Philippians 4:8 – “Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things.”
Romans 12:2 – “Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.”
Colossians 3:2 – “Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth.”
What you allow in your mind will define you in life. Everything you allow into your mind will develop the way you think. Whatever consumes your regular thoughts determines what you are.
The man who watches the news in the morning and evening and reads it throughout the day becomes an outrage addict and depressed about the state of the world. That man will almost never develop a positive mindset as a result of consuming politics.
He built that mentality through what he fed his mind.
The man who fills his thoughts with social media becomes a man who never lives his own life and who wallows in an inferiority complex. The man who fills his mind with “junk food” will develop the corresponding level of mental fitness. He will be fat and lazy in mind even if his flesh is in decent shape. (Which usually will not happen because an out of shape mind almost never produces a fit physical body).
Whatever we are thinking about is what we are becoming. It follows that the man who takes in positive mental nutrition is a man who becomes a more respectable, successful and mentally fit individual. The man who fills his mind with positive stories and anecdotes of success or motivational speeches about perseverance and work ethic is a man who will eventually embody those characteristics.
The mental nutrition accumulates in its effect just as physical nutrition accumulates over time.
No one instance of positive or negative mental nutrition will change you for better or worse, results are always gained over the long term. These results usually are not seen until they compile into a mass. No single donut results in morbid obesity. No single meal of grilled chicken and broccoli will transform you if you already are grossly out of shape. For this reason you must commit to a long term mental diet of positive thoughts. You cannot put the negativity of the world into your mind constantly and expect to be any better than the world. You are what you think, therefore control your thoughts, and control what goes into your mind, because that determines what you think about. This is the foundation for success.
Mantra
You are what you think.
Application
Start a habit of consuming a positive visual diet every day. Cut back on the visual garbage foods that you enjoy eating. Staying up to date with the state of the country is fine, but becoming increasingly depressed and negative as a result of watching the news for hours a day is not good.
Replace the time you would normally spend consuming rubbish with a positive diet of strong thoughts. The internet has put dozens of mentors, positive thinkers and motivational speakers at our fingertips. Do not waste the extremely valuable resources that we have been given.
You have free access to all the positive material you could ever consume in a lifetime and much more. You are certainly more likely to hear something that would change your thinking and therefore change your life through a positive speaker or mentor than you are to hear it through the local news station. Just type “motivational speech” into your search bar and you will have millions of results.
You need to listen to at least one of these a day. You also need to reduce your consumption of social media and other assorted mental feces. Men do not waste their lives away scrolling through the lives of other people. You must have the strength of mind to reject these common trappings of life.
Control what goes into your mind and you will have a much easier time controlling your thoughts.
Through the positive mental diet you control the soil of the mind from which the fruits of correct thinking will grow. No man improved himself through facebook. No man grew his character scrolling around on instagram. No great man was developed through the daily consumption of the local news.
Men improve from strong thinking and from learning from other men. You can improve your life or waste your life through what the internet has to offer. So learn and grow like a man. Improve yourself. Do not misapply the virtue of contentment to your character. Feed the mind with the thoughts of a champion. Conduct yourselves like men
