The inspiration for this article came from recent events, a pile of breeze blocks and a programme that I was watching that involved Bruce Lipton’s take on thoughts and manifestation of those thoughts.

Bruce said, “Cells are a data chip. Our memories are stored in the cell membrane and are constantly transmitted to the brain for interpretation. The mind then responds by creating coherence between belief and reality and coordinates your cells to respond to this information.”
This got me thinking about how does any of this relate to my current circumstances.

I have had an exciting couple of weeks presenting me with the opportunity to explore all aspects of my personality. There has been a well-being market. Many clients deliver on different media formats, driving lots of miles and labouring on a couple of practical projects. This is all being mentioned to provide the context of what it is like in any given week. I go from the high of presenting and being the medium to the lower feelings of the mundane to Friday job, which is necessary to provide an income.

To successfully manage all these tasks requires what I call mind management. It is a skill that requires constant development. It helps you convince your mind that doing an incredibly dull and mundane task is actually worthwhile. To help with this, I recommend using your imagination to find any positivity whatsoever. Look for anything that brings in a feel-good factor. I have a very low boredom tolerance, and when I get bored, I tend to lose focus very quickly. I need to realise when this is happening because, as with most things in our adult life’s we have obligations to take care of.

I had a job to do recently. The instruction was quite simply to move as many blocks as I could from one place to another. Let us split the job down to its barest form. It was a tedious and mundane job with little or no personal fulfilment, but quite simply the job needed doing. Mind management was required here. Humans have limited amounts of life hours on this mortal coil, so every thought, deed and action uses those life hours, and they can never be replaced or earned back. I needed to convince my mind that the task was worthwhile in some form or another. The only way I could achieve this was to find my feel-good. For me, that represented the opportunity to earn a day’s wages and the personal pride of getting the job done. This still, however, left me with the “boring” aspect of it to contend with. Boredom can be defined as an ineffectual way of managing your time. This means that boredom is a thought, and the feelings attached to the ideas weren’t pleasant. It came down to this: I either needed to think differently or distract the mind, so I didn’t know the thoughts and experienced the negative feelings.

Strategy decided upon: I started by counting the bricks in the pack while loading up the barrow. There were ninety-six blocks per pack, six blocks per barrow; this equated to sixteen trips with a barrow going from the front driveway to the back garden. This would entail a considerable amount of physical effort and also handling the blocks twice. I needed my distraction, so I imagined myself as a metronome. I would keep up the same methodical pace. I would load up 6 blocks out front and transport them to the back and unload them. I kept up this consistency, only stopping for the odd drink and my lunch break. At the end of the shift, I had successfully moved over three hundred and fifty blocks using a repetitive process. I had achieved what I had set out to do. Let’s review the process: Success is the objective. How do we accomplish that? Think the thought, apply the action, consider the obstacles and proceed. At the end of the process, evaluate the results and see if alterations might be needed in the future.

The part of me that doesn’t like routine needed placating during the process itself, so I needed to distract it. I began to consider other things. Moving the blocks requires physical effort, and the more energy you exert, the more your energy levels deplete. Hence, it is prudent to think about how you invest that power and the results you are getting from it. Using my vibrant imagination, I imagined the blocks I was moving as a thought. The thought would be pretty heavy and would need handling in a certain way to preserve my energy levels. I would, therefore, quickly have to make a decision on how to take that thought. Would I apply an action to the idea and move it on, or would I put it down? If I do something successfully and then act upon it, this would be worthwhile storing the procedure in my subconscious mind because I could use it again. Something worthy of note is that the subconscious mind will hold any and all information as fact; it does not distinguish between fact or fiction. It just takes everything at face value. This means it will also store unsuccessful outcomes if that is the information you present to it.

You become what you think, so mind management is crucial. Learn when sending yourself duff information. Looking at it this way, I think a thought in my conscious mind that I am rubbish, lacking confidence, or other negative emotion. The reason will consider this information and help me create an environment to match my thoughts and focus on the most. Back to the blocks, I pick up my block and hold onto it, it is heavy, and I drop it. I pick it up again and then place it onto the ground in its correct place. I ask myself, is this a successful action, or do I focus on dropping the block before completing the task. I remind myself again of what the subconscious does. It records data at face value.

Let us take a recurring and repetitive thought, I am not good enough, I won’t achieve, I don’t know why I bother etc. I would ask whether this is true or is it just a thought based on no evidence. If this was me as the conscious thinker, I would be saying to the view show me the evidence or bugger off. If I use this way of thinking, can you show me how I will succeed using this information? The answer is it can’t. I now don’t need to exert any effort thinking that thought as it leads nowhere constructive, meaning I can leave that block where it is.
I would remind myself that I only want a thought process present that contributes to a successful outcome. I want to be sure that it ends up in the right place from lifting my heavy block. However, I have managed it. The focus is on the end result. I can adjust the process to allow for dropping the block, but as long as it ends up where it is needed, no over evaluation is required. I can then happily instruct the subconscious mind to record the completion of the task. I can then use that record in the future, and the same results will happen time and again if I follow the procedure.

In closing, every action and thought requires effort. Every effort we exert has an effect on ourselves. This can either be positive or negative. Look carefully at the results you gain from your thoughts and actions. Don’t buy into the idea you are fated with. To do this or that or that or this is all I know. If you do that, you accept the thought. The result will be recorded and repeated until YOU recognise the pattern and make the necessary changes.

Before signing off: ask, have I moved this block before? Did it go well and contribute to something productive, or did I just use a lot of effort and get nowhere near the desired destination.

How many blocks have you moved today? As with all my work, just my thoughts.

Much love, The Waistcoat Man.