What is The Power of the Mind? 
Few people would disagree that the power of the mind is immense but what powers does the mind actually have? Our mind is aware of its surroundings as well as being self-aware. Our minds can solve problems and create, as well as learn. If we take charge of it and use it to serve us, our mind can be our greatest ally. But If we let it run rampant and succumb to thoughts that don’t serve us, it can be our worst nightmare.
Thought Power
Often when people use the term mind power what they are actually referring to is thought power. Choice Theory recognises thoughts as behaviours, that we are totally responsible for. Our thinking and our actions directly impact our feelings and our physiology.
Change Our Thoughts Change Our Life
Mindpower, or thought power, is one of the strongest and most important powers we possess. Our thoughts impact our feelings and our physiology so it is vital that: –
- we are aware of our thoughts
- we acknowledge that thoughts are subjective (we create them out of our perceptions)
- we take responsibility for our thoughts
- we accept that we have the ability to change our thoughts
- we consistently work to create thoughts that serve us better
Neuroplasticity is the ability our brain has to create new neural pathways. When we repeat a thought or an action we strengthen the neural networks that represent that behaviour. Old thoughts and behaviours are like well-worn paths that are habitual for us. Creating new neural pathways is challenging because it is like hacking out a new track through a forest. Unless we make those changes, however, we will never change our life.
Visualisation Is Not Enough
Thinking and acting go hand in hand when we want to create something new and exciting, or even when we simply want to keep travelling on an upward trajectory. Similar changes may happen physically in the brain whether we perform an action, or just visualise it. High achievers often spend considerable time visualising their success, but they also spend considerable time practising their skills. Top writers write, top business people do business and top actors act. If we want to realise our dreams into our 3D world we have to take action as well as use the power of our mind.
A Fixed Mindset
If we have a fixed mindset we believe that our character, intelligence, and abilities are set and that we can’t change them in any meaningful way. Such limiting beliefs will obviously affect our thoughts and actions and prevent us from changing our lives in ways that go outside of our mindset. As children, if we were told that we were uncoordinated, untidy, unartistic or countless other criticisms and judgements, we will likely carry these labels through life unless we are aware of them and work to change our thinking. Having the ability to this creates a growth mindset that is much more expansive and will provide us with many more opportunities in life and much more control over our life.
Failure Can Be A Form Of Learning
If as children we were lucky enough to have had insightful parents, they would have viewed our mistakes and failures as a necessary part of our growth, and supported us in figuring out new and better ways to deal with situations. As adults few of us have the benefit of a workplace with the same perception or expectation. It is important that we don’t replicate that standard in our own mind as it can be a powerful barrier to growth. A growth mindset thrives on challenge and doesn’t interpret failure or mistake-making as evidence that the judgements and criticisms of us by ourselves and others are correct. A growth mindset adopts realistically positive thoughts about ourselves, our capabilities, our challenges and our potential.
Stay Aware
If new information resonates with us we can generally take it on board quite easily. Unfortunately, it is also easy to slip back into old pathways because they are so familiar to us.
If you’re serious about using the power of your mind to improve your life, especially if you’re struggling, sign up for our free report: The #1 reason why you’re Stressed, Anxious or Unhappy.
To the power of your mind.
Deb🌻
Many thanks to you for sharing such an excellent article with us .The importance of the power of the mind is very much the operation of our life and our thoughts and our loved ones have a direct impact on our emotions and our anatomy.That is why thinking is our most powerful and important force.If I fail in any of my life activities, I hold on tightly to the power of my mind to maintain my confidence and a positive mindset. I use the power of mind to succeed in my life.
The mind is really a powerful and a very formidable tool and weapon depending on how you put it to use. Everything happening around us is as a result of the thoughts of others or ourselves. We have the power to change the outcome of some certain things if only we could understand how the mind works and act on it. When failure brings anxiety, this anxiety could be funnelled into something useful by understanding when it gives us warnings about similar occurrence which resulted in failure in the first place. Thanks for this great enlightenment article.
Thanks 🙂 I appreciate your reply and while I agree with most of it I am not so sure about all of it. I do not know if everything around us is a result of thoughts. I do believe that we benefit so much by understanding how the mind works and working to take charge of it for our benefit and others. Thank you for reading 🙂
I have recently realized the power of the mind when I started writing affirmations every single day for about a month or so and could actually see so many positive changes in my life.
I standby everything in this article and positive thinking can bring some real positive changes in life.
First of all thank you so much for sharing such an excellent article with us .The power of the mind is something that has played a very effective role in changing my whole life .My thoughts and actions have had a direct impact on my emotions and anatomy .Mind power is my most powerful and important power. Because mind power influences my thoughts, feelings and anatomy it is vital, I think, if I have a fixed mindset, that I focus on changing it into a growth mindset.The power of the mind is a force that affects our whole life, and I think that through your article, everyone will realize it and will certainly share their new feelings with you. And I also hope that our lives can be changed by changing our thinking .
Thank you Shanta I hope so too.
The power of the mind cannot be underestimated and it is one thing that we have complete control of in most cases, barring some sort of disorder that some do suffer from. Most people tend not to spend much time effectively using their minds to change their lives for the better, unfortunately.
As a person who has been around for quite some time now on this earth (I am 63), and based on my own experiences and observing people around me over the years, I have to say you are spot on with your analysis…Those that tapped into the power and took action were able to do wondrous things in their selected areas of focus.
The choice theory sounds very similar to psychotherapy we used to call the Rational-Emotive Therapy. This postulated that we control our emotions and can choose how to react to that which happens around us. Reacting in a more positive manner will help you deal with anything, and can turn a negative into a positive. This, in turn, leads to more positive results in other areas of your life. Thought-provoking post, thanks much for putting it together. We all need a post like this once in a while!
Thanks for your generous reply, very much appreciated. The part of Rational-Emotive therapy you mentioned is similar to Choice Theory. Choice Theory however, goes a lot deeper into areas like our basic needs and quality world pictures. Being away of these things give us the ability to build our life in a way that truly satisfies and sustains us.
Hi Deb, great post. Very reasoned and insightful perspective. I particularly liked your views around visualisation not being enough. For many years now we have been told that postive thinking, positive affirmations and visualisation allow us to do or learn new things. Unfortunately this school of thought does not take into account that often the brain cannot act on a totally new or abstract concept – it needs to be able to see, hear or do the particular activity first to have a baseline from which to work.
For example, it you want to be a champion tennis player, you don’t just imagine it over and over and instantly it becomes true. If it were that easy, we would all be champion tennis players. You have to also go out and practice the game – how to hold the racquet, serve, backhand, forehand, etc. This builds the neural pathways much quicker than just positive affirmations because you are building a core set of data that the brain can analyse and build into your motor functions.
Ironically, if you visualise yourself as a champion tennis player, your brain may believe you are already a champion tennis player and subconsciously reduce your motivation levels to achieve this goal. This is the complete opposite result to what you were aiming for with the visualisation technique.
Thanks for your generous insightful response. I really appreciate it 🙂
I really appreciate this article. Thank you so much for sharing this great article with us.I agree with you and I think that with the power of mind many obstacles can be overcome. But sometimes I lose the power of the mind, your post helped to regain the power of my mind. One meme one day, I will sign up on the site because I want to boost my confidence, use the power of the mind to overcome all obstacles. I think the Daily Quotes section will benefit me.
Can I share this article through my social media ? I hope others will benefit.
Of course you can share it and thank you for signing up. I hope you get as much benefit as I have over the years.
You got it, our thought is our most valuable inner most strength, many atimes we fail to use this strength simple because we are not aware of its potency. Like you identify, a fixed mind set is an untrained mind that will not believe any thing else apart from stored wrong information.I think it is good I let you know I love the way you took “failure”, it should be a learning point
The mind, Despite not always being the easiest thing to control, the human mind is the most powerful weapon that anybody will ever have. It is a weapon that can either lead you to the life that you envision, or a weapon that can break you into a million pieces. At every living moment, it is your hand on the trigger that controls the life that you are going to live. Thanks allot for sharing this awesome article I know it would help a lot.
Thank you, I appreciate the way you acknowledge that our mind can be like a weapon that has the ability to break us into a million pieces if we don’t take control of it. I have certainly experienced this in my life.
Such an interesting article about the power of the mind. Many people don’t realise just how powerful the mind really is. Consequently they don’t pay attention to what they are thinking and thus don’t understand that changing their thoughts really can change their lives. You have summed it up beautifully in specifying that whilst visualisations are important, taking action is equally so. Being open to new ideas, moving out of your comfort zone and changing your mindset will all go a long way to improving your life. There is no such thing as failure … only feedback. Great article, thank you for sharing.
Wow! This is amazing! Thank you for sharing this article, I admire th part that you talked about thinking and acting; for me, It’s also the power of the mind that makes a person acts according to what he is thinking because your thoughts is the the basics that form you.
Thanks!
For a very long time, I thought the road to happiness in life is quite linear – if you get what you want, then you’ll be happy. It felt like that until the day I realized it wasn’t. At that point, I decided on two things – I could stick with my old mindset and sulk OR I could slowly change my mind, accept the fact and adapt to a new way of thinking and doing things. Thankfully I choose the latter because that really gave me a new focus in life and pull me out of plunging into depression.
I really enjoyed reading this article about The power of the mind and thanks a lot for sharing it with us and for all the useful explanation gievn.
Your post helped me find out a lot of new things and for me it’s the first time I read about neuroplasticity that is the ability our brain has to create new neural pathways. I really liked the part with failure can be a form of learning and I totally agree with you. Every mistake we make is a lesson in life and makes us much more mature and cautious. I believe that our mind grows with every mistake and develops around them. Thanks a lot for your work and i really hope to see more article of yours because it seems to be very interesting.
As we know that Our thinking and our actions directly impact our feelings and our physiology. Now I know the power of our mind while reading your article. Your article is very helpful to set a positive mindset. A growth mindset adopts realistically positive thoughts about ourselves, our capabilities, our challenges and our potential. I use the power of mind to succeed in my life.
Hi there!
Many thanks for the nice post. Your post is full of new thought.
You have posted about the power of mind. Thought power and will power can give one a better future. For making the change we should have better mind power. We should have a goal or aim. We also can make mindset in various aim. Thus success can come to us. In this path we can be successful to reach the goal of life. I have learn about the effect of fixed mindset. I totally agree with you that failure is the pillar of success.
thank you again for the nice and informative review. I will share it with my friends.
Now I know many new thing while knowing about the power of our mind. We have the power to change the outcome of some certain things if only we could understand how the mind works and act on it. The choice theory sounds very similar to psychotherapy we used to call the Rational-Emotive Therapy. I will share it with my friends on social media. I already bookmarked for future updates.