"When we stop being so impressed with our thoughts and start letting go of the mental clutter, that's when true freedom and high performance are born."
One of the things I’ve been fascinated by over the past year is deepening my understanding of the link between state of mind, mental health, and high performance. Some experts say there’s no connection, while others argue that your state of mind is everything.
In today’s post, I want to share what I’ve come to see for myself over the past year—and how it can transform the way you think about both mental well-being and high performance.
The Mental Stress Trap: How It Holds Us Back
At a recent London 3PUK conference, Dr. Bill Pettit made a bold statement:
“There is only one cause of all mental illness—chronic mental stress.”
He explained that our biology is designed to handle up to 30 minutes of heightened stress every 48-72 hours. But when we go beyond that threshold, our bodies start compensating by shutting down long-term survival systems—such as sex drive and immune function—to prioritize short-term survival.
The more chronic stress we endure, the more it manifests differently in each of us. This can lead to symptoms ranging from anxiety and fatigue to diagnosed mental illnesses. But Dr. Pettit emphasized two key points of hope:
- We Have Innate Resilience: When the stress stops, our mind and body can recover quickly and completely. We’re designed to bounce back.
- Chronic Stress is a Thinking Trap: Stress is caused by obsessively focusing on stressful thoughts. We live in the feeling of our thinking, and constantly tuning in to dark or anxious thoughts traps us in those feelings.
Even if you’re experiencing moments of doubt, self-criticism, or overwhelm, it’s important to realize: the less we engage with those thoughts, the faster our well-being returns.
High Performance: It’s About Bandwidth, Not Positive Thinking
At the “Understanding Human Mind” Conference in Prague, Michael Neill shared a powerful analogy: our minds operate like a laptop connected to a universal internet. That internet is Universal Mind—the intelligence of life flowing through us.
What appears on our screen is Thought; the flow of thought is determined by bandwidth (Consciousness). When bandwidth is high, we process information with ease, handle challenges gracefully, and experience flow. When it’s low, everything feels like it’s buffering—nothing works, and we feel overwhelmed.
Here’s the catch: we can’t directly control our bandwidth. It expands and contracts naturally. What we can control, however, is how much we fill up our mental bandwidth with unnecessary thinking.
The less you care about what’s on your mind, the higher your performance will be.
The Water Bottle Analogy: Mental Clarity Through Simplicity
Lila Turner, working with teenagers on exam stress, compared mental clutter to water in a bottle. When you’re doing something you love, the bottle’s 1/3 full—there’s plenty of headspace. But during stressful moments, like exams, the bottle fills up to 2/3 or more, leaving little room for clarity.
When your mind is cluttered, performance dips.
Reflecting on this, I’ve seen how our over-reliance on strategies to perform better can actually backfire. We don’t need to do more; we need to do less—giving our minds space to flow naturally, without trying to control or fix every thought.
Mental Health, High Performance, and Realizing Your Full Potential
High performance isn’t about positive thinking or forcing your way through mental roadblocks. It’s about creating the mental bandwidth to allow clarity, creativity, and resilience to arise naturally. The less you get caught up in managing your thoughts, the more you’ll experience a state of flow.
Even if you feel overwhelmed or trapped in overthinking, remember: your mental bandwidth is always there, ready to expand as soon as you stop filling it with unnecessary mental clutter.
A Final Insight...
I used to say that the less you have on your mind, the better your life gets. But now I’ve come to realize that a more helpful way of putting it is this:
The less you care about what’s on your mind, the higher your performance and the better your life gets.
Here’s a question for you to reflect on: When was the last time you felt truly “in the flow”? Was it when your mind was filled with thoughts or when you allowed yourself the mental space to let things happen naturally?
with all my love & respect,
PS: Ready to Dive Deeper?
Feel free to leave a comment below or send me an email if this resonates with you. And don’t forget to connect with me on Instagram @MrsBimako for more insights on mental clarity, emotional intelligence, and intentional living. You can also explore these related articles:
Let’s continue this journey together!
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