Guarding your mind from people and situations that make you questions your goals is imperative to your success.
The word “diet” isn’t a popular one in modern society. Many people associate diets with rigidity, restriction, and even oppression. But they don’t have to be. With research, patience, and self-discipline, many diets can be successful for helping people meet their health and fitness goals. The same is true for a mental diet. Our minds are incredibly easily programmable, but not everything we see, hear, or experience is for our greater good. Many people are held back from their goals not because they are incompetent, but because they have deeply-ingrained, subconscious beliefs that they are inadequate, unprepared, unintelligent, and will therefore fail. With this mindset firmly in place, they inevitably do exactly that.
When embarking on a new goal or person journey, it’s imperative that the media we consume, the books that we read, the ideas that we allow to take root in our minds, and even the conversations we have be in alignment with that goal. Anything that is not must be quickly dismissed from thought/engagement. This is what’s referred to as “the mental diet.” Have you ever gotten/considered getting a new car, haircut, piercing, etc., and immediately began to see it everywhere? This is what happens when your mind attaches to an idea: you will see validation and affirmation of that idea everywhere you look. It actually doesn’t matter if the idea is a good one or a bad one, something that will help you grow, or something which will further limit you. You mind can and will expand and extrapolate on any idea that’s entertained for a significant length of time.
This is why it’s so necessary to feed your mind only what is in alignment with your goals until that goal is realized. Yes, this is confirmation bias, and yes, you can exploit that bias to your advantage. The most successful people in the world, by however they measure that success, are often the ones who are fixated to the point of obsession with their goal, to the complete dismissal of almost anything else. The plan, practice, and perfect their aim, constantly pondering on how to do whatever it is they’re doing better. Many people take the route of ego and tell themselves that the negative media that they consume or the naysayers in their lives have absolutely no affect on them, but this is demonstrably false. Human beings do not exist in a vacuum, and we are terribly suggestive creatures, for better or for worse; this is why advertising is so successful, and why it’s most successful when its subtle. You shift in mindset needs to be extreme. It may be difficult to end or limit conversations, stop watching certain TV shows, etc., but if this old material doesn’t align with your new goal, then it’s not in alignment with the mindset required to achieve that goal.
