How to Think Like a Monk

QUOTE OF THE DAY

THINK LIKE A MONK

371 Words | 1 Min 21 Sec Read

When the author of ‘Think Like a Monk’ Jay Shetty left college, he made the bold decision to trade in his suit for a robe and join a monastery in India. For the next 3 years, he lived as a monk and discovered why monks are the happiest people on the planet.

It's quite literally a fact proved by neuroscience because they’ve mastered the art of letting go.

Letting go of societal expectations, negative thoughts, and emotional attachment allows them to experience more peace, calm, and purpose in their lives.

We can all experience more peace, calm, and purpose in our lives by developing a monk mindset without having to travel to India to do so.

Let go of external expectations.

Letting go of external expectations means letting go of what your parents or people around you want you to do.

It’s getting rid of the ‘You should want...’ ‘You should do...' ‘You should be'...'—the expectations that keep you prisoner from chasing your purpose.

The way to let go of external expectations is to do a choice awareness practice. Every time you make a decision, ask yourself if you’re making it for your own benefit or to fit someone else's expectations of you.

Let go of negativity.

You’re going to have negative thoughts, but how long are you going to hold on to them?

In the aftermath of any conflict, we spend roughly 1% of the time trying to solve that conflict and the remaining 99% needlessly swirling negative thoughts, which provide us with no benefit whatsoever.

The way to let go of negativity is to just forgive unconditionally.

Let go of attachments.

Letting go of attachment is not about giving away everything you own but instead accepting the temporary nature of everything in life.

Everything from our houses to our families is borrowed; attachment to these things brings fear in the case of losing them, which means when you’re able to detach, you’ll find yourself happier and more content with what you have.

ACTIONABLE NEXT STEPS:

Read the book yourself, It dives much further into those points of detaching in order to find inner piece and calmness, which you might learn a thing or two from. Check it out HERE 

LESSON OF THE DAY ⤵️

The root cause of overthinking comes down to you trying to control the future, and due to the fact that you can't, you become stuck in a constant spiral of questions with a lack of answers.

The best way to overcome overthinking, however, is to take yourself out of the situation. It means partly understanding that you have no control over the future and therefore your worries are wasted and partly distracting yourself.

If you can find ways to distract yourself, you won’t have time to overthink and, therefore, won’t.

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