My mind is a tool, not who I am.

Metacognition — the awareness of one’s thought processes — can be a transformative skill.

Understanding it can help you learn more deeply, make decisions faster, and expand your creativity as well as improve your overall sense of wellbeing.

Before you learn the techniques, the following mindset shift has to occur for metacognition to work:

Most people spend their entire lives thinking they are their minds, and their thoughts are their reality. This illusion makes them feel stuck in unhelpful mental patterns.

The truth is you are not your thoughts. Your thoughts are a creation of the mind, like ripples in a pond. The mind is an instrument you’ve (unknowingly) been training since you were born.

Realizing you are not the mind allows you to step back and change your thinking more effectively.

When we see thoughts as an expression of energy and thinking as a tool, we become empowered to use the mind as a tool instead of identifying with it.

In this new mindset, you can navigate your mind with flow and ease and increase your capacity to think bigger, greater, and deeper. Your potential grows exponentially.

QUOTES TO HELP YOU RETHINK YOUR MIND

“The most fundamental aggression to ourselves, the most fundamental harm we can do to ourselves, is to remain ignorant by not having the courage and the respect to look at ourselves honestly and gently.” – Pema Chödrön

“He who knows others is wise; he who knows himself is enlightened.” – Lao Tzu

“A thought is harmless unless we believe it. It’s not our thoughts, but our attachment to our thoughts, that causes suffering.” – Byron Katie