Hi there 👋
Every Monday I'll bring you one idea. This week it's about the brain and the thoughts running it.
When I first came across the fact that the average human brain generates approximately 6,000 thoughts per day, honestly I didn't fully believe it.
That felt like a lot. So I started paying attention to what's actually going on here.
Most of my thoughts revolved around the same areas. Work. Family. Health. Finance and my Future of course. Within each area, it was rarely a new thought. It was the same thought at a different stage; either replaying the past or rehearsing the future, which most often doesn't turn out the way I had imagined, now that I think back.
So I started asking: Why can't I wake up and just command my brain what thoughts it should have and go on with my day?
Here's the catch. Consider your heart for a second. It beats at a certain rate depending on dozens of factors we can't control. But if you want it to beat faster, you don't sit and command it. You go for a run. You play a sport. You clean the house, and then the heart responds.
Apparently the brain works the same way. I can't directly command it. But I can create the right conditions for it to operate better.
Here's what nobody told us growing up.
Schools taught us the heart was the most important organ. Movies showed doctors pressing a stethoscope to a patient's chest to check if they were alive. The heart got all the attention.
The brain? We were told it's the CPU of our body; like that was enough explanation a kid needed at that stage of life. Nobody taught us how to work with it.
So I went looking for a way in. And I landed on something surprisingly simple.
A concept called Labeling.
I label my kitchen containers. Salt. Pepper. Garlic powder. Onion powder. Why? It removes the guesswork so I don't reach for the wrong thing when I need it quickly.
What if I did the same with my actions throughout the day?
When I watch a YouTube video about gardening, I'm not just watching, I'm actually learning. But when I start taking action on gardening, I've started practising the skill I was once just learning.
When I'm talking to a friend over a call or in person, I'm not just passing time, I'm socializing. So the next time I think I'm not going out enough, I'll remember the time I was on a call with my friend from the other side of the world for more than 2 hours while procrastinating my laundry for the third time that week. LOL.
When I paint or capture a photo of something I love, I didn't do that because I was bored, I was creating something that never existed before I decided to make it.
Something shifts when you name what you're doing. The label creates a tiny moment of awareness between the impulse and the action. And that moment is where the brain starts to work with you instead of running on autopilot, which can sometimes work against us without us even realizing.
It's not about controlling all 6,000 thoughts. That's not the goal and frankly it's not possible. It's about building one small moment of awareness at a time, so we're at least not surprised when our thoughts are working against us.
Awareness is the first condition for better thinking.
This week's nudge
Label three actions today. Just three. Give them your own names: consuming, creating, resting, connecting, whatever feels true to you in that moment. Don't perfect it.
Notice what happens to the thought that follows.
That's it. That's the practice.
Rome wasn't built in a day. Neither is a brain that works for us.
See you next Monday 🌅
Warmly,
Narman
Just a human learning to label his own life, one thought at a time.
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