Is Your Brain Trying to Hold You Back?
Only you an stop yourself
Zenpra 11th March 2015 0 Comments
Learn to Push Through Limits and Develop Grit
How do athletes cultivate the mental toughness to achieve greatness? How are they able to dig deep inside themselves and find the energy when most people would just give up? Research has shown that this mental toughness can be learned through practices such as meditation and neruofeedback.
More people are becoming interested in how we can tap into the power of our brain to improve performance. It can not only help in sports but also at work or in school. Meditation and contemplation can give you the tools to understand your metal frameworks and how they limit your actions and thoughts. Once you learn they exist you can manage your way around them so you are in control.
I will also be showing you how to develop grit and remove negative limitations. When you are feeling down and winded learn how to reach into your untapped potential. We might feel depleted of energy but there are times when we can dial in to push through to achieve our goals.
Meditation to overcome your limits
I regularly go to the gym and lift weights ( I should say try lol). I use weightlifting as a workout not just for my muscles but also for my mind. When I feel that I do not have enough energy to perform that extra rep I try to vision energy deep within me to give me the power to push through. Overtime it becomes a lot easier to get access to this mental thought process . It may be all in my head but it does produce a noticeable physical response.
Here is a simple meditation that you can use to help dig deep within you to gain more energy and overcome mental roadblocks.
- Close your eyes and witness your breath.
- When you inhale imagine the air being a bright energetic light
- When the air reaches your lungs imagine the bright light build up in your naval.
- When you exhale imagine the light traveling through your whole body and invigorating you.
- Now speed up your breathing cycle and imagine yourself charging up.
- Get back to your work with a new found sense of energy You will feel invigorated and energized to tackle your problems.
This visualization technique can help you muster up the remaining energy that you have. Also by increasing your breathing rate you will stimulate your body. You will be amazed that you are able to achieve something that a few minutes ago thought was impossible.
Digging deeper into ourselves
While I was writing this post I happened to came across this video below that shows some of the research being done on human potential and surpassing limits. There is growing interest and research in the field of human performance and cognitive improvement. I was really surprised to hear Red bull is researching human performance they even have a “Human Performance Lab”!
Companies such as GE and Red Bull are researching the mind’s capabilities and how technology can enhance it. They explore the physiological changes after people go through grueling experiences. They want to explore how does the mind and body adapt to these demanding situations where we past our “limits”. They want to use these findings to come up with methods that can enhance your performance scientifically.
GE is developing state of the art brain sensors to allow for better understanding of cognitive processes. It also opens up the ability to control technology such as robotic arms and computers. There is even a guy controlling a drone with his mind in the video!
Better brain sensors now allow us to understand our brain state in real time. Biofeedback has actually been shown to improve performance and companies such as Red Bull are using it to test human limitations. Biofeedback allows you link your brain state and how you can actively control it. So you will be able to learn over time how to reach an optimal brain state without the need of a senor. It helps you improve your mental capacity and ability to handle stressful situations by consciously controlling your mind to reach a certain state.
We all heard of heroic stories where a mom lifts up a car to save her child. What are the physiological changes that are occurring that give her that strength? What if we can learn how to consciously harness just 1/10
th of this power?
Enhancing our lives not just healing our lives
Most of the time we are just trying to fix a current problem we have . However, meditation can also help enhance our lives. We can be able to perform at our peak performance to bring more into our lives.
Meditation can be viewed as us not doing anything. In a society where we frown upon idle time it is important to realize that by taking a break and making time for your self is actually more beneficial. A key thing is to actually be aware that your limits. You should reflect on why you feel this way and what is actually stopping you from achieving what you have to do or your goals. We sometimes do not want to be mindful of our inadequacies and our limitations. However, we should not view are failure as a negative instead as a gateway to learn what we can do to improve ourselves.
Developing Mental Grit
Mental grit is your ability to not give up when the cards are not in your favor. When we are faced with challenges in life it is easy to just give up. How do we learn how to handle these challenges and overcome them? If you ever watched Marshawn Lynch(Seahawks running back BEAST MODE) or any running back you can see they have grit. They keep on running no matter how many people are trying to tackle them down. It is that focus and determination which we can learn how to cultivate in our own lives so we can never give up and keep pushing through with whatever life throws at us.
If there is an obstacle in our life that we know we have to face then use that as a starting point for meditation. First just be present with what you are facing such as I need to finish this report by tonight. When you are at the point where you have no energy and just feel like giving up then there is your opportunity to witness that and then dive deep within yourself and try to muster up enough energy to push through 10 more minutes. By you recognizing that point as your limit is your first step to overcome it. Overtime you will be able to increase your capacity to handle tough situations. It is this incremental process that will increase your girt and ability to handle demanding situations.
Also, always remember to relax and wind down. It is not always good to be going non stop with no break. Learn to relax more efficiently. I will discuss how to take more effective breaks in a future posting.
Removing Mental Limitations
At my job I have to make a lot of cold calls. At first I had a lot of mental limits that I set for myself. I was afraid what people would say or if I would say something stupid. However, one day I just decided you know what it is actually my mind that is creating this problem. I imagined almost a cage that was surrounding my brain. I then wrote down what I really felt and what I thought was limiting me. As I got the words on the paper I pictured dismantling the cage. Now if I have any negative thoughts when cold calling I would catch myself and say that this is my mind limiting itself, I just need to just act. I would invite you to try writing down what you think is limiting you and see for yourself how you can change your mindset.
The Bigger Picture of Using Meditation for Self Improvement
Life has become very challenging from school, work, and even what food to eat. How do we get that edge, what can we do be more in control of our situation? Just like how we learn a new skill or language to enhance our career we can use meditation as a method to give us more energy and grit. It also gives us time to relax and decompress so we are recharged for the next challenge. I find the key to self improvement is to accept the way you are now and any improvement is just exploring more of yourself. A very important insight is that we learn not to fight against a situation but flow with it and see the opportunity in a perceived challenge. I find that we can always improve ourselves but we shouldn’t feel that we are inadequate with how we currently are. If we accept who we presently are we don’t look at self improvement as a need to overcome our inadequacies but instead as a game to see what we can achieve and how we can improve.
What challenging situations have you overcome?
Tell us your story of any challenges you overcame and how it changed your view of the world. Also, what do you think is possible in the future when we combine tech and the power of the mind?
