Have you ever wondered why it is so hard to make a change?
No matter what you are trying to accomplish, you are magically pulled back right to where you started or even worse.
And sometimes we are desperate making the changes, because our health, relationships and careers are negatively affected by the habit we formed but no matter what we are trying to do we just don’t move forward at all.
Sounds familiar?
Your minds job is to keep you safe. And safe is what is familiar. Even if it is self-destructing.
Most of the programming we received happened when we were little kids and although we are a lot smarter now and have many more tools and abilities to deal with the same situation our mind is still stuck being a 5-year-old. And what worked when we were five – eating cookies when we are sad – is not an appropriate behavior anymore. Every response we had in our lives to events will trigger the same response over and over and over again.
Our mind never “grew up” or got an update to a newer version. And this is even supported by our brain with hormones and neurotransmitters released while encountering and responding to different circumstances and events.
This is the reason why diets don’t work, we sometimes seem to date the same person with a different face and our career is stuck in its tracks even though we changed jobs several times.
Here is the good news. Now that we know this you can change the way you interact with your mind and achieve a permanent change.
Here’s how:
- Your mind is the most efficient PA you are ever going to have. It does what it thinks is right for you. So, we need to retrain it. That it does what is actually right for us and not what the mind has in store. If you want to make a change insist on it. Use powerful words such as “I choose to do…”. “I love to do…”. And when you insist on it your mind eventually catches up.
- Your mind only responds to the images in your head and the words you say to yourself. If you tell yourself “I never get this right.”, “my job is a nightmare” or “the audience is going to eat me alive” before public speaking – your mind gives you the appropriate result. And you will never get this right, experience every day on your job as if you are tortured in hell and have a full-blown panic attack before you go upfront to do your talk. Your experience is determined by the pictures and words you are making about situations. Change the words and the pictures and your perception will dramatically change. And suddenly you maybe “get it right next time”, “my job was a tiny bit stressful today” and “the audience just came to listen to you”. Also replace the words fear and excitement. Both situations start in the body as the same chemical pattern, however the result is vastly different. So as soon you start becoming uncomfortable say: “I’m excited to do this.” Your mind won’t know the difference.
- Make the familiar unfamiliar. The more often you do something which is out of your comfort zone and unfamiliar and the more often you have a positive response the more likely your brain is going to relax in new and unfamiliar situations. The majority counts. If you feel that your mind is going to intervene say: ‘This is just my brain.’ Become aware of it, accept it, articulate it and your negative feeling has been acknowledged and you can move on.
