How To Fuel Your Heart
The wrong gasoline fuels the world.
Some say its fake news. "It's the media's fault for blasting misinformation into all brains."
Others think it's the inevitable collapse of human civilization.
The worst? People who seem to have a vague opinion on a topic they know nothing about.
The world is tense. But for what?
Regardless of all the crap that's happened this year, it's still the best time to have lived. For some, that's hard to believe.
No matter where you're at in life, the best thing you can do is fuel your heart, here are six ways.
What you watch.
The things you watch guide your emotions. If you watch negative news, you'll become negative.
If you watch positive news, it will lift and give you hope. Better yet, watch things that develop you as a human.
Watch a documentary on a topic you're interested in, which develops your knowledge.
Cuddle with the family on the couch, as you laugh through a comedy.
Part of my morning routine, is when my oldest son walks out of the room from waking up and into my arms, giving him a giant hug.
We turn on a funny kids movie to give him time to wake up, as we cuddle for ten minutes on the couch.
The amount of love in this moment is incredible.
Isn't this better than watching the news? I think so. It fuels my heart every morning.
What you read.
We're on our phone all day long. We read a lot.
From social media, websites, to the overwhelming number of emails, our attention is pulled in a million directions.
Yet, the quality of what we read is terrible.
People say they don't have time to read books, but Facebook consumes them for two hours a day.
What you read is who you are.
My reading comes in three forms.
Books based on topics I'm interested in.
Websites from people whom I trust and respect.
Courses to develop my skills.
I avoid mass news like the plague.
When COVID19 started to become a topic of panic, I educated myself so that I could make the best decisions for my family and team, and once I did, I left.
Here are some great books I'm reading that span many different genres.
The Body by Bill Bryson.
Think Like A Rocket Scientist by Ozan Varol.
Stillness Is The Key by Ryan Holiday.
I Contain Multitudes: The Microbes Within Us And A Grander View Of Life by Ed Yong.
Leadership Strategy Tactics by Jocko Willink.
Loserthink by Scott Adams.
Chop Wood, Carry Water: How To Fall In Love With The Process Of Becoming Great.
How To Write A Good Advertisement by Victor Schwab.
Global Perspectives and Psychedelic Poetics by Terence McKenna.
You can see how these will impact my life and fuel my heart in a way mass media cannot.
You are what you read, so read to fuel your mind and your heart.
What you listen to.
Just as much as you are what you read, you're also what you listen to.
If you listen too angry, political commentators who are pushing an agenda, you'll follow the same mentality.
Don't listen to things that bring you down. It has no positive impact on your life.
That's not to say, don't listen to hard messages. Right now, there are protests all over the world for the brutal killing of George Floyd.
If you listen to the news, you can become angry and aggressive, or you can choose to hear what people are saying, get inspired to be better, support the movement, while making a distinct change in your own life.
The mass news, stupid people and many other factors are taking away from this incredible movement, that we all should stand behind.
What you listen to leads to who you become and how you fuel your heart.
Who you surround yourself with.
Jim Rohn once said, "you are the average of the five people you spend the most time with."
If these people are angry, you'll become angrier. If they're obese, you'll likely take on poor eating habits.
Lazy? You, too, will fall trap to laziness.
You don't have to surround yourself with negative people.
Surround yourself with people who encourage, challenge, and push you to be the best version of you.
How you talk to yourself.
When I was younger, my dad would do something stupid and yell, "YOU DUMBASS."
He was talking to himself.
I'm not sure what this did to his heart, but how you speak to yourself will be who you become.
Fuel your heart with encouraging mantras about yourself.
If you say to yourself, "I'll never succeed at X," change it to "I'll continue to work hard and love the process. Chop wood, carry water."
Or maybe you've gained weight and look more plump than usual, instead of saying, "I look like a fat piece of shit," say "I'm beautiful but have gotten off course and gained some weight. I'll focus on my eating habits so that I can be the best version of myself."
Don't mentally abuse yourself from within.
What you visualize.
The best example of visualization comes from sports. You see a correlation between their actions and the visualization, to the reaction, of them exceeding a certain performance goal.
Peak sports defines visualization in sports as "a way of conditioning your brain for successful outcomes. The more you mentally rehearse your performance, the more it becomes habituated in your mind."
Michael Phelps coach Bob Bowman said, "We figured it imagery was best to concentrate on these tiny moments of success and build them into mental triggers… It's more like his habits had taken over. The actual race was just another step in a pattern that started earlier that day and was nothing but victories. Winning became a natural extension."
Or the three-time Olympian, Emily Cook, "You have to smell it. You have to hear it. You have to feel it, everything."
"I would say into a tape recorder: 'I'm standing on the top of the hill. I can feel the wind on the back of my neck. I can hear the crowd,' kind of going through all those different senses and then actually going through what I wanted to do for the perfect jump. I turn down the in-run. I stand up. I engage my core. I look at the top of the jump. I was going through every little step of how I wanted that jump to turn out."
Imagine you have a goal at work, and you want to exceed that goal by 30%.
Visualize the moment your surpass that goal.
Where were you at? What were you doing? What we're all the small things weeks prior that led up to the moment?
What you visualize is who you become. Become the person you want to be.
These six areas are essential part of our lives.
If you read, listen, and surround yourself with bad news, your heart will fill with rage, and the emotions you express in life will result into your actions.
Pay attention to what you watch, read, listen to, visualize, say to yourself, and surround yourself with.
If you don't, you'll become the person you always feared of being.
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