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BITESIZE | Train Your Brain to Create the Life You Want to Live | Tara Swart #180

May 6, 2021 15m 13s 11 insights
It’s easy to go through the motions every day and let life happen to us, but if we want to get the most out of life, we need a strategy. Feel Better Live More Bitesize is my weekly podcast for your mind, body, and heart. Each week I’ll be featuring inspirational stories and practical tips from some of my former guests. Today’s clip is from episode 58 of the podcast with Dr. Tara Swart – neuroscientist, executive coach, and author of the best-selling book ‘The Source’. In this clip, she explains how we can take back control of our lives by training our brains to create the life we want to live. Show notes and the full podcast are available at drchatterjee.com/58 Thanks to our sponsor http://www.athleticgreens.com/livemore Follow me on instagram.com/drchatterjee Follow me on facebook.com/DrChatterjee Follow me on twitter.com/drchatterjeeuk
Actionable Insights

1. Decide from Abundance, Not Fear

Consciously override the natural default of making decisions based on fear, which is our strongest survival emotion, and instead choose to make decisions from a place of ‘abundance’ to guide your life choices.

2. Drive Your Life, Don’t Just Ride

Actively choose your life’s direction by stepping back and reflecting on your choices and what you tolerate, rather than passively going through the motions and letting life happen to you.

3. Improve Thought Quality with Core Pillars

Engage in foundational practices like adequate sleep, a healthy diet, regular exercise, and mindfulness, as these improve the quality of your thoughts, leading to clearer thinking, better job performance, and improved relationships.

4. Cultivate Evolving Gratitude Practice

Develop a daily gratitude practice that progresses from appreciating external things (family, friends) to recognizing intrinsic qualities (creativity, resilience), which builds internal tools to deal with future unexpected challenges.

5. List Personal Achievements & Pride

Regularly create a list of accomplishments you are proud of, including both traditional successes (academic, career) and personal efforts (e.g., being a good stepmom), to build a stronger self-image and acknowledge your hard work.

6. Journal to Process Thoughts & Stress

Use journaling to record daily events, emotions, and potential future actions, which helps sort out thoughts, gain objectivity, and reduce stress by moving anxieties from your head onto paper or into conversation.

7. Embrace Novelty for Brain Flexibility

Actively bring changes into your life by trying new things, meeting new people, having new experiences, and reading diverse books, as these activities make your brain more open and flexible, enhancing your ability to deal with future changes.

8. Focus on Building Positive Outcomes

Shift your life decisions from avoiding negative outcomes (e.g., debt, relationship loss) to actively building positive ones, such as creating a financial nest egg, improving relationships, or making new friends.

9. Implement Micro-Tweaks to Routine

Focus on making small, incremental changes (e.g., going to bed 30 minutes earlier, increasing steps by 1-2k daily, drinking more water) across multiple areas, as these micro-tweaks build up to significant improvements in well-being and brain power.

10. Acknowledge Brain-Body Connection

Understand that your physical state (e.g., cold, hungry, tired) directly impacts the quality of your thinking, and your mental state (e.g., confident, anxious) affects your body’s nerves and hormones, highlighting the interconnectedness of mind and body.

11. Support Gut Health with AG1

Consider supplementing with AG1, a daily health drink containing five strains of gut bacteria and plant-based compounds, to support digestion and enrich the gut microbiome by increasing beneficial bacteria.