The Mind Fulfillment section, what is it about? Is it mindfulness? Is it self-help? Is it productivity? What?

I would say, it’s a bit of all of the above. With a bit of acceptance and values/commitment included.

Mind Fulfillment is acceptance, commitment, and productivity wrapped together to form a tool to make your life into what you want it to be.

That’s the short, slogany version.

Background

I came up with the term “Mind Fulfilment” when I was trying to find a site name for where I could post my ideas. Unfortunately, technical issues amongst others forced me to put all information under one domain (talkwards.com).

I use the process I am going to describe under this section to change my life. I came up with it after I was diagnosed with Autism and ADHD, and I’ve been thinking about how to “handle” that.

I’ve also attended several cognitive behavioral therapy treatments. And long before that, I read many self-help books, from Dr. Phil to Sanaya Roman, and everything in between…

My “mind fulfillment” ideas is a conglomeration of all that. And it is an ongoing process.

I’ve had some successes, and the tools and theories behind these are what Mind Fulfillment is about.

I use mindfulness and acceptance to deal with very autism-centered problems like sound sensitivity, but I also use them to keep on track with my goals.

When you don’t believe

If you’ve read a few self-help books, you’ve probably seen on paper, what looks like a great idea. You may even have started implementing it. However, sooner or later you’ll reach a point where you’re thinking one or several of: I don’t want to do this, this is too hard, I am not good enough, am I doing this right? etc.

Acceptance can help you keep working towards your goals despite all these thoughts. Because guess what?

What’s going on in your head can only affect the world outside your head if you choose to act on your thoughts, fears, and doubts.

Why productivity

You may not like to hear it, but you are defined by what you do not who you are.

You need to take your ideas out of your head and put them into the external world, put them down on paper or record them. When you do that, two things will happen. If you put the ideas into a system you trust to remind you of them later, to make it possible for you to bring them back when you need them, you will unload your brain, reduce stress and make room for new ideas.

You will also become more aware of the value of the idea. An idea in your head can sound great and make all the sense in the world, but it’s only when you start recording it that you will know if it works or not. If you can’t even describe it to yourself. Are you sure you can describe it to someone else, and if not, are you sure it’s doable?

Yes, scary. But also a good way to make room to move on to the next idea.

After a while you’ll get one good idea, then another and another. But if you try to keep them in your head, you’ll either lose them or prevent yourself from having new ideas.

In order to store your ideas, turn them into projects and realize them, you need a method. I haven’t invented the method I use. This method is called Getting Things Done (GTD). I recommend looking into it on your own. In the next post, I’ll give you my version of GTD, and then in an even later post, I’ll go over some tools online that I use to get my things done.

Why productivity is not enough

Even if you can keep working on your goals despite doubt and negative thoughts, and even if you have a trusted system in place to keep your mind free of all the to-dos, you still need to know your overall life goals.

This was a very big issue for me until I started reading about values and even did some online tests. For me, so far (47 years) I’ve found that my values have remained unchanged, although they have been hard to find. I may have had other values when I was younger, but I wasn’t aware of them back then. So they seem like they will be with me for the rest of my life.

What is a value? How do you figure out what your values are?

These are some of the questions I hope to answer under this section.

Why this mix?

Why do I mix mindfulness, acceptance, Getting Things Done and life goals and values in this way?

Mindfulness is for the soul, and to get energy. Acceptance is to work towards your goals even when your mind is screaming at you to watch TV instead. Getting Things Done is how you work towards those goals in the most effective and stress-free way, and finally, life goals and values are why you’re doing all this, and they will sometimes be the only thing keeping you from stopping.

Final words

I’ll post about 5-10 articles per year. If you have an RSS reader you can subscribe to the Mind Fulfillment feed. I will also use the MindFulfillment tag on twitter.

Even though I’ve read some books that could be called new-agey, spiritual or even religious, and even though I might blog about such topics under other sections on this site, my intention is to keep the Mind Fulfillment section completely free of political and religious bias.

On the other hand, I have no degree in psychology. What I blog about here is not a replacement for any treatment. It’s a blog after all! It may still be of help to you. Feel free to discuss what I write with your therapist if you have one.