Breakthought: The most important thought of the day

Any thought that is passed on to the subconscious often enough and convincingly enough is finally accepted.
Robert Collier

If I told you that breakfast is the most important meal of the day, I'm sure you either wouldn't be surprised or that you would tell me you've heard that before dozens, if not hundreds of times. Its just one of things we know because, well, it makes sense. We measure the progress of our lives by days and plenty of cliche notions attest to it; "Today is a new day", "Live to fight another day" "Die another day" "Seize the day" and so on. Back to the thoughts on breakfast - what if we skip breakfast unintentionally or, worse off, have a habit of skipping breakfast because our lives are so busy? Stop me if you can't relate - I'd be shocked - but, ever have one of those mornings where you wake up already feeling "late" for the day so you rush right into it and start hammering away at your to do list at the crack of dawn, only to realize its suddenly 2pm and you are STARVING... Maybe you happen to be in your car at the time and you feel compelled to eat just about anything so you think "bahhh... whats one big mac?" and drive on through to the nearest golden arches. You end up making a poor decision that your body will not appreciate because you allowed your ability to consciously choose degrade to a level of desperation, just cure this awful starving feeling! What if you did quite the opposite and did have breakfast but it was some HUGE greasy mess, washed down by gallons of coffee and concentrated juices? Bloated... you lethargically review whats next for the day but can't help but be tempted to just sit on a soft perch and let your poor body deal with the pound of grease you just forced into it. My point right now is this - If our lives are a collection of days, then every day has a starting point, and if that starting point is not respected and aligned with your goals and conscious values, the rest of the day will have a hard time doing the same. Its not impossible, but why make it so difficult. Ok, yes - we know this. Eat right in the morning, take my multivitamins, drink green tea not coffee, yes yes yes, I heard this on Dr. Oz a million times, whats your point now? Again, I know this is cliche, I intentionally want to regurgitate the cliche notions to segue into this: What if the same were true for our first thought of the day? In fact, let me rephrase that. The same IS TRUE FOR OUR FIRST THOUGHT OF THE DAY.

Your body performs a host of critical digestive functions after slipping into a deep sleep, and in essence it is also "fasting", which is where the term breakfast comes from: breaking the fast. Your mind also performs a host of critical cognitive tasks after slipping into a deep sleep, and if conscious thinking is akin to eating (its something you are in control of manually) then in sleep your mind is fasting from conscious thinking. We could call your first conscious thought "Breakthought". So, lets play through the stories above through the lens of thinking and imagine how the analogy plays out. You wake up into a somewhat subconscious state of reflexive thinking. Much like a well programmed robot, you go about your tasks and to-do's. Suddenly its 2pm and you have a solid, 100% conscious thought "I didn't work on my blog today". Well, its 2pm now and there are several reasons why you don't have the time right now. You decide to work on it later when your work and to do's are done. You hear a small voice maybe, berating yourself for the small failure "I'll never be a great blogger... I'm always rushing it or don't have time", you may even feel some self pity to stir this up even more. The point is, you don't feel so hot, and on some level you think that all you do is work and take care of life's demands. Life is happening to you, you are not happening to life. Its like after eating that big mac - you rationalized it at first and in the starving moment that felt like an ok decision - but then felt like crap after eating it and carved another notch into the belief that you will never truly be a healthy person. Those notches become pretty convincing and tend to thwart further attempts later on, but I digress, lets get back to the analogy.

You have to have a picture in your mind of what you want to be. Your ideal state. There always exists your current state and your desired state, and they exist in flux because your standards either lower along with the humdrum of subconscious living, or the bar is raised along with the progress and direction of positive, outcome thinking. Since we all have these two states right here and now, nothing can stop you from causing yourself to think into the right direction. More importantly, nothing can stop you from waking up every single day and consciously thinking towards your desired direction. You know what happens to people's bodies when they eat a healthy breakfast every day, imagine what happens with our minds if we had a healthy, conscious thought every morning. The physiological response to a healthy diet is not so unlike the response to healthy conscious thinking. In fact, thinking has an even GREATER physiological response than eating. You could eat a nearly perfect diet every day, but still die of heart disease - but if you lead a life of consciousness and stress free living, your body has a better chance against disease even amidst an unhealthy diet. A statistical study on this concept can be found in Malcolm Gladwell's book: The Outliers.

You want to look good and feel healthy? Summon the words in your mind consciously every morning. Create a mantra if you have to, but be certain that if it is what is most important to you then it needs to be part of your Breakthought every morning. Even if you know you are consciously thinking every morning and you are not so subject to these described extreme examples of subconscious living, are your conscious thoughts guided by your values or goals? If you want anything bad enough, it all starts with assertive words in your mind that flow through defined values. Every single morning, across the country, two types of people wake up - Those who happen to life, and those who's lives happen to them, and it begins with a thought and goes from there until its time to sleep again. If millions can wake up and take charge of the destiny of a 24 hour period, why can't you? If every morning people can make their goals so important and critical to them that they make sure to do and think things for themselves first, why can't you?

Whether you agree with religion or not, probably one of the most common examples of a breakthought would be a morning prayer. And, if you think about it, what does this prayer do? Sets the tone. Deepens the grooves of the beliefs and values of the religious philosophies. Its like an instruction manual of values and beliefs. Over time these grooves in your mind become so deep that your faith becomes unshakable and you truly do perceive the promised perceptions of the faith in the world. The same happens when you deepen the grooves of your own values and beliefs about yourself, whether YOU PUT THEM THERE, or OTHERS PUT THEM THERE. I personally think that no matter what you believe, the important thing is that you believe in something. Almost any religious faith in this world has an example of a morning prayer and encourages followers to pray every morning. Praying and putting yourself into a state of gratitude is powerful because, according to Anthony Robbins, gratitude is the enemy of fear, and fear is the master and commander of stress, anxiety, urgency, failure, "glass half empty" thinking and so on.

As an exercise - put a note pad by your bed and for 5 minutes every morning, write down what you thought first thing in the morning, your breakthought. Ask yourself a few questions as you do this every day. Does this thought align with my personal goals and values? Is this thought conscious? As in, did I put it there or was it put there itself as a result of a feeling of anxiety, urgency, despair, panic, etc. Or was it put there subconsciously because of a strong and healthy subconscious, out of love, kindness, generosity and gratitude? Where did it come from and how is it going to serve you today, how is this going to navigate the rest of your thinking today?

Breakthought, the most important thought of the day.