Think Like a Monk: Train Your Mind for Peace and Purpose Every Day

by Jay Shetty

Today we all struggle with overthinking, procrastination, and anxiety as a result of indulging the monkey mind. The monkey mind switches aimlessly from thought to thought, challenge to challenge, without really solving anything.

The monk mindset lifts us out of confusion and distraction and helps us find clarity, meaning, and direction.

First, we will let go, stripping ourselves from the external influences, internal obstacles, and fears that hold us back.

Second, we will grow. I will help you reshape your life so that you can make decisions with intention, purpose,

and confidence. Finally, we will give, looking to the world beyond ourselves, expanding and sharing our sense of gratitud...

It is better to live your own destiny imperfectly than to live an imitation of somebody else’s life with perfection. —Bhagavad Gita 3.35

When you try to live your most authentic life, some of your relationships will be put in jeopardy. Losing them is a risk worth bearing; finding a way to keep them in your life is a challenge worth taking on.

there is nothing wrong with a society that offers models of what a fulfilling life might look like. But if we take on these goals without reflection, we’ll never understand why we don’t own a home or we’re not happy where we live, why our job feels hollow, whether we even want a spouse or any of the goals we’re striving for.

“Your identity is a mirror covered with dust. When you first look

in the mirror, the truth of who you are and what you value is obscured. Clearing it may not be pleasant, but only when that dust is gone can you see your true reflection.”

As a monk, I learned early on that our values are influenced by whatever absorbs our minds.

Higher values propel and elevate us toward happiness, fulfillment, and meaning. Lower values demote us toward anxiety, depression, and suffering.

According to the Gita, these are the higher values and qualities: fearlessness, purity of

mind, gratitude, service and charity, acceptance, performing sacrifice, deep study, austerity, straightforwardness, nonviolence, truthfulness, absence of anger, renunciation, perspective, restraint from fault finding, compassion toward all living be...

The six lower values are greed, lust, anger, ego, illusion, and envy.

Multiple studies show that the way we relate to the world around us is contagious.

A twenty-year study of people living in a Massachusetts town showed that both happiness and depression spread within social circles.

If a friend who lives within a...

becomes happier, then the chance that you are also happy increases by 25 percent. The effect jumps hi...

If you’re not sure where others fit in relation to your values, ask yourself a question: When I spend time with this person or group, do I feel like I’m getting closer to or further away from who I want to be?

“Cancers of the Mind: Comparing, Complaining, Criticizing.”

One of the exercises we did was keeping a tally of every criticism we spoke or thought. For each one, we had to write down ten good things about the person.

When I found myself being self-critical, I reminded myself that I too had positive qualities. Putting my negative qualities in context helped me recognize the same ratio in myself, that I am more good than bad.

“Do not give your attention to what others do or fail to do; give it to what you do or fail to do.”

More often, we use gossip to put others down, which can make us feel superior to them and/or bolster our status in a group.

We have three core emotional needs, which I like to think of as peace, love, and understanding

Negativity—in conversation, emotions, and actions—often springs from a threat to one of the three needs: a fear that bad things are going to happen (loss of peace), a

fear of not being loved (loss of love), or a fear of being disrespected (loss of understanding). From these fears stem all sorts of other emotions—feeling overwhelmed, insecure, hurt, competitive, needy, and so on. These negative feelings spring out of us as ...

participants who identified with a victim mindset were not only more likely to

express selfish attitudes afterward, they were also more likely to leave behind trash and even take the experimenters’ pens!

even people who report feeling better after venting are still more aggressive post-gripe than people who did not engage in venting.

Studies show that negativity like mine can increase aggression toward random, uninvolved people, and that the more negative your attitude, the more likely you are to have a negative attitude in the future.

“There is no commandment that says we have to be upset by the way other people treat us. The

reason we are upset is because we have an emotional program that says, ‘If someone is nasty to me, I cannot be happy or feel good about myself.’

Letting go gives us freedom, and freedom is the only condition for happiness.

If all someone needs is an ear, you can listen without exerting much energy. If we try to be problem-solvers, then we become frustrated when people don’t take our brilliant advice. The desire to save others is ego-driven. Don’t let your own needs shape your response.

Envy, complaint, anger—it’s easier to blame those around us for a culture of negativity, but purifying our own thoughts will protect us from the influence of others.

The more we define ourselves in relation to the people around us, the more lost we are.

Letting go doesn’t mean wiping away negative thoughts, feelings, and ideas completely. The truth is that these thoughts will always arise—it is what we do with them that makes the difference.

The key to real freedom is self-awareness.

To purify our thoughts, monks talk about the process of awareness, addressing, and amending.

Remember, saying whatever we want, whenever we want, however we want, is not freedom. Real freedom is not feeling the need to say these things.

It is important to find our significance not from thinking other people have it better but from being the person we want to be.

writing in a journal about upsetting events, giving attention to your thoughts and emotions, can foster growth and

healing, not only mentally, but also physically.

Visualize everything good that has come to them

from this achievement.

Would you want to take any of these things away if you could, even knowing that they would not come to you? If so, this envy is robbing you of joy. Envy is more destructive to you than whatever your frie...

Sometimes it’s better (and safer and healthier) not to have direct contact with the person at all; other times, the person who hurt us

is no longer around to be forgiven directly. But those factors don’t impede forgiveness because it is, first and foremost, internal. It frees you from anger.