Mental clarity
The importance of mental clarity
Recently, I have begun to really prioritize my mental clarity.
In high school, I was a bit of a trouble-maker and hung out with the wrong crowd. I smoked a lot of weed, drank a lot of alcohol, ate a lot of junk food, and experimented with other soft drugs as well. I did this during some pretty formative years of my brain development so I’m lucky I came out strong. However, I have struggled with quite a bit of anxiety, impulsivity, and other issues.
But things are so much better now than they used to be. A lot has changed over the years. I’ve installed some great habits and made some major changes to my lifestyle. I feel like I have grown so much and will continue to grow as I move forward.
The importance of mental clarity must be taken seriously.
Mental clarity means that your system is functioning properly and isn’t obscured.
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The following is a snippet from my article “19 Insights from Master Chim’s Pressurecon 3“:
Insight #7 We are all in charge of cleaning up and keeping a clear lens
“Your lens is a metaphor for your field of perception. There are many biases, distortions, and blind-spots which will cloud your perception and make you lose touch with reality. You must prioritize mental clarity as much as possible in order to be the most resourceful man you can be. That’s why sobriety and taking care of your health through good sleep, exercise, and nutrition is so key.
Biases: False expectations we put on reality.
A good question to uncover biases: What 3 things would a collective of 1000 people do in this situation?
Distortions: Assigning a condition to reality that doesn’t exist
Good questions to uncover distortions:
How would a robot describe/calculate this situation?
Are we adding any spice (emotion) to the situation that doesn’t need it?
Blind-Spots: Gaps in your own perception due to missing information
Part of the benefit of having a strong tribe is having other members who can call out blind-spots that you’re not objectively seeing.”
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The key point is that when your perception is clouded, you lose touch with reality making you a lot less resourceful. You’ll be reactive to life and make stupid mistakes that will cause pain and suffering. A clear mind is a lot better as it will help you make powerful decisions that will be in line with your deepest purpose.
Making decisions in line with your deepest purpose will help you manifest an amazing life that will fill you with much more joy and fulfillment than any superficial pleasure can give you.
This is the way to deep and consistent fulfillment.
It’s simple but most people fall into the trap of addiction to instant-gratification. They lack resolve and will because they’re in a deep and negative rut due to whatever reason. This causes them to move through life in a reactive manner while settling for cheap highs to counter-balance their lack of fulfillment. This is the way of mediocrity and misery.
The following are 11 ways that you can apply to help develop better mental clarity resulting in a more powerful and purpose-driven life. The aim is to live impeccably and die fulfilled and ready for the next adventure.
11 Ways to Develop Mental Clarity
#1 Know Your Mission
Know your mission…know your purpose. If I ask you, “what is your deepest purpose?” Will you be able to truly tell me an answer? Or instead, will you mouth off some generic answer like “make money”? When you have a strong and clear mission, you will naturally prioritize having a strong and clear mind. Activities that put you in a weak mental state will start to annoy you as you will start to see them as distractions and wastes of time. This is an important mental shift as it will make you more self-disciplined in regards to avoiding negative behaviors.
#2 Plan Your Day
When you start every morning off by planning your day, you will naturally enjoy more mental clarity. If you don’t plan your day then it’s really easy to get sidetracked by random distractions and other people’s agendas. The constant distractions will result in a troubled and foggy mind reducing your overall effectiveness. Focus is key to powerful living.
#3 Meditate
Meditation is a powerful tool for developing mental clarity. When you meditate, you simply sit and witness your thought processes without reacting to them. This gives you an edge because instead of being completely identified with the monkey-mind, you will be able to distance yourself from your thoughts and not be so reactive to them. While others will be slaves to their thoughts and emotions, you will create the necessary distance to take control and direct your focus to where your deepest-self wants it to go.
#4 Proper Sleep
If you’re not getting proper sleep, your mental clarity will definitely take a hit. My first 30 days in Texas had me sleeping on the floor to save money. I am naturally a side-sleeper so this caused me to wake up many times throughout the night resulting in poor sleep. For that entire month, I felt as though I wasn’t functioning at my peak potential. This led me to order a new mattress and adjust my sleep schedule keeping my circadian rhythm more consistent. Your brain needs recovery and if you’re not giving it proper rest then your mental clarity will take a severe hit over-time causing lapses in memory, focus, and general cognitive function.
#5 Eat Clean
I have a simple diet. It’s called eat real food 6 days a week and have 1 day off where you can indulge a bit. Keyword: a bit. You’re not binging like a stoned morbidly obese nerd. When you eat clean, your mind and body are being filled with proper nutrients allowing proper function. If you want to be a high-performance man, then you must eat/drink high-performance fuel. Leave the junk for the low-performance shit-mobiles.
#6 Check Your Notifications 3x a Day Maximum
I have tested many different standards for checking my notifications throughout the day and have found 3 to be the ideal number. This means you check 1 time in the morning, 1 time at lunch, and 1 time in the evening. This is the only way to stay sane. Learn how to do one task at a time with full focus. Constant notifications will damage your ability to stay present and focused which isn’t good if you want to achieve anything of value in your life. Discipline your notifications. At first, this will be hard but you’ll thank me later.
#7 Solitude & Silence
I speak about solitude and silence a lot and that’s because it fucking works. Whenever I feel the monkey-mind overly active, I take some time to simply be quiet. Often times, I’ll go into my room, put on headphones with binaural beats and simply lay down in bed allowing my mind and body to relax. Sometimes, I drift off into sleep and other times I simply lay there in a relaxed and meditative state. In quiet, a man finds peace. But sometimes you’ll find pain. And that’s OK. Learn to face the pain without running and you’ll experience a newfound peace of mind.
#8 Eat Slowly with No Distractions
Are you used to always having your phone/laptop out when you eat? How about when you shit? This is once again conditioning you to be multi-tasking and thus contributes to mental fog. If you’re feeling a bit foggy, try having a meal with no distractions where you simply eat and focus on the taste of the food. No distractions (unless it’s relaxing/soothing music). You’ll come out of that meal feeling more focused and refreshed than you would have had you distracted yourself.
#9 Avoid Alcohol
Alcohol isn’t horrible but it’s not great either especially if you wanna be at your best. Stick to 1-2 drinks maximum if you’re really trying to be optimal. If you routinely pump yourself full of alcohol to the point of intoxication, you will experience lapses in your decision-making abilities and a reduced quality of life. Over-consumption of alcohol will mess with your brain. That’s been proven through science and observation.
#10 Avoid Drugs in General
Do you smoke a lot of weed? Do you take a lot of caffeine? Do you fool around with other stuff like coke, molly, etc, a little too much? Careful. You’re fucking around with stuff that you don’t want in your system. Remember: The universe gave us enough to be happy and blissful. It’s within us now. Why do you think we have Buddhas, Lao Tzus, and other ancient masters? They all point to the same truth: We are divine beings and we can experience joy here and now! That’s not to say that nature doesn’t have any goodies but remember, you don’t need them as much as you think you do. And if you constantly, dilute your natural state of mind with drugs, you will start to crave them and experience a void without their presence. Not good for a clear mind.
#11 Clean your house
Whenever you’re feeling a lot of mental fog, a good thing to do is to give your house a cleaning. It doesn’t have to be your whole house. Start with the kitchen for example. Do so in silence or while listening to some relaxing music (without any lyrics is preferred as it doesn’t cloud you with more words, concepts, etc). Just relax and create order within your house. As you create order externally, you may start to feel things clear up internally. This concept is very well known in Japan.
Best,
Maximillian Giamarco
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