Mindset in Daily Life: chasing away the mosquitoes
By Jackie Reardon and Hans Dekkers
()
About this ebook
This book teaches you how to deal with pressure and enjoy challenges. It guides you through the exact same exercises business leaders, world-class performers and professional athletes have done to perform at their very best when it matters most. You'll get all the practical tools to train how to stay relaxed and focused at the same time under all circumstances. If you're looking for a way to enhance your concentration level that will improve the quality of your everyday life, Mindset in daily life is your go-to guide.
High performance coach and former professional tennis player Jackie Reardon has trained a wide array of peak performers. She uses unorthodox mindfulness exercises with sport as a metaphor to improve their focus and awareness. Combining her expertise in professional sports and mindfulness she developed a hands-on philosophy called Friendly Eyes to guide company leaders, stage performers and athletes of all levels to reach their best. Friendly Eyes means: being kind to ourselves, being kind to others and to observe without judgment. Because by being friendly to yourself, you can make the progress you want.
Related to Mindset in Daily Life
Related ebooks
Mindset: a mental guide for sport Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Chasing Skinny Rabbits: What Leads You Into Emotional and Spiritual Exhaustion...and What Can Lead You Out Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Are You Happy Now?: 10 Ways to Live a Happy Life Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Alexander Technique Workbook Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsRecalculate: Directions for Driving Performance Success Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsGet Moving, Keep Moving: Healthy ageing and how physical activity loves you back Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsSummary of Edith Eva Eger's The Gift Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsRead Me First: Before you write the next chapter in the story of you Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsSummary of Rick Hanson's Hardwiring Happiness Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsReflections: Carry Your Heart as Light as a Feather Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsWriting Inspiration Through Mindful Walking Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsLive Fearlessly: Liberating your life after breast cancer Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsMenopause A-Z: Staying in Control Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsWise Up: Power, Wisdom, and the Older Woman Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsAmy Cuddy's Presence: Bringing Your Boldest Self to Your Biggest Challenges Summary Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Summary of Linda Babcock & Sara Laschever's Ask For It Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsToday is Tomorrow's Yesterday Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsCoach Yourself Confident: Ditch the self-doubt tax, unlock humble confidence Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThink Yourself Happier Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Achieve What You Want in Life: Manage Your Mind for Success Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsJournaling for Non-Journalers: Your expert guide to creating a journaling practice that works for you Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsCreative Problem Solving Techniques To Change Your Life Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Achieving the Extraordinary Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsFood for Thought: Recipes for the Good Life Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsBe Mindful: Developing Self-Awareness Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsLife 101: 21 Practical Personal Growth Principles for the 21St Century Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Mindful Path - Mindfulness and Stress Reduction for Beginners: Coping with Life’s Challenges Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsHow to Change Your Thinking About Anxiety: Hazelden Quick Guides Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Steve Jobs: How To Live Your Best Life: Discover The Life Philosophy He Used To Guide His Decisions Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings
Meditation and Stress Management For You
How to Keep House While Drowning: A Gentle Approach to Cleaning and Organizing Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Laziness Does Not Exist Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Winning the War in Your Mind: Change Your Thinking, Change Your Life Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Think Like a Monk: Train Your Mind for Peace and Purpose Every Day Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Highly Sensitive Person Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Mindful As F*ck: 100 Simple Exercises to Let That Sh*t Go! Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Undistracted: Capture Your Purpose. Rediscover Your Joy. Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5King, Warrior, Magician, Lover: Rediscovering the Archetypes of the Mature Masculine Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Breath as Prayer: Calm Your Anxiety, Focus Your Mind, and Renew Your Soul Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Winning the War in Your Mind Workbook: Change Your Thinking, Change Your Life Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5How to Manage Your Home Without Losing Your Mind: Dealing with Your House's Dirty Little Secrets Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Summary of Ichiro Kishimi's and Fumitake Koga's book: The Courage to Be Disliked: Summary Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Unoffendable: How Just One Change Can Make All of Life Better (updated with two new chapters) Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Little Book of Hygge: Danish Secrets to Happy Living Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Way Forward Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Everything Is F*cked: A Book About Hope Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Unfuck Your Anxiety: Using Science to Rewire Your Anxious Brain Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Silva Mind Control Method Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5We Need to Talk: How to Have Conversations That Matter Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Stop People Pleasing: Be Assertive, Stop Caring What Others Think, Beat Your Guilt, & Stop Being a Pushover Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Buddha's Guide to Gratitude: The Life-changing Power of Everyday Mindfulness Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Invisible Toolbox: Coping Skills for Everyday Resilience Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Overthinking Cure: How to Stay in the Present, Shake Negativity, and Stop Your Stress and Anxiety Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Mindfulness in Plain English: 20th Anniversary Edition Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5
Reviews for Mindset in Daily Life
0 ratings0 reviews
Book preview
Mindset in Daily Life - Jackie Reardon
for Ellen Baarslag and Sandra Polderman
This book is published by
Mindset Publishers
IJsbaanpad 43
1076 cv Amsterdam
The Netherlands
Translator Beverley Jackson – jacksonacademic.nl
Graphic design Aart Jan Bergshoeff – aartjan.nl
Drawing mosquitoes and stars Merel Barends
Cover design - Hans Bos - kochxbos.com
ISBN 978-90-827974-0-4
First edition 2013
Second edition 2015
Third edition 2016
Fouth edition 2018
© 2013/2015/2016 /2018 Mindset Publishers, Amsterdam Text © 2013/2015/2016/2018 Jackie Reardon and Hans Dekkers
Photo credits
Acceptance: © Tetra Images/Corbis
Good mistakes: © Fotolia
The bird: © Dreamstime
Medusa: © Nikki Evans
Surfguru: iStockphoto – Ant Creations
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form by print, photocopy, microfilm or any other means without prior written permission from the publisher. The publishers have done their utmost to respect the rights of third parties. Anyone who believes that certain rights can nonetheless be asserted may apply to the publishers.
Mindset tm is a protected brand in the Benelux – friendlyeyes.com
INDEX
CHASING THE MOSQUITOES AWAY
The beginnings and the method
‘To be or not to be’
Ikkyu
The star and the cloud of mosquitoes
A footstep on the moon
Medusa’s spell
The cook and the ten mosquitoes
THE PILLARS
FIRST PILLAR: Friendly eyes
Friendliness, energy, or must it be a Nobel Prize?
SECOND PILLAR: Good mistakes
A red sock
THIRD PILLAR: Curiosity
The coconut
FOURTH PILLAR: Self-knowledge
To Uzbekistan
FIFTH PILLAR: Self-discipline
Ever heard a mill-horse whistling?
SIXTH PILLAR: Acceptance
A complete waste of time!
THE CONCENTRATIONS
THE FOUR TYPES OF CONCENTRATION
Searching for a brooch
FEELING INSTEAD OF THOUGHT
The body as a vehicle
BATS, OWLS AND MONSTERS
So, does all this mean that thoughts are unimportant?
YOU HAVE (NOT) REACHED YOUR DESTINATION
A small digression
THE INSTRUMENTS
INTRODUCTION
VISUALIZATION
Daydream or destination?
MEDITATION
Training attention
BEATHING
Stressful or calm, chest or abdomen?
YOGA
Stretches your mind too!
NATURE
The green medicine
MUSIC
The melodic medicine
TRIGGER WORDS & MANTRAS
The secret of Hollywood and top athletes
THE ART OF ACTION
CREATING NEW HABITS
A daily training program for action thinking
POETRY
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
RECOMMENDED READING
Action is about living fully.
Inaction is the way that we deny life.
– DON MIGUEL RUIZ: The Four Agreements
THE BEGINNINGS
AND THE METHOD
In 2007 we wrote the book Mindset. Although it was originally intended as a mental guide for sport, we soon discovered that many people were using the Mindset method in different areas of life. People from all sorts of professions, from teachers to health care workers, from business people and lawyers to musicians, told us the book had enriched their lives. This inspired us to write a sequel: a book that is less about sport and more about mindset in everyday life.
The mindset method works in four stages:
Making a conscious choice to adopt action thinking instead of story thinking
Six pillars for more self-knowledge and better self-management
Four types of concentration for attention control
Seven instruments for achieving mental tranquillity
Mindset is based on the belief that we have a choice as to how to approach the world and ourselves. We describe a course of life that you may decide to adopt.
– Do you choose to live on the basis of ‘story thinking’: constantly judging both yourself and the other, distracted, fearful, rushed and impatient? Another characteristic of story thinking is the constant noise in your head - like being attacked by mosquitoes - random thoughts about the past and the future, which do nothing to advance the things you really want to focus on.
– Or do you choose to live on the basis of ‘action thinking’: observing without judging, focusing your attention on the here and now. Continuously investing by giving all your actions quality. Being relaxed and focused at the same time, calm and present at the same moment? Action thinking is having a clear understanding of the quality of your thoughts and being capable of choosing where to focus your attention. You learn how to chase the mosquitoes away.
To choose to live on the basis of action thinking, and to change your mode of thinking and behaviour, you first need insight.
We combine two approaches that you can use to make action thinking tangible and easy to train. One of these approaches has to do with insight and raising your consciousness of your behaviour by making use of Mindset’s six pillars, derived from mindfulness. The other one has to do with controlling your attention and using the four concentrations, derived from the world of sport.
The pillars structure your self-management, and the concentrations help you to know precisely what you’re focusing on. They are the two wings of the bird (see below). If one of them is not working, the bird can’t fly.
We shall explain each of these six pillars, one step at a time, as well as the four concentrations, and apply them to everyday life. The first section of the book, on the pillars, provides a philosophical framework for the method and teaches insight into better self-management. The second part, on the different types of concentration, focuses on practical situations in everyday life and offers a program in which you can train your mindset.
Mindset in daily life grew out of our experiences with Mindset and consists of further reflections on the subject. No one can achieve his or her best performance in sport without reaching ‘feeling’, one of the four concentrations. The same applies to people’s actions in everyday life. Action starts with feeling. One of the most important goals of this book is to clarify the concept of ‘feeling’ with practical, concrete examples. ‘Feeling’ is the essential bridge between thought and action, and practical instruments are needed to gain access to it.
We are convinced that after reading Mindset in daily life, ‘feeling’ will no longer seem like an abstract, vague and rather woolly concept. Both Mindset and Mindset in daily life were written to provide tools that can help turn impatience, tension and frustration into self-confidence and pleasure. We based many of our insights on the practice of meditation and the philosophy of life that are associated with mindfulness. We gratefully acknowledge the lessons we have learnt from the work of a number of inspiring individuals. In particular, we should like to thank S.N. Goenka, Jon Kabat-Zinn, Joseph Goldstein, Eckhart Tolle, Marshall B. Rosenberg, Stephen Covey and Anthony Robbins.
This book, and the method discussed in it, also derived inspiration from the many books, studies, meditation courses and academic literature on the workings of the conscious mind. For more information about these sources, see the list of recommended literature at the back of the book.
With our method, we try to make all these studies and experiences tangible and to supply ways of putting them into practice, with a view to encouraging a more balanced and effective way of life.
The knowledge itself is by now widely accepted, but it is not widely applied. In other words, everyone knows about it, but few put it into daily practice. Given that action thinking generates so much energy and gives so much pleasure, this is rather peculiar.
Our goal is to present a number of complex theories in a down-to-earth and light-hearted way, thus being able to avoid any surprise attacks by mosquitoes.
We are delighted to be able to offer you a free online mental video program to show you exactly how to deal with the mosquitoes
www.friendlyeyes.com
‘TO BE OR NOT TO BE’
To be or not to be, that is the question. This line from Shakespeare’s Hamlet is perhaps the most famous quotation from world literature. The arch-doubter Hamlet ponders to himself whether it is better to live or die: to accept life with all its responsibilities or to be released from them. Hamlet loses himself in thought and has difficulty taking action. He remains a worrier, a brooder, and suffers because of it.
We all have a bit of Hamlet in us. We often find ourselves paralyzed by the noise of constant thinking. Sometimes we turn things over our minds endlessly without taking action, or the action we do take is