Day 20 Brain Juice and Unchecked Thoughts
What is brain juice?
I learned this term from Jody Moore. It basically is the amount of brain capacity that we have in a day.
There are so many real life examples of how very intelligent and effective people have shown the importance of conserving their brain capacity by eliminating choice. Steve Jobs creator of Apple wears the same thing. One google search on this will bring up all sorts of research showing the importance of keeping certain things routine and mundane so that more time cane poured into other areas.
Courtney Carver was diagnosed in 2006 with MS as an overworked stressed out mom. She decided to reduce her wardrobe to 33 pieces total to reduce stress. She has gone on to create an entire movement of turning inward for joy rather than assigning her joy to external things.
These two examples of how reducing every day choices can truly free up our minds to focus on the things that really have an impact. I think that routines are lifesavers for kids because they are taking and learning so much that having a structure they can rely on promotes great growth.
What types of thoughts clutter our minds?
Do we spend a lot of time spinning in indecision, judgement or comparison?
Do we have a script that we have written for people in our lives and expect that in order for us to be happy we need them to follow that script?
Do spend a lot of our brain juice focused on other peoples behaviour?
There was a study that looked at the parole board decisions for permitted bail. Prisoners who appeared before the board in the morning and after snack breaks had a 70% chance to getting their parole accepted to the 10% success rate of those who came later in the afternoon or right before a food break. Researchers discovered that the human mind reaches its limit and is unable to function in the same way.
Do you set yourself up for success? What about meal planning? One of the most stressful times of the day for me is when I haven’t planned dinner and I go back and forth from the fridge to the pantry trying to figure out what to make. With 20 min of meal planning before going to the grocery store (we need to go to the grocery store anyway) we have reduced a great deal of stress. Funny and true story, my friends dad ate the exact same meal every Monday for his entire childhood. In fact, his mom made the same 7 meals every week. Her grocery shopping, budget and preparation time required a lot less mind juice.
What do you think you could do differently to create more brain juice? What simplifications could you make? What routines could you create? What new habits could you adapt?
What would you like to do with all of that new found time that you will have because you are saving so much time?
UNCHECKED THOUGHTS
I wanted to mention this here so that you can see how much mind juice can be saved in this area. As I have mentioned we can have between 60000-90000 thoughts a day. Of those thoughts, how many do you think are true? Here are some random examples that may or may not be from my life…
-‘He is looking at me funny, maybe I have something on my shirt’
-‘I am surprised she is wearing that lipstick, should someone tell her not to?
-‘Floppy disks were great because they don’t scratch like DVD’s’
Now the problem with unchecked thoughts is that we may just start believing thoughts as facts. For example, I had the thought that truly good moms make homemade bread. So I worked really hard at earning enough money to buy a special mixer to make bread and then I scheduled every Monday morning to make fresh bread for my kids for about 6 years. After my 5th baby I was at the grocery store and saw a mutligrain loaf of bread for .97. At the time I had a very difficult debate about my status of ‘excellent mother’ if I served my kids store boughten bread.
It is fascinating what can happen when we realize that our thoughts are our thoughts and we can choose to believe them or not. I like to ask the question: ‘Does this thought serve me?’ And ‘Do I like my reasons’. Again, there is so much freedom at realizing that you do not have to believe all of your thoughts.
https://zoom.us/rec/share/45RKD5XqpmBJeoHc9F_ZWv8hF4DLaaa8gydK8_cMnR57FiYufprWDz1dED6dsOyA
Writing Assignment
- What do you spend a lot of your brain juice on?
2. If you could have an extra hour every day what would you do with it?
3. What do you find yourself thinking about when you have nothing to think about- where does your mind wander off too? Write it down.
4. What is one of your favourite thoughts?
5. If you could change one thought, what would it be? Could you do it?
6. I am always dreaming about the life I want. How far is the gap between the life that you want and the life that you have? How do you think you could bridge the gap and how would having more brain juice help you to get there?
