365 Exciting Ways to Live : Excitement # 53 - Tame the Wandering Mind!

Success in any Endeavour requires single-minded attention to detail and total concentration.

– Willie Sutton

Do you know that if you can concentrate on one thing, you can concentrate on anything?

The ability to concentrate is a skill, which can be developed. Some people may have this skill naturally in them like a mature good voice. Others can develop the same.

The quality of our concentration will decide the quality of our execution. In order to accomplish any task, we need to integrate the powers of our brain and the powers of our mind.  Brain power is natural, whereas mind power has to be harnessed.

From today, spend at least thirty minutes every day to develop and enhance your concentration quality. Have a fixed time and a fixed place. Take any one idea or thought or mantra like Om and focus all your attention on the same. Be conscious whenever your mind wanders and bring it back to the point of concentration. Start with just 5 minutes and slowly go up to 30 minutes or even one hour. Unless you take efforts, your span of concentration will not improve!

We have to tame the wandering mind. 
(From my book '365 Exciting Ways to Live')
N C Sridharan
www.thetimefoundation.com
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'Mindscaping' for career building 6

'If you can keep playing tennis when somebody is shooting a gun down the street, that's concentration'.

Serena Williams

What will happen if you take your eyes off the road or take your hands off from the steering wheel while driving. This is what will happen if you take your mind off from your goal and do not control the wandering mind!

Do this exercise.

Set a timer for one minute and close your eyes and notice every thought that enters your mind. As and when a thought enters the mind open a finger. When the timer goes, open your eyes and count how many fingers are open. This number indicates how many thoughts entered your mind and it is an index of how disturbed is your mind.  

Next, set the timer again for sixty minutes. Pick up something to concentrate for one minute. Close your eyes and concentrate on that thing only. Every time your mind wanders, internally say 'cancel, cancel' and bring your mind back to the thing and open one of your fingers. When the timer goes, open your eyes and notice how many fingers are open. This number represents how many times your mind wandered and you controlled the same.

If you do this exercise for a few days consistently, you will notice your span of attention and focus going up gradually. 

N C Sridharan

www.timefoundation.com

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'Mindscaping' for career building 2

'Put your heart, mind, and soul into even your smallest acts. This is the secret of success'.

Swami Sivananda

In order to achieve great thing in our life, should know the difference between the 'mind' and the 'brain'. It may appear to be simple, but many of us are confused about the two. The parts of the body are different and they perform their own unique functions. They are not the parts of the mind.  

For example, we say 'take me into your heart'. We should know that the human heart is just like any other part of the body such as the eyes, ears, lungs, lever etc. You cannot 'take' any person into your 'heart'! You know what will happen if a micro particle enters the heart. Just imagine what will happen if a person 'enters the heart'! Perhaps what we mean is 'take me into your 'mind'!

We have to understand the role of the mind and the body before we start appreciating what is mindscaping. We go to gym or do other physical exercises to keep our body trim. By burning extra flesh and building muscles, we look healthy and bodily attractive. We can call it as bodyscaping!

Just like we keep our body fit and trim, we should also keep our mind healthy and energetic and that is mindscaping!

Have you ever thought about this subtle difference?

NC Sridharan

www.thetimefoundation.com

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Mind the content of your mind!

We are shaped by our thoughts; we become what we think. When the mind is pure, joy follows like a shadow that never leaves.
Buddha

I am sure you value your properties such as your house, your garden, your car etc. Other people could visit and use your properties and I am sure you won’t like anyone to misuse your property. And when they visit and use it, you want them to treat your property with care and respect. If you own a house which is occupied by a tenant, you would like to be paid a reasonable rent.
If someone visits and occupies your property and causes damage, I am sure you will ask them to vacate, forcibly if required.
Your most valuable property which you should treat with sacred and respect is your mind! This property decides the quality of your life. That is it is called ‘intellectual property’.
Your thoughts are the visitors who visit this valuable property. All the points I mentioned above with respect to visitors who visit your other properties also apply to this valuable property of yours!

Be conscious about the type of thoughts which enter your mind. Ensure that they enter your mind only with your permission. Ensure to send out such thoughts which will not enhance the quality of your mind!
Over this weekend, can you ‘audit’ the type of visitors who occupied your mind?

N C Sridharan
www.thetimefoundation.com
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Take charge of your senses and your life!

Ninety percent of my game is mental. It’s my concentration that has gotten me this far’
Chris Evert
Concentration will enhance our personal productivity and output. Distractions affect our concentration. Distractions need not be external. Our own mind can divert the attention of our senses.

Out of our five senses, we need to mainly take care of our eyes and ears. Instead of allowing our mind to control our senses, we should control of our mind so that we see and hear what is to be seen heard. But this will not ‘happen’ and we need to practice control like the way we practiced typing, cycling etc.
 

Do this exercise.

Choose a walking path, preferably in a park or a beach where there will not be many walking in the same pathway. Choose a song from your iPod or mobile phone and put on a hear phone. Adjust the volume to be sufficient to neutralize any other sound.

Start walking and keep focusing just three feet from your feet and decide not to look here and there. Also keep focusing all your attention on the music alone noticing every instrument.

Do this exercise consistently for three weeks gradually increasing the distance and duration of your walk. Notice what happens to you own ability to take control of your mind thus your ears and eyes!

N C Sridharan
www.thetimfoundation.com
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