Look in the mirror and you can either see your best friend or your worst enemy. You either master your mind or you will be mastered by it.

 If you master your mind, you will become more focused, less reactive, and happier. There's an old African proverb that says, “When there is no enemy within, the enemy outside can do you no harm.” It doesn't matter what's going on outside if we have inner peace inside. That is the meaning of being the master of your mind. No matter what is going on in our lives, we have a choice of how to deal with it. You can allow your mind to control you and tell you how bad a situation is or how mad/sad/scared you are, but that doesn't help you find a solution for the problem. Einstein said, “We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.”

 You'd rather solve your problems than make them worse, wouldn't you? If you master your mind, then you'll be able to solve them with more ease! Think about walking to your car that's parked on the street and seeing a police officer writing you a ticket. You have two options, get angry and yell at the cop or approach him/her in a calm/collect manner to explain your situation. Which option do you normally take? Which one is more effective? You may or may not be able to talk them out of the ticket, but if use a calm approach with a clear head, you're more likely to have a positive outcome, aren't you? I bet you're starting to think of times that you chose both options and starting to realize how mastering your mind leads to better outcomes.

Viktor Frankl, a psychologist that survived the holocaust, has a great quote, “The last of human freedoms - the ability to chose one's attitude in a given set of circumstances.” This was a man that was seeing some of the world's worst atrocities and noticed the people that survived all had a different attitude from the rest. He also noticed that once a person's attitude changed towards life, they would die within a few days. Of course, luck went into it but the survivors learned to master their minds. Such harsh conditions were too much for people mastered by their own minds.

 Big or small, I bet you're noticing, now, all the times you were able to master your mind. Everyone is more than capable. It's important to be aware of it and work on it every day. The mind wants to stay in its comfort zone, it wants to keep you safe, and tries to take the path of least resistance. That's what it's programmed to do. We anyways have the choice to listen to it or do what we know is right and better for us in the long run. No matter your discomfort level or how difficult something is, you can do the right thing. Doing the right thing is often hard, but it's even harder to live a stagnant life without purpose, isn't it?

 Change may take some time so give yourself some grace! Here are 3 things to help master your mind:

1. Meditate consistently.

2. Do something you don't like that's good for you (ie cold shower) consistently.

3. Keep a gratitude journal.

 You may start mastering your mind more and more with each day now.