Physiological Responses

To master your mind, you might also want to pay attention to your physiological responses as well as your thoughts.

Notice when there’s tension in your shoulders, hands, abdomen or face. The most important thing is to learn to monitor your breath. How are you breathing? Shallowly and rapidly in your upper chest? Or, slowly and deeply all the way down into your abdomen? Your breathing is a direct reflection of how tense or relaxed you are.

Monitoring your breathing also gives you the ability to directly control your own excitation or relaxation level. By taking slow, deep breaths deep into your abdomen, you decrease the level of excitement or tension in your body. These are techniques that anyone can master.

Your thoughts are 100% within your control so as you master your thoughts in the present moment, the result of those thoughts is creating your future.

Karl Mecklenburg

Karl Mecklenburg, a 13-year Denver Bronco football veteran, is one of our Fearless Leaders.

Despite not being drafted until the 12th round as the 310th draft pick and told most of the years that he was with the Broncos that they’re bringing in bigger, faster, stronger linebackers and that he probably wouldn’t make the team, Mecklenburg kept his focus on one thing, “to be the best football player ever.”

“Success is overcoming obstacles,” Mecklenburg said. “If you are not running into problems, you’re not pushing hard enough. You should expect and anticipate problems – maybe not enjoy them, but learn from them. You can always learn more from what you did wrong, than what you did right – because sometimes when things go right, it’s just the stars lined up right.”

Like Mecklenburg, you should train your brain to be the way you want.

Take that control.

In my next blog, I will go over the Navy SEAL ethos that represents the uncommon attitudes, deep beliefs and characteristics of the Navy SEAL Community. Fearless Leaders can learn a lot from the SEAL community.

For questions about this post or for information on becoming a fearless leader, contact Dr. Cathy Greenberg and The Fearless Leader Group at (888) 320-1299 or by email at hello@fearlessequalsfreedom.com.