The human mind is a very powerful which can be used either for good or bad. Most people want to use it for doing constructive activities. However, it wanders and behaves like a monkey without any focus. At times, it leads to destructive activities causing damage to individuals and others. Why does it happen? Research shows that humans get around 60,000 thoughts in a day and mostly they are negative in nature. That is the reason why some people get into negative zone quickly ending up as failures. If humans know how to convert their negative thoughts into positive thoughts they will be able to live with peace and harmony and unlock their hidden potential. It is possible when they know how to control their monkey minds to consolidate their thoughts.
What is Monkey Mind?
Monkey mind is a Buddhist term which is a state of undisciplined mind where it is chaotic and wanders without any self-control. Monkey mind is different from inner noise. Monkey mind is a chaotic mind and unstable mind whereas inner noise is a mental conversation causing irritation and leading to conflicts. It is often the monkey mind that leads to inner noise, not the other way around. Additionally, inner noise prevents from smooth and successful communication. Monkey mind leads to confusion where individuals don’t have clarity of what they are doing resulting in frequent failures and depression. Hence, it is essential to cure this mind by understanding it effectively. Here are some merits of disciplining your monkey mind. When you discipline your mind, you will be clear about goals and focus on them religiously. It enhances your concentration to do smart work instead of hard work. You achieve qualitative and multiple outcomes with a single effort. You sleep well and lead a happy and peaceful life.
Tips to Discipline Your Monkey Mind
Here are some tips to discipline your monkey mind.
- Focus clearly on your
goals. Set deadlines regularly to achieve one after another. - Engage your mind
productively on your passionate areas. Remember, empty mind is like a
devil’s work. Pursue your hobbies. Invest your time wisely on activities
that help in your personal, professional and social life. - Feed positive commands
to your subconscious mind to make it stable to achieve all-round success. - Convert your internal
dialogue into a constructive and meaningful one. - Change your food habits
to tame your monkey mind. Eat banana to improve your mood levels. - Avoid skipping your
breakfast. When you take breakfast, you can prevent blood-sugar
fluctuations because blood-sugar fluctuations lead to poor focus as well
as irritability and mood swings. - Do breathing exercises.
- Sleep well to relax your
mind. - Invest conscious efforts
to quiet your monkey mind.
How do I Discipline my Monkey Mind?
Like other human beings, my mind also wanders. Being a creative author, my mind wanders frequently. Hence, I focus my mind on my creative activities such as writing. When I was unemployed in my life, instead of regretting for lack of employment opportunities, I focused on sharing my knowledge free with the world to make a difference. I regularly woke up from my bed early morning with a goal to post articles on leadership, success and spirituality. I wrote articles and blogged and shared them on social media platforms regularly. In this way, I engaged my mind constructively and shared my knowledge with the world free. It gave me a great sense of satisfaction and provided meaning to my life.
Whenever I wrote articles, many new ideas flashed in my mind simultaneously thus diverting my train of thoughts from writing. Hence, I stopped my writing for a moment and jotted down the ideas that popped up my mind and then I resumed my writing. In this way, I pleased my monkey mind, captured the ideas and continued to write with my flow of thoughts.
I started doing research in my passionate areas and published 40 books. In this way, I improved my writing skills and made a difference to the world. I did not earn any money but I received lots of appreciation mails from my followers globally. I felt excited to share more knowledge free with the people. When unemployed, most people are usually upset and depressed. But I converted the problem of unemployment into sharing knowledge to build a better world. Remember, there are no problems but only prospects in life. It all depends on how you look at your life and the people around you. Hence, develop a positive, right and strong attitude toward life to engage your mind creatively and constructively to add value to the society and provide meaning to your life.
The human mind is unique and everyone has their own styles of taming their minds. Hence, people must explore ideas to discipline their minds to unlock their hidden potential.
Note: This article has been adapted from “See the Light in You: Acquire Spiritual Powers to Achieve Mindfulness, Wellness, Happiness and Success.” His Holiness Dalai Lama wrote foreword for this book.