A clear mind is one that does not get carried away by what others say, it is an approach that looks at the world from above, free of noise and prejudices to make better decisions. Do you want to know how to achieve that lucidity and well-being strategy? We teach you.
If there is something that we envy regarding many people who have achieved success, it is their ability to make decisions. Beyond each other’s competence and talent 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 to have mental clarity. We are talking regarding that competence with which one is able to turn off external and internal noise in order 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 nobody trains us in this exceptional dimension; one that doesn’t even come up in self-help manuals. It is a psychological strategy of great value that reverts both in the workplace and in the relational sphere, until reaching mental health itself. Because whoever is capable of calming dysfunctional thoughts, for example, finds that internal balance with which to regain control of their life.
What if we figured out how to develop this powerful mental focus?
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”. While doing so, though, it subjects us to lingering anxiety and dissatisfaction.
Thus, 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 negatively valenced emotions, anxiety rises to excessive levels. It is then that we decide without thinking and in a hasty manner, increasing at the same time the feeling of lack of control and the probability of a psychological disorder.
It is our responsibility to educate her, to activate another, healthier approach that dispels that fog of excesses that obscures everything. In this way, 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 way to enhance our awareness of self. That is the key, let’s see how to achieve it.
1. Simplify, a simple life allows you to see the priority
Less is not only more, but it is also mental health. We have become accustomed to an existence that is often loaded with artifice and numerous stressors. We fill our schedules with numerous activities, which do not always satisfy us. The same is true of our relationships. Some people 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 life and we will find mental clarity.
2. Regulate your emotions to think better
Difficult emotions, such as anxiety, sadness, frustration or anger, are that fog that collapses the mind. Our decision-making capacity is diminished if we are dominated by negatively valenced emotions. Knowing how to regulate them will allow us to attend to reality from a calm position with which to think of the most appropriate response in each circumstance.
3. Mindfulness and calm in the here and now
We mentioned it before. An effective way to develop mental clarity is through mindfulness. What this ancestral practice achieves is training attention to focus it where it really matters: in the present moment.
In addition, this tool not only allows us to regulate stress and wandering thinking, it also gives us self-awareness, that is, 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 just to clarify these realities, you have to keep them in mind every day to maintain your mental clarity. Therefore, it will be useful to answer the following questions:
What values are the ones that 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 priority in your life? Family, work, your health? Is there something clouding those dimensions? What should you do to safeguard it?
5. Critical thinking
Do you process your reality from a critical look? Do you question what most take for granted? Do you usually analyze your own beliefs or conceptions to find out 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 questions itself and does not allow itself to be conditioned by the environment, in order to activate mental clarity and make better decisions.
Conclution
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 care for and attend to on a daily basis.
Mental clarity is like that river that flows in harmony and whose purity allows you to see the beauty of those glittering stones that are in its bed. Let us not hesitate to promote that same harmony and transparency with which to be ourselves in each step, in each vital advance.
Source: The Mind is Wonderful.-
