The Power of the Mind

Usually, we pay little attention to our thoughts. They emerge, pass through our minds and are never to be seen again. Thoughts are also immaterial, which is why we often forget that they are even there. As a result, we underestimate the powerful impact thoughts can have on our lives. However, the human mind holds a great potency. It holds one of the strongest powers accessible to us. Unfortunately, its powers are largely ignored/unknown, which is why many of its abilities have become dormant. Still, the power of the mind is one of the greatest powers you can tap into. In the following we’ll discuss the amazing power of the mind and what you can do to use your mind’s power.

The power of the mind is largely dependent on your thoughts. What you think you become. The thoughts you choose to entertain influence heavily what happens to you in life. Your beliefs, mindsets and attitudes influence how you behave and how you respond to certain events. Even more so, your thought patterns largely decide how you interpret certain situations. And this can make quite a difference.

It can make the difference between living in a horrible, apocalyptic world designed to punish you and living in a world that confronts you with challenges designed to teach you important lessons. Two people might share exactly the same experience, but the way they interpret what happens could be totally different.

“It all depends on how we look at things, and not how they are in themselves.”
Carl Gustav Jung

One person might use these lessons to grow stronger; the other might feel as if the universe is conspiring against them. And that’s why our thinking can make such a huge difference. In many situations, it is therefore not so important what happens to us, but how we choose to interpret and react to what happens. As you think, so will your life become.

“As a single footstep will not make a path on the earth, so a single thought will not make a pathway in the mind. To make a deep physical path, we walk again and again. To make a deep mental path, we must think over and over the kind of thoughts we wish to dominate our lives.”
Henry David Thoreau

If you do wish to affect changes in the outside world, you have to change yourself and your thoughts first. Your mind is like a big movie screen. You can decide what type of video is being played on your mental screen. The kind of video that plays in your mind influences to a great extent the life you’re living.

Explore the power of the mind as you would explore the beauty of the world.

Let’s have a look at the power of the mind and what you can do to harness it.

The Power of the Mind

You can use your thoughts to affect changes in the world around you. However, this process takes patience and continuous practice. It is quite similar to the way a gardener plants seeds. Just as seeds can be planted in the earth, thoughts can be planted in the mind. But it takes the same diligence and care necessary to grow a plant. Similarly to a gardener, you have to continuously water and fertilize the thoughts you wish to manifest.

As you slowly plant and nurture the thoughts you wish to manifest, they will slowly strike roots in your mind. When this happens, your thoughts will start to flow into your subconscious mind and embed themselves there. This in turn is where the power of the subconscious mind starts to kick in. Over time, it will begin to influence your behavior. By doing so it helps you to take the necessary steps for the accomplishment of your goals.

If you plant beneficial and supportive thoughts, they will assist you in the accomplishment of your goals. Unfortunately, most people are not aware of this process, so they do not pay any attention to it. As a result, many unsupportive beliefs and mindsets have grown roots in their minds, which in turn influence their behavior negatively.

The Power of the Subconscious Mind

The subconscious mind is accepted by psychologists is a great source of inspiration, intuition and creativity. It is assumed to make up approximately 92% of the entire brain. This means that the conscious mind only takes up 8% of the human brain. As you can see from these relations, it’s only natural to be curious about the power of the subconscious mind. It’s the part of your brain that is always active, even at night. The subconscious mind controls all your body functions. But it can also play a great role in your daily life.

Say for instance, you got up in the morning with a terrible mood. It’s very likely that the events throughout the cause of your day will resemble exactly this kind of mindset. That’s simply because the thought patterns of the subconscious mind affect how you interpret what happens to you and how you interact with the world. Similarly, if you get up with an excellent mood, it’s more likely that you’ll have a more beneficial attitude to the challenges that present themselves during the day. As you can see, different thinking patterns can play a huge role in the way we’re living life.

Situations might be interpreted entirely differently depending on our mindsets. It could happen that we are confronted with two perfectly similar experiences, but our subconscious mind makes us interpret these in a total different manner.

How to Use the Power of the Mind?

Use visualization

We all know that it takes practice and a lot of repetition to master a certain skill. By means of repetition we start to strengthen the specific neural networks that are performing a certain action. While most people are aware of this, only a small proportion of them knows that the same can also be accomplished by simply visualizing an action. The same underlying principles are at work here. That’s because the brain cannot differentiate between an action that is actually performed and something you’ve simply visualized. No matter if you perform an action or if you simply visualize it, the same processes happen in the brain.

Visualization can help you to gain access to the powers of the mind. It helps you to change your attitude and behavior by visualizing the desired outcome of specific actions.

If you repeat the visualization often enough, with a lot of detail, faith and conviction, the subconscious mind will slowly start to consider what you’ve visualized as real experiences. When this happens, the things you’ve visualized will slowly start to manifest in your life. If you visualize that you are a confident and outgoing person, you will grow more confident after a certain period of time. Mind you, this will definitely not happen within a fortnight. Instead, it takes time, patience and effort. But it can be done!

Overcome the “confirmation bias”

Various studies found evidence for a phenomenon called “confirmation bias.” It’s an interesting facet of the human brain that we can easily fall prey to. It is therefore all the more important to be aware of its influence over our brains. But what is the confirmation bias exactly? To put simply, it’s the human minds tendency to interpret information in a way that confirms existing beliefs. The brain tends to use a biased interpretation of information not to trick or fool you, but simply to save energy. It’s far easier for the brain to link information with already existing beliefs than it is to expend large amounts of energy for the continuous analysis and interpretation of new information. It’s simply the path of least resistance, so the brain will gladly take it.

Say for instance, a person has a negative outlook on life. The confirmation bias will increase their tendency to interpret the events in their lives according to their existing (negative) mindsets. In fact, any kind of new information they are confronted with is quickly connected to their negative beliefs. This in turn does only provide even further “proof” of the person’s worldview. If you believe you live in a hellish world, you will definitely find evidence for that all over the place.

It goes without saying that it’s tremendously important to overcome the confirmation bias if you want to make use of the power of your mind. Once you are able to prevent this kind of bias from interpreting information, you will be more in control of the power of your mind. Similarly, if you grow healthy and beneficial beliefs, the world around you will start to reflect these. If you sincerely believe the world is full of abundance, you’ll inevitably act accordingly, which in turn will draw many other unselfish people into your life. It is kind of a self-fulfilling prophecy. Just imagine what happens if you remind yourself each morning about all the kind and loving individuals you’ve ever met in your life. After a certain while, you will be more likely to meet kind spirited people everywhere you go.

Be consciously aware of your thoughts

Besides the ability of being able to identify the mind’s confirmation bias, it’s similarly important to be consciously aware of the thoughts you entertain. All too often, we spend the day without taking much notice of our thoughts. It’s understandable, as we are confronted with a great number of challenges in the outside world. However, it can prove to be beneficial to pay close attention to your thought processes. Observe how random thoughts enter and leave your mind. Watch what the mind fears and what it is excited about. By paying attention to how you think, you can get in touch with one of the most powerful forces accessible to you: your thinking processes.

Learn to focus

A focused mind helps you to direct all your actions towards a given outcome. But if there’s little to no focus as a result of uncontrolled thinking patterns, then it is less likely that you will ever accomplish the desired result. By focusing the power of your mind, you can direct your thoughts and actions on your aims. Everything you intensely focus on, you will attract in one way or the other.

If a person’s attention is heavily concentrated on their fears and anxieties, they will attract these things into their life. Similarly, the person who is focusing on abundance, success, joy and happiness will be more likely to attract these things into their life. Or rather, they will be more likely to find joy and happiness in the situations they are confronted with.

By understanding these universal laws, you can use the power of your thoughts to your own benefit.

Stop the mind from wandering around and learn to control it. Not every thought that arises should be mulled about. Not every idea should be granted access to your mind. Just because a thought emerges does not mean you have to entertain it. Let go of unjust, unbeneficial and toxic thoughts. They have no value. All they do is to drag you down and impose limits upon you.

Identify self-doubting thinking

Self-limiting or self-doubting thoughts are learned thinking patterns. It’s quite possible that we’ve picked them up during childhood and never became fully aware of these. These thinking patterns make us doubt ourselves and our abilities. Often times, we’re not even consciously aware of this process. Instead, we simply accept these self-imposed limits. Even worse, we slowly start to accept these thought patterns as real.

To make more use of the power of your mind, it’s necessary to break free from self-limiting beliefs. So whenever you are confronted with self-doubting or limiting thoughts, watch closely where exactly these beliefs stem from. Take a step back and question if these thinking patterns hold any legitimacy to them. See if there is any proof to these kinds of thoughts. Mostly there’s no evidence that would legitimate their existence. In many cases, these thinking patterns are simply self-restrictive limitations we impose upon ourselves. They are not founded in reality, which is why you should start to challenge them.

Rid your mind of toxic thoughts

We’re all confronted with extremely toxic thoughts. These thought patterns are extremely poisonous and can cause us to subconsciously sabotage our progress. Toxic and unbeneficial thinking patterns must therefore be dealt with accordingly. Otherwise they will slowly take roots until they predominantly control our behaviors.

Rid your mind of these kinds of thought patterns. Eliminate all thoughts that prevent you from making progress in life. Whenever such a toxic thought starts to emerge, try to replace it with a thought that is more beneficial and supportive.

Plant positive thoughts

The very best strategy of removing negative thoughts from your mind is to replace them with positive ones. Positive beliefs are those that support you and challenge you to live to your full potential. Usually, these beneficial beliefs do not simply appear out of nowhere. We must intentionally plant and nurture them.

That’s why it’s important to identify unhelpful beliefs in the first place. It helps you to understand which negative beliefs need to be addressed and replaced with positive ones. Challenge each and every belief that you find not helpful. If necessary, challenge your entire belief system!

As you continue to plant positive thoughts, you slowly start to restructure your mind. By getting rid of all the toxic thoughts that limit you, you can gradually build a better life. This restructuring process may be difficult at times and it is definitely time intensive. But in the end, it is well worth it as it helps you to increase the quality of your life. It also helps you to live more to your true potential.

Replace negative habits with positive ones

Habits and similar behavioral patterns are largely controlled by the unconscious mind. It simply helps the brain to avoid an excessive expenditure of energy. Therefore, the brain switches into “autopilot-mode” and allows routinized behaviors to take over. However, if one is not careful enough, negatives and unbeneficial habits start to sneak in. And once a habit has been established, it’s quite difficult to break it.

To gain more access to the power of your mind, it’s crucial to weed out negative habits. Start to break free from your old habits and routines. Make minor changes each day, until an old habit has been entirely replaced with a more beneficial one.

In conclusion

If you want to affect beneficial changes in your life, you first have to address the world within. The external conditions you’re confronted with will seldom change, if you do not change the internal.

Pay close attention to the thoughts you choose to entertain. If you carefully choose beneficial thoughts and cultivate them diligently, they will help you to affect changes in the world around you.

Make it a habit to think intensively about the things you wish to manifest (e.g. happiness, prosperity, joy and health). Do not allow your actions to be guided by fear and anxiety. Replace these with more beneficial mindsets.

Your mind creates your destiny. It will manifest the thoughts you have diligently entertained in your mind. Start using the power of the mind to create a new life!

I hope you enjoyed this article about the power of the mind. How do you utilize the dormant capacity of your mind?

Stay victorious!