Mental Audit

Have you ever done a financial audit – tracking every penny spent over 30 days? Revealing, isn’t it? The picture we have is always in the moment – a cup of coffee, grab a pizza or quick bite, meet a client over lunch, a quick stop at the convenience store, a movie, drinks out. Alone, they seem safe, reasonable. Maybe.

Enter, the Latte Principle.

A couple tracked the lattes they both bought to and from Starbucks every weekday. Five bucks x 2 people x 2 stops x 5 days x 52 weeks = $5,200/year!!!! And how much do you have to earn to keep $5,200?! It’s worth it in the smallness of the moment, but is it when seen in this new light? For some, the answer is a resounding YES. For most, it’s not.

Some of us have taken this audit plan to the next level – how we spend our time. Have you tried it? Track all actions 24/7 – 15-minute blocks. Yuck! I’ve tried. Got a few days in but lost my edge.

It takes tremendous awareness, organization, and grit to pull this off correctly. Even a soft audit, listing what you do, but not chronologically – just a list – can help. That does work and has helped me dump some sneaky time stealers while gaining more conscious control over other high-priority actions.

Have you ever heard the phrase “We become what we think about.”?

So, let’s go there - the coup de grâce, the Big Cheese, the Grand Poobah – your thinking. What if you could do a thought audit over 30 days? How many thoughts do you have in a day?

Imagine an app that tuned into your brain and tracked and categorized all of your thoughts, even ranking them in frequency.

Scary.

And yet, this might be the one scientific discovery that could change everything. Self-awareness would soar. We would actually know so much about ourselves – how many negative, useless, self-deprecating, fearful, anxiety-ridden, and destructive thoughts we actually have. And how much these are about the one in the mirror.

Oh…that’s why I feel this way. That’s why I struggle with this person or that new opportunity.

That’s why I am where I am.

Here’s where we get into real self-awareness. We may not have a way to track every thought, but neuroscience has discovered how to track the pathways, and how they get there – repetition. Consistent thoughts repeat. Repetition creates ruts, and those ruts turn into the neuropathways we unintentionally or intentionally choose. Those pathways or ruts pull us in line with that thinking, without thinking about it. Habit.

Getting control of our thoughts is possible. The “how” of this is much more complicated than I can explain, or truly understand. But the science is out there.

The problem isn’t that we don’t have the app to tell us our thoughts. We already know – remember, we become what we think about.

So, let’s just get better about what we think about. How? Your inputs. Inputs infect or protect. Choose what you want and find the resources that drive that thinking.

Find the books, the people, any resources to influence the right thinking and eventually, slowly, you’ll change your thinking.

You’ll still become what you think about. And that’s a good thing.