“Your mind will answer most questions if you learn to relax and wait for the answer.” — William S. Burroughs
The human mind is a remarkable supercomputer, yet it often feels like we were never given the mind’s user manual on how to harness its full potential. There are certain mind tricks that, if you learn, will make you feel like a genius.
In another mindblowing episode of the Life Coach Code podcast, we sat together with Matt Sturgess, a productivity coach and business expert with over 10 years of experience and research on the mysterious workings of the mind.
Over 10 years of studying the mind, Matt came up with the Mind’s User Manual and shares with us couple of mind tricks that you can use to unleash more of your mental potential and cognitive capabilities.
In this article, we will share the takaways of the podcast and the 12 mind tricks that will help you unleash more of your mental potential.
Who is Matt Sturgess?
He is also one of the coaches that will talk on The Superhuman Summit 2023, on the day of The Mind or 12th of November.
The Superhuman Summit is a 4 day virtual event that dives deep into each of the 4 fundamental pillars The Spirit, The Mind, The Body, The Heart, to help you uncover the 4 superpowers that are hidden within.
It’s happening from 11th till 14th of November.
What makes this event truly exceptional is the lineup: 25+ renowned coaches and experts, offering workshops, panels, networking opportunities, and incredible FREE gifts
These experts typically charge a minimum of $1000 to work with them, BUT you’ll gain access to work with them for less than 40$.
Mind’s User Manual: 12 Mind Tricks to Unleash Your Hidden Mental Potential
The mind is a fascinating mystery.
We go about our lives with this extraordinary tool, carrying it on our shoulders, but the majority of us don’t know how to make the most of it.
It’s like you have a supercomputer but you only use it as a calculator or to play Minesweeper.
And the greatest irony is that our greatest superpower, this supercomputer, tends to be the reason why so many of us struggle and live miserable lives.
Because we don’t know how to use it, we let it run automatically and it creates chaos that translates as stress, anxiety, worry, overthinking, feeling powerless, confused, irrational…
It’s ridiculous!
How to Unleash Your Hidden Mental Potential?
Think about it.
You have a supercomputer more powerful than any computer we have ever invented, and you cannot even use it to find ways to pay your bills.
And on top of that, is the reason for most of your problems and suffering!
How can this be possible?
2 Reasons!
First, you are distracted and unaware of directing your mind.
Second, you don’t have the mind’s user manual, you don’t know how to use it.
In a world where we’re bombarded with distractions and stressors, understanding how our minds work is the key to unlocking our hidden mental potential.
In this article, we will give you a piece of this user manual in a form of 12 easy to use mind tricks so you can unleash more of your hidden mental potential.
First, let’s understand how the mind actually works…
Mind’s User Manual: Harnessing the Reticular Activation System (RAS)
Our mind perceives around 11 million bits of information every second, but our conscious mind can process only 40 to 50 bits per second.
What this means is that from 11 million puzzle pieces, your mind needs to find the 40 to 50 most important ones, EVERY SECOND.
What if I throw at you 11 pieces of a puzzle, every second, and you must find the 40 to 50 most important ones to put together so you can construct the right image that exact second?
Pretty insane task, won’t you say?
If only there was a system or a tool that can make this easier for your mind… well, there is one!
It’s called the Reticular Activation System or RAS.
The RAS is like your mind’s spotlight, deciding what information is vital to process from the vast pool of data around us.
It shapes your reality based on what it focuses on.
What determines what it will focus on are your biases, beliefs, emotions, sensory input, etc.
These mechanisms evolved over millions of years to help the mind choose the right pieces of data from the reality around you so you can better survive and reproduce.
So let’s explore each of them…
Mental Biases:
The human mind is incredibly efficient at taking shortcuts (for obvious reasons, I mean try the 11 million puzzle pieces per second exercise and see if you would not become master at shortcuts in a span millions of years).
It employs over 200 known biases that streamline our perception of reality, making it less complex for the mind to process the vast data pool of the world around us.
Understanding these biases allows us to comprehend how our perception is tweaked to suit the mind’s needs.
Beliefs:
The belief cycle is a powerful force in shaping your reality.
Your beliefs fine tune your RAS, which then perceives the information that aligns with those beliefs.
Many of our core beliefs are formed during our early years, up to age seven.
Beyond this point, the mind can reason and choose what to believe and what to discard.
Emotions:
Emotions significantly impact our thought patterns.
The mind clings to negative, fear based, and insecure experiences like Velcro, while positive experiences slip away like melted butter on Teflon.
This means we’re wired to notice negativity more easily, requiring more effort to focus on positive things.
How to Take The Remote Controller Back in Your Hands?
These mechanisms have the remote controller that tunes what channel of reality you are going to watch on your mental TV.
But what if you can take the remote controller back in your hands?
It’s akin to changing the channel on your TV.
And you can do that by becoming aware and changing your focus.
By altering your focus and guiding your RAS, you can reshape your reality.
This system can be influenced by giving it the images you want it to focus on, creating a similar desired reality.
12 Mind Tricks to Unleash Your Hidden Mental Potential:
1. Positive Negatives
You cannot think your way into NOT thinking.
What does this mean?
You know the famous exercise, try not to think of a pink elephant…
And there you are, thinking about the pink elephant trying not to think about.
Our mind struggles with negations.
When we try not to think about something, we inevitably end up thinking about it.
The very act of trying not to conjure that image means you’re still thinking about it.
This occurs because our mind follows the commands it receives.
What we focus on is what we subconsciously instruct our mind to pick from the world around us. In other words, the mind doesn’t understand “no” when you give it an image, the image itself is a command.
The mind is continually serving us, it’s our most faithful servant.
But we’re often giving it the wrong commands.
Consider a penalty shot in sports.
If you focus on not missing the shot, your mind creates an image of you missing, and your reticular activation system (RAS) begins to work on making that image a reality.
The problem is that it’s much easier to command your mind with negatives. That’s why forcing yourself to think positive is always harder than thinking negative.
We have a negativity bias and whenever we say “don’t” it’s much smoother for our mind to follow orders rather than when we say “do”.
But here’s the trick: you can use this to your advantage by using “positive negatives.”
For example, instead of telling yourself not to think about bad stuff, tell your mind not to think about good stuff.
Don’t think about a moment you felt really happy and excited.
Don’t think about succeeding.
Don’t think about scoring that penalty shot.
By doing so, your mind will focus on the positive anyway.
2. Think About 3 Things You are Thankful About
The world is abundant with things to be happy about.
A shocker, right?
If you watch the news this is a shocker indeed.
Why? Because the news focuses 100% on the 0.1% of the negativity from the world.
And, for your RAS, that 0.1% becomes the material it constructs your reality from.
Meaning, if there are million bricks, but I give you the thousand bricks covered with poo, the house that you will build from them will smell bad.
There are so many things around you that are not in your conscious awareness right now that you can be happy and thankful for, that you probably don’t believe me when I am saying it to you right now.
Just remember how you feel now before I list some of these things…
Ok…
You have internet. You can read, and you are reading this on some device that’s probably more powerful than what a rocket going to the moon was, just few years ago. You ate today. There are over trillion processes happening in your body every second with a sole purpose to help you stay alive and well.
And you don’t need to move a finger for that.
Being thankful for our health, the roof over our heads, and the nourishing food on our table reminds us of life’s essentials. Moreover, the support and companionship of friends and family, the opportunities to learn and grow, and the ability to make a positive impact in the world all provide reasons for gratitude and happiness.
The warm, sunny day, the comforting embrace of a loved one, or the laughter of a child, all that can fill our hearts with joy. We can find happiness in the beauty of nature, from the colors of Autumn to the tranquility of a serene forest in Summer.
There is someone thinking about you, with a heart full of love and wishing you all the best. There are people waking up every day, in 5 am, to prepare a freshly baked bread for you.
How do you feel now?
Lighter?
The list is truly endless, and it’s a practice to remind our minds to focus on these sources of joy and appreciation in our daily lives.
Every night before sleep think about 3 things that you are thankful for.
Forcing your mind to think about 3 things you are thankful for will slowly train your RAS to start perceiving the happy details from around you.
It’s not that these things don’t exist, it’s that your mind was not evolved to focus on them.
So you have to train it a little bit.
And before you sleep it’s the best period for that.
3. Deep Work
Your mind can perform at superhuman levels when you learn to harness its focus and concentration.
We cannot multitask and give our best performance at the same time.
Every new activity that you do takes around 20 minutes from your time to make the mind fully focused on it.
That’s why focusing on one thing for a longer period of time or until you finish a certain task, is key to unleash the full potential of your cognitive capabilities.
Deep work, where you concentrate solely on one task in a designated workplace with no distractions, can lead to remarkable results.
Taking short breaks and staying engaged by finding meaning in your mission or purpose can enhance productivity.
The most important ingredient is to give yourself a time limit to finish the task.
You have no idea how much you can accomplish in just few hours by giving yourself a time limit.
The mind can stretch your tasks for years if you allow it.
But this mechanism works the other way around, so harness it.
4. Use Humor for Problem Solving
When you worry about things, your IQ drops 10 to 15 points.
Unless you are Einstein, me and you cannot afford that.
When you get stressed, the strength of your immune system decreases.
In other words, worrying and stressing when problems arise are not in any way productive nor helpful options.
A powerful tool to help you find solutions faster is comedy and humor.
It’s all about where you direct the blood flow in your brain.
When your mental state gets higher and you are more positive, there is more blood flow into the important places of your brain that are responsible for problem solving and creativity.
So when you have a problem to deal with, instead of worrying and stressing, try to joke about it.
Make jokes with friends, it doesn’t have to be about the problem itself but it can help.
Do that while being focused and open for your mind to generate possible solutions.
You will be shocked how much better your mind works when you laugh instead of stress.
5. The Formula of Happiness
By anticipating things that will make you happy, your body produces dopamine.
This means that more often than not, you feel much happier when anticipating the things that will make you happy rather then when you are doing the things that make you happy.
Strange right?
But think about it…
When do you feel happier?
Before you go on a vacation when you plan and think about all the fun activities that you will do, as each day approaches?
Or on the vacation itself?
I know for me that I feel much happier in the anticipation of the happy and fun things.
So, knowing that the world is abundant of things you can be happy about, and knowing that the science of happiness says that you are the happiest when you are anticipating the things that will make you happy… put these 2 facts together and what do you get?
The formula to happiness!
Have daily practices to remind your mind that there are so many things to be happy about and choose few of them to do it tomorrow, during, or at the end of the day.
Every day you can have small activities, things you can do, foods you can eat that make you happy and that your mind can anticipate.
Sprinkle this with the fact that your mind loves novelty, and try to do novel things each week.
It will make your mind additionally happy and excited to anticipate to do something new each week.
Another thing you can do is to focus on the details of the things that make you happy.
What are some similar songs like the one you love listening to right now?
What is a new sensation of that chocolate that you didn’t sense before?
Can you find a new color looking at that beautiful forest, one that you didn’t notice before?
6. Get Rid of Anxiety By Focusing On It
Anxiety can create a vicious feedback loop: when you have anxiety, your RAS focuses on things that make you anxious and reinforce it, so you are anxious and you focus on more things that make you anxious.
To get rid of anxiety or at least lower its impact is to break this vicious loop.
One trick to lower anxiety is to focus on the physical sensations within your body.
Where do you feel the anxiety?
How does it feel?
Can you describe it and can you sense how it moves, ebbs and flows?
Focus on that.
By changing your focus, you can reduce anxiety’s grip because you are breaking the cycle.
Your RAS doesn’t focus on things to make you more anxious, but on the sensations and where they appear in your body.
7. Demolish Fear By Naming It
Fear can also be made less impactful with a hilarious trick.
Do you know what’s the main reason why we are most afraid?
Because our fears are not that clearly defined.
They are usually hidden within this cloud of darkness that we don’t even want to peak in.
Whatever you are afraid of, think about it, it’s like a monster looking from the shadows of your mind, you cannot always clearly see it.
If it’s a spider, you make spiders look like terrifying monsters in your mind.
Public speaking, a disease, heights, small places, even darkness itself.
You have a name for this fear but most likely you haven’t really explored WHAT within that truly scares you. What are you REALLY afraid of?
The moment you clearly define your fears they lose their strong impact.
So good, you can use that in your benefit.
You can give your fear a definition that makes it seem less scary.
You can give it a funny name.
By assigning it humorous names and characteristics, your fear will seem less scary.
This approach humanizes fear, making it less daunting, as it often stems from the lack of clear definition as we said.
Whenever you see a spider, call it Roger, or Steve.
Give it a funny backstory.
And observe how your fear fades away.
8. Don’t Worry, Be Present
Worry often consumes our minds, affecting our overall well being.
And it’s automatic, right?
It’s not your fault.
The world around us is designed to put you into a state of worry.
But no one is in control of your mind.
One method to get rid of worry, almost instantly, is to bring your awareness to the present moment by asking two questions:
“Where am I right now?”
Look at your feet, where do you stand, what are your surroundings…
And then ask yourself,
“Do I have a problem right here and now?”
Worry often stems from overthinking about the past, or stressing about some unlikely future that will most likely not even happen the way you think.
The second question will remind you that the problems you are worrying about are not here.
And if they are here, it will remind you to take constructive action from the present moment.
These questions redirect your focus and alleviate worry.
9. Understand The Types of Communication
Everyone experiences the world in their own unique way.
When we try to communicate with others, we often try to explain ourselves through the lens that we experience the world and don’t really focus on the lens that the other person is perceiving the world through.
This can often lead to misunderstanding or at least, to not connecting with that person on a deeper level.
There are 3 types of communication: Visual, Auditory, and Kinesthetic.
The visual group, the people who experience the world mostly through images, often communicate by using phrases like “I see that…”, “Picture this…”
The auditory group, the people who experience the world mostly through sound and music, often communicate by using phrases like “Sounds fun…”, “This sounds suspicious…”
The kinesthetic group, the people who experience the world mostly through touch and feelings, often communicate by using phrases like “Feels like…”, “Something feels off…”
By focusing on certain keywords while someone speaks, you can easily understand their style of communication and their way of perceiving the world.
By knowing in what of these 3 groups someone fits, you can adjust your way of communicating your ideas to make them understand them better.
For example, if you try to sell something to someone who is kinesthetic, do not speak about how that thing looks, but explain how they will feel when they use that thing.
It will be far more effective form of communication, even more effective than going through all the details and facts why getting that thing it’s a smart option for them.
10. Unlocking Telepathy
Believe it or not, some form of telepathy exists, especially among people who share a strong mental bond.
This communication occurs through the electromagnetic field and thought transference between minds.
In order to test this, try to send a mental image to your partner.
Think about something you would like for dinner for example, while they are in the store, and think about sending that information into their mind.
Additionally, understanding and adjusting to different communication styles, such as visual, auditory, and kinesthetic, can enhance your connections with others.
So, knowing what group of communication your partner fits in can also increase to transfer this message more effectively.
Scientifically this is not proven yet, but I urge you to try it yourself. There have been many cases when it worked.
11. No More Procrastination
In order to stop procrastinating you need to make the task you want to do as easy as possible.
Procrastination is not about the task itself, it’s about the idea that we have about the task.
We usually overestimate the amount of work or effort we need to do something.
Making a task as easy as possible will take that effect away.
For example, if you need to exercise, put all your clothes for gym inside your bag the day before.
Another thing you can do is put inside your mind the picture of the desired outcome.
Give your RAS an image of all the beautiful things that come after you finish the task.
Imagine how you will look and feel after the exercise is done.
And finally, start small.
If you need to do 50 push ups, tell yourself let’s do 5.
Chunk down the task, and focus on 1 tiny step at a time.
So, to destroy procrastination, make it as easy and convenient as possible, picture the result and focus on the first tiny step.
That’s just the first part.
The second part is where discipline comes in.
And time.
Make sure to give yourself a time limit, a schedule, and be consistent.
Doing something for longer than 22 days makes it a new habit.
Doing something for longer than 60 days makes it an automatic habit.
Doing something for longer than 90 days makes it a habit that’s much easier to do than NOT to do.
12. The Google of The Mind
The mind remembers everything.
Everything!
It’s just that some memories are stored deep into your subconsciousness.
The conscious mind accesses memories and information that are useful to use at the moment and place where we are conscious from.
For example, become aware of the fact that you are conscious right now.
Ok…
Great…
What is in your conscious awareness?
Great!
Now think about what did you eat yesterday for dinner?
You see, now that information came into your conscious awareness.
You were not conscious of that information before I asked you, but it was there, within your subconscious mind.
So when you needed to get access to it, your conscious mind acquired the access to that exact information.
There are memories the conscious mind can access and some cannot be accessed for different reasons.
Sometimes we need extra help, for example a therapist using hypnosis to help us remove all the blocks and firewalls that prevent us accessing certain information.
But ALL information is stored.
All knowledge is stored.
And your mind can use that knowledge and memories to generate brilliant solutions and answers to your questions.
But you need to know how to ask of it…
You need to know how to use the Google of your mind.
One technique you can do is to literally imagine your mind like a Google Search Bar.
Relax, take few deep breaths, picture the mental Google, and imagine typing your prompt into that mental search bar, see it being written there.
Maybe you want to remember something you were excited about yesterday but forgot what it was…
Maybe you want to find a solution for a problem in your business that you are currently facing…
Whatever it is…
Write the prompt as specific as possible in the mental Google and click search.
This is the most important part, click search, and leave your mind to search.
When you search your computer, you are not forcing it to find the answers as soon as possible, you click search and you leave it.
Do the same with the mental supercomputer.
Click search and focus on something else entirely.
Go by with your day.
It might take longer than finding a file on your computer because your mind is far bigger and much more complex…
It might take few hours, even a day…
But the answer will surface in your mind when you least expect it.
It works 100% of the time if you do it right!
Try this.
Let me know if you managed.
Best time to try is morning or evening before sleeping.
What You Should Remember?
The mind is a powerful tool that can transform you into a superhuman when you know how to use it effectively.
It can give you access to any door in life.
The twelve mind tricks, from managing focus to mastering emotions and using the Google of the mind, offer a roadmap to unleashing your hidden mental potential.
By understanding and applying these tricks from the mind’s user manual, you can take control of your mind and shape the reality you desire.
But everything that we spoke in this article is just a glimpse of your mind’s full superhuman potential!
Join us on the Superhuman Summit this November to discover how to work with Matt, unlock the full potential of your mind, and unleash all of your 4 superpowers.
🌟 🎫 Grab your ticket now before they sell out!
