Written by Joshua Ademuwagun, MILD, M.Div.
The human mind works in a very interesting way. When a thought is consistently allowed into our minds, in time it becomes a mindset. Those mindsets further are reinforced by our experiences, other thoughts, the opinion of others, other information received from the media, and the likes.
As young people, we can’t deny the various experiences we have had. Experiences at home, in school, with friends, relations, the television, computer games and so on. These experiences never leave us the same. They change our outlook to life and unconsciously shape the way we would act in the various circumstances of our lives. These experiences shape our mindsets. A mindset is a powerful thing. In more professional words, a mindset is also called a program. What we see and hear consistently shape our mind’s content or what we popularly call our thoughts. If we are exposed to a particular kind of information for a long time and end up believing it, consequently, a mindset is formed.
Professionally, psychologists have come to call these mindsets programs. This is because once a program exists in our minds, we would automatically live and act it out. Our programs function like that of the computer. Once a computer is programmed execute a certain task, it automatically carries it out once the command applicable to that particular task is issued. You see, these mental programs run our lives with or without our permission. It is guaranteed that once the situation and circumstances are the same or similar, our response or responses to it would be similar because of the mental program installed in our minds. Remember, I said these mental programs are also called mindsets.
Many years ago, when I was in the University, I decided to visit the zoo and saw a very interesting sight that puzzled me until I got someone to explain it to me. What puzzled me was the way the home of Haruna, one of the gorillas in the zoo, was constructed. It was a cave located in a valley-like topography, had a play area just outside the cave entrance and then a moat (a stream of water) running round the play area and then an electric barbed-wire fence running through a portion of the stream. At the time of my visit, Haruna was long dead but I could not help but ask those conversant with the zoo why in the world Haruna’s house was built with an electric fence running through the stream of water. I understood the reason for everything else but not that. The explanation I got was that when Haruna first arrived at the zoo, he made an attempt to escape. The fear that this attempt would someday end up successful intensified as he grew bigger. Hence, in other to safe guard the lives of the people who visited the Zoo and the University community, the electric fence was erected through the stream of water with mild electric currents flowing through it initially and put off later permanently. Initially, when Haruna tried to pass through the stream, he got shocked and retreated. After a couple of trials, he never attempted to go near the stream again. It was after these attempts ceased that the mild electric currents were turned off permanently. However, it was observed that even after the currents were turned off, Haruna would run-off anytime he mistakenly went near the stream, as though the electric currents still ran through it. In Psychology, this is termed conditioning. Haruna’s mind had been conditioned to think the water still had currents running through it, and he thought so till the day it died of natural causes; at a very old age.
The mind of a person works in a similar way, though in a more intelligent fashion. The mindset of a person also works like a mold. If you go to a building block factory, you would observe that the formed blocks are only a reflection of the shape of the mold. Similarly, our results in life would naturally take the shape of our mindset. Our mindsets form what is called a belief system and the various belief systems we sustain determine the “products” of our lives.
For example, a lot of students fail because they believe they are not as brilliant as other students. Some believe they are not as brilliant as other students, hence they read or study, write exams with the thought that they are just trying to get by. The reason for this is always because of the past experiences these students have had. They might have had or have parents who told them that they were good for nothing and not very brilliant. They might have had elder brothers or sisters who didn’t do well academically, and may have come to believe that being a member of their household entailed being dull. They might have failed in the past, and begun to believe they were failures.
My point is that the thoughts you sustain in your mind determine your life’s experiences. Successful people usually believe they can and will do well in life. This belief reflects in the way they talk and act.
Deliberately watch the thoughts you allow into your mind today. Always remember that thoughts, when not monitored become mindsets and mindsets ultimately determine our realities in life.