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Entrepreneurs rely on their ability to make clear and precise decisions. In the past, gaining access to information and data was a key problem. In the modern age, however, information is easy to obtain. The problem now is that there is too much of it, and often, it is not relevant to your life, or your success. This information can become an unwelcome distraction from your goals and achievements.
Whether you run a business, invest in the stock market or play poker for a living, you need to keep your mind clear to maintain optimum performance.
When the mind is clear, the path to success is wide open.
The Mess of the Mind
There’s a lot going on in the world at any given moment, and humans create information at an exponential rate. It’s quite literally impossible to take it all in. With the internet and social media, it can often feel like information overload will blow your mind. Maybe it can.
Add to this the fast and rushed lifestyle associated with business, and it seems like you have a recipe for disaster. Take, for example, entrepreneurs who face complex decisions and analysis of company data points. Poker players and stock investors also spend hours analyzing data points. There’s rarely time to switch off, and when there is, it’s often spent taking in yet more useless info from TVs and commercials.
Information is a bit like food. A little bit each day nourished the mind, but too much makes you heavy and sluggish. If you’re always eating and never digesting, this can lead to serious health complications. Likewise, too much information can cause mental indigestion or worse.
Clear Mind of Clear Decisions
When it all comes down to it, you need more time to assimilate the info that you take in. With so much going on with business and your goals, it’s crucial to cut down on the irrelevant, damaging and distracting sources of information.
All the clutter gets in the way of your ability to make clear decisions and perform at the top of your game. Going back to the poker example, without question, the poker mental game demands decluttering so that the mind can make swift decisions. With so much information per game, players report falling to sleep, as they see poker hands in their head.
Entrepreneurs will no doubt relate. Have you ever seen business charts, run through decisions or weighed up potential company directions when you should be sleeping? The problem comes from not giving yourself time to think all this through during the day. So, when you come to relax or sleep, the mind floods with images.
Working for or owning a business requires a high level of individual thought, direction and clarity of the mind. As poker players well know, too much data and not enough time off will lead right to more mistakes, difficulty resting and depleted performance. Therefore, it is essential that you clear your mind, as it relates to your success directly.
How to Declutter the Mind
Spending time in nature is an excellent way to declutter the mind.
Photo Credit: Wikimedia / CC BY-SA 4.0
Hopefully, you understand the importance of keeping the mind clear. Now, do you think that you take in too much information? Do you give yourself enough time to digestor do you often find that you are still “full” when trying to go to sleep at night? In this day and age, it’s nearly always beneficial to try to cut down on the junk food diet of useless information.
- Physically declutter your space – This is an excellent place to start. If you are a poker player or work-from-home freelancer, clear your desk. If you run a business, make sure your office is free from clutter. Doing so can have a positive impact on the mind. Likewise, do the same with your relaxing space at home to help you to switch off.
- Give yourself time – The greatest gift you can give yourself is time. You might not always have lots of it but use what you have wisely. At the minimum, give yourself an hour in the morning and an hour in the evening to spend with your thoughts, free from distractions and especially screens. Doing this one step means you start and end your day with clarity in the mind.
- Take breaks from information – If you always read or watch the news twice a day, see how you feel when you cut down to a catch up once a week. If you check social media every minute, limit yourself to one hour a day of pointless browsing or cut it out for a month. Social media, TV and internet browsing are all obvious forms of information binge eating that you can cut out.
- Wholesome activities – Get outside and enjoy the countryside, your local park or nearby beach. There’s nothing more rejuvenating and healthy than spending time in nature where your thoughts can blow, wash or burn away gently in the sunset. Take a break from the poker tables or trading websites and head out to a forest for a walk, talk to the local people and spend time with loved ones (away from screens). It’s splendid, and it will clear your mind.
- Get plenty of rest – If you have followed the above steps, you should start to feel your mind becoming clearer. You’ll take in less useless info and give yourself more time to deal with it. That should make rest, relaxation and sleep easier. And once you can sleep easier, you will feel even better.
Enjoy Clarity and Success
With mental clarity comes increased performance and the ability to make more informed decisions in the moment that you need to make. It will take a bit of effort and sacrifice at first, but trust that the results will be worth it. You will shine with productivity and have more of a grasp of your thoughts, making you a more valuable member of any team and a more capable entrepreneur.