Take a minute and think of all the incredible world changers, athletes, and entrepreneurs of all time. Are some of these your role models and if so, why? The only real difference between you and any of them comes down to one thing- how you condition your mind. We are all capable of creating and achieving anything we want in life. It’s just about exercising healthy habits mentally and physically to gain optimal success!
Fear Is the Culprit
Why do we come to a halt once fear pops around the corner? Because its new? Requires more hard work? Or probably the more obvious, you don’t feel educated or confident enough. There are many excuses our mind comes up with. Why are we so scared to fail, when so much growth and learning comes out of it?
The secret to success ultimately comes down to training your brain to overcome and conquer these fears.
Lizard Brain
Have you ever heard of the Lizard Brain? It is a physical and very tiny (but powerful) part of our brain called the amygdala. The amygdala’s job is to provide us with our most primal instincts such as fear, arousal, and hunger. It’s that voice in the back of our head telling us to slow down, compromise, and be careful. While in many cases this part of our brain benefits us, it also is responsible for holding us back.
When something scary happens in our lives, that’s when our amygdala screams at us to go into panic mode. This is where training your mind comes in. You feel that fear and do it anyway. Don’t focus on what is so scary about your next business move, meeting new clients, trying new marketing, or whatever else – acknowledge it and keep moving forward. You have to learn to tame the Lizard Brain. It can be uncomfortable, but no one creates success being comfortable.
Navy Seal Test
The U.S. Navy SEALS pick candidates who are very skilled at overcoming their brain’s fear response. One of the tests they use to measure this is called the “Underwater Pool Competency Test”. This test is designed to see how well a SEAL applicant can resist their fear response. 
First they put the applicant underwater for 20 minutes. The candidate uses SCUBA equipment to breathe through. Then, to trigger a fear response, the instructor shuts off all ties to the candidates breathing gear and the candidate is unable to breathe. Our brains are hardwired to want oxygen, so this is where amygdala kicks in and fear approaches. The candidates who pass the test use one powerful tool to resist this amygdala and stay underwater: they focus on their goals. They let the rational (frontal lobe) of their brain step in and think of how to turn the breathing regulator back on.
Creating powerful goals is the cure to all fear. These goals need to be so motivating that you won’t let anything else get in the way. Of course training your brain may take some time, but it’s actually pretty easy to get started!
Conditioning Your Mind
Just as you would train your muscles, your brain needs habits and exercises to gain strength as well. Your mind and overall success in life grows as its being fed new information and learning new skills.
Science shows that you can rewire your brain to become more successful. Training your brain involves simple and effective tasks that can only take an hour a day.
Here are some simple and extremely effective tasks that are totally worth incorporating and turning into a daily habit:
Meditation & Exercise: Endorphins are released after exercising- this boosts creativity and helps with problem solving. Meditation breaks down any barriers or limitations we create in our minds and gives us an inner calm.
Positive Affirmations: Make a clear and definitive statement about yourself, and repeat it daily. This imprints into your subconscious mind and helps you act in accordance with this belief. A defined statement of purpose transforms your attitude from negative to positive and has been proven to powerfully guide your subconscious mind.
15 minutes a day: Take 15 minutes a day to practice and learn a new skill. This has an extremely powerful and positive impact on your brain.
Remove stressful & negative environments: The physical environment around us plays a huge role in the health of our brains. Stress has been shown to almost completely vanish when the environment was changed around. Our environment also can trigger certain behavior either positive or negative. Change your environment to one that fosters positivity, inspiration and motivation.
Good night’s rest: Without quality sleep (6 1/2-8 hours), you are preventing yourself from being more focused and attentive.
Visualizing: A very powerful tool in retraining your subconscious mind is visualization. Visualizing helps you to experience and feel a situation-as if it were real. Your subconscious begins to process this as a reality.
How Your Brain Reacts to Success
What makes success so addicting? How does our brain react when we condition it more positively?
Dopamine – the neurotransmitter responsible for producing sensation of pleasure – is released every time we succeed at something. It is a natural part of how our brain functions, and becomes addicting!
Our brains remember how awesome we felt and chase after that feeling over and over. We seek something even bigger and better to maximize the way we felt before. The more challenged our minds feel, the more rewarded we began to feel.
In Closing
Nearly every successful goal achieved started off as an idea. The idea turned into reality through action and daily habits like these. Our brains are so incredibly powerful, start using this to your advantage? Training your brain is the absolute key to a successful life. I was diagnosed with GAD before I even turned 18. I had trouble going to school, sleeping over a few hours, and taking on new activities like every other adolescent. My life was very narrow. A doctor prescribed xanax online when I was in Uni, and suddenly things started looking better. I could go to classes without struggling and juggling my options. I started going out and made friends. It’s been five years since I first started taking 0.5 mg Xanax every day, and it seems to work fine still. I have heard of people not seeing improvement or feeling like zombies after taking it, but that’s completely different from what I have experienced so far in my life. The difference you’ll began to notice is phenomenal! Monday’s are more enjoyable, your goals become realities, and your failures become a learning ground for your to catapult off of.
Here’s to taking new flight in your career and life!
Click here to learn more about training your mind for success:
http://www.rowdykittens.com/2010/08/4-things-you-can-learn-from-your-lizard-brain/
http://affordanything.com/2011/11/09/amygdala-your-lizard-brain-and-fear/
https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/where-addiction-meets-your-brain/201404/your-lizard-brain
