Jay Shetty’s Think Like A Monk Unfiltered Thoughts Part 2

9 min readJan 24, 2022

Hi! Welcome back for another lesson on the Monk Mindset. We’ve already discussed in detail the importance of mindset in life. With two articles under our belt covering Jay Shetty’s “Think Like A Monk”, it’s about time we close this chapter by reviewing the remaining chapters of the book. It’s been a fun ride and we assure you, there’ll be more to come. Just hang in there…

Chapter 6 — Routine to keep your mindset on track

What does your everyday routine look like? You wake up (after several alarms), drink water, make coffee and dress up in a hurry — and then go for your job. Eight hours later, you return tired and hungry so you spend time making food for yourself. Maybe you call your family and spend some time with them, and then go straight to bed. The next morning, you do EXACTLY the same thing. Have you ever wondered what that does to your mindset?

Ask yourself the following questions to get a reality check:

Does that nourish and enrich you?
Does it make you long for a new day?
Do you want to live like that for the rest of your lives?

Hustle culture has coerced us to believe that waking up early gives us extra time to work — so we copy that formula, and embed it into our minds. We think it’s all about the hard work and when we fail, we blame it on our bad luck. That kind of mindset makes us live without purpose and structure. And that’s the problem. The bad omen is that society actually encourages this behavior. That is a stressor for mindset, by the way…

The most important point I picked up from the book is that of time management. Time is finite but it’s up to us to make the most out of it. Getting an early start doesn’t have to come at the expense of sleep — you can easily learn some basic time management and plan out your day.

The goal of this planning is to bring intentionality to the entire day. In my opinion, it’s got to do with managing your energy — chakra. Don’t devote energy to useless tasks — devote it to tasks that will bring you value in the future. Devote it to activities that elevate your mindset.

Don’t go drinking to fit in with society — spend time with your family to cultivate happiness and build meaningful relationships. Plan out your day before you go to bed. The key here is not to overwhelm yourself. Only write those tasks which will nourish you and help you grow. And set realistic timelines for those goals.

Change your scenery when you feel bored. Instead of exercising at home, maybe go out to the neighborhood park. If you work remotely, try a collaborative working space. Each place has its own energy — make use of that energy and maybe build some relationships in the process.

The biggest learning I gained from this chapter was that of “Single Tasking” — which means to devote all of your energy and focus to one single task.

I admit there was a time when multi-tasking looked cool (mostly because you could get things done quickly). But what I’ve noticed is that it brings down the quality of your work. Instead, focus on giving your 100% to one single task. It will keep you sane, make you more productive, and improve the quality of your work. Single Tasking is the mindset you need to go with if you want to improve the quality of your work.

Favorite Quote — Maria Popova

“We tend to wear our ability to get by on little sleep as some sort of badge of honor that validates our work ethic. But what it is is a profound failure of self-respect and of priorities.”
Maria Popova

Favorite Exercise — A New Morning Routine for your Mindset

An effective morning routine sets up the day for you. It will be a defining factor in whether you stay productive or you slouch to the same old bad habits. To set things in motion and make your mindset more focused, incorporate the following things in your next morning routine:

Thankfulness — Write down 5–10 things that you’re grateful for (or less if you can’t think of that many // the goal is to start practicing gratefulness)
Insight — Read a newspaper, book, article, or listen to a podcast to enrich your mind
Meditation — Spend 10–15 minutes meditating and reinforcing positive beliefs in your mind

Exercise — Go for a workout to unleash the beast inside. If you’re not up for the advanced stuff, basic mobility and stretching are enough too. You want to focus on making exercise something to look forward to. If you do that, your mindset will make the activity more rewarding.

Chapter 7 — The Mind and Mindset

This chapter focuses on the two minds that inhabit our body — the monkey mind and the monk mind.

The monkey mind (our inner child) holds the keys to creativity and humor and all the fun things in life; the monkey mind (our adult mind) has rationality, reasoning, and maturity in its locker. The key is to have the best of both worlds, and use that to our advantage. Jay explains it in this way:

The child struggles to appreciate the value and avoids challenges and obstacles. It is impulsive and seeks instant gratification. But, it enables us to be spontaneous, creative, and dynamic.
The adult is more pragmatic and knows the difference between right and wrong — It enables us to assess the bigger picture and takes time to rationalize decisions.

The goal here is like I said, to have the best of both worlds. We need creativity and spontaneity to enjoy life and achieve goals. But, because there’s a child behind that, we need to keep it grounded and in control. The adult mind helps us do that.

We should train this mind to control the child mind and use those qualities that the child mind provides, to our benefit. Keep these two perspectives in mind and learn to keep them in check. It’s the first step to Mindset Mastery.

Jay also asks us to master our senses — in other words, have control over our mental processing. While the monkey mind is reactive, harnessing the power of the monk mind means we are proactive. He gives an excellent example of this:

To catch the full article, head on over to the PlayTru Media website.

“We go to YouTube to watch one video, but before we know it, we are going down a rabbit hole of videos most of which don’t give us any real value. Not having control over our senses means we don’t expect that impending danger and watch on for hours before we realize it. A monk doesn’t spend time in a strip club. So, focus on controlling senses so that whenever you find yourself doing such an activity — you immediately re-focus and shift your emotions elsewhere.”

Visualization has an important role in it — by visualizing what’s best for us, we can actually bring that to the picture of life. As we do it consistently, this visualization gets imprinted in our memory. It comes to our help whenever our senses go out of control.

This one quote is usually attributed to Einstein but its real origins are still a matter of debate — “Insanity is doing the same thing again and again, expecting different results.”

Favorite Quote — The Buddha talks about Mindset

“As irrigators lead water where they want, as arches make their arrows straight, as carpenters carve wood, the wise shape their minds.”
The Buddha

Favorite Exercise — Wake up the Subconscious

In this exercise, you will help clear the clutter in your mind. To start off, write down all the noise in your mind (noise that you want to get rid of). Write all the negative thoughts and signals your mind is sending you such as:

I am not good enough
I can’t do this
I don’t have the intelligence or the tools to do this

This exercise will raise your self-awareness and by acknowledging these negative thoughts, you’ll take the first step towards positive reframing.

Chapter 8 — Ego is the enemy of the mind

Ego (if not controlled) can be the harbinger of doom. And that is the topic of this chapter.

Jay starts the chapter by introducing us to the Sanskrit word “Vinayam” — which means humility or modesty. He says that when we’re humble, we’re more open to growth opportunities and learning new things because we are aware of how much we don’t know.

There actually two egos according to the Bhagavad Gita (the Holy Book of Hindus):

Real Ego — it’s the consciousness that makes us aware and awake to the reality
False Ego — the identity crafted to preserve our sense of being significant or most important

Having that distinction is important to make sure we don’t get trapped in the illusion of the false ego. The analogy Jay uses to describe these two egos is as follows — “When you trust the false ego to protect you, it’s like wearing armor that you thought was made of steel but is actually made of paper. You march onto the battlefield, confident that it will protect you but are easily wounded with a butter knife.”

The goal is to keep this false ego in check and avoid manifesting it. We think a high IQ impresses people so we pretend that we are very smart — we present a fake persona to the real world. The thing is, disguises can only last for so long. Sometimes, we work so hard to impress others that we lie.

In an interesting episode of “Lie Witness News” on the Jimmy Kimmel Show — interviewers ask people visiting Coachella what they think of fictitious bands, the responses are wildly exhilarating. Even though the bands are completely made up, people still say on record stating that they enjoy listening to those bands. Those people thought that having this interview will give them recognition but they lose their true selves in the process. Instead of openly admitting that they aren’t aware of those bands (at the least), they give in to that temptation and lie. I wonder what those women must have felt when they watched that episode later on TV.

The false ego also creates false hierarchies. We think we deserve respect for something that we don’t have any idea of — we start ranking ourselves based on our perception of others. The problem is we’re not objective and so we rank ourselves higher than those people because it makes us feel better and superior.

The ego also stunts our growth — we think we know too much and so we don’t accept any growth opportunities. We live in ignorance and in an artificial bubble created by that ego. That bubble has to break at some point.

You can identify whether you have the false ego by asking yourselves the following questions (be objective about it, however):

Are we ashamed or grateful when we discover we were wrong about something?
Are we defensive or intrigued when we find information that contradicts our version of the story?

Write down these responses — if you were objective, you would take that as an opportunity to grow and reframe your mind. If you are stubborn about those beliefs and don’t want to change your opinion despite knowing it is wrong, then you have to tame that false ego.

Favorite Quote — André Gide (French Author)

“Believe those who search for the truth; doubt those who have found it.”
André Gide

Favorite Exercise — Receive Feedback Productively

Choose an area you want to improve in and find someone who is an expert in that field.

Seek guidance from that person and ask questions to get clarity, and how to practically apply that guidance. Some questions to ask are:

Do you think this is a realistic path for me?
Do you have any recommendations for me?
Is this something that I need to work on? How can I improve this particular area?

Catch the full article on the PlayTru Media website.