5 Tips to Boost Your mental Hurself to be godly [uncomealth Today
Caring for Yourself Mentally – Part 4
“[T]rain yourself to be godly [uncommon]. [1]
We must be diligent in training ourselves. We are athletes no matter what we do. We have been given a gift, a skill, a talent that is so great that we must constantly be in training.
“Physical training is good, but training for godliness [to be unlike the rest] is much better” [1]
In other words, we have to train to be uncommon, unlike the rest. We (you and me) don’t want to be average, and we do not want to be ordinary. So training is good because it keeps us from being like everyone else. The average person does not train to get better. The normal person is not in training or is not doing what it takes to go to the next level in using her/his gifts, skills, and talents. This person remains ordinary in that regard. Because a person does not train, that means they are experiencing something that I call degradation. They are degrading. Their skills, their talents, their abilities do not get sharper, do not get better, do not get cleaner, and do not improve. However, they degrade. This is why training and continuous improvement is so vital.
“[P]romising benefits in this life [now] and in the life to come [later].” [1]
Training helps us to be better because there are benefits that come as a result of training throughout one’s lifetime. It not only benefits us now, but it benefits us later. That’s what a next level person is after; a life of benefits now and a life that benefits us later.
The opposite of that or the absence of this training (in this case we are talking about the practices that it takes for us to have our own personal self-care to make sure that our mind is healthy) will lead us to poor mental health. Therefore, we must be willing to train and get better. The opposite of that is, if we do not train, we do not increase or improve our skills and our mental health gets worse. If we are not practicing, if we are not training to be mentally fit, that means we are going to be mentally unfit, and we are going to have poor mental health.
Here are five practical ways in which we can take steps and do what it takes to get our mental health to the next level.
Tip 1: Plan for each day.
How do you begin each day? In order to make the most of a day where it impacts your mental health, you need a plan for your day. Your day should be organized so that you get done what needs to get done, but in a way that benefits you mentally. In other words, let me give you an example of what I mean by this. If you know that every day you become stressed when you look at your email inbox for the first time, you need to create a plan to eliminate that from happening. If you know your inbox is a problem, then you need to put something in place so that at the end of the day you have cleared out those emails that have the potential to bring you stress the next day. If not, you are only working against yourself when you do not have a plan or something to put in place to keep the stressors out of your life.
I have organized my day in such a way that it reduces any possibility of stress, anxiety, even depression for that matter, that I can control you. Once you get rid of the things that you can control that produce these stressors, then you have just put control back into your hands.
How you begin your day is important. Let me give you one more example. If you are always in a hurry running off to the office first thing, if you usually get out of bed late, if you find yourself constantly plowing through the morning, and if you are normally in a hurry to get to the office, that means are you running late? That repeated behavior is nothing more than a set up for failure. The result is failure in how your mind is going to be equipped to deal with the day. When you start late, you are late all day, never to catch up. It feels like you cannot get ahead.
Therefore, in order to take your mental health to the next level, you want to put something in place that helps you start early. For my day, we get started extra early. We start a couple hours early, because I do not want to get up in the morning and run off straight to work without spending a little time at home. If you enjoy your home, then you should want to enjoy it before and after you spend time away from it. If you enjoy your home, enjoy it early in the morning so that your day does not start with frustration, stress, and turmoil. This one tip will provide immediate improvements to one’s mental health.
Tip 2: Feed your mind nutritious information.
What are you listening to that feeds your soul? Sometimes I pull up at the office and some people come into the office with blaring music. The music is so loud and aggressive that it is an immediate distraction and quite disrupting. I can only imagine what type of a day this person is going to have. You see, your life can only go in the direction that your mind takes you. [2] If you want to improve your mental health, you must listen to something that makes you at peace, audible sounds that gives you vigor and excitement, not something that gets you out of whack and upsets your day, drives you insane, or has your mind going out of control. You want to pour something in your mind that is going to feed your mind and get it off to a healthy start.
Let’s talk a little about feeding your mind. Did you know that most people do not understand that your mind has an appetite? Just like your physical body has an appetite, your mind does. If you do not feed your mind, what you are doing is starving it of the nutrition and the nourishment that it needs to perform at its best. Feeding your mind also requires healthy mental food. You have to at least take advantage of feeding your mind a healthy dose of information, or whatever you pour into it. There is a Bible phrase that fits here perfectly. “A good person produces good things from the treasury of a good heart [mind], and an evil person produces evil things from the treasury of an evil heart [mind].” [3]
Tip 3: Grow your mind with physical printed material.
What physical printed material are you reading? You need to get something in your hand that your eyes can look at and that you can read. You need books that you desire to read. I do not recommend reading any books, only books that you like. There are enough books available to you that you can find an endless number of books that you would actually like to read. If you cannot read a long 200 plus page book, then you need to get you some short mini books. There are tons of them available. For example, there is a set, “The Jim Rohn Guide to…” that I love, and they are small enough to fit into your pocket. Take one of those small books and read a page a day if that works for you. Read something that will get your mind the food and the nourishment that it needs to grow.
As a person thinks in his heart or his mind, that is what he is and that is what he will become. You are exactly what has been on your mind. [2] If you do not like what you see in your mirror, it is because of what you have been feeding your mind. If you want to change that person you see looking back at you in your mirror, you must start by doing something in your mind. Pick up something and make it a routine, a regiment that you feed on. Be like a soldier that is going through basic training and train yourself to read. Feed your mind with material that you like, material that interests you, and material that transforms you. Read the stuff that will give your mind the nutritional value that it needs to have better mental health.
Tip 4: Keep company that feeds your soul with intentionality.
What company do you keep that feeds your soul? Now this is important. Who you hang around is who you become. If you hang around trash, you become trash. You can take the average of the company you keep, and it is the best indicator for you to see who you are. Regardless of what you think, you are the people that you hang around. If you want to be better, you must choose better. If you do not know how to find better people, then get yourself in a group. Find yourself a group that you can hang out with, one that will transform how you think by being around people who think like the people you desire to become. As they grow, you grow. As they put off information and give you insight, the same thing happening to them is happening to you.
“Iron sharpens iron.” [4] If you are not around a sharper piece of iron, that means you are not going to get sharpened. In fact, your edge, your blade, so to speak, continues to get dull. That is called degradation. You are getting degraded by the company that you keep, if you are not intentional about the folks that you hang around. Make a list of the people you hang around and start evaluating their positive and negative attributes. Begin replacing the negatives with other people. Start adding other people to your list until it minimizes the detractors. By doing so, you will soon have only people around you who add value to your life and help take your mental health to the next level.
Tip 5: End your day intentionally.
How do you end your day? In the same way you begin your day with intention, you need to end your day intentionally. The most important thing that you can do with a day is reflect. Reflect on how well you did this day. How successful were you today? What was good? What was bad? In these answers, find the material you need that can help improve future days. What is it you need to do more of and what do you need to do less of?
You should always be assessing yourself. If you are an athlete, every day you are training for success. A true athlete is always looking for a way to get better, to become quicker, to obtain better results, and to become more accurate. They are trying to win the competition, in other words, and so should you.
The goal of caring for yourself is so that you can win your race. You are in a race, and it is called your life. [5] Guess what? No one else can run this race for you. Therefore, if you lose, you lose it yourself. That means you are a loser, a bigger loser than you think. If you are a winner and if you plan to win, you will do whatever it takes to win. You should be training to be the best you, the athlete that you can be. Instead of focusing on the marathon of life, focus on the short distance races I call “today.” Are you winning today mentally?
Question: Which of these five practical tips will you begin implementing on your journey to improve your mental health?
[1] 1 Timothy 4:7-8 NLT , Bible.com, accessed November 1, 2023, https://www.bible.com/bible/116/1TI.4.7-8.NLT
[2] Proverbs 23:7 NKJV , Bible.com, accessed October 31, 2023, https://www.bible.com/bible/114/PRO.23.7.NKJV
[3] Luke 6:45 NLT , Bible.com, accessed October 31, 2023,
https://www.bible.com/bible/116/LUK.6.45.NLT
[4] Proverbs 27:17 NKJV , Bible.com, accessed October 31, 2023, https://www.bible.com/bible/114/PRO.27.17.NKJV
[5] I Corinthians 9:24-25 NKJV , Bible.com, accessed October 31, 2023, https://www.bible.com/bible/114/1CO.9.24-25.NKJV
All Scripture references used by permission, see our Scripture copyrights.
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