"But, will I encounter hardship?"

Of course.  It’s not whether you get obstacles or hardships, it’s how you handle them.

Control the controllables.

Think clearly and make a plan.

Focus on the next step.

Keep moving.

Having a pity party?

Visit a burn unit, nursing home or bad neighborhood.

Gone!

Become a threat

Become a threat to your excuses and old habits.

Become a threat to your lazy brain that doesn’t want to do any new thinking. 

The new you threatens the old you?  Perfect.  

Let’s confront it, and then release it…and finally put the old self to rest.

Break new ground

You are here to do something you have not done before.

What is it?

Three words – who would you like to be?

What three words would you like to be more of?

Excited?  Creative?  Open? Loving?  Grateful?  Patient? Present? Bold?  Powerful?  Courageous?

Go ahead and pick three words that the new and better version of you will be.

Now write them down on a post-it note and put them on your bathroom mirror, and in your workplace where you will see them often.  Say them aloud several times a day.  “I am __________.  I am _________. I am _________.”  

Reprogram your hardware, and be you 2.0.

Action!

Actions can reprogram your brain too.  Stand up and take action.  Do the thing you fear.  Get started.  Move your body.  Take the first step.  Do it.  

Just as thoughts can reprogram your brain, so can action.  Repeated action conditions your brain into new beliefs and new repeated thoughts.

I know people who have said they don’t like someone for years.  Then one day they bump into them and have a talk, and boom, two years of negative self-talk gone.  Couldn’t they have called them or visited them when it started with the intention to understand and appreciate their good qualities and avoided all those years of crappy thoughts?

If you have been procrastinating doing something you think you hate now or are not good at, and just get started or get a bit of instruction on – boom, procrastination and repeated thoughts gone!  Walk around the block and then lift a five-pound weight ten times and boom – you workout!  That’s who you are!

Motion creates emotion and changes your recurring thoughts.  Take action!

Reprogramming YOU

To reprogram ourselves from thoughts that are not helpful to ones that are, we can use the same technique that got us here in the first place.  Repetition.

We can’t get rid of a thought – we can only overwrite it with a new thought about that subject.

So check in often – How am I thinking right now.? What automatic program is running in the background or foreground that is negative?  Overwrite it by saying (aloud if you have to) the new positive thought that is the opposite or more helpful than the old one.  

Keep doing it.  Over and over again, even if it’s hard to believe at first.  Intentional self-talk.  You don’t have to believe it at first.  Visualize the outcome or performance you want, vividly, and emotionally.

If you do not have a mental disorder, you have the extreme power to do this.  

Why not try?  Set up your environment to do it three times a day.  Set an alarm on your phone, 3x a day.  Check-in.  Ask.  Assert your intentions.  Overwrite the thoughts with what you want and know will be helpful.  DO not allow the negative thoughts to run your show automatically.

More tomorrow…

Automatic Thoughts – Weight and Duration

We have automatic thought patterns that we developed because we gave them weight and repetition.  One day we said “Yes, this is who I am, and this is how things are and this is how I will be”.  We gave them weight.  

Then we think these thoughts over and over.  We repeated them so many times until they became a habit – our programming.

Your brain is the hardware.  It does not care what software you put in.  It can be used for good or for negative things.  It can support you or haunt you.  It has no preference.  We must control the software and if it needs an upgrade or to be reprogrammed, we must do it.

Most people program themselves the first time, and run on that program forever, and never change it.  It literally becomes who they are in the world and who they show up as day after day, over and over again.

Is that true in your life?  Have you reached the limits of what your mental conditioning has to offer you?  Do you want more or a better life?  Then you have to change your thoughts – those habitual defining thoughts that come up over and over again.  Those thoughts determine how you respond to the world and tell you what you should and should not do or try or be.

More tomorrow…

Changing your thought patterns

To change our recurring thought patterns, first, we have to notice them. 

Check-in with yourself and pay attention to your thoughts in the morning, the middle of the day, and towards the end.  Ask “Where are my thoughts?” and “Are they supporting me or automatically coming up negative and protective and not helping my life?”

The more we notice, the more we can interrupt our thoughts and redirect them by choosing a different more positive, and helpful thought on purpose.

Then override and overwrite the thought with a positive one – even if you don’t believe it at first.  Think about thoughts that will help you be more powerful and confident and that will help you achieve what you want.  “I am loving and open and I enjoy seeing people smile and respond to me” or “I can do this, and I am worthy of getting great results”.  Whatever it is that is the positive opposite of the negative thoughts you habitually generate – think them on purpose and will them out.  Say them out loud if you have to.  Feel it.  Sense a great outcome.  Put emotion into your positive thought.  Be vivid.  Envision the better you like a fortune teller says what will happen.

Your old lazy negative conditioned mind will want to take over again and again.  Say NO!  Keep over-writing it with positive thoughts that are helpful in your life.  Keep interrupting it until it becomes the new habit of thinking.

More tomorrow…

Recurring thoughts

Your brain is lazy.  It doesn’t want to do any new thinking because that takes energy.  We’re programmed to conserve calories because not long ago we didn’t know where the next ones would come from.

So your brain developed automatic recurring thought patterns that it keeps bringing up for you over and over.  Are those thoughts negative?  “People are attacking me, go hide, play small and keep your head down so we don’t get hurt or lose”.

What is your automatic inner voice saying?  It’s running the show – you know that right?

So how do we change that?

More tomorrow…