How to achieve mental clarity to decide better

If there is something we envy about many people who have achieved success, it is their ability to make decisions. Beyond each person’s competence and talent, there is their ability to use their gifts in the right direction. Something like this requires being decisive, choosing the best strategy at the moment of greatest uncertainty. Who wouldn’t like to have that ability?

It may surprise us, but One of the tools to succeed in any area of ​​life is having mental clarity. We are talking about that competence with which one is able to turn off external and internal noise to better process reality and decide more correctly. It is being able to focus on what is important with lucidity, internal harmony and self-confidence.

The problem is that no one trains us in this exceptional dimension; one that doesn’t even appear in self-help manuals. It is a psychological strategy of great value that has repercussions both in the workplace and in the relationship, until reaching one’s own mental health. Because those who are able to calm dysfunctional thoughts, for example, find that internal balance with which to regain control of their life.

What if we discovered how to develop this powerful mental focus?

Achieving mental clarity requires improving our attention focus and knowing how to regulate our mood.

5 strategies to gain mental clarity

If many of us find it difficult to achieve mental clarity, it is because that is not our default psychological state. The mind prefers to be alert, it is obsessed with chewing on worries and imagining the most catastrophic futures. This is how it protects us from what “may happen.” Although while doing so, it subjects us to persistent anxiety and dissatisfaction.

In this way, the cost of not being able to think clearly is immense and we all know it. If the mind is filled with disturbances, irrational ideas, suspicions, stress and negative emotions, anxiety rises to excessive levels. It is then when we decide without thinking and hastily, at the same time increasing the feeling of lack of control and the probability of a psychological disorder occurring.

It is our responsibility to educate her, to activate another healthier approach that dissipates that fog of excess that opaques everything. Thus, a study from the University of Utah, for example, highlights something interesting in this regard. One way to develop that clarity is through mindfulness, which is a path to enhancing our self-awareness. That’s the key, let’s see how to achieve it.

1. Simplify, a simple life allows you to see what is priority

Less is not only more, but it is also mental health. We have become accustomed to an existence often loaded with artifices and numerous stressors. We fill our schedules with numerous activities, which do not always satisfy us. The same thing happens with our relationships. There are those who associate social success with having many friends, with having multiple social contacts.

However, all that excess interaction and multitasking does is fill us with noise. If we add to that the weight of social networks, notifications and the need to be as society expects, we have more than guaranteed suffering. Let’s simplify our lives and we will find mental clarity.

2. Regulate your emotions to think better

Difficult emotions, such as anxiety, sadness, frustration or anger, are that haze that collapses the mind. Our decision-making capacity is diminished if we are dominated by emotions of negative valence. Knowing how to regulate them will allow us to attend to reality from a position of calm with which to think about the most appropriate response in each circumstance.

3. Mindfulness and calmness of the here and now

We pointed it out previously. An effective way to develop mental clarity is through mindfulness. What this ancient practice achieves is training attention to focus it where it really matters: in the present moment.

Furthermore, this tool not only allows us to regulate stress and wandering thinking, but also gives us self-awareness, that is, from that wise look, which knows how to connect with the interior to know what is happening and what we need. It is a direct channel to the Self to connect it with the world in an authentic way, thus guiding us towards our goals.

4. Clarify your priorities, your values ​​and purposes

The person you are is built through a series of roots: your values, your purposes and your priorities. It is not enough to just clarify these realities, you have to keep them in mind every day to maintain your mental clarity. Therefore, it will be useful for you to answer the following questions:

What values ​​define you at this moment and that you should not let others violate? What goals have you set for yourself in the short and long term? Right now, what is a priority in your life? Family, work, your health? Is there anything clouding those dimensions? What should you do to safeguard it?

A critical outlook that is not carried away by what everyone takes for granted contributes to mental clarity.

5. Critical thinking

Do you process your reality from a critical perspective? Do you question what most take for granted? Do you usually analyze your own beliefs or conceptions to know if they are not conditioned by prejudices? Having critical thinking implies not only seeing the world from a more analytical perspective, but also becoming aware that we also act through biases.

Self-awareness also requires activating that self that is questioned and that does not allow itself to be conditioned by the environment, in order to activate mental clarity and decide better.

Conclusion

To the psychological strategies indicated here we must add advice that has to do with physical health. A clear mind needs, for example, good lifestyle habits. Among them are a good night’s rest, a balanced diet and physical exercise. As we well know, body and mind make up a whole that we must take care of and attend to daily.

Mental clarity is like that river that flows in harmony and whose purity allows us to see the beauty of those shiny stones in its bed. Let us not hesitate to promote that same harmony and transparency with which to be ourselves in every step, in every vital advance.

You might be interested…