Unlock Your Mind: How to Gain Control and Boost Your Happiness Today

At any time there are two different parts of your mind competing against one another. The balance of these two minds within you will largely dictate your overall happiness levels in life. By understanding the two different parts of your mind, how they work, and being able to recognise them, you can put yourself into the driving seat of your life. You can shift from a life of unfulfilling routine and self-doubt to a life of achievement, confidence, and overall happiness.

I know this to be true not because of textbooks or theory but because I have been through the journey—and continue to do so today—in my own life. Without the understanding of what I'm sharing with you in this blog, there is a high risk that you will go through life feeling unfulfilled because your mind prevents you from thinking about or pursuing your most meaningful goals. When you go through life not feeling fulfilled, not reaching your potential, you are highly susceptible to:

• Feeling acute levels of stress

• Engaging in unhealthy or destructive behaviours such as binge drinking or excessive phone scrolling

• Experiencing poor mental health

So let's begin the journey of putting those behaviours behind you by mastering your mind and getting into the driving seat of your life.

The Two Minds

The two competing parts of your mind are the 'Hunter Gatherer' and the 'Goal Driver'.

Hunter Gatherer is founded in fear, and its sole purpose is to try and keep you alive by protecting you from danger.

Goal Driver is founded in what is often referred to as 'higher' or 'collective' consciousness, and its purpose is to tap into your unique strengths to make good things happen.

Both of these parts of the mind are needed. Although you might wish you had no inhibitions, no fears, no lack of confidence whatsoever, if you didn't, you would be dead already. It's healthy to have some of this; it stops you from walking in front of fast-moving traffic or being arrogant.

The problem that occurs for many of us is that the Hunter Gatherer part of our minds is so overbearing that it drowns out the Goal Driver. This isn't the case for everyone but is certainly the case for the majority.

When people talk about privilege and the advantages it provides to people in life, they are usually referring to wealth. If someone is born into wealth, we regard them as privileged. I believe that—whilst there is undoubtedly privilege through wealth—real privilege comes down to the quality of upbringing. If a person is raised in an environment where from a young age love, confidence, acceptance, and self-belief are instilled in them, they are—in my eyes—truly privileged because they have been armed with a mind that sets them up for success and happiness regardless of circumstance and opportunity. A person that is born into immense wealth but is not nurtured to develop self-belief and confidence is at a high risk of struggling in life regardless of circumstance and opportunity.

The reality is most of us didn't have incredible childhoods. Not because our parents are bad people but because nobody gave them the handbook on the importance of or how to raise emotionally intelligent kids. But of course, in many cases, people also had bad parents who didn't care much about or even worse, abused their children. To keep it simple, let's group the quality of parenting into three categories:

• Great

• Good

• Poor

Of course, there are many categories in between, but what's important to understand is that only those who were raised in the great category are unlikely to struggle with an overbearing Hunter Gatherer Mind. That's a very small percentage of people. So let's look at how to fix the balance.

The Goal Driver part of your mind wants you to achieve in line with your unique strengths and talents. It's the part of you that feels passionate about things, that gets into flow when doing certain activities, and that flashes moments of true inspiration into your soul. It's the part of you that dreams and wants to set big goals.

Tuning into and following the guidance this part of your mind pushes on you is what will lead to a life of fulfilment. But the path it takes you down is far from easy. On the way to the achievement of your meaningful goals, you will fail. You will be laughed at. You will be told you are wasting your time. You will be judged. You will lose 'friends' and be told you're doing the wrong thing by your family. That's why it is so easy for the Hunter Gatherer part of your mind to talk you out of following this path.

The Hunter Gatherer part of your mind has been shaped over the hundreds of thousands of years where the daily life of your ancestors was a game of survival. Food and resources were available in scarcity, and everything, including other people, wanted to kill or eat you. So the Hunter Gatherer part of your mind learned that the key to life is staying alive, and that staying alive was achieved by avoiding danger. It taught you to avoid danger by becoming very good at talking you out of doing anything new or out of the ordinary unless it was absolutely necessary for survival.

Here's the thing about your most meaningful dreams and goals. They are not absolutely necessary for survival. It's much 'safer' to sit at home and watch Netflix or mindlessly scroll through your phone—and that's what Hunter Gatherer is telling you is the best option.

Here's an interesting take on why poor mental health and depression are rising in countries like the UK, even though the quality of living is rising too. When life was a lot tougher in comparison to today's standards—literally just two generations ago—there wasn't much freedom or opportunity for most people to pursue meaningful goals. The focus of daily life was survival, and there wasn't much time for anything else. Today that's very different. The fact you have time to sit and read this article—and I had the time to think about then sit and write it—is a sign of how much more freedom and opportunity we have available to us in our lives today. With that opportunity and freedom, the Goal Driver part of your mind comes more into consciousness. You become aware of what you could do with your life, and when Hunter Gatherer overbears, what you're not doing with your life. I believe much of our angst and depression comes from not listening to our Goal Driver when we know we had the freedom and opportunity available to us.

So to be fulfilled and to feel genuinely happy, you have to tap into your Goal Driver and engage in actions that 'progress' you towards your most meaningful goals. I quote mark the word progress because it's not the actual progress towards the goal that matters; you're going to fail more times than you succeed. It's the taking action that matters. Because when you take action, you are progressing even if you fail because every time you 'fail' you've learned and are therefore one step closer to the approach that will work.

So here's how you shift the balance between Hunter Gatherer and Goal Driver away from Hunter Gatherer being overbearing.

You set aside some time to think about the things that are genuinely most important to you in life. You can call these your values. As you get clear on these values, you think about things you could achieve that are aligned to these values and that 90-year-old you would be genuinely proud of. It's important you think about what future you would be proud of and not what would impress other people or sound fancy. Set aside at least 30 minutes alone for this task. Next, you write down the things you want to be, do, and have. Don't let Hunter Gatherer hold you back; this isn't the time to listen to him or her.

Note - If you are really struggling to think of any goals or telling yourself things like 'this will never work for me', that's Hunter Gatherer taking over! If you had a rough childhood or you've had lots of heavy setbacks, you might have a super strong Hunter Gatherer. You can still fix the balance; it's just going to be harder for you—and more sweet when you do. You might need some therapy or counselling to get you off the starting blocks.

Once you have some goals written down, choose a big one that's going to take between 3-12 months to achieve. Now your task is to share this with someone you trust and ask them to hold you accountable. You're going to check in with them on a weekly basis and share progress OR (and probably more likely) what held you back from making progress. Your biggest barrier to progress is going to be Hunter Gatherer, so this process forces you to talk about that with someone else who isn't in your head.

When you don't have accountability, Hunter Gatherer is very good at 'rationalising' why you should drop it. Hunter Gatherer creates tons of different conversations in your mind about how pursuing this goal isn't worth the risk. You're going to fail. You're going to upset someone. You're going to lose your job. You'll end up single, lonely, broke, alone, and homeless. I remember playing this out in a workshop with a participant. The person was talking themselves out of going to the gym. When we tuned into the story going on in their mind, they realised Hunter Gatherer was convincing them that the consequence of them going to the gym was they would end up homeless! [For clarity, it went along the lines of you'll get injured, which will lead to you losing your job, etc...]

When you intervene with Hunter Gatherer—initially through accountability—something magical starts to happen. As you continue to make progress instead of quitting, the Goal Driver part of your mind gathers a bit of hard evidence to come back at Hunter Gatherer with. The more you continue to do this, the stronger Goal Driver becomes and the more Hunter Gatherer backs down. Over time, as this balance changes, your overall psyche changes and therefore the way in which you experience life. When you have a stronger Goal Driver than you do Hunter Gatherer, you no longer fear failure or hold yourself back from making progress towards what's most important to you. You feel more fulfilled, and as you feel more fulfilled, you have more energy. As you have more energy and fulfilment, you give off a positive aura to the people around you. The right people are attracted to you, and the right opportunities start to present themselves in abundance. This version of you gets to the end of their life and looks back with pride. The old version of you gets to the end of their life (which is most likely shorter) and looks back with regret.

All you have to do is change the balance. I did, and so can you.