I’ve been doing a consistent daily mindset practice since August 2015 when I took part in a week-long mindset challenge and had my entire inner world shift. That practice has changed over the years, but it has remained a habit that is now a permanent part of my lifestyle.
Here’s what my daily practice looks like:
1. Freestyle journaling first thing upon waking
What I write varies from day to day, but for the most part, I’m either venting and/or working through inner BS or I’m writing out my intentions for who I am and what I choose to believe about myself and the world.
The reason I do the freestyle practice is so I can clear out the nonsense thoughts that are going on in my subconscious. It’s also a great time to reprogram new beliefs because your subconscious is most active when you first wake up (or first go to sleep).
1A. I’ve been reading the book, The Magic, by Rhonda Byrne, and implementing her 28 days of gratitude practices. So over the past few days, I’ve added in another journaling practice that I do back-to-back with my freestyle journaling.
It’s a gratitude practice where I write out 10 things I’m grateful for and then after I read each sentence, feel the gratitude as much as possible and say, “thank you, thank you, thank you.”
If you want do try this, get a notebook and pen and keep it by your bed so you can grab it first thing upon waking to do some freestyle (and gratitude) journaling.
2. Meditation with deep, slow breathing
When I first started my daily mindset practice back in August 2015, I was awful at meditating unless it was to a guided audio. Without a guided audio, I could barely sit with my eyes closed for a few seconds without being bombarded with tons of thoughts.
But I did it anyhow. I started with some meditation music, two minutes, a timer and a focus on my breath.
I just sit there with my eyes closed and breathe in as deep as I can, then I hold it for a few seconds and slowly release. I do this over and over again until I feel a calm, inner peace overtake me. (That’s when I visualize; see step 3).
All these years later, I can meditate for 15-20 minutes without even realizing I’ve been doing it that long.
I prefer meditating for 5-10 minutes, as the longer I go, the more likely I’ll begin getting distracted. Five to 10 minutes really is the perfect amount.
Meditation, for me, is an opportunity to clear my thoughts, connect with myself and with God/Universe/Source. It’s also a time where I tune in, listen for and often receive messages, inspired ideas/actions and divine downloads.
If you’re new to this practice, guided meditation is the easiest way to get some traction. I’d start there and work your way up to meditating with just meditation music. Use a timer if it helps you to focus more.
3. Visualize myself where I want to be
Right after I finish the meditation portion of my practice, I do a short visualization where I imagine myself already being who and where I want to be in my life. I imagine what I look like and, most importantly, what I feel like.
Some days I’ll visualize specific desires I have in the moment, such as a certain goal I’m working on. But mostly I just imagine myself as happy.
In the Mike Dooley book, Playing the Matrix, he talks about how happiness is the ultimate end result, the one that includes and encompass ALL of the other desired end results we have.
So I figure if I visualize myself as happy, and imagine what that will be like and look like and feel like, then all the things I desire to help me fulfill that happiness will have to show up in my life at some point. Happiness (and feeling good!) is the real desired end result anyhow.
If you’re new to visualization, I’d definitely find a guided one to start with. That’s how I started and it helped me learn how to direct thoughts into images. Now I can visualize on my own.
4. Listen to at least one Your Hidden Mind audio
Your Hidden Mind is a memory reconsolidation and subconscious reprogramming tool that helps you eliminate bad habits and patterned ways of thinking and being that no longer serve you. I discovered this tool in January 2017 and have been using it ever since.
It has helped me end a lifetime of procrastination around my writing and creative work, rewire old patterned ways of thinking that caused me to sabotage my success, and heal from childhood traumas. I can’t recommend this tool enough.
I like to use this tool with intention. I go in knowing the specific bad habit/thought I want to put an end to, and when I choose my audio(s) for the day, I have that intention in mind.
I pull up the YHM site, I close my eyes and say, “what’s the one rap (audio) between 101 and 900 that I need to listen to today that will help me to stop [insert bad habit]?” And then whatever number comes to mind, that’s the one(s) I listen to.
Meditation is another time when your subconscious is active, and Your Hidden Mind helps reprogram your subconscious mind, so, for me, after my meditation/visualization is the best time to use this tool.
To learn more about Your Hidden Mind, go to www.youhiddenmind.com.
5. Do a Brad Yates EFT video
EFT stands for Emotional Freedom Technique (aka “tapping”) and it’s a tool that helps release old energy and stuck emotions in your subconscious. Brad Yates is my daily go-to (I also love videos from Kim Eibrink Jansen and Kai Ashley).
I will pull up YouTube, go to the search bar, type in “Brad Yates” and then when his list of videos comes up, I close my eyes and say, “what’s the one Brad Yates video I need to listen to today?”
And then I scroll, with my eyes still closed. When I feel like stopping, I stop and tap the video my finger lands on. That becomes the video I do for the day.
It’s amazing how often the video topic is an exact match to what I’m needing in the moment.
If you’ve never tried EFT, I highly recommend you do. Though it may look/seem silly, it works incredibly fast to shift your inner world and feeling state.
The reason I like to do an EFT video every day is because I know as I do all of this mindset and inner work, there are gonna be things that come up. I may be conscious of these things or I may not be, but the best way to clear them out is to use tools that help you release old stuff that no longer serves.
I almost feel like that’s kinda the whole point of doing a mindset practice every day: to clear out the old and intend and make space for the new.
This is my exact practice, and it combines clearing things out with setting intentions and then feeling those intentions as if they’ve already happened. It also includes taking advantage of the times of day when your subconscious is most active.
The more you can penetrate your subconscious with new ways of thinking and believing, the sooner you’ll be acting in new ways that are aligned with that thinking and believing. And once you begin acting as if you’re already who and where you want to be, that’s when you will be.
But it all starts in your mind.
Dream life or bust,
jen
