What is the colour of your mind?
For more years than not, nearly all of my thoughts have been of despondence and despair. This morning I came across a quote from stoic philosopher, Marcus Aurelius.
‘Your mind will take the shape of what you frequently hold in thought…’
I cannot stop thinking how true that is. Ryan Holiday and Stephen Hanselman expand on it using a digital impact on health analogy.
‘If you bend your body into a sitting position every day for a long enough period of time, the curvature of your spine changes. The same is true for the mind… Colour it with the wrong thoughts and your life will be dyed the same.’
Our lives are infinitely malleable. The distance between our thoughts and the physical world is short and straight. Thoughts change things.
So really, the only ceiling and steering wheel is you. Sit with that for a while. An oversimplification, true, but at its core, the cap on your life is self-inflicted.
That is both sobering and liberating.
The logical next question becomes, what might I be if I let myself think it? I know my answer.
Confident, with a belief that I am worth something. Reliable, healthy, happy, wealthy, at peace. That no opportunity is ‘too good’ for me. That I stand a chance. That I can win. That I have the courage to try.
Which brings us to this quote from Paul Graham.
‘Confidence is a self-fulfilling prophecy.’
But so is a lack of confidence. Whatever you think, you are. So why are you choosing to be mid? Colouring your mind vomit grey, limiting your life? It makes no sense that we sabotage ourselves in this way. You and I must stop it.
Stopping it for me means letting the light in. It’s why I chose the painting at the top there. I am opening the windows in my head. It’s a breezy, sunny spring day. First I think I am confident, then I practice behaviours that reinforce that thought - bravely going after what I want, quickly responding to important emails and messages, moving with high agency. And before you know it, I become that.
It’s going to happen, and since you read these, you’re going to watch as it happens. The only unknown here is whether or not you’ll be practising alongside me, changing the colour of your own life too.
That, like your thoughts, is entirely up to you.