Truth is, most people never realize that their biggest enemy can live between their two ears. 

Havin’ a bad mindset is like you’re tryna’ get somewhere without a map.

Like you get so close to what you want… you think you’re nearly there… 

Then BAAM!

Something goes wrong, and you’re back to square one. Boo-Hoo.

In today’s blog post, you’re gonna learn how you can take charge of your mindset, life, and direction.

So let’s not waste any more time and get straight into it.

So Why Do We Get Negative Thoughts in the First Place?

Ahh… good old negative thoughts.

Ya’know humans and our negativity go way back. Like way, way back. Back to when we were sleepin’ in caves and huntin’ for dinner.

Back then, negative thoughts used to save our lives. Imagine this: you’re out huntin’. With your tribe-mates. Crossin’ the jungle. Tip-toeing around tryin’ not to make a sound. 

But you stop.

Freeze.

You thought you heard a noise from that berry bush on your left. Now at this stage, we got two choices. We can be optimistic and hopeful that it wasn’t a saber-tooth-tiger… Or we can get scared s***less and run for our lives.

So the difference between being the optimistic guy and the pessimistic guy is that one ends up running away, lil bit shaken but gets home safely. The other dude becomes lunch.

This is basically why we have negative thoughts all the time. It gets passed on generation after generation.

So fast forward a couple thousand years, and you’ve got the same negative brain living in the modern world. 

But what’s actually going on?

Dopamine vs. Cortisol

If you’ve never heard of these guys, then you should get to know them.

Why? Because they control your life. And no, that’s no exaggeration. These are the little chemicals that get floated about in your brain when things happen to you.

So take this example. If you got a ton of deadlines or things to catch up on, your body will release cortisol. It’s like the stress hormone for your body. It’s what affects your mood and makes you feel kinda down. It gets released slowly without any acute triggers.

Dopamine, on the other hand, is what makes you feel good. It’s like when you finally land a pay raise. Or when you take the first bite into your meal when you’re starving. Makes you feel like you’re on top of the world.

Dopamine gets released by a trigger in the environment. So that way, it gets released less often. And the buzz it gives you is shorter.

Negative Mindset vs. Positive

So what this means is we have a tendency to lean towards negative emotions over positive ones. So when something good goes our way. Our brain celebrates a little bit. But when s*** hits the fan, it freaks out.

You know something, they’ve even proven that it’s harder to turn your mindset around from a negative mindset into a positive one than from a positive one to a negative.

Lemme say that again…

It’s harder to switch from a positive mindset to a negative one than from a negative mindset to a positive one.

That literally means that your brain is holding you back from reaching goals and ambitions. So what can you do to stop this?

The Stories Put In Your Head

The issue we got here is that your mind begins to focus on the negative rather than the positive.

And that’s pretty darn serious.

Your mind is literally adjusting reality for you. And it’s doing that in a way that is harmful to your success. Like for example, I grew up poor. I didn’t even know it at the time.

But I came to know about it a few years later. It had this weird kinda effect on me. It almost trained my mind to think that I wasn’t allowed to have money. Like it was something everybody else was allowed to have, but not me.

And I’ll be honest, that was somethin’ that definitely made my career more difficult.

I always had that thought living there rent-free. That’s just how it was.

Cortisol ‘n’ Quittin’

So what this all means, then, is that when we are trying something new, we gotta keep this in mind. We gotta remember that our little brains are gonna be pumping out cortisol a heck of a lot more often than dopamine.

The reality is, though, a lot of people just wanna quit, so they focus on the negative.

But you gotta make it your mission to hold out and ignore what your head is telling you.

Homework 

What is one thing that you can commit to today to overcome your own mind and move towards the next level? Let us know by tweeting us @kosmounfiltered.

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