Mastering the Mind: 5 Powerful Ways to Conquer Your Brain

The greatest battle that you will fight in this life will not be against another person.  Rather, it will be against yourself.  You will spend your life battling your mind.  It will be an endless battle in which you will fight against a brain that wants you to do and say stupid, immature things.  So, to be happy and successful in life, you have to conquer that crazy mind of yours and instead act with wisdom. 

I know plenty of folks who struggle either personally or professionally (or both).  And they all have the same problem:  They have not conquered their minds.  So, they’re undisciplined.  They may be messy.  Or, they may have a poor work ethic.  Or, they may abuse alcohol, smoke cigarettes or eat to excess. 

Some folks who haven’t conquered their minds have weak personal ethics.  So, they go through life saying and doing terrible things that hurt others.  And as a result, their lives are a mess. 

So, mastering your mind is important.  Realize that if you don’t conquer your brain, you will not have a life of happiness and ease.  Instead, you’ll spend your life going from one self-created mess to another.

Below are five ways to conquer your brain by developing your self-discipline and your self-control.  Follow these powerful approaches, and see how much happier and more successful you can be!

First, Become Self-Aware

One of the reasons why we fail to conquer brains is that we don’t know what it is that we need to conquer!  That takes self-awareness.  To be successful in life, we don’t just need to be aware of our qualities.  We also need to be aware of the areas of our personalities that need work.

I know plenty of people who can readily tell you where they excel in life.  But strangely, they can’t identify their faults.  And the funny thing is that their faults are readily apparent to their family members, friends and colleagues.  Unfortunately, they lack the self-awareness required to know where they need to improve.

So, your first step on the path to conquering your mind is self-awareness.  That means gaining an understanding of who you are – both your positive and negative attributes.  It’s only with that knowledge that you can hone in on where you need to improve.

One important way to figure out your negative qualities is simply to pay attention to your effect on others.  If you create stress for other people, or if you upset people, then you need to take a hard look at yourself and figure out why.  Because therein lie your faults.

So, if you exhaust people, you may be selfish or demanding.  Alternatively, if people are upset by your comments, you may be insensitive or rude.  And if folks avoid you, it may be that you have anger management issues.

Similarly, there’s value in being aware of the ways in which your life isn’t working.  For instance, if you are in financial straits, you may have an over-spending issue.  And if you can’t hold down a job for any length of time, there may be an issue with your work ethic.  Or you may have a manners issue, and people don’t like to work with you.

It’s only when we are self-aware enough to know our faults that we then can conquer them!  So, work on being self-aware.  Figure out your faults, and then conquer those personality and character issues!

Learn to Regulate Your Emotions

Part of conquering your brain is conquering our emotional responses.  That means responding to people and situations based on our wisdom rather than our emotions. 

We all know that small children are emotionally unregulated. They do and say whatever flies into their heads.  That’s because they’re ruled by their emotions.  And we accept their behavior because they’re little. 

But when adults do and say whatever flies into their heads, well, “Houston, we have a problem.”  When adults lack that kind of self-control, then they have an emotional immaturity issue that needs to be conquered.

Realize that part of conquering ourselves involves conquering our emotional reactions.  Now, I’m not suggesting that you can conquer your emotions or stop having them.  That isn’t possible.  Feelings happen.   Emotions happen.  That’s just part of being a human being.

However, what we want to do is conquer our emotional responses.  Because our emotional responses are typically unproductive.  For example, ranting and carrying on is an unproductive behavior.  Similarly, saying hurtful, cruel things also is an unproductive behavior. 

The good news is that there are a couple of practical things that you can do to conquer and eliminate your unproductive emotional responses.  One practical thing you can do is to walk away from any argument.  When we argue, our comments are fueled by our emotions, and as a result, we don’t say anything that’s wise. 

I can assure you that there is no argument that is worthwhile.  Calm discussions are worthwhile.  Arguments are a profound waste of time.  In my own life, every argument that I’ve ever had has been time wasted. That’s because every argument that I’ve had has been about unleashing emotions rather than trying to solve a problem with wisdom.

A second practical approach to controlling your emotional responses is to regulate your behavior based on the Embarrassment Factor.  The next time you are about to say or do some crazy thing fueled by your emotions, ask yourself this question: “Would I want my friends and family members to know what I’m doing or saying in this moment?  Would I want my colleagues to know what I’m doing or saying in this moment?”  If the answer to that question is “No,” then stop whatever you are doing or saying! 

Realize that nothing that you do or say in this life is private.  Anything you say to another person (or do to another person) has the potential to become public.  So, if you fear being publicly embarrassed by your emotional behavior, then don’t do it!

A third very practical approach to emotional regulation is to give up alcohol (or any other drugs).  People enjoy alcohol because it decreases their inhibitions.  But the problem is that our inhibitions are what keep us from saying and doing things that are fueled by our emotions and that are unwise.  Better to give up alcohol and control your emotional responses!

So, to conquer yourself, it’s important to conquer your unproductive emotional responses.  The good news is that when you do so, you will more wisely respond to people and situations, and your life will be significantly easier!

Develop Your Self-Discipline

When we haven’t conquered our minds, we lead undisciplined lives.  For instance, we may exercise and eat proper food only when our health has become a crisis.  Or we may clean up our homes only when they are so messy that we just can’t take it anymore.  If we don’t conquer our minds, we end up creating lots of problems for ourselves. And then we spend our lives in a never ending loop of fixing the problems that we’ve created!

We stop creating our own problems when we conquer ourselves through self-discipline.  Realize that emotionally mature adults are disciplined.  As a result, they have positive daily habits that allow their lives to run smoothly. 

For instance, I try to be very disciplined with respect to my health.  So, I exercise for one hour every day.  That takes self-discipline!  But that habit pays off.  It allows me to remain agile and vital, even as I age.

Similarly, I’m very careful with my diet.  I don’t drink alcohol, and I don’t eat meat or food full of preservatives.  And that allows me to be healthier and avoid many diet-related illnesses.

Now, would I rather sit and read a book rather than do an hour of exercise each day?  Well, of course!  And would I love to eat cake and cookies all day?  Absolutely!  But I’ve chosen to be self-disciplined.  And my self-discipline allows me to stay healthy so that I hopefully can avoid a health crisis in the future.

I can assure you that my good habits are hard fought.  To have good health habits, I’ve had to conquer my mind.  I don’t allow myself to succumb to the temptation of laziness or poor dietary habits. Instead, I’ve mentally decided that my physical health is my top priority, and I choose to be disciplined in order to have a healthy body.

So, develop your self-discipline as part of the process of conquering your mind.  Realize that the fruit of self-discipline are great habits that will make your life so much better!

Develop Patience

To be truly successful, one of the most important things that we can conquer in life is our impatience.  Realize that it takes time to accomplish anything meaningful in life.  Major accomplishments simply don’t happen overnight.  They take effort, persistence and patience.

Unfortunately, patience doesn’t come easily to most of us.  Especially in today’s society, we want what we want, and we want it NOW!  We don’t like to wait. 

And in today’s society, the reality is that you don’t have to wait for certain things.  I can order something on Amazon, and it will be at my house tomorrow.  And if I’m really anxious for that item, I probably can drive to the store and get it within the hour. 

But lots of things in life don’t come easily or quickly.  If you want to get a degree, that takes years.  Growing a successful business takes a lot of time – and daily effort!  Similarly, learning a second language is a lifelong pursuit.

So, to do anything meaningful in life, we have to conquer our impatience.  How do we do that?  Well, we have to care about achievement enough to want to be patient.  Now, to be fair, not everyone is interested in achievement.  The majority of the world will live and die having just puttered along through life.  And that’s fine!  There’s nothing wrong with that.  Frankly, from my point of view, if you simply go through life living responsibly and being kind to all, you’ve lived a good life.

But.  And this is a big BUT.  If you want to do something more with your life, you have to be persistent and have Patience.  Without those two qualities, you will not accomplish big things with your life. 

Anyone who has done anything big with their lives from Abraham Lincoln to Oprah has had patience.  Highly successful folks don’t give up when confronted with obstacles.  They just keep pursuing their goals, no matter what.  And they don’t fret if their desired achievements don’t happen on their timeline. 

So, to conquer yourself, conquer your impatience.  Realize that in any quest to do something great, the journey will be long.  There will be failures and setbacks along the way.  But if you are patient and hardworking, you will accomplish great things.

Live by Principles

Conquering yourself requires you to have rules by which you live.  So, it’s helpful to develop a set of Life Principles.  Your Life Principles are rules by which you live and from which you choose not to deviate. 

So, if you are a principled person, your behavior isn’t going to be dictated by your moods or emotional reactions.  Instead, your Life Principles will guide your behavior.

We all admire principled people because they are the few members of our society who truly have conquered their minds.  They are the folks whose behavior is consistent.  The way that they behave in public is the same as the way they behave in private. 

Over the years, I’ve known people who were not principled.  So, in public, they were charming and popular.  But sadly, behind closed doors, their behavior was terrible. 

People like that aren’t guided by Life Principles.  Instead, they’re guided by one rule: “What can I get away with?”  So, in public, they behave beautifully because that’s all that they can get away with and still have good careers and social standing.  But in private, they do and say whatever crappy thing flies into their heads.  That’s because, to a large extent, they can do and say whatever they want in private without consequence. 

By contrast, principled people have conquered their minds.  And as a result, their public and private behavior match.  Their Life Principles dictate both their public and private behavior.

So, if you are seeking to conquer your mind, it’s critical to adopt your own set of Life Principles. And then decide that no matter what is happening around you, you are going to abide by those principles.  So, for instance, let’s say that one of your principles is to be kind at all times.  That means that if someone is rude to you, or if you are in a bad mood, you are going to behave with kindness.  Period.    

Deciding to live by your principles is a very effective way to conquer your mind.  When you choose to live by your principles, your moods and emotions are not in control of your behavior.  Rather, you’ve decided that your Life Principles are going to dictate your behavior. 

If you are seeking to conquer your mind, consider adopting the strategies above.  By doing so, you will gradually develop mastery over your mind and your behavior.  The good news is that if your are able to conquer your mind, everything in your life will go so much more smoothly! (To read about how to stop letting your emotions rule your life, click here.)