Most people never consciously mentally reset. They only do so when forced to, when a big disaster hits, when they get a severe illness, when they lose their job, when something shakes them out of their routine.

And after the initial shock wears off and they have some time to reflect, they gain so much clarity in terms of seeing through all the BS they were going through or thought they had to do.

When 9/11 hit, New Yorkers definitely got that mental reset. For a while, everybody was really friendly and helpful and there was that sense of unity and solidarity, but as time passed, it was back to normal, which was natural and to be expected.

And that's the thing.

That mental reset "glow" wears off after time so there's a need to consciously do it every once in while to "bounce back up".

If you don't do it, then you're just going to keep traveling down the path you're currently on and the thing is, you may realize you don't like that path, but it will take you years, maybe even decades to consciously realize it. It's a waste of time that can easily be avoided if you take the time to mentally reset.

So it's always a good idea to set aside some time to do that, to go on a sort of vision quest. Just pick a day, hike into nature, bring along some water and a hat, a pen, and a journal and start looking at your life.

Here are 3 questions to get the juices flowing.

What am I currently doing with my life? Do I really need to do it? What do I really want to do with my life?

These three questions may make some people squirm because they don't want to feel like they've been doing it "wrong" the whole time but it's not really like that. You just want to see why you're doing what you're doing and make necessary adjustments should you choose to make them and find a different path to travel on.

What you're essentially doing when mentally resetting, is stripping away all the needs that you THOUGHT were real, but ultimately found to be unnecessary.

You'll discover a lot of the needs, a lot of things you thought you had to do, were externally conditioned to serve someone else's purpose, not yours.

The truth is, we don't need much and that's what mental resets make you realize, and as a result, you feel so much lighter and freer.

And that makes it easier to travel down the new path you desire. Another benefit of mental resets is that you take a look at your problems objectively. Once you have that freeing feeling, you can look at your problems more clearly and know what you need to do because you've stripped away all the crap and you now have greater clarity as to your values and priorities, which then sheds light on how to act on your problems.

This glow will last for about a couple months, and then the external conditioning will set back in. The input is so vast, comes from so many sources, and is so consistent, that we all eventually become influenced by it in some way or another - that is until your next mental reset.

Reminders of your thoughts and experiences from your journal can help stave off the conditioning but there's nothing like a good mental reset that will flush away all the crap that's been building up in your head from the conditioning of the external world.

So take some time to do this. Really look and see if the things you're doing are really necessary.

It's such an amazing feeling when you realize something you thought you had to do that was so solid, wasn't that big of a deal to begin with and that you don't have to carry it with you anymore.

You don't have to wait for a disaster to have this mental reset and if you do, it may never come and as death comes closer and closer, it will do it for you and you may find yourself regretting the time you could've spent on a different path if you had only mentally reset.