Create Change in your life

The biggest roadblock to achieving something in your life, making the change, getting what you want, living the life you most want will not be a lack of ideas because we all have them, it won’t be a lack of money, although some will disagree, (I urge you instead to work extra hours, get another job, save, make sacrifices, get a loan or whatever), it will not be for lack of intelligence, or a lack of knowledge, it will also not be a lack of potential, while they might all appear legitimate reasons, or excuses they will not stop you and nor should they ever stop you from having what you want in your life.

I am here to tell you that the biggest roadblock will always be you. You will be the one who stops taking action, not because you physically can’t but because you lose faith in yourself, or your idea, or whatever it is that you are currently working on. And once you do, your mind will open the doors to all manner of excuses, while you might have once before seen yourself living a better life, if you stop believing it to be possible and that you are indeed capable of making it happen, then like a house of cards everything will come falling down.

So if you have an idea or are currently working on a goal, or a vision for a better future for yourself, one which you have previously perceived yourself as capable of living, then for goodness sake, keep going.

If you are already on your journey of creating the changes you want in your life, then sometimes it pays to take a step back and see where you were not that long ago, and where you are now, and then to congratulate yourself on getting to where you are and knowing that you will go much further, remember where you are is always where you are meant to be. It will always be as a result of the action you have taken or maybe lack of action.

Don’t let self doubt have the final word, stay on track, it is you vs you, nobody else is involved.

Keep going, stay focused on where you want to go and what you want to happen.

Disease and injury aside, you have more potential then you could ever realise. Your mind can be the greatest tool for getting what you want, however for most people who fall short on their plans or goals, it is their mind or rather their self doubt, lack of belief and continual negativity that is the reason they don’t get what they want.

We are all capable of so much. Learn to rise above the mind and to always continually take action until you have what you want.

Look at the reasons your life isn’t as you would like it to be right now, (if indeed this is the case) now be honest and ask yourself why is this? Is it because you are just starting out on creating your ideal life, is it because what you want to happen is unlikely to appear overnight, if it is then this is OK, this is the stage you are at right now, you will move on and be further along when you continue to take action. Now on the other hand, is the reason you are where you are right now down to a limiting belief, or negativity, or mind made self doubt? If it is then you are being your own roadblock, you are making up delays on getting to where you most want to be. Stop this now. You can have what you want in life, but do yourself a big favour first, remove the roadblocks, or rather don’t put them there in the first place, only then you will fly….

admin Mind change your life, The mind

It doesn’t take any more effort to think about how you could earn $10,000 in a year than $1,000,000. If you go away and ask yourself how you could come up with an extra 10,000 your mind would then go away and come up with an answer maybe not right away, but it would certainly still find one eventually or at least come up with some ideas. The same is true of 1,000,000 it would take no more effort to think about how it would be possible, it may take longer (or maybe it wouldn’t) but you would have to run the same programs in your mind, ‘how could I earn this much money’, the figures will only direct your thoughts to find an appropriate strategy, you are not guaranteed of either and at this initial stage of thought you are simply using your imagination to come up with possibilities.

Yet most people wouldn’t even bother to start with such high figures, instead there would be a barrier in their mind that said it would be impossible.

Everybody is equally apt at coming up with ways to make money, however the figure you place on it will ultimately determine the kind of results you will get. Because to make more money will require you to think in grander terms, for example more people buying what you have to sell or whatever.

The point being that at this early stage of thought there should be no barriers, to what you perceive to be possible for yourself, none at all.

admin Mind change your life, The mind

A powerful tool

Your mind is a powerful tool and it is something that needs to be working for you at all times, never against you. You control your own mind and your own thoughts, every single one of them.

Most people would probably say their minds controlled them, it doesn’t, our mind is a tool to be used as effectively as possible. Your brain can take you to wherever you want to go in life, it is equally capable and happy to take you to places where you don’t want to be. The highest highs and also the lowest lows, you decide.

Say the word ‘beach’ and what do you think about? Picture an apple tree and what do you see? You control everything that happens in your own mind. There is great power in this, the power comes from the life you will lead as a result of what happens in your mind first.

You can direct your brain at all times, you can tell it where you want to go. If you don’t control your brain then who does? And if you don’t learn to manipulate your own mind to get what you want then what will the consequences of this be?

The meaning makers

The meaning you give to anything is whatever you decide to hold in your mind. Reality is whatever meaning you decide to place on the events that happen in your life. It is from the eyes of your mind that your future life will be created, reality isn’t necessarily what happens to you right now, reality is what you decide to feel about what happens right now, the perception you attribute to the thoughts you think and the world you see is what makes it real to you.

When you manipulate things in your mind, ideas, concepts, thoughts, you change the outer aspects of your world. A mind made concept is something that has no existence in the real world it is formed in the mind only, you can’t make a movie of a belief you have, you can only make a movie of the actions of that belief.

We all decide what meanings we give to the events we have in our life, and also the thoughts we think, and we are able to change this meaning at any time, the meanings we give to things that have happened in the past do not have to be the meanings we attribute to these things in the future.

Meanings and the perceptions of the events and even the ideas you have are all mind made concepts.

“Meaning is to hold in mind.”
“Meaning in an invented reality”

So it is all choice, we might not believe it at first, but our lives are indeed based on the choices we have made and will continue to make in the future. So in order to create a better life for ourselves and indeed others, it is in our best interests to first decide to form empowering beliefs about ourselves, and what we can do and create in our life.

Saying we can’t do this or that, looking at our life as it is today and not believing it will be different in the future are not the most useful things we can or should be doing with our mind. What you want to be doing with your mind is reminding yourself of how great your future will be, how you have got what it takes to get you there and what exactly you will do to make it happen. There are essentially two roads your mind can take you, the road which leads to where you want to be, and the road which leads to the place you don’t want to be. You want to be focusing on where you want to be going at all times.

Your mind is a tool to be used here and now, and you decide exactly where it will take you at all times, always remember this.

admin Featured, Mind change your life, The mind

Mindless Chatter, Slow it down! - Whenever you hear your internal voice start to chatter, make a conscious effort to slow the voice down to half speed, keep doing this for as long as the voice is bugging you, really slow it down until it becomes too difficult to even listen to the voice. Keep doing this until the voice stops altogether.

Internal Voice (Shut it up?)

Every time your internal voice starts getting negative and dominating your thoughts start to count to 100, once you have done this do it again until it becomes tiresome and you no longer can be bothered anymore, if the internal voice starts again, begin counting once more.

Instructive not critical

When you talk to yourself instead of criticizing what you have or haven’t done, instead provide yourself with useful instructions about what to do next based on what you have learnt from experiencing what you have or haven’t already done.

At night

If when trying to get to sleep at night you have lots of images and chatter going on in your head, then you will more than likely find it difficult to fall asleep. If as you lie in bed you have internal dialogue, slow down the tempo and turn the volume down so that the voice whispers, if you are also making images darken them like when the lights go out in the theatre.

Give these techniques a go and see how you get on.

admin Mind Positive Thinking, The mind

What if I told you that in two years your life could be dramatically different to what it is now, what would your initial reaction be? I doubt it, but I’ll never stop dreaming or, yes it will and I know exactly how it will happen. The first answer doesn’t inspire confidence, yet for some it is the more common. The second answer shows the wheels are clearly in motion and that there is already a strong belief that it will happen.

If you were to place a bet on which person would succeed where would you place your money?

The fact of the matter is your life could be dramatically different to what it is now. It is possible, and the first thing you need to understand is this:

“You will never be able to change your life in the first instance unless you really believe it is possible, whatever that may be, either something about yourself or something external.”

Before you can take your life in any new direction you have to believe the final outcome is achievable. It doesn’t matter how grand your aspirations are (and at this stage the bigger the better), but what does matter is that you believe deep down that it can be done.

This fundamental belief will start a chain reaction that won’t stop until you are living out the life you have envisaged.

Once you know even if it is in imagination only that you can reach a new height or climb a bigger mountain, your mind can never really go back and settle for what you currently have, it becomes unacceptable. And it may be a little known fact but once you catch a glimpse of yourself in another time and place living a more successful life completely different to what you have now, you just may never be really happy until you experience and live it for real.

“A mind once stretched never goes back to its original dimensions.”

Such is the nature of things, once we realize we are destined for greater things in the future, it doesn’t become a question of ‘if’ but ‘when’ it will happen. Of course once you believe this the next big question to ask yourself is, are you ready to step up and accept the responsibility to do what is required?

When we realize we can have the future we dream about, we need to take stock of where we are right now, and what we need to spend our time doing in the immediate future to get us closer to our goal.

Don’t get too caught up with thinking about where you are right now, it may seem like a million miles from where you want to be or from what you want to have. The important thing to remember is that you believe that it will happen, almost to the point of expectation, and that you have clearly defined steps that you are currently working towards.

So how far are your thoughts allowing you to go? Do you believe that you are destined for a certain level and that is it, or do you believe your potential is unlimited and that your only limit is your imagination?

Some people will only go so far in life and never any further. They will reach a plateau and go no higher, some will be happy with their lot, others won’t.

How big or small are your thoughts? The thoughts you have now, where exactly will they take you in the future? And is that going to be good enough for you?

Thinking big, grand thoughts can sometimes provide just the necessary motivation to go out and start taking action; whereas thinking small can do the exact opposite.

admin Mind The mind

Continued from part 1

• Magnification or minimization: You exaggerate the importance of things (such as your mistake or someone else’s achievement), or you inappropriately shrink things until they appear tiny (your own desirable qualities or the other person’s imperfections). This is also called the ‘binocular trick’.

• Emotional reasoning: You assume that your negative emotions necessarily reflect the way things really are: ‘I feel it, therefore it must be true.’

• ‘Should’ statements: You try to motivate yourself with ’should’s’ and ’shouldn’ts’, as if you had to be whipped and punished before you could be expected to do anything. ‘Musts’ and ‘oughts’ are also offenders. The emotional consequences are guilt. When you direct ’should’ statements towards others, you feel anger, frustration, and resentment.

• Labeling and Mislabeling: This is an extreme form of over generalization. Instead of describing your error, you attach a negative label to yourself. ‘I’m a loser’. When someone else’s behavior rubs you the wrong way, you attach a negative label onto him. ‘He’s a stupid idiot.’ Mislabeling involves describing an event with language that is highly colored and emotionally loaded.

• Personalization: You see yourself as the cause of some negative external event for which in fact you were not primarily responsible.

• Maladaptive thought: Any thoughts that are not useful to you in a given situation and do not help reach your goal.

admin Mind The mind

When you come up with negative beliefs as to why you can’t do something a lot of the time it is your mind distorting reality to such an extent that the belief seems totally real. The following are some cognitive distortions you may recognize:

• All or nothing thinking: You see things in black and white categories. If your performance falls short of perfect, you see yourself as a total failure.

• Over generalization: You see a single negative event as a never ending pattern.

• Mental filter: You pick out a single negative detail and dwell on it exclusively, so that your version of all reality becomes darkened, like the drop of ink that discolors the entire beaker of water.

• Disqualifying the positive: You reject positive experiences by insisting they ‘don’t count’ for some reason or another. In this way you can maintain a negative belief that is contradicted by your everyday experiences.

• Jumping to conclusions: You make a negative interpretation even though there are no definite facts that convincingly support your conclusion.

1. Mind reading. You arbitrarily conclude that someone is reacting negatively to you, and you don’t bother to check this out.
2. The fortune-teller error. You anticipate that things will turn out badly, and you feel convinced that your prediction is an already established fact.

See part 2 here.

admin Confidence, Mind The mind

Here is a useful NLP technique you might want to use when you are in need of a bit of confidence at some point in the future.

1. Identify a resourceful such as being confident.

2. Imagine a circle on the floor. This represents that state of excellence. Imagine it has a color.

3. Remember an actual time when you had a feeling of confidence. Take a deep breath.

4. Step into the memory inside the circle. Relive it. Intensify the feelings, if you can.

5. Stop. Step out of the circle and shake.

6. Decide on a code word or a physical action (eg squeezing thumb and finger together)

7. Repeat 3,4 and 5, adding the code word or action as you step into the circle.

8. Repeat 7, imagining the feeling 10 more times.

Take a break, say the word or do the action and step into the circle.

The next time you need to feel confident initiate either use the code word or the action and picture yourself stepping into your circle of excellence.

admin Mind NLP

When you are going through or attempting to go through change in your life, there are different levels (logical levels) from which your brain operates. It is useful to understand what these levels are when initiating any kind of change because whatever you want to manifest will be affected at each layer at some point. There are 5 main levels

1. Identity
2. Beliefs
3. Capabilities
4. Behavior
5. Environment

To understand these levels a little better let’s take as an example somebody who wants to become a singer.

Identity

Your identity would be to say something like ‘I am a singer’, here you are identifying yourself as being a singer. Now if you have just started out on your path to become a singer you may not say this yet. To some people they wouldn’t class themselves as a singer until they were doing it professionally or had an album out, others may consider themselves a singer because they sing in the shower.

This is the top level. Once you are here at this point when you can say ‘I am a …’ your identity has changed and it is now a part of you, ‘you are this person’. What you consider your identity will affect all the other levels below, your beliefs, behavior etc.

Beliefs

Now you may believe you can sing, but not believe you are a singer, there is a difference. Likewise you may call yourself a singer but still have doubts about your abilities (negative beliefs). In this example a belief may be ‘I know I can sing’ or ‘I have a good voice’ or ‘I know people will like the sound of my voice’.

Capability

At this level you are looking at your skills, for example, can you actually sing? Do you have a good voice? Can you write music? There are many people who call themselves singers (Identity) but don’t actually possess this skills (Capabilities) required to sing, and vice versa there are people who are very competent singers who don’t and would never call themselves a singer (identity).

If you couldn’t sing then it would be at this level you would seek out help either via courses or personal instruction by way of singing lessons etc.

Questions to ask yourself at this level include ‘What skills do you put into practice?’ and ‘What capabilities do you tap into in this area of your life?’

Behavior

At this level we are focused on the ‘doing’ part. What would somebody see if they looked at this area of your life? If somebody was watching a video of you what would they see you do? What would they hear you say? In the case of our singer, perhaps they would sing regularly, be sending demo tapes to music companies. This level is basically your day to day activities. What do you do exactly? If you had the identity of being a singer, then you would probably be singing regularly in a band or something similar.

If you are seeking change in certain areas of your life and your behavior indicates that you were not taking the necessary action, then you would need to look at other levels to see if there was any in-congruency with your goals. For example, beliefs can be a real block for a lot of people.

Environment

The bottom level is your environment. ‘Where are you when you engage in this area of your life?’ Who else is there with you? This level involves any external constraints.

Is your environment conducive to who you think you are? (Identity) or who you would like to become? If you are a singer, where are you when you sing?

This is your immediate surroundings. Is your immediate environment conducive for creating the life you want for yourself?

I think these are very important levels to be aware of, when inciting change into your life. You can have all the capabilities, right behaviors and be in the perfect environment, but if you don’t believe (beliefs) you can become who you want to become then the actions you take at the lower levels will reflect this.

It would also be true to say that you can have all the self belief in the world (beliefs) but if you are not carrying out the actions (behaviors) you need to, then your self-belief will not take you very far.

Where are you at with your 5 levels at this moment in time? And more importantly if you are experiencing any difficulties take a look at each level and work out what is not happening for you. Is it because of your environment? Is it because you haven’t found the appropriate strategy to generate the right behaviors you are after? Is it your capabilities? Do you have conflicting beliefs or are there some issues at the level of your identity?

admin Mind change your life, The mind

If you are on a path to create change in your life, then one of the things you are going to come face to face with is your negative or limiting beliefs. Of course it you don’t have any, then great, but if you do there are many ways to overcome them. A useful technique you might want to employ is called reframing (a NLP term). With reframing rather than ignore the belief altogether (a tough thing to do), you simply look at it from a different perspective. You can either break it down into smaller chunks, look at the strategy and sequence of the belief (explained below), reframe the context, reframe the content or look at the different outcomes that the belief will bring you, there are many ways.

In this article I will look at how you can alter your thinking about the belief by looking at how you represent the belief internally (the strategy and sequence of the belief).

I think the best way to describe this is with a couple of examples.

Take the negative belief ‘I’m too fat’, now this is a very general belief, it doesn’t say much. For instance ‘too fat’ for what exactly, but let’s get to work on it anyway:

Questions you could ask yourself and anyone else who has this belief include; How do you know you are too fat and not slightly overweight? How do you know you are too fat and not just fat? What is the real difference between the two? How will you know when it does not hold true? What will you see, hear and feel? How do you represent ‘too fat’ in your mind? Do you see a picture of someone who is large or a picture of yourself? And what exactly does it mean to be too fat? What are the consequences of being ‘too fat’? What can you not do, how does it restrict your life? Are all fat people ‘too fat’, or just yourself? Is there any example of when someone is fat but not too fat?

What lets you know that it is fat and not large or big? When does ‘big’ become ‘fat’? What is that trigger? What was it that happened that suddenly made you become ‘too fat’? What does this mean for your life? Are there lots of things you can’t do now because you are ‘too fat’, are you now unhappy with yourself because you are ‘too fat’?

Now what exactly is happening here? Well we a not trying to remove the belief, instead provide a different way of looking at it. By asking yourself questions like these you are essentially playing around with reality as you see it, you are able to make suggestions and offer advice to help yourself come up with new ways of looking at the belief / problem.

What about the following belief; ‘I’ll never be able to learn Japanese’.

Wow, never is such a powerful word, so never ever in the future will you be able to learn Japanese, not one word of Japanese for the rest of your life, if I told you a word in Japanese and you repeated it, would the whole negative belief come crashing down around you. What about counting to 10, will you never be able to count to 10 in Japanese? What about if you study counting from 1-10 every day for the next month, can we expect you not to be able to speak the numbers by the end of the month.

Does this just apply to Japanese, what about Chinese or German, is there something special about Japanese, have you ever tried to learn it? Where does belief stem from? How is this represented in your mind? Do you see yourself struggling to converse with 40 Japanese business men in a boardroom, all laughing at your pathetic attempts to speak their language? Or do you see yourself scratching your head reading a language book as you try to make sense of all these complex words? What about a picture of you learning 2 or 3 words a day for the next few weeks, would that be learning Japanese? Would the belief still hold true? How did you arrive at this conclusion? Do you see yourself not ever trying because of it? Have you known other people who have tried and failed which is where this belief comes from? Has there never been one person not born in Japan who has learned the language?

Again do you see what is going on here, we are playing around with the reality of the belief, making suggestions and generally trying to change the way you currently see the belief in a way that will potentially shift your thinking about the belief entirely.

When you need to use the strategy for a negative belief use the following questions to help
shift your thinking:

How did you arrive at this understanding and conclusion?
How do you know that you feel this way?
What lets you know that it is ‘this feeling’ and not ‘this feeling’?
How do you represent this belief?
How will you know if and when it does not hold true?
What comes first? What comes next? How do you code each part of the belief internally?
Are you sure you don’t have this in any other format?

Play around with the reality – Ask questions, make suggestions, offer advice and attempt to link up with other understandings. Have fun with it.

For more information on negative beliefs, check out this site.

admin Mind Beliefs, The mind