Improve Your Mental Health by Cutting Back on the News
Recently, I have been forming new habits. The most notable is improving focus. I started tracking things when I did not care for it before. Creating new habits can be difficult at first. But if you give yourself 21 days, the habit will stick.
And, when it comes to focus training, it can be difficult, especially in this day and age when attention spans are becoming increasingly short. Regardless, it’s a valuable skill to acquire, especially if you’re a solopreneur in the early stages who is doing everything on their own and without the assistance of a team.
But here's the thing: none of this would be possible if I had not cut myself off from the news years ago. Late 2016, to be exact. That is when I experienced a personal development renaissance. Do yourself a favour and detach your mind from social programming. Because a mind that detaches from the system and stops feeding on the disgusting diet of constant negativity and fear-mongering that the media feeds is able to find other sources of mental growth.
Because all you ever get from the news is a constant source of stress and anxiety. Both issues are caused by all of the negative information they show you. It can be difficult to avoid at first because we are creatures of habit, especially with 24-hour news cycles and social media feeds that bombard you with all that unhealthy information.
This is why, when you finally feel overwhelmed by the news, as I did back then, it’s not only important but crucial that you take a step back and reduce your consumption.
Then you can gradually begin to fill the void left by the garbage in the news, with things that will strengthen your mindset instead of weaken it.
Like Robert Greene's book, The 48 Laws of Power. I first heard about this book last summer on Twitter from one of those mindset-enriching accounts that recommend all the good books. So I assumed it came out at that time, but it was actually published in 1998. It’s funny how I had not heard of it until recently. Almost everyone who is interested in mindset development is aware of it and talks about it.
It wasn’t until today that I decided to give it a listen, despite the fact that it had been on my to-read (or listen-to) list for quite some time. I was listening to it on my evening walk earlier. I must admit that listening to the preface surprised me because it was so engaging and wasn’t anything like what I had expected from the title.
I think it was the whole villain vibe from fiction that I was getting from all the power talk. But it had to be all of the examples and how they can relate to people.
This quote from the book especially reminded me of Game of Thrones.
“Power is a game, and in games, you do not judge your opponents by their intentions but by the effect of their actions. You measure their strategy and their power by what you can see and feel. It is a game.”
The preface is lengthy and paints a picture of how humans are and should interact with one another. Especially since we are all playing the same tricky game that the people at the royal courts did back in the olden days. And that not everything is as it seems.
This brings me back to how the media has been playing the game all along. That’s why you have to detach yourself from it and begin immersing yourself in books and nourishing your mind with useful things to win at the game of life.
Because, in the end, life is finite. Opportunities are scarce, and you only have so much energy to work with. Don’t get sucked into what the news feeds you.
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