5 mental tricks to get ahead in difficult moments

Neuroscientist David Eagleman points out that if our brains were simple enough to understand, we wouldn’t be smart enough to understand them. If this organ, measuring just over 1,300 grams and containing one hundred billion neurons, is so complex, it is for a reason: to facilitate our evolution and adaptation to increasingly less simple or simplifyable environments.

However, if there is something we demand of you, it is that you allow us to be a little happier than we are. The brain is an organ that tries to facilitate our survival. This can cause us to drift excessively into somewhat inflexible patterns, those that whisper to us in a low voice that “it’s better not to try it”, “be wary of this”, “fear that other”.

Many times we allow ourselves to be carried away by automatic processes that, although they safeguard us from real – and imaginary – dangers, have a cost. We increasingly feel more apathetic, less motivated and prepared to work on our dreams and desires. We need to reprogram our minds to break those inflexible schemes that prohibit well-being..

In this sense, there are simple tricks with which we can ignite ingenuity, innovation and those approaches based on lateral thinking that are always so helpful to us. Do you want to take note of them?

The mind has two great enemies: stress and negative thoughts. Learning tools to manage them will mediate our well-being.

Mental tricks to boost your existence

And you… Do you apply any small psychological tricks in your daily life? Are you trying to train your brain to be a little more efficient and work for you and not against you? Mental tricks are cognitive strategies with which to create new, healthier and more efficient ways of thinking..

In these resources, there is no magic, what there is is some ingenuity and the commitment to get involved in a series of reasoning that, although they require some effort, can be more beneficial. To better understand this need, it is worth remembering a book that was quite successful a few years ago. Is about Everything is f*cked up: a book about hope, 2019, by Mark Manson.

The author in this work compares our mind to a car. We think that whoever drives that vehicle is our most logical, intelligent and rational approach, but that is not the case. The one in control is a flesh robot dominated by an impulsive and emotional mind. Therefore, sometimes we may need strategies to regain the steering wheel of our lives and move towards the goals we want.

1. Mental trick to overcome pain and frustration

The brain has a certain tolerance for pain and frustration. Your natural reaction when you experience any of these dimensions is to stop and freeze. Thus, a life, sometimes unfair, demands that we implement active strategies to feel better. However, sometimes, we get stuck in that unpleasant space.

The same thing happens with frustration. Sometimes we have to inhabit the most unfair realities, in which anger and frustration seem natural emotions. Now, we must be clear. Getting trapped in negative emotions can cause us great suffering..

Strategy: accept the discomfort

It is not necessary to feel comfortable in uncomfortable experiences, it is about tolerating them. One of the main mental tricks that we must establish in our psychological record is to accept that discomfort is also part of existence.

To do this, the following phrase will help us: “I accept this uncomfortable experience, I know that it is temporary and that accepting it will allow me to grow as a person in the long term”.

2. Mental trick to find new opportunities

Do you feel like you are at a dead end? Do you need a change in your life and don’t know where to start? We have all gone through those moments of personal crisis in which we long for new horizons, new opportunities to redirect our existential project.

Strategy: open and receptive mind

One of the most effective mental tricks to make contact with other perspectives is to ask ourselves questions.. It is a simple strategy that consists of making our mind curious, open and inquisitive: «What do I need right now? Who could I talk to for inspiration, advice or guidance? How would I like to see myself in a year? What change could I make today to achieve this?

3. The mental trick to achieve internal calm

Stress is that mental noise that accelerates us, that fills all our psychological spaces, blocking our ability to reflect and make decisions. It is not easy to achieve that inner calm from which we can make contact with ourselves to think better, calm difficult emotions and look at the world from serenity.

Now, we can learn a simple tool that will help us.

Visualization strategy: your mind is a reservoir of energy

Anglia Ruskin University, in the United Kingdom, carried out an interesting study on visualization and mental images as a therapeutic exercise. They are more useful than we can believe. In fact, we can use them as valuable mental tricks to reduce stress and anxiety.

Visualize your mind as if it were a reservoir into which you can only pour healing and nourishing energy.. To carry out this action, you must first extract everything that clouds that interior, everything that makes it dirty. Once those toxic elements have been removed, fill it with gratifying things: reading, walks, pleasant conversations… All of this will give you internal harmony and calm.

4. Mental trick to eliminate your negative thoughts

Negative thoughts are that rust that corrodes our psychological well-being. We all have them, but there are those who walk through the world with authentic mental factories of exhausting, irrational and harmful reasoning. If we do not regulate and manage them, we will build the shape of some depression or anxiety disorder.

Mental economy strategy

To control the production of negative thoughtslook at them as if they were those rent-free tenants in your mind. They are squatters, they destroy everything and offer you no return.

Positive and resilient approaches, on the other hand, do contribute to your well-being, they do generate profits. Therefore, it is time to evict those harmful presences that can lead you to ruin.

We can all implement new resources and mental approaches to feel better and optimize our ability to achieve.

5. The mental trick to achieve your goals

We all have more than one dream in our hearts, a goal that we don’t know how to achieve. If this is your case, one of the best-known mental tricks will be of great help to you. This is the WOOP method, created by Gabriele Oettingen, professor of psychology at the University of Hamburg and author of the book Rethinking Positive Thinking, 2014.

What I was looking for with this proposal was to offer people a rational, objective and practical resource to achieve our goals in a more thoughtful way.

The WOOP strategy is based on the following acronym:wish = desire. Objectively visualize and detail what you want to achieve.Outcome = desired result. How will you feel when you achieve what you want? What good will it do you?Obstacle = obstacle. What difficulties do you think you may encounter?Plan. Detail what tools and plans you will put in place to overcome those detailed obstacles.

Detailed strategies are mental tricks that we can all learn, integrate into our daily lives and gain well-being, motivation and even a greater ability to achieve. It would just be about committing ourselves a little more to attending to everything that happens in our mental universe.

Let’s stop thinking and responding on autopilot, let’s develop a more focused and reflective mental approach. Only in this way will we adapt better in a reality as complex as the current one.

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