Daily Mindset Thought Work

Developing a practice of Daily Thought Work and a Morning Routine is a powerful way to create more abundance, calm, focus and improved relationships in your life, with yourself and others. Become more present, aware and curious about your thoughts and how they affect your life.

Transcript

You've probably heard many people talk about the importance of a morning routine and how it benefits them.

I'm Jackie Almer and today I'm sharing my daily practice and how it has changed my life.

I hope that you may find some nuggets here that work for you and change your life too.

Everything really changed for me when I began a sincere morning routine and a daily thought work process.

I've done pieces of it for years and as I like to say I've given it lip service,

Starting as far back as junior high school with a journal that was required for my English creative writing class.

I didn't totally grasp the benefit of it back then,

But I was aware how much better I felt after getting my thoughts down on paper and getting negative thoughts and emotions out of myself.

Now through the years I've done a number of things including journaling,

Affirmations,

Visualization,

Meditation,

Yoga,

And reading plenty of self-help and motivational books.

In fact in 1997 I went on a total TV news and negativity fast and I've really never picked it back up.

I rarely watch the news and I don't have any shows that I binge watch.

Now social media,

That's another story,

But I've learned how to take fasts and breaks from social media too and how to get in and get out and keep my mind and thoughts intact.

After reading Hal Elrod's book The Miracle Morning and listening to his podcast,

I got re-energized to put it all into a formula that works for me.

And it's based loosely on his SAVERS format,

S-A-V-E-R-S,

And I mix things up a little bit on some days to fit me.

Now SAVERS is an acronym that stands for Silence,

Which is basically meditation and prayer,

Affirmations,

Visualization,

Exercise,

Reading,

And the final S is Scribing or Writing and Journaling.

I call this my mindset mastery because truly that's what it is.

Now I've tracked well over a year of consistently doing my daily work and I mean I've tracked it.

I've done some form of it for years,

But I wasn't ever as diligent about tracking it as I've been over the last year or so.

What I've come to realize is that I can look back and I can see the times that I felt challenged,

Anxious,

Overwhelmed,

Unhappy,

Uncertain,

Or in doubt.

Those were the times that I was very inconsistent with my daily work on mastering my mind.

So when I begin my day and I stay on track through the day,

Life truly flows with ease and without so much effort.

In every area of my life,

My relationships,

My personal connection with myself,

My body image,

My self-confidence,

And certainly in my business.

So first let me say this,

There are no hard,

Cold,

Set in stone,

Right or wrong ways of doing this in my experience.

It's more been the commitment and consistency to daily positive mindset work that's made the difference for me.

All I know for sure is that being in the flow has worked for me and being intentional,

Present,

Aware,

And curious about my thoughts,

Regardless of the order that I do them in or the time of day have made a huge difference for me.

So I'm going to start with the silence,

Meditation,

Or prayer.

I choose to call this part of my practice meditation.

And sometimes it involves prayer and sometimes it just involves deep breathing and clearing my mind.

And I'll be the first to say meditation has been a challenge for me for years,

Mostly because I was way too hung up on doing it right or more specifically fearing that I was doing it wrong.

I didn't understand that it was normal for random thoughts like my grocery list and house cleaning and all the different things that I needed to get done.

I wasn't really conscious that other people were having those thoughts too and that it was normal and that all I needed to do when I caught myself thinking these things was to just relax,

Accept them,

And just move them out of my mind and begin to think again about my breathing and not to be alarmed if 10 seconds later I found myself caught up in other thoughts again.

That's part of the practice and developing the confidence and the skill set of meditation.

Now I like to use Sonic Yogi's Heart Chakra singing Tibetan bowls practice that's right here at Insight Timer.

I put that on when I do my meditation.

I love it for calm and peace.

It's very soothing to me and it's about 20 minutes.

He has some other ones that are phenomenal too and the most important thing is that you find what works for you.

Some people enjoy complete silence.

Some people enjoy talking and the guided meditation and I used to only do that and now I'm able to use that timer that's basically just calming music and sound and that works well for me for meditation,

Affirmations,

And my visualization practice.

I also will turn that particular one on anytime I'm feeling stressed.

Just breathing deep and listening to it has a very calming effect for me and that's really all meditation is.

Deep breathing,

Slow breathing,

Clearing the mind.

Then it's perfectly normal to have thoughts drift in to distract you.

Just be aware of that.

Have some self compassion.

Don't judge yourself.

Don't beat yourself up.

Just let them go as you can.

Now next up is affirmations.

Now I don't know about you but for years my mind would kind of call BS on affirmations.

The secret and other well-meaning self-help guides have created a whole lot of people running I am affirmations through their minds as part of their daily process and while this has great potential there are also a lot of people saying hey where's my stuff?

When is my bounty going to arrive?

So we have to be careful with affirmations because our mind will not accept anything too extreme at least for most of us.

So to make a statement of being a millionaire when one is having a challenge paying the bills each month well that creates too large a crevasse to cross too large of a gap or if you you know have a goal of being skinny and fit at 120 pounds for women and you're currently at 200 pounds that may be too much.

So I like to focus on creating statements that are believable and not so far out there that my mind immediately calls BS.

So something that I like to use would go along these lines.

I am improving in my business every day.

I am becoming confident and fearless in sharing what I do.

I eat clean and healthy and I move my body each day.

See how these are things that most of us can accept and realize they're actually things that we can do and that we know that through these thought processes we are making improvements.

Now I like to also use questions called affirmations and this was a concept developed by Noah St.

John.

So an example of questions or affirmations that I like to use are why is it so easy for me to achieve my goals?

Why do I have such a happy marriage?

Why do my clients refer me to others?

Why is it so easy for me to attract money into my life?

Why do I so easily hit my fitness,

Workout,

And food plan goals each day?

Here's the thing.

Our brains are designed to go to work solving problems.

So when you ask a question of it,

It gets busy in the background trying to find the answer for you.

So make it a practice to ask yourself questions each night before you go to sleep and let your mind get busy finding the answer.

I also like to do this first thing in the morning.

Okay next up,

Visualization.

Some people seem to struggle with this and I have found a simple solution that works well for me.

Write down your perfect day in your perfect life and bring all of your senses into it.

What do you see?

What do you hear?

What do you smell,

Feel,

Or touch?

Who are you with?

Where does your business fit into this?

What are you seeking to achieve with your business or your career?

Set a goal and write down the details of you achieving all that you want in your life.

And then if you want to create pictures to look at and visualize,

That's fantastic.

But start just by reading it,

Sentence at a time.

Then close your eyes and experience the sentence you just read.

And then do it again with the next one and the next one and the next one.

Or write out a paragraph.

Over time as you train your brain and you memorize subconsciously what you're thinking about and visualizing and wanting,

Over time you won't have to read it anymore.

And the bottom line is just be light and have fun with it.

Again,

Have some self-compassion.

No judgment.

No beating ourselves up.

Okay next up in the process is exercise.

Now I do at least 30 minutes of exercise every day and I like to start first thing in the morning with 10 to 30 minutes of yoga.

This helps calm my mind,

Warm up and stretch my muscles,

Get me in tune with my body,

How it feels,

And get me ready for the rest of my morning routine.

Now there's no hard or fast rules for this.

Some people like to do this first thing.

I also have a goal of getting in 10,

000 steps each day.

I love to walk,

Work out with weights,

And I will add that in later in the day as still part of my exercise routine.

But first thing in the morning I love to stretch and get my body in action.

And I actually go into my closet.

I have a large walk-in closet,

My yoga mat's in there,

And in the dark I just do what needs to be done.

And again,

No hard fast rules for it.

I know that doing this,

This way has changed the way I approach my day and I love having my body stretched and ready for a new day to serve me well and work with the rest of my goals.

Next up is reading.

And I also fit podcasts and listening to meditations and different high quality content here at Insight Timer into this category.

Guided meditations as well.

I don't always do this in the first part of my day,

But I always fit it in somewhere.

I've had a reading habit for over two decades,

So it just happens easily.

Just a few pages in a positive self-help book can create a shift.

And again,

Same thing goes with listening to positive input,

Podcasts,

Audiobooks,

Meditations here at Insight Timer.

And then next is journaling or scribing.

This is probably my favorite part of the routine and where I do my best work and what makes all of the difference for me.

It's a big part of my coaching program with my clients and those who commit because I get such wonderful feedback on how to improve their game in every way.

Now,

A lot of people get confused by journaling and it's not so much dear diary and getting everything out about what you did in your day as much as it is getting all of the thoughts that jumble up your brain out on paper.

It's about processing thoughts,

Feelings,

And emotions,

The good and the bad.

This is a great practice to see what comes out of your subconscious thinking.

Here's how I do mine.

I have a small journal style bound notebook that fits into my purse.

I like to have it with me so I can capture thoughts when I'm out and about.

I'll set a timer on my phone for five minutes and then I just start free flow writing about whatever comes to mind.

No judgments,

No worries about spelling,

No worries about grammar,

Congruency,

Nothing has to make sense,

No editing,

Fragmented sentences are just fine,

No overthinking it.

I just get it all out.

I just write for five minutes,

Longer if the timer goes off and I'm still scribbling away.

Then I analyze what I have written and I take a curious approach.

Why am I thinking these thoughts?

Are these thoughts true?

Are they made up stories from the past?

Are they thoughts I'm projecting into the future?

Are these thoughts serving me or keeping me stuck?

How would I like to think instead?

Who would I be and show up as each day if I didn't have this negative thought?

What does this thought mean about me?

How and who would I be if I didn't have this thought and feel this way?

When you ask questions like these and get your ego out of the way,

That is when real change happens.

Now I like to talk about thought avoidance because sometimes we have thought avoidance.

We don't want to face the tough stuff,

The painful stuff.

We fear it will hurt too much and we want to avoid pain.

Here are some thoughts to ponder on that.

I'm willing to see what's below the surface in my thoughts.

Write them down so I can work on them so you can work on them to change them.

I'm here to handle everything.

I'm here to live out fully.

I'm here to examine the negative and shift to a positive in any way that I can.

Which of these thoughts are true?

How can I shift these to a new thought?

When I begin asking these questions,

Very often I'll begin to feel a shift in emotion in my body when I can find a new thought that works.

It doesn't make sense to do a whole lot of action work,

Getting out there trying to create results if you haven't aligned your thoughts and feelings in the right direction.

So if you find yourself feeling stuck,

Try just writing down 10 ideas each day,

10 thoughts each day,

No editing,

No over analyzing,

Just write.

Free flow.

Be open to anything that comes to mind.

And then look back in a week or certainly a month and see what patterns emerge and then weigh in on how you feel about each of these.

Now of course we have to cover resistance.

When I find myself in resistance to anything,

I do a thought download.

That's basically a brain dump on paper about it and I examine my thoughts.

I ask myself questions.

Why am I resistant to this?

Why am I resistant to getting back on track?

What are just excuses and what are valid reasons?

What's true about any of this?

What does it mean about me?

How would I feel if I didn't resist this?

How do I feel if I lose all that I've gained so far?

How can I make the time to do this today?

Now these are just some ideas.

I've been there and I know for me everything,

And I mean everything,

Is so much better when I do the work,

And I've got air quotes,

When I do the work that matters to me.

Sometimes we can get derailed throughout the day as things happen and situations arise.

This is a great time to pause and do some thought work.

I recently ran into a situation where I hit a rough spot and I had a lot of things I still needed to get accomplished that day,

But I was way out of the feeling good mode that I really knew that I needed to move forward and my mind was a wreck.

So I just stopped everything.

I did a complete thought download and then I did a 40 minute meditation and it got me right back on track where I needed to be.

I know sometimes we think,

Geez,

That's great,

I don't have the time to do that,

But what I've learned is I don't have the time not to do that if I want to stay in the right place and move myself forward.

So how has the daily thought work changed my life?

Oh my goodness,

Where to start?

First I am calm and in control of my thoughts,

Emotions,

And reactions.

I know how to run my mind instead of allowing my mind to run me,

And this is huge.

My relationships have improved because I am much more present,

Aware,

And I've quit making up stories when conflicts arrive.

I've learned how to stay in my own lane.

My business,

It's up about 50% due to focus,

Affirmations,

Daily journaling,

Thought downloads,

And intentional inspired action toward my goals.

I've learned to overcome procrastination.

That doesn't mean that I don't have at least probably three times a day that I want to procrastinate or I catch myself doing it.

I just know how to be aware and pivot with my thinking.

I hit my fitness and eating goals almost daily,

And when I don't,

At least I know it's because of a conscious choice and not just random overeating,

Binge eating,

Binge drinking,

Whatever it is,

And using that as a buffering tool for emotions.

Overall,

Life is much more joyful,

And I have manifested a few things out of thin air too,

Like a fabulous trip with my daughter just recently.

That's powerful,

And that's all it is,

Mastering intentional thinking and actions.

Choose and do.

Choose and do.

Amazing things will show up.

Good luck to you,

And thanks for being on this journey with me and spending this time together.

Don't hesitate to reach out and connect.

May peace,

Joy,

And abundance find you today,

And may you also find peace,

Joy,

And abundance.

I'm Jackie Almer.

Thanks for listening.

Reviews

Thank you for simplifying, organizing what I have been struggling with for years. I especially liked the part about affirmations…I loved the structure & explanation of SAVERS

Thank you for the affirmation and new ideas 🌈💡 🙏

Very helpful! 🙏

Crisp

Great advice and sharing effective habits

Very good! Great advice, thank you very much indeed. I would enjoy it more at a lower pace thouh. It was too fast to my liking. Namaste 🙏

excellent tips! thank you for sharing💛😍

Amazing. Really enjoyed the direction within this. I am going to reshape my morning routine! Thank you.

Great advice and suggestions here. Can’t wait to try them! Bless you🙏🏼