If you haven’t read my blog from two weeks ago, I would recommend heading over there before reading further. You can do that here. This is part two of my blog series on Positive Intelligence® and this week we’ll be focusing on your sage.
If you’re unfamiliar with the science behind positive intelligence, your sage is the part of your brain that generates positive emotions and ultimately leads to more positive thinking.
Some of these emotions include empathy, compassion, gratitude, and calm clear-headed focus.
If you struggle with any of these areas, this is the perfect blog post for you. Most people on the planet today have an intense and ongoing struggle to activate this part of their brain continually, so let’s go ahead and look at some of the main ways we can move from a saboteur mindset – take your assessment here – to a positive thinking mindset and activate your sage once and for all.
The Science Behind Activating Your Sage
Before we look at the specific ways we can transform your thinking, it’s worthwhile to look in-depth at the inner workings of your mind to better understand the process you’ll be undertaking.
Activating your sage isn’t as simple as turning that frown upside down and acting more positive for the day. It’s a developmental process that starts with hard work.
When I or anyone else talks about mental fitness it’s important that you know it’s quite like physical fitness. To build your muscles, including your emotional brain, you’ll need to train them and constantly be pushing yourself to new limits. This means creating new habits to change your mindset, like going to the gym multiple times per week to improve your physical fitness.
Your brain may not be the largest muscle in your body, but it is one of the most challenging to effectively exercise. Let’s break your training down to focus on 3 mental muscles – the saboteur-interceptor muscle, self-command muscle and the sage muscle.
The Saboteur-Interceptor Muscle
Your saboteurs create all the negative thoughts that run through your head.
Do you hear that voice that’s currently telling you, “Why are you even bothering to read this blog, you’ll never be a positive thinker”? Yup, that’s one of your saboteurs.
It’s important that you’re aware of your main saboteurs, so that you can entrap them before they take charge of your thought process and deal with them effectively. We’ll go more in-depth on these in part 3 of this series, but for now what you need to do is spend time trying to identify them when they come up day to day.
The Self-Command Muscle
This muscle circles back to those daily habits. To build your mental fitness and truly move towards positive thinking, you’ll need to develop daily rituals to strengthen your mind.
These can be anything from meditation, yoga, or exercise, to reading, journaling or even self-talk.
Whatever you choose to do, the main focus should be to spend that time thinking or learning about the saboteur activity within your brain and stopping it dead in its tracks instead of allowing it to control you.
When a negative thought comes up, simply acknowledge it and let it pass. Don’t hold onto it, don’t fight it, just let it pass through, almost as if it’s in a car driving by. Work on replacing these thoughts with positive ones or telling yourself why they may not be entirely true.
The Sage Muscle
Your sage muscle is the muscle that handles any challenges which may come your way with a clear and positive mind.
You can hopefully see how the previous two muscles assist in this process. They’re all connected to the end-goal: positive thinking and a positive mindset.
You’ll ultimately build up the Sage muscle by growing the first two muscles.
My Challenge to You
As mentioned previously, the adjustment to positive thinking is not a quick one. It takes an ongoing commitment and a persistence that most individuals don’t seem to have. However, every person can undergo this change if they truly desire.
So, while we focus on preparing the next part of this blog series where we’ll go in-depth on saboteurs and how you can identify them, here’s my challenge to you!
Over the next two weeks, try to identify daily habits you can use to enhance the three muscles listed above.
It may take some trial and error, that’s normal.
However, you may find that you already take part in some of these habits, but you’re letting your saboteurs run your mind and derail the process.
Either way, to enhance your mental fitness and activate your sage mode, you need to ask the difficult questions and separate yourself from the voice in your head that’s telling you that you aren’t good enough.
Start your journey to an improved and positive mindset – understand your saboteurs by taking the assessment here.
I’ve been coaching corporate executives like you to achieve peak performance for years. Contact me today at pholberton@holberton.com or schedule a free 25-minute call to learn more about the results of your assessment.
