“As the physically weak man can make himself strong by careful and patient training, so the man of weak thoughts can make them strong by exercising himself in right thinking.”
James Allen, As a Man Thinketh
Beyond the Quote (98/365)
The connection between careful and patient training and physical improvements is, in my estimation, much more firm than the connection with training and mental or emotional improvements. One of the main reasons for this might be that physical improvements are tangible—we can see the them, feel them, and are constantly being reminded of them. Every time we look in a mirror or take a selfie on our phone or see pictures that were posted—we are reminded.
While our formal education system has tried to make our mental progression tangible with standardized tests and grades, the problem is that it only measures limited fragments that are parts of the entirety of our mental capacity. You can measure a person’s addition progress from math class with a letter grade, sure. But how does that play out as a representative whole to a person’s entire mental domain or progression? The sampling, even across all of the general subjects in school, is too narrow to ever do that completely. And by the time we get to emotional improvements—it gets even trickier.
Emotional improvements are pretty much completely abstract and, as so, quite hard to measure. We don’t really have any happenstance reminders that indicate where we are emotionally like we do for where we are physically and mentally—it’s only something that we notice when we pause and deliberately look inwards to check. Which, if you’re like the most of us, isn’t nearly as often as how often we check in with ourselves physically or even mentally. What’s so important to realize is that just as our bodies are subject to change based on the exercise and diet we expose them to, our minds and emotions are just as malleable based on the “exercises” and “diets” we expose them too as well. It’s simply a matter of awareness and priorities.
While it’s true that each of us innately starts out at different points on the spectrum of physical, mental, and emotional wellbeing—it’s important to always remind ourselves of the malleability of each of those domains. With consistent and deliberate effort, you can positively change any one of those domains from where they are now for the better—it’s one of the beautiful adaptation capabilities of the human body.
When exposed to an environment that consists of intense physical demands—the body will adapt. It will build muscle strength, muscle endurance, and efficiency in recovery time. This way, for as long as you continue to expose your body to that environment, it will continue to become more apt and able to handle those challenges. This is how the body is programmed to respond to challenges. It whines, complains, aches, and gets sore—yes. But, it also adapts, improves, builds, and increases efficiency for the next time so that it isn’t as awful.
Of course, on the opposite end of the spectrum, if you choose to not challenge your body and deliberately keep it in a zone of comfort and couches, then your body will degenerate and downgrade. Because why would it keep musculature that isn’t being used? It inefficient and wasteful. What it will do is store some fat on your body just in case you run out of food in the future and reduce the caloric draw that big muscles demand—which, of course, is a very smart adaptation if you don’t know when your next meal will be. But, for those that do, it’s an annoying and frustrating adaptation to say the least. Well, the same principle holds true for the mind and emotions as well.
One of the reasons that formal education is so important is because it stimulates and challenges the mind so that it will expand and improve. The more mental training that you do, the more the mind will adapt. And, of course, the less mental training that you do, the more the mind will degenerate or remain confined to its current set of limited boundaries. It’s interesting to think about how problems are only problems because you haven’t expanded your thinking far enough to include the solution.
This is why people who aren’t as well educated might get stuck on lower level problems that a person with a higher education might be able to solve in a snap. It has everything to do with how much the mind has been challenged and how much it has expanded as a result. So, before you curse yourself (or your parents) for the innate mental limitations that you might have, remember that they are malleable and can be improved with careful and patient training.
What type of training, besides school, is most helpful? Reading because it’s the absorption of new information from a different perspective; problem solving because it’s the act of critical thinking; conversing because it’s the process of exchanging and improving ideas for better application; and so forth. This is why mental progression must be a personal pursuit that we each take full responsibility for. The outer boundaries of our mental capacity are only intuitively understood by us, and we are the ones who will only ever take enough long-term interest in challenging those capacities properly and to their full extent. Why would anybody else do that for us when they have their own mental capacities to worry about and challenge? It’s safe to assume they won’t.
Finally, the domain that people probably neglect the most is the emotional domain. Most people don’t spend nearly as much time trying to train their emotional states as they do their mental and physical states, which, I think is largely in part to the fact that many people never make the connection that our emotional state is something that can even be managed and improved. How would you even measure emotional progress? How can you even tell what your complete emotional status is? What “exercises” and “diets” would help the emotional domain?
Because most people don’t spend enough time with these questions, they never expand their thinking far enough to include answers that might work for them. And if you don’t spend time carefully and deliberately working to improve your emotional state, then what’s so important to realize is that, your mental and physical states will drastically suffer as a result.
This is the domain where all of the magic happens. This is the domain that determines the state you’re in when you work on the mental and physical domains. This is the domain, that is usually at the bottom of everybody’s priority list that has the potential to draw the biggest return on investment. Think about how much better your workouts go when you’re emotionally stable and present. Think about how they go when you’re upset, distracted, and unstable. Think about how much more you learn when you’re in a state of joy or contentment versus when you’re in a state of anger or frustration.
The answers, I think, speak for themselves. If you find that your emotional domain is, in fact, the domain that you’re prioritizing last, then this is your invitation to flip those priorities right upside down. The most important priorities of the day should include things like: Meditation because it’s the act of calming the emotional state and finding clarity; Writing because it’s the process of looking inward and organizing thoughts; Creating because it can get you into a state of flow and self-expression, which will heal your soul. Remember, what gets measured isn’t always important and what’s important doesn’t always get measured. It’s up to you to determine what’s really important in your life and what isn’t. Reclaim control of your domains and keep your priorities straight. I think you’ll find that it will have a profound impact across all areas of your life. Good luck.
Don't Let the Motivation Stop There...!
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