What Is a Mental Diet Exactly? And Why Should You Give a Damn?

Imagine deciding you want to improve your physical health. Maybe you want more energy, to lose a few pounds, or to stop feeling like you need a nap every afternoon just to make it through the day.

You'd likely start paying attention to what you're eating. You'd become more aware of the foods you're consuming, how often you're eating them, and how they make you feel. You might even discover that some of the things you've been eating regularly aren't doing you any favors.

Now, let me ask you something. When was the last time you paid that much attention to what you're feeding your mind?

Because whether you realize it or not, you're consuming a mental diet every single day. And much like your physical diet, what you're repeatedly feeding yourself is influencing how you feel, how you behave, and how you experience your life.

But let's face it, most people have absolutely no idea what they're consuming.

What Is a Mental Diet?

A mental diet is the conscious practice of paying attention to the thoughts, beliefs, assumptions, and internal conversations you're repeatedly feeding your mind.

Think about it like your physical diet. If you wanted to improve your health, you would begin by becoming aware of what you're eating. You might notice habits you hadn't thought twice about before, recognize patterns, and make intentional changes based on what you want to experience.

A mental diet works much the same way.

Except instead of looking at what you're putting into your body, you're examining what you're repeatedly allowing into your mind and, perhaps more importantly, what you're doing with it once it's there.

By Hal Gatewood via Unsplash

This includes things like:

• The conversations you have with yourself throughout the day.

• The assumptions you make about yourself, other people, and your circumstances.

• The stories you repeatedly tell yourself about what's possible.

• The information and perspectives you're consuming through social media, conversations, and other influences.

• The thoughts you continue entertaining long after the actual experience has ended.

And I want to emphasize that last one because, whew, I have some experience with it.

How My Mental Diet Was Affecting My Work

I once had a boss who drove me absolutely batshit. I was frustrated with how we worked together and what her expectations were. And rather than dealing with those frustrations when they happened and moving on, I was carrying them around with me. I would have entire arguments with her in my head.

I'd replay conversations, mentally defend my position, anticipate what she might say next, and prepare my response. I was so accustomed to being frustrated that I approached my work already defensive, ready to bite back.

And these conversations weren't limited to working hours. I'd go to bed replaying whatever had annoyed me that day. Sometimes I'd wake up in the morning and, before I'd even started working, I was already mentally battling with her. Talk about starting your day on the wrong damn foot.

By Valentina Gorio via Unsplash

Then it hit me: My internal conversations were influencing how I showed up externally.

I was so focused on everything that frustrated me that I was approaching situations expecting another reason to be frustrated. I wasn't as open to suggestions, and I wasn't giving myself much room to be creative.

When I learned about mental diets, I started paying attention to those conversations and intentionally shifting them. I didn't suddenly decide she was the most wonderful boss in the world. I didn't pretend the things that frustrated me weren't happening. Instead, I began stopping the internal arguments and changing what I was telling myself about the situation.

Rather than mentally arguing about whether she appreciated my work, I could remind myself that I knew my work was phenomenal. Rather than treating every difficult interaction like another battle, I could recognize that dealing with difficult people was a learning experience.

And something wild happened. I became more open, more creative, and less defensive. Our working relationship actually softened.

Did she stop annoying me? Goodness not even a little, she still drove me nuts.

But the annoyances stopped following me to bed every night. I wasn't spending my mornings preparing for arguments that hadn't happened.

The external circumstances hadn't magically become perfect. My relationship with those circumstances had changed, and that influenced how I behaved within them.

Neville Goddard, Inner Speech, and the Mental Diet

One of the people whose teachings have influenced my understanding of mental diets is Neville Goddard.

In his book Awakened Imagination and The Search, particularly the chapter The Coin of Heaven, Neville explores the significance of our inner speech and the relationship between what we repeatedly say internally and what we experience in life.

His teachings emphasize that our internal conversations are far more influential than most people realize.

And think about how much time you spend talking to yourself.

You might not even recognize that you're doing it. You're mentally rehearsing conversations, revisiting disagreements, imagining what someone thinks about you, or telling yourself why something probably won't work.

You may even have entire relationships with people in your imagination that are quite different from the relationships you're experiencing in person. I certainly did with my boss.

Neville's perspective goes further than conventional psychology. He teaches that our inner conversations and assumptions participate in creating our external reality. Whether you subscribe to his spiritual teachings or prefer to approach this through psychology, I think there's an important connection worth exploring.

Because we have scientific evidence that our beliefs and expectations influence how we process information, interpret experiences, and behave. And one of the most fascinating examples of this is confirmation bias.

What Does Confirmation Bias Have to Do With Your Mental Diet?

Your brain is constantly receiving more information than you could possibly consciously process and us remain sane. We would be on complete overload if we didn't filter what we actually pay attention to and process. There are sounds, sights, conversations, sensations, and countless other things competing for your attention every moment. Your brain has to prioritize.

And your existing beliefs, expectations, and experiences can influence what you notice and how you interpret what happens around you. One psychological phenomenon that helps explain this is called confirmation bias.

Confirmation bias is our tendency to seek out, interpret, and remember information in ways that support what we already believe.

Let's say you believe your boss doesn't respect you. You might become especially attentive to the times they question your work, disagree with your ideas, or fail to acknowledge your contributions.

Meanwhile, you might overlook moments when they trust you with something important, support an idea, or give you positive feedback. You could have ten interactions in a day, and the one that reinforces your existing belief becomes the one you replay all evening.

Sound familiar?

Now, this doesn't mean your boss is secretly wonderful or that your concerns are imaginary. Sometimes people really are difficult. Sometimes the environment you're in genuinely needs to change. But when you recognize how your existing beliefs influence what you're noticing, you have an opportunity to get curious.

What else might be happening that you're overlooking?

Are you interpreting situations based on what's actually occurring, or are you repeatedly reinforcing a conclusion you've already reached?

And how might that interpretation be influencing your behavior?

This is where what Neville taught and psychology connect. Neville emphasizes the importance of our habitual inner conversations. Psychology helps us understand some of the ways our expectations and beliefs influence our attention, interpretation, and behavior.

What People Get Wrong About Mental Diets

So many people make practicing a mental diet unnecessarily difficult.

They become convinced that having even ONE negative thought means they've somehow failed. They start monitoring every thought, fighting anything that feels negative, and worrying that an unwanted thought is going to undo all their progress. Which, ironically, can create an entirely new mental battle.

You're frustrated about something. Then you're frustrated with yourself for being frustrated. Then you're worried that your frustration is somehow creating more things to be frustrated about.

Good grief - who wants to live like that?!

Remember: You are not your thoughts.

You Don't Have to Turn Every Negative Thought Into a Positive One

Let's return to my boss for a moment.

I could have gone from thinking, "Gah, this woman drives me batshit," to trying to convince myself, "She's the most wonderful boss ever, and I absolutely love working with her!"

Except I wouldn't have believed that for a second. And I didn't need to. I could acknowledge that she frustrated me while changing the meaning I was assigning to the experience.

Maybe I reminded myself that I knew my work was phenomenal, regardless of her opinion.

Maybe I recognized that learning to work with difficult people was simply one of the challenges I was navigating.

Those shifts gave me a different way to experience the situation without requiring me to deny what I was feeling. A mental diet doesn't require you to become some permanently cheerful human who never gets pissed off.

You can experience frustration, disappointment, fear, and anger. The question is what happens after those feelings arise - your choice is in what you do with the thoughts and feelings you have.

Do you acknowledge them, get curious, and decide how you want to respond? Or do you continue feeding the same thoughts until they've become the soundtrack of your life?

And sometimes, after examining those thoughts, you may recognize that the circumstances themselves need to change. I firmly believe self-improvement can become another form of self-abandonment when we use it to make ourselves more comfortable with circumstances that are hurting us.

Your mental diet should help you become more conscious of your life, including recognizing when something is no longer working for you.

How to Start a Mental Diet

If you're interested in beginning a mental diet, don't immediately trying to change every thought that enters your mind. Begin with awareness.

You cannot change what you aren't aware of.

Most of us move through our days following whatever thoughts happen to pop into our heads, continuing familiar patterns without recognizing how much those patterns influence our behaviors.

So before you start changing your mental diet, spend some time discovering what you've actually been consuming.

Step 1: Choose One Area of Your Life

Start by identifying one area of your life you'd like to experience differently.

Maybe it's your career, finances, relationships, health, or confidence. Choose something that matters to you. Something you genuinely want to change or improve. You don't need to tackle your entire life at once.

Step 2: Spend 24 Hours Paying Attention

For the next 24 hours, check in with your thoughts about that particular area of life.

Don't try to correct them yet. Just notice what's happening.

What do you repeatedly tell yourself?

What assumptions are you making?

What conversations are you having internally?

Are you imagining possibilities or rehearsing everything that could go wrong?

And what happens when you encounter something that challenges what you already believe?

You might be surprised by how often the same thoughts appear.

Step 3: Imagine Your Life as a Movie

This is one of my favorite exercises.

Imagine you're writing a movie about your life. You're the main character, and the audience gets to hear a special voiceover revealing everything you're thinking throughout the story. They hear your private conversations, your assumptions, your doubts, and the things you tell yourself when nobody else is listening.

Now imagine the audience knows what you want to accomplish. Maybe your character wants to start a business, pursue a new career, or build a fulfilling relationship.

But every time the voiceover comes on, they're hearing things like:

• "I could never make enough money doing that."

• "People like me don't get opportunities like that."

• "I'm probably going to screw this up."

• "Why would anyone choose me?"

• "I wouldn't even know where to begin."

Based on that voiceover, what would the audience expect your character to do next?

Would they expect someone who confidently pursues what they want? Or someone who continually finds reasons to talk themselves out of trying?

And here's the bigger question.

Does the reality those inner conversations are creating match the life you say you want?

Step 4: Begin Intentionally Changing the Conversation

Once you've recognized your patterns, you can begin choosing different thoughts to entertain.

You don't have to leap from "I'll never be successful" to "I'm the most successful person on the planet!"

Maybe you begin with, "I don't know how to do this yet, but I can learn."

Or instead of "Nothing ever works out for me," you begin recognizing the things that have worked out and asking yourself what you can do differently.

You're interrupting a familiar pattern and giving yourself an opportunity to approach life differently. And as you begin behaving differently, you create opportunities for different experiences.

Your Mental Diet and Your Personal POWER

In my POWER framework, we begin with Perception because the way we perceive ourselves, other people, and our circumstances influences so much of what follows. Our perceptions help shape the stories we tell ourselves. Those stories influence how we identify ourselves and what we believe we're capable of doing.

But awareness alone doesn't create change.

That's where Ownership comes in.

Once you recognize the stories you've been reinforcing, you have an opportunity to take ownership of what happens next. You can continue entertaining the same conversations, making the same assumptions, and responding in the same ways. Or you can begin consciously choosing something different.

And sometimes that means changing how you think about a situation. Other times, it means recognizing that you want something entirely different and allowing yourself to pursue it. Both require personal ownership.

So, What's on Your Mental Menu?

You don't need to spend every waking moment policing your thoughts. And you certainly don't need to panic every time something negative crosses your mind.

But get curious about the conversations you're repeatedly having with yourself.

Because whether you believe in manifestation, prefer the psychological explanation, or find value in both, there's a meaningful connection between what happens internally and how you experience your life. Your thoughts influence what you notice, how you interpret situations, what you expect, and the choices you make.

So, for the next 24 hours, pay attention to what you're feeding your mind.

If someone could hear the voiceover of your life, what kind of story would they expect to unfold?

And more importantly, is it the one you actually want to be living?