I read Limitless by Jim Kwik which inspired me to change my mindset, perspective about how we are brought up and about the society where we breathe in. it gave me good reasons to spread this mindset to others so others can benefit and transform their lives as well.
what they teach you?
Schools only teach you what to learn, what
to think, what to remember but they never teach you how to learn, how to think
and how to remember.
They fill you up with information. But they
won't go underneath of this and never teach how to self-educate, how to go
about enriching our minds; discovering new concepts.
Tagging:
Parents, friends, acquaintances, and society tend to label a child which eternally becomes their inner voice for
the rest of their lives. It becomes the child's blueprint. That negative label
hatches into the child’s subconscious keeping him enslaved for the rest of his life.
Labeling a child with
something is like giving the input and getting the output of the same level.
What’s being limitless?
Un-limiting is the process of
eroding the restricted perception of one's ability and believing that; with the right attitude, stimulus and technique, there are no limitations.
Being limitless is not being
infallible. rather, It’s advancing beyond your current belief system of what's
possible.
We learn limiting believes
through our family, society and life’s experiences, just as we learn them on
mental level, we can unlearn them too.
We can learn to expand our
views and spend a limitless life.
We can be anything, do
anything, and possess anything.
If someone is not living to their full potential, there must be some mental restraints imposed by the people and circumstances, which need to be released and replaced.
How are we trapped?
We are taught limited ideals of our capabilities.
We allow those limiting beliefs to reside in our minds and they keep us shackled.
They are actually our belief system.
They imprison us and don’t let us to be fully aware of our natural capacities.
We all have superpowers that are shunned by the belief systems that culture inculcates in us.
How do they become superheroes in movies?
Answer: They don’t restraint themselves. They don’t doubt their talents.
To become an unlimited version of
yourself is to unlearn all the false assumptions society has made you believed
about your abilities.
Story of Roger Bannister:
Bannister was a track star in the 1950s. At that time, it was considered
impossible for an athlete to run 1 mile in 4 minutes but Bannister was the first person to prove it wrong.
He ran a mile in 3 minutes, 59.4 seconds. The point to note here is, two months after
Bannister, people took to the task to break Bannister’s record. And the number
of minutes to complete the task is dropping down since then.
We fail at things only because we are pre-assuming the limits of our
abilities.
There are 3 Ms:
Mindset:
Mindset is your deep beliefs
about yourself and your surroundings.
Your assumptions of who you
are, what you are capable of, and what's conceivable.
A limit in your mindset is the reason you are lagging behind in achieving your goal. Because it's the mindset that created the barriers for itself in the first place.
Humans aren’t born with a built-in mindset. It is actually set by the environment and the society or the people around us.
Our mindset is a condition of our mental state about the things we can do or can’t do.
we are not taught to think beyond our limitedness. We get stuck there for the rest of our lives.
We are taught we are helpless.
Since helplessness is cultivated in our mindset, The same way limitlessness can also, be cultivated in our minds.
Motivation:
It is the purpose, why you
wanna do something. The energy to implement a plan.
A limiting motivation is when the drive for an action is present but there's a dearth of purpose.
Method:
The process for systematically accomplishing something.
A limit in your method means
that you are working on non-effective techniques.
when they meet:
When mindset intersects with
motivation, the result is an inspiration.
When motivation and method intersect, you get the implementation. Yet your results will be limited since there is a gap between what you feel and think you deserve. you are lacking the mindset.
When method and mindset intersect,
you get ideation. Yet your aim stays in your mind since there is lacking in
your motivational attitude.
But when all three intersect,
you have a limitless state. This state is called integration.
As a matter of fact, we all are
superheroes one or another way.
It’s possible for every human being to create mindfulness, unlimited creativity, and an unlimited mindset.
3 villains:
Like all heroes have a
villain, we also have some villains in our lives, which we have to win over.
The villains of our present
times keep us at bay and don't let us use our full potential of positivity,
productivity, affluence, and calmness.
Those four villains of present
age is
1 digital deluge:
We are victims of infinite information which is to be consumed within finite time.
In the 1400s, a single person would consume the data in his whole lifetime, which we are now exposed to in a single day. 2015 data shows an average consumer spends eight hours a day.
Research on rats was done, which proved that we pay a price by having mental fog, bad memory, and fatigue if we are starving on downtime.
Golden Tip:
Allocate 30 minutes of your day for white space. when you turn off the technology around you and let your mind be relaxed and empty.
2 digital distractions:
Digital distraction is what makes our life and our brain of low quality. With the advancement of Always-on and connected devices 24/7, we are struggling to focus on our work at hand. Staying on the grid makes you an absent-minded person.
Your mind is hooked at many places at a time because of hundredth of notifications and updates.
you think your ability to multitasking is a very crucial life skill. well, here is the reality check for you.
The very act of Multitasking causes the prefrontal cortex and striatum to burn up oxygenated glucose so fast that we start feeling exhausted and bemused quickly. This leads to depletion in cognitive and physical execution.
Golden Tip:
shut off all your notifications to stay well and sound.
3 digital dementia:
We are so dependent on our technology to remember things for us that we no longer give our mind the chance to do its work.
We no longer remember the numbers and no longer rely on our ability to move around in a new city to adapt to the routes.
We no longer try to recall information from our brains; instead, we just look it up on the internet to find the answers.
This way of living harms the brain. Just as your body needs exercise so does your brain need to move its muscles.
Our brain is like a muscle if you don't give it a chance it will rot. The more you use it more it strengthens.
4 digital deductions:
We are putting technology forward to do the decision-making for us. We give few resources extreme influence to do the thinking for us.
As a result, our ability to think critically and problems solving are deteriorating.
We are no longer are very
well capable of reflecting, reasoning, drawing conclusions based on our experiences,
comprehension, and discernment.
we all are genius:
Our brains are like our fingerprints; peculiarly ours.
Our minds have limitless
storage capacity. Even with a damaged brain, you can do wonders and still be a
fully functioning human being.
We are all geniuses in some
areas of our intelligence. Geniuses mean not only having a high IQ.
People with lesser IQ can be
great at many things in their life.
There are quite a few types
of geniuses.
Four are these:
Dynamo genius:
Examples are Shakespeare,
Galileo
Blaze genius:
Examples are Oprah Winfrey.
Tempo genius:
Examples are nelson Mandel,
mother Teresa
Steel genius:
Examples are: Sergey Brin, Billy
Beane.
You may have a
combination of two or more of the above Genius.
your Health depends on your brain:
Everything is controlled by the brain. Having a positive mindset is so important that it immensely affects the
physical health of a person.
In a John's Hopkins study, Dr
Lisa Yanek says:
Positive people from the
general population were 13 percent less likely than negative counterparts to
have a heart attack or other coronary event.
positive thinking as an anti-stress strategy:
Effective stress management has following health benefits:
Increased life span
Lower rates of depression
Lower levels of distress
Greater resistance to the
common cold
Better psychological and
physical well-being
Better cardiovascular health
and reduced risk of death from cardiovascular disease
Better coping skills during
hardships and in times of stress.
How to replace your limited Mindset?
Homework:
1. Name down your limiting belief,
identify your negative inner critic, and know what it’s trying to convince you, and put them all on a piece of paper.
2. Create and replace your old
negative belief with new and positive ones. Which doesn’t put constraints in
you,, Replace: “I can’t” “I don’t”? with "I can", "I
have.
Silencing negative inner
critic brings in new possibilities in life.
When positive emotions are controlling you; you have the right level of motivation to move forward and become limitless. Everything falls into its right place once you learn to dismiss a limited belief system.
Ways to removing limiting beliefs:
Think of a time when you saw someone accomplish something that truly impressed you.
Now think about what personal
inspiration you can draw from that.
Reimagine your inner critic.
Change the attributes of this voice in your head so you begin to give it less
credence.
Homework:
Facedown one limiting belief
right now. What do you regularly tell yourself you can't do?
Find the evidence that shows
you that this belief isn't true.
We are told many lies that keep us restrained throughout our lives and impede our way to become
limitless.
The seven lies (limited Idea Entertained) that we are told in our lives.
Lie no 1:
Our Intelligence is fixed.
When we talk about
intelligence, we talk about IQs, which is a way to measure your academic
intelligence but there are other faces of intelligence like emotional
intelligence, creative intelligence, and practical intelligence.
IQ tests don't measure them.
So a person might have a low IQ score, yet he or she may have other bits of intelligence that are higher.
Carol Dweck professor of
psychology at Stanford University describes the difference between a fixed and
a growth mindset:
In a fixed mindset, students
believe their basic abilities, intelligence, talents are just fixed
traits.
While In a growth mindset,
students understand that their talents and abilities can be developed through effort, good teaching, and persistence.
They know that everyone is not the same or become Einstein but they know everyone can get smarter if they work at
it.
New belief:
intelligence is
fluid.
Lie no 2:
we use only 10
percent of our brain.
We mostly hear this myth that
we don't use our brain 100percent. This is wrong.
In the 1920s Dr. Karl Lashley removed parts of rats' cerebral cortex, an area responsible for cognitive processing; he found rats could still relearn some tasks. This led him to hypothesize; wrongly- that all parts of the brain were not being used.
New Belief:
As there are some people with
stronger bodies that are more energized than others because they used their
bodies better. In the same way, some people use their brains better than
others.
They keep their brains at work. The key to this; is to learn to use your brain in a better way to get the most out of it.
Lie no 3:
mistakes are
failures.
Einstein's contribution to
science and physics is incomparable to any other scientist of the era.
Yet Einstein made
mathematical mistakes that appeared in some of his most work.
On his theory of relativity, he made seven major gaffes. He made mistakes in clock synchronization in his experiments and many mistakes in maths and physics calculations used to determine liquids' viscosity.
But never once did we considered Einstein a failure. We don't know him through his failures but we only celebrate his successes. He's known widely for his achievements not for his blunders.
The truth is:
we make mistakes. Mistakes don't make us. Mistakes are the sign that we are trying. Life is not about comparing yourself with others rather it’s about comparing yourself to who you were yesterday.
New belief:
There is no such
thing as failure, only failure to learn.
Lie no 4:
knowledge is power.
Acquiring knowledge is
important, but putting it into action, is what required to making knowledge
powerful.
The truth is:
Knowledge is not power. It
only has the potential to be powerful.
New belief:
Knowledge × action = power.
Lie no 5:
learning new thing
is very difficult.
Cutting a plank of wood with a dull
blade takes much more effort, energy, and time than it should usually take.
During learning, taking
inadequate methods will slow you down and put you in a position where you will think
learning is a difficult task.
The truth is:
when you adopt the
right learning method, learning gets easier.
New belief:
When you learn new ways how
to learn, the challenge of learning new things turns into fun and delightful.
Lie no 6:
the criticism of
other people matters.
If you want to be limitless,
you need to learn to not care about the opinions of others.
The Wright brothers made a
flying machine and at the start of it all; they didn’t get the
credit for it rather they were doubted and criticized.
But the lack of recognition
and acclamation didn’t stop the wright brothers.
We fear people so much so
that we don't even dare to try.
The truth is:
You need to realize that
regret is scarier than criticism.
Don't take criticism from
someone you wouldn't take advice from.
You will never know your
potential until you break through unfair judgments.
New belief:
It’s not your job to like,
love, or respect me. It’s mine.
Lie no 7:
genius is born.
Bruce Lee's daughter Shanon said about her father that, before Lee was a film star, he had been doing thousands and thousands of hours of deep practice.
Lee didn’t master the famous one-inch
punch in a day. Rather it took years of hard practice.
He continued to train himself
even with a back injury. He used to have daily commitments. that's how hard it takes to be a genius.
The truth is:
There is always a method
behind what looks like magic.
New belief:
genius is not
born; it’s created through deep practice.
The above commonly beliefs
are the myths that impede your way of becoming limitless. what we need to do is just to shift and replace our mindset that's impending our ways to becoming unlimited version of ourselves.