Weekly Mental Fitness Workouts

November 5th - November 12th

Welcome back and welcome to the 3rd Mesocycle of The Mind Gym,

As we get going on another 6-week journey to train our minds together, I wanted to share a few lessons that I have learned from my own training during the first two mesocycles of The Mind Gym:

1. Each day is different: Consistently training your mind, like consistently training your body, is not easy. It takes intention, motivation, and a desire to train even when you don’t want to.

2. You can create your own luck: Taking time to cultivate the mindset that you want allows you to experience it more often.

3. Understanding and application are not the same: It’s one thing to understand how a concept fits into your life, it’s another to use it.

I’m curious to hear what you have learned during this journey and want to share any responses with the community next week. I invite you to click the follow button to share your thoughts, comments, questions, and feedback:

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Weekly Mental Fitness Workouts

Engagement

“I’m too tired from work”, “I’ll just do it next week”. What is your excuse?

Increasing engagement is one of those things that we can easily let slip if we are not careful. However, participating in these activities gives us an immense amount of joy that can boost our flow and sustain our happiness for many months.

• Take a moment to check in with your character strengths from the VIA Character Strength survey

  • If you are new here, take a moment to learn about your Character Strengths and take the survey here. (it only takes about 10 minutes and is great insight!)

• Reflect: during the past 6 weeks

  • Name 3 good things that have happened to you.

    • What character strengths did you utilize to make these good things happen?

  • When did you participate in an activity that you love?

    • I mean love so much that you lost track of time doing it.

  • What moments did you feel like you were truly present in the moment?

    • Not in your head thinking, not distracted by technology, truly present.

  • Is there a certain strength that you want to intentionally cultivate over the next 6 weeks?

    • How will you do it?

Focus Training & Contact with The Present Moment

For this cycle, we are going to periodize focus training similar to how the stress training was periodized during the last cycle.

How it will work:

• The Exercise: 3 days x 2 minutes

  • By the end of week 6, the goal is to do 5 days x 5 minutes.

• The Practice: Meditation

  • You will simply sit or lie down in a comfortable position and focus on your breath for the amount of time that is prescribed.

  • When a thought pops into your head:

    • 1. Recognize it: “I am thinking about ______.”

    • 2. Release it: attempt to let it float away like a cloud in the sky

    • 3. Refocus your attention back on the task at hand (watching your breath)

• The Resource:

  • You can use whatever meditation app that you like best.

  • A free option where you can customize your timer will be the UCLA Mindfulness App

    • Below you will find pictures of how you can set the timer for your exercise

You may recognize the contact with the present moment practice from the last time above. Instead of giving you a brand new exercise, I want you to continue to get better at the 3Rs during your meditation. As a reminder, here is the practice.

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Example to set the timer:

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Stress Training: Non-Sleep Deep Rest

One afternoon this week, when you are starting to feel a dip in your energy, take a break and put on this video to reset:

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I am stoked for this upcoming cycle. There are a lot of exciting opportunities for you to continue to train your mind both through these emails and live events. Stay tuned for the live event announcement and make sure to invite your friends & family to join along.

Be easy,

Ryan, CMPC