“Success is a state of mind, waiting for action.”
– Jon Jones
Are you aware of your day-to-day thoughts and actions?
Do you ever stop to think about how you think?
Are you on auto-pilot, or are you living intentionally?
It’s easy to get caught up in daily routines and ignore the thoughts and feelings running through our minds.
Months or even years can pass by without realizing we’re stuck in a static mindset—but what happens when we start actively pursuing the state of mind we want to live in despite our internal feeling?
Rob Dyrdek produced a great podcast episode called The 4 Levels Of The Mind, where he explains that each of us lives in one of four states of mind.
- The Reactive Mind: In this headspace, you’re just getting by—you’re trying to get through the day to put in some couch time and binge some Netflix. You’re not getting ahead, but you’re also not falling behind.
- The Aware Mind: You have an idea of what you need to be doing to reach your goals. You can see a path, but you aren’t committing to it. The effort to become more proactive is hit and miss.
- The Proactive Mind: You’ve pushed through and are taking action to reach your goals. You’re living intentionally, and your hard work delivers results.
- The Magnetic Mind: The questions, ideas, and answers to living your life are drawn to you, and execution feels effortless. Achieving this elusive mindset allows you to live life at the highest level possible.
No one stays consistently in one state of mind—we all have good and bad days.
Drifting between levels is perfectly fine, just so long as you recognize when it’s happening and where you’re at.
To push through each level, you must be honest with yourself about your thoughts and actions.
- Are you placing limiting beliefs on your abilities?
- How disciplined are you with time management?
- Can you make better work than what you’ve been producing?
Being in the Reactive Mind doesn’t have to be a negative thing.
It’s the launch pad to seek out a plan and elevate ourselves to the Aware Mind.
Level 2 gives you the boost of energy you need to get the ball rolling.
Sure, you might not be consistent yet, but there’s a plan and a light at the end of the tunnel.
When you reach the Proactive Mind, it’s because the Aware Mind showed you the way.
Consistency in Level 2 has given you enough time under your belt to lift you to Level 3, whether it’s through eating clean, consistently pitching more clients, or getting to bed earlier.
You’re hitting the core requirements to keep you in a productive state.
Ideally, you’ll spend most of your life in the Proactive Mind.
You can see issues coming down the pipeline and have solutions before the problems arrive.
The Proactive Mind requires reps and staying consistent with the things that make you a productive, action-motivated person.
It’s the setup for the Magnetic Mind.
I said a moment earlier that, ideally, you’ll spend most of your time in the Proactive Mind.
You might have thought, why not ideally the Magnetic Mind?
The reason is the difficulty of consistently staying in this frame of mind—it’s tough to reach and impossible without the Proactive Mind’s tireless work.
Dyrdek doesn’t touch on it in his podcast, but the level 4 he’s talking about is called a “flow state.”
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi wrote an incredible book on the flow state called Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience.
In it, he writes:
“The best moments in our lives are not the passive, receptive, relaxing times—although such experiences can also be enjoyable if we have worked hard to attain them. The best moments usually occur when a person’s body or mind is stretched to its limits in a voluntary effort to accomplish something difficult and worthwhile.
Optimal experience is thus something that we make happen. For a child, it could be placing with trembling fingers the last block on a tower she has built, higher than any she has built so far; for a swimmer, it could be trying to beat his own record; for a violinist, mastering an intricate musical passage. For each person, there are thousands of opportunities, and challenges to expand ourselves.”
Reaching this state of mind takes profound discipline in a daily practice of showing up to do the work.
You don’t reach level 4, dust your hands off and say, “We made it, folks. Unpack your bags. We’re here to stay.”
You must be diligent in your efforts and be highly self-aware of your actions so you don’t slip into the Reactive Mind.
So ask yourself, are you operating at the optimal level of your mind, or are you just reacting to what life sends your way?
Do the work, and when you hit the flow state, it’ll change your life forever.