Author: Pete Jones

I first heard about this idea on an interview with Bedros Keuilian.  He explained how changes in physical health don’t just happen overnight like when you turn on a light switch.  It happens more like a dimmer switch, where you can slowly turn up the light over a year’s time.

I immediately related that idea to the gradual, consistent, improvement in my mindset.  I can see how far the dimmer switch has gone up, for me, after I started over in 2014, and it makes me excited for the future!

The crazy thing is that when I left home and got married in my early twenties, my light switch was on.  I slowly let the darkness of life creep into my mind.  I was distracted by the darker things in life and my dimmer switch was lowered without me even realizing it, just like it was raised these last years without me even realizing it.  The light or the darkness creeps in and takes over, undetected, relentlessly, and slowly, according to what we choose to focus on.  WE BECOME WHAT WE THINK ABOUT.

I’ve learned the blessing of having a daily routine in my life.  With a routine, I am able to, “Prime the pump,” and start my day off ready for success, always turning the dimmer in the direction I want it to go.  I lived for decades without a daily routine, and I was like a small ship being tossed about on a stormy sea, feeling helpless, hopeless, and out of control.  I was a nice guy with my fingers crossed, hoping for the best and believing I wasn’t in control of my life or what happened to me.  I was wrong.

In life we attract either light or darkness, according to the quality of our thinking, speaking, habits, and consistent actions.  WE ARE IN CHARGE OF ALL OF THESE THINGS.  We either create or we destroy.  Our thoughts, words and actions, AND RESULTS IN LIFE will reflect that which we choose to focus on.

Content matters.  Environment matters.  Routines matter.  Goals matter.  Intentions matter.  Habits and consistent actions matter.  EVERYTHING matters.

Each thought produces an electrical impulse that produces a related chemical and hormonal cocktail.

These chemicals and hormones are pumped throughout our entire body within 2 beats of the heart and produce a FEELING related to the thought and those related, particular chemicals and hormones.

This feeling is magnetic in nature.  Scientists can now take pictures of these magnetic pulses at various distances away from the body, though what is theorized is that these magnetic pulses actually transmit outwardly EVERYWHERE-even outside our own universe.

This magnetic pulse, as it transmits, instantly draws in all people, circumstances, situations, and things that are magnetically alike. Each thought we think attracts what we think about.  Each thought is a vibration we emit, allowing only people, situations, and things back into our realm that vibrate at a similar frequency.  All else is repelled.

If we don’t consistently turn our thoughts towards what we DO WANT, we vibrate in alignment with what we DON’T want.  When we ONLY focus on the beautiful re-creation of self, our life, and the quality of our existence, it forms much more quickly than if we are unable to consistently focus on that which we want to create.

The more we think a thought and consistently focus on it, the more the dimmer switch moves in a direction to support that thought.  WE are in charge of our thoughts, which means we are in control of creating our personal realities.

Today I will decide which direction my dimmer switch has been going for me for the last year.  If I am uncomfortable with the direction it has been going, I will remember that in order for things to change, I must change.  In order for things to improve, I must improve.  I will review how I can improve my content consumption, environment, routines, rituals, goals, habits, perspectives, beliefs, self-image, and my lifestyle results.

goodinthehead is also on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, and Twitter.  Follow me there, as well, for daily messages, inspiration, motivation, and reminders.  Please pay it forward, and share this, and ANY message, which may empower someone you love or may care about.  It is through adding value to others by sharing and spreading wisdom, that we become more valuable as individuals, and collectively, as a whole, we all become wiser.

Remember:  Mindset matters.  Character counts.  That which we choose to consistently focus on is what EXPANDS in our lives.  WE CREATE our realities.

WE are the ALCHEMISTS of our PERSONAL REALITY.

When we upgrade our perspectives, WE UPGRADE EVERYTHING.

Take a quick look at these images.  What do you see?  An old lady?  A beautiful woman?

I was talking with a friend at work.  I was asking him for advice.  He is able to process things quickly and come up with a quick, witty, wise remarks, seemingly in any situation.  I have always admired and envied people who can do this.  I asked him how I could practice doing this and cultivate it as a talent and habit in my own life.

His response:  “Why would you want to?  Maybe what you are doing is a better way for you.  You are able to take something, think about it, break it apart and inspect it, then put it back together even better than it was before.  That is a talent.”  I had never thought of it in that way before.  I always thought this attribute to be a curse, or a weakness.  He helped me to realize that where I thought there was lack in myself, there was actually a blessing, and a certain valuable measure of abundance I wasn’t seeing.

Another time at work while speaking with him he expressed to me frustration about how people saw things like ADD and ADHD as an unhelpful weakness.  I immediately remembered what he had told me and repeated his idea back to him.  They call it Attention Deficit Disorder, like it is a problem or a negative thing.  Even the doctors look at it as though it is a part in someone that is broken, and there is lack, and a need to be helped or cured.  They even try to push medications onto people to “help” them!  What if it is nothing but a blessing and a gift?  He is able to focus on many different things at once, accomplishing so much more, in a short amount of time.

Because of my friend’s idea, I now believe that anything we view as a weakness, or something “broken” or “lacking” within us, has the potential to become or already be a strength and a blessing in our lives.  It isn’t a lack.  If utilized properly, it empowers us, and becomes an asset in our lives through a simple shift in perspective!

Maybe we don’t need a pill to “fix” us.  Maybe we simply need to look at the situation differently, up-level our perspective of The Self, upgrade our self-identity, believe differently, and do something about it differently that will bless our lives with abundance, fulfillment, purpose, happiness, and a sense of accomplishment and high self-worth, instead of seeing ourselves as broken or flawed.

After all of these years of seeing myself as “lacking” or “broken” or “flawed,” I now am grateful to be exactly who, what, and where I perceive that I am.  I’m grateful that the reset button is pushed every, single day I wake up and that I have a daily opportunity to improve my mindset, up-level my self-identity, and consistently upgrade my beliefs, resulting in progressively more enjoyable interactions and outcomes.

Today I will take a good look at myself and decide what I have been thinking are the weaknesses or flaws I have which have been making me, “not good enough.”  I will see how I can alter my perspectives and beliefs in some way to turn things around and think of those things as blessings in disguise.  I will remember that I have the capability and opportunity to utilize these as strengths to my benefit, and the benefit of others.

goodinthehead is also on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, and Twitter.  Follow me there, as well, for daily messages, inspiration, motivation, and reminders.  Please pay it forward, and share this, and ANY message, which may empower someone you love or may care about.  It is through adding value to others by sharing and spreading wisdom, that we become more valuable as individuals, and collectively, as a whole, we all become wiser.

Remember:  Mindset matters.  Character counts.  That which we choose to consistently focus on is what EXPANDS in our lives.  WE CREATE our realities.

When I was finally ready to change, alter, and improve my life, I had to start small.  Even some of the small things were INCREDIBLY OVERWHELMING.

Evolution is a process.  It takes time.  It takes patience.  It creates momentum as it unfolds.  It takes consistency, and CONSISTENCY COMPOUNDS.

“Complexity is the enemy of execution.” -Marshall Goldsmith

KISS – Keep It Super Simple

Simplicity is the key to consistently.  Taking baby steps and remaining consistent when we realize we want to make a change in any area of our own life is the key.

Success in ANY area of our lives isn’t always an elevator ride or an escalator.  It can be a difficult, exhausting, meandering climb up a magnificently beautiful staircase, and we can only reach the top by consistently taking one step at a time.

It blows my mind when I look back and see how far I have come, just by consistently doing small, simple things.  It is my wish and desire that we can all say that, every year of our lives.

I started small.  I knew I had to change my life, but I didn’t know how.

Early on in my new endeavor for change, I was blessed to start believing that a shift in mindset would cause a shift in every other area of my life.  That, coupled with proper nutrition, made ALL the difference.  Once I discovered Wim Hof guided breathing techniques and meditation, my personal evolution became exponential.

I started REALLY small, because when I started, I believed myself to be broken, hopeless, faithless, and dead inside.  I felt depressed and suicidal.  I just knew I was suffering and everything hurt, and I didn’t want to experience the suffering anymore.

The small start was reading and saving one quote a day in a folder on my phone.  I would read all the quotes I had saved, then add a new one, every day.  The repetition worked!!  It improved my beliefs, perspective, and my mindset.  I only saved the quotes that challenged my current set of beliefs, and that I knew would improve my belief system and my mindset, and it really worked for me.

Four years later I had thousands of quotes on my phone.  I shared one every day with my kids and family members.  Some of the kids rolled their eyes when they got their daily texts.  I was known as the quote guy.  I’m proud of that.  I’m proud of the life I now live because of a small, easy, consistent start in 2014.  I’m grateful for baby steps.  The key to change in my life was to start slowly and easily.  It was easy to do.  It was also easy not to do, for so many years of my life.

Today, if I haven’t already, I will decide upon one thing I can do, each and every day, that is easy which, over time, will empower me to optimize and add value to me in some way.  I believe that by becoming more valuable I can add value to the lives of others.

The book, Atomic Habits, by James Clear, contains useable, useful, effective information and advice on how to easily and consistently change ANYTHING in our lives, and how to make it automatic, so we don’t even have the need to think about what we are doing, which frees up energy to create and enjoy a much more optimized lifestyle.  It is information I absolutely wish I had when I was starting over again in 2014.

goodinthehead also on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, and Twitter.  Follow me there, as well, for daily messages, inspiration, motivation, and reminders.  Please pay it forward, and share this, and ANY message, which may empower someone you love or may care about.  It is through adding value to others by sharing and spreading wisdom, that we become more valuable as individuals, and collectively, as a whole, we all become wiser.

Remember:  Mindset matters.  Character counts.  That which we choose to consistently focus on is what EXPANDS in our lives.  WE CREATE our realities.

I learned to practice hating myself for the first 42 years of my life.  It became the habitual program through which I operated, interacted with others, and created every aspect of my life.  Until I learned to start to practice loving myself, and truly accepting and appreciating myself for who I was, I was never really able to love and accept others on the level THEY deserved.

It has been said that we are only able to meet people and accept others at the level which we meet and accept ourselves.  I have found this to be true for me.

Learning to love ourselves takes consistent, habitual, repeated practice.  It takes a lot of work.  It takes a proper mindset, and a solid set of beliefs.  Sometimes it takes reprogramming the subconscious mind and replacing beliefs tied to our self-identification process that have robbed us of joy our entire lives.

This excerpt from the book, “The Language of Letting Go,” by Melody Beattie, helped me really put this knowledge into perspective and begin this wonderful journey of healing:

Self-Love

“I woke up this morning and I had a hard time for a while,” said one recovering man. “Then I realized it was because I wasn’t liking myself very much.” Recovering people often say: I just don’t like myself. When will I start liking myself?

The answer is: start now. We can learn to be gentle, loving, and nurturing with ourselves. Of all the recovery behaviors we’re striving to attain, loving ourselves may be the most difficult, and the most important. If we are habitually harsh and critical toward ourselves, learning to be gentle with ourselves may require dedicated effort.

But what a valuable venture!

By not liking ourselves, we may be perpetuating the discounting, neglect, or abuse we received in childhood from the important people in our life. We didn’t like what happened then, but find ourselves copying those who mistreated us by treating ourselves poorly.

We can stop the pattern. We can begin giving ourselves the loving, respectful treatment we deserve.

Instead of criticizing ourselves, we can tell ourselves we performed well enough.

We can wake up in the morning and tell ourselves we deserve a good day.

We can make a commitment to take good care of ourselves throughout the day.

We can recognize that we are deserving of love. We can do loving things for ourselves.

We can love other people and let them love us.”

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People, who truly love themselves do not become destructively self-centered. They do not abuse others. They do not stop growing, improving, progressing, and changing.  People who love themselves well, learn to love others well, too. They continually grow into healthier people, learning that their love was appropriately placed.  People who truly love themselves are always UPGRADING.

WHAT DOES SELF-LOVE LOOK LIKE TO YOU?

I have found that we ALWAYS get MORE of what we think of the most, whether we want it or not.  Why not consistently shift our thinking, and expand into MORE of LOVE?

It is by reading things like this on a consistent basis, and changing my beliefs and the ways I think about myself and things in general, that I have been able to accept and love myself more fully.  Because I was able to begin learning how to do that for myself, I was able to learn to begin to accept and love others more fully, as well, “flaws” and all.  Doing this has provided me with the daily opportunity of a more meaningful, fulfilling, purpose-filled life, and has empowered me to create and maintain deep, meaningful, long-lasting connections.

The most useful and effective habit I have implemented is to set a DAILY alarm to go off at the same time to remind myself to ask and immediately answer the question: WHAT AM I MOST PROUD OF ABOUT MYSELF OR SOMETHING I HAVE DONE TODAY?  Try it out, and see if, within only a few short months, this produces the miracle of a deeper self-appreciation than ever before for YOU, like it did for me.

Perfection is impossible.  Excellence is achievable, and is something we can work towards and practice, every day.  Excellence is achieved when we do our very best, and our very best changes, from day to day.  I have learned a valuable lesson:  Progress over perfection.

Today I will practice loving myself and others.  I will take a hard look at the beliefs which tell me I am unlovable and replace them with more beneficial, helpful, empowering beliefs which help me remember to better love myself and others.

Ram Dass has thousands of hours of recorded content available on THE BE HERE NOW NETWORK and has spoken often of self love, and how we can love, accept, and allow the self more fully.  I highly recommend listening to every bit of content found including and featuring Ram Dass.

This interview on the Lewis Howes Show, featuring Marisa Peer, has been one of the most helpful bits of content I have come across, so far, in my pursuit of learning to more fully love and accept myself, which has empowered me to create a life full of love and acceptance for others, as well:

Her is an interview I conducted with Shanta Generally.  The part where we talked about Self-Love was so inspiring.

Here are a few other INCREDIBLY useful and effective pieces of content that have empowered me IMMENSELY in my journey towards re-creating a Self Image worth working towards:

When it comes to Self-Appreciation, information from Brooke Castillo has been incredibly helpful.

https://youtu.be/5EKSDHwaQNg

goodinthehead is also on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, and Twitter.  Follow me there, as well, for daily messages, inspiration, motivation, and reminders.  Please pay it forward, and share this, and ANY message, which may empower someone you love or may care about.  It is through adding value to others by sharing and spreading wisdom, that we become more valuable as individuals, and collectively, as a whole, we all become wiser.

Remember:  Mindset matters.  Character counts.  That which we choose to consistently focus on is what EXPANDS in our lives.  WE CREATE our realities.

There are many areas of life available to us to become more fit in.

“If your waistline is out of control, then most likely there are other areas in your life that are also out of control.” -Firas Zahabi

I once heard, “THE WAY YOU DO ONE THING IS EVENTUALLY THE WAY YOU WILL DO EVERYTHING.  ALWAYS DO YOUR VERY BEST.”

Our personal successes and failures in one area of our lives tend to spill over and bleed into other areas of our lives.  How we do one thing tends to be how we do most things.

I love the philosophical, deep-thinking, inspirational message of Firas Zahabi’s interview on Impact Theory.

Progress and continual expansion in ALL areas of life is KEY to personal happiness and to our own, personal success.

Today I will review what I personally do in my own life to make sure I am continually improving, progressing, and expanding in ALL areas of my life.

goodinthehead is also on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, and Twitter.  Follow me there, as well, for daily messages, inspiration, motivation, and reminders.  Please pay it forward, and share this, and ANY message, which may empower someone you love or may care about.  It is through adding value to others by sharing and spreading wisdom, that we become more valuable as individuals, and collectively, as a whole, we all become wiser.

Remember:  Mindset matters.  Character counts.  That which we choose to consistently focus on is what EXPANDS in our lives.  WE CREATE our realities.

There is so much that goes on behind the scenes of a beautiful masterpiece.  The creation process is complicated, frustrating, enjoyable, fulfilling, and instructional.  It is a process of a ton of mistakes, failures, and hard work all along the way.  It takes time, and true creativity never ends. It is never complete. We can always strive to do more and become better at creating, and we can learn to love and enjoy the process along the way.  LIMITLESS are the possibilities of creation.

The creative process is one of the most enjoyable, fulfilling, meaningful things we can experience in this life, especially when it adds value to others.

High return practices can be defined as:  Things we do and practice daily and consistently as part of a habitual routine that yields a high rate of improvement in mindset, which then affects every other aspect of our lives.

What is your daily routine?  Is what you are doing each morning in preparation for the entire rest of the day, priming you and getting you ready for YOUR most successful life?  What are you doing to improve your own, personal mindset each day?  Are there any improvements, tweaks, or optimizations that you could make to your morning routine, which would make it more effective and beneficial for you?

I have been experimenting with morning routines and rituals for years.  I have also been researching others, who have experimented with morning routines for years.  After years of doing this, I found a certain set of things I do that optimize my own, personal morning each day, and empower me to gain as much momentum as possible, which seems to grow and expand throughout the rest of the day.  To see this morning routine, type this into your google search engine:  The goodinthehead Habit Hacking Challenge

Today I will take a good look at my morning routine and decide if there are any alterations or upgrades that can be made, or something new I can try, in order for my routine to be even more effective and beneficial.

Some of the information I have come across that has been so helpful in the creation and continuation of a daily, consistent, morning routine:

goodinthehead is also on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, and Twitter.  Follow me there, as well, for daily messages, inspiration, motivation, and reminders.  Please pay it forward, and share this, and ANY message, which may empower someone you love or may care about.  It is through adding value to others by sharing and spreading wisdom, that we become more valuable as individuals, and collectively, as a whole, we all become wiser.

Remember:  Mindset matters.  Character counts.  That which we choose to consistently focus on is what EXPANDS in our lives.  WE CREATE our realities.

More on the importance of Daily Routine:

January 3:  Daily Routines