, can also be our enemy. It can cause us to make simple things extremely complicated, and can even dilute reality. We don’t just get to always pick which voice we want to listen to. We have to train our minds so that we can have our inner voice be our best friend. The two voices are always there. Both our best friend and our enemy are always inside of us (pause). It is those two voices that create that controversy inside of us, which prevents us from understanding our reasoning so we can make the improvements that we want to make in our lives.
There is a constant back and forth that is always going on inside of us. Most of the time we don’t even notice because it occurs in our subconscious. We secretly wage battles against ourselves that are settled in the deepest depths of our mind. We can gain control and make sure that the results of those battles are beneficial for us and in our best interest. We can do that by understanding the thoughts behind our thoughts. We don’t have to act on our first thought impulse. Consistently acting on initial thought impulses leads to explosive behavior – acting out character, responding with anger before trying to understand, say things we don’t mean, do things we wouldn’t typically do, for example. Acting before thinking will more often than not get us in trouble and could lead us to become someone we don’t want to be. When we get those initial thought impulses, it is important to first go back to why. Why did I think this? What is the reasoning behind why this thought immediately popped into my mind? These are super helpful questions that allow you to become more self-aware of your thoughts and why you do or don’t do certain things. When you understand the reasoning behind your thoughts and can think before you act on an impulse, you put yourself in the right direction of achieving mind mastery. You have to do it consistently though, it will take time, patience, and a lot of reflecting and self-educating. That is why I said it puts you in the right direction, you can’t master something after doing just a couple times.
I’ve mentioned how we have two forces inside of us that are constantly fighting for control over our actions and decisions. I want to provide more context on what those two sides are and how they impact us. There is an emotional and instinctual version of yourself that makes decisions and creates action without even thinking. The side that doesn’t care about logic and reasoning. It tends to be selfish and needy. It just goes off of whatever feels right in that split second according to what is happening at the exact moment. This version/side of ourselves can be beneficial if we are having to make very quick decisions that are short term oriented. For the most part, this side of ourselves can be self-destructing and cause us to act out of character and make decisions that aren’t always in our best interest. This emotional and instinctive side of us does not care about long term consequences, and only considers what is best for satisfying our emotions and how we feel in the current moment. Those irrational and emotional decisions tend to negatively impact not just ourselves, but also those around us. This side of ourselves is very hard to gain control of and if we don’t it can ruin our lives.
It is through the training of our subconscious mind that allows us to gain more control of our instincts and emotions. Before we can even get to that point, we have to differentiate between our emotional side and the logical and objective side of who we are. The logical and objective side, often gets glossed over because we feel we must act on instinct or emotion. It requires a great deal of self-discipline to resist the urge to act on certain emotions/feelings. It just doesn’t come natural to us, thinking about the ramifications of our actions, when we get those strong urges. The logical and reasonable side is very quiet and unassuming. It is always there, just sitting in the background waiting for its chance to be utilized. It’s like that boring parent that never lets you have any fun and is always concerned about doing things that could compromise your future. The parent that is never appreciated until later in life. That parent may not let you do all the things you want to do, but you have to remember that they are simply looking out for you and always have your best interest in mind. They might know you better than you know yourself, and they make sure to always protect you and steer you in the right direction. That is what this logical and objective side of us does. It is the higher level you. This side of ourselves is the highest level of both thinking and operating that we can achieve. This is the side of ourselves that we must continuously work towards and must try to gain mastery over. Generally speaking, humans are very emotional. We tend to make decisions and take action on things that will satisfy our emotional side. The emotional side of us is the lesser, lower level version of ourselves. We cannot be at our most effective level and achieve our highest potential if we are held hostage by this lower level emotional side. I believe we should never try to make split second decisions but give ourselves time to reflect and take everything in before we do something. I know this is very idealistic and not exactly practical under all circumstances. But if you look back at some poor decisions that you might have made in your past, you may notice some common themes. If you begin to train your mind to always think before making a decision or taking action on something, you can save yourself from frustration and later regret.
When we make split second decisions based off of how we feel in a given moment, we are clouded by emotion and no longer have a clear perspective on what is the best thing for us to do. It is easy for emotion to win out, because we cannot see past how we feel in an exact moment. We do not understand that things will get better/easier and that by deciding just to appease ourselves in the moment we are going to frustrate ourselves even more down the line. The emotional side of ourselves produces the strongest feelings in the human body. Feelings like frustration, anger, and regret tend to take over our minds and bodies and consume all of our energy. Those feelings may be powerful, but no feeling is more powerful than happiness. Happiness makes us forget about all those frustrating times and regretful moments.
When we are dealing with strong emotional urges, we want to act on them. The emotional side of ourselves doesn’t care about the ramifications and downward effects of our decisions. We only care about how we feel right now. So how do we become less emotionally charged? I can start off by saying that it is much easier said than done. We feel like it is a bad thing to have emotions and are fearful of expressing those emotions, so we tend to suppress our feelings and bottle them up. This behavior can be even more destructive and can lead to long term frustration and frequent emotional outbursts. In order to overcome, we must realize and understand our trigger points. We all have things that immediately cause us to feel some type of way and throw us off our game. Start with reflection, begin by looking back at some of the moments in your past where you let your emotional-self win out even though you knew it was the wrong thing to do or went against what is in your best interest. Look at the events that led up to it, the mindset you were in, what thoughts were coming to you, and what was the immediate result. Then being where you are now, what things could have played out differently if you had taken time to subdue your emotions and look at things objectively. Continue to do this until you begin to see patterns in your behavior and understand the reasons why you acted a certain way. This helps you learn from your past so you can be better in the future. This helps you realize for future situations when you are in a battle between the emotional/subjective version of you and the logical/objective version of you. If you can know when you are in that moment and feel that pull from both sides, you have complete control over the situation and can do what is best for you. You have to be able to think clearly in the moment and understand that the emotional you knows what is best but doesn’t want to do what is best. It wants to pull you down and give you short term satisfaction.. The logical version of you almost always is far more reasonable and strives to put yourself in the best situation possible. We all have a basic understanding of right from wrong. We all have taken that and applied it to our own lives. What is wrong or right for us based off the things we have been taught and understand to be true about the others and most importantly ourselves. We are faced with so many choices throughout the days, weeks, months and years that affect who we are. Next time when you are faced with that difficult choice, it could be a choice of giving up or keep going, to do something today or put it off until tomorrow. Remember the two sides of yourself and remember that the lower level emotional you wants to win more than the logical and objective side of you. You know the right thing to do so don’t let this emotional/subjective side drive your actions and behaviors.
If you can consistently recognize when you are being dragged down by the emotional/subjective side, then you can start to gain better control of your actions. Being able to recognize when we are acting out of pure emotion and when we need to think through something logically, helps us become much more self-aware. The more we understand about ourselves, the more we can start to make decisions for ourselves. When you make decisions and do things for yourself, then you aren’t worried about the judgement of others. You did what was best for you and that is much easier to live with if you fail, then making decisions based off other people’s opinions and failing. Nobody can take that control from you. Understanding this internal struggle helps you achieve mastery over your mind and clarity in all your decisions and actions.
Jonathan McClure / The Rolling J
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