If you do not own your mind and take control during change, change will take over your mind. In an ever-changing world, if you decide to bring about change in yourself, then the place where you need to start is in your mind.
Here are 10 reasons why the mind matters more than ever in life and work today.
1. Leadership is impact-driven, and impact creates a memory
The key difference between impact and outcome is that one is long term and the other is short term. It is essential to be long term impact-focused if you want to make a sustainable result in your life. This comes with anything that you do, from buying a pair of shoes to investing in a house. It becomes easier to decide if you just ask once whether it is an impact-driven act or an outcome-driven act. That’s how you can easily separate yourself from being influenced to take any decision that may not serve your future. You also have a better balance between your rational mind and emotional mind by doing this. By touching on the feelings or emotions associated with the thought, we can create an impact that lasts longer in our mind because impact creates a memory, the greater the impact, the stronger the memory.
2. Mental effectiveness is the productivity prerequisite
According to Nasa Scientist Dr Rita King, “The imagination age is the theoretical period beyond the information age where creativity and imagination will become the primary creators of economic value. This contrasts with the information age where analysis and thinking were the main activities.”
We cannot stay dependent on analysing and thinking now that the world is seeking more innovation in every small thing that we are doing. Thinking and analysing are sometimes very linear ways to solve a problem, and at some stage, we can rely on systems for that. On the other hand, having an out of the box idea, we need to harness our mental efficiency, by which I mean enabling full brain thinking. Linked to this, your decision or action also demands you to be more dynamic to enhance your real productivity of yourself.
3. We all are unique with a different approach to thinking
Throughout the generations of lived experience, each of us is unique with our unique way of thinking. This is at the same time advantage as well as a disadvantage for us. It is an advantage for us once we view it as diversity, and it is a disadvantage once we consider times when we need to align our thinking with a shared goal. And the connecting point is when we need to know what the right-thinking will take us toward what we aim to achieve, and for this, it is necessary to know how our mind works.
4. Mental capital is the fuel of shared value
In the way that we invest in an asset to get value over time, we also need to treat our mental capacity as capital that we can invest in to gain something worthy. It is not about being strategic or productive only; it also means we need to monitor more closely our mental fuel for generating greater value.
5. Today’s work and life demand a quality way of thinking
There is a slight difference between “quality thinking” and a “quality way of thinking”. The quality way of thinking means not being distracted, being more mindful, having fewer biases, and not being influenced or manipulated. Only a great level of awareness can stop us from having a non-quality way of thinking. Being more aware of the function of our mind can also help us to know how to generate the meaning of our thoughts.
6. Mind is the vehicle of growth today
Once we consider our life as a journey of evolution, we can view it as a path that we walk over our lifetime. We can finish it by taking the known or expected path or by taking the unknown-adventurous route. It depends on how ready our vehicle is to drive through the journey. This is where our mind takes the place of a vehicle that we drive. No matter whether you are a good driver or not, the fitness of this vehicle matters the most to take you on the adventure of doing something bigger and out of the box.
7. We are time travellers, not moment creators
The increasing dependency on a digital lifestyle has produced a shorter and shorter attention span in us. We enjoy scrolling down and checking the news quickly; we enjoy having the remote control in our hands and constantly changing the channels to check what is better. Similarly, we also want to make changes to life issues quick, being quicker in whatever we are doing, even making a million dollars quick! Our customers want quick services; our boss wants quick actions; we want quick solutions.
According to a Google study, 90% of people who own multiple devices switch between an average of three devices per day to complete a task.
Sometimes we also travel to past experiences and future expectations to generate a solution. We are constantly pulling our future into the present or travelling between past and future by doing this. By doing this, we are missing our present reality. We are not fully aware of our present opportunities to create more moments. This is essential if we want to be more creative over being analytical. Moreover, being quick is a threat when we slowly get better results. The pressure of acting quickly easily makes us overwhelmed and stressed. And a stressed mind cannot be creative.
8. Change is normal, and disruption is expected
Being the citizens of the VUCA world (Volatility, Uncertainty, Complexity, and Ambiguity), we must agree that change is the new normal, and being resistant to change is not. If you are stopping yourself from being adaptive to change, you are not normal. There is no way you can afford to waste your time by resisting change. It is time to be clever in handling the change.
A Harvard Business Review survey in 2016 found that the most important skill in transformation is the ability to adapt.
Creating an adaptive mind is the first place where we need to start working on facilitating any change. No matter if it is big or small, a change is always a source of fear in our minds. And understanding the right way to treat the change is the key.
9. Quality connection comes with boundaries
In a society of connection, we cannot ignore staying connected. We cannot avoid being reached anytime. We cannot have control over our inbox to stop receiving emails that are not on our agenda. But we can choose our responses. This is where the quality comes from—knowing how, when and where we need to create boundaries makes a big difference in our decisions or actions.
10 . Managing the mind is the strategic initiative
It is no longer the time to manage time. Now is the time to be better at managing the mind. The mind is the most critical unit that comes above anything. Driving time is a functional competency, whereas managing the mind is a strategic competency that anyone can develop to lead success out of themselves or out of their team. It is the era of developing the skill of cleverly using the mind to perform the proper functions – creative, analytical, practical or routine. If we take our life as a long-term project, it is crucial to master the skill of managing the mind and bringing harmony among our mind’s rational, emotional, creative or intuitive functions.
“When the mind is compassionate, it is calm and we’re able to use our sense of reason practically, realistically, and with determination.” – Dalai Lama
To keep up with the pace of economic change, organisational change, or lifestyle change, we also need to change how we deal with our time, energy, and mind. And we are only ambitious when we enter the game with acceptance and readiness to learn.
Onwards,
Ayesha
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