We’ve learned that we can program our minds using the discoveries in Neuroplasticity.
Think of a time when you became better at something by practicing it. Now, recall a time when you lost a skill by not practicing it. We know that constant repetition improves physical skills, like making basketball shots and learning to type on a computer keyboard, and we also know that constant repetition improves mental skills, like learning the ‘ABC’s’, or the ‘multiplication tables’. So why does constant repetition work?
That’s because our mind and our body function the same way – in that our minds are made-up of neural pathways and our bodies are made-up of muscles – and they both get stronger with consistent repetition and they both get weaker when not used. In neuroscience, this consistent repetition is referred to ‘synaptic strengthening’.
Any thing that we repeat grows stronger. So the first thing to understand is that neuroscientist have discovered that consistent repetition programs our sub-conscious mind. It is based on the Principles of Neuroplasticity: 1. Neurons that fire together, wire together; and 2. Neurons you don’t use, you lose.
Now close your eyes – and think of a full moon; next think of an oak tree by the bank of a river; and now think of a red triangle. OK, Open your eyes. What did you learn from that? That mental exercise demonstrates that we are not our thoughts, but we are the observer of our thoughts and we have the power to control and change our thoughts. So the second thing to understand is that we have the power to control and change our thoughts.
Unfortunately, many of us have negative thoughts that, through constant repetition have programmed our sub-conscious mind to be negative, and we develop the mental habit of thinking negatively. Examples are “I’ll never be smart enough” or “I’ll never be good enough” or “I’ll never learn this.”
In order to program our minds for success, we must first program our minds to be more positive. Otherwise our negative thought patterns will tell us we can’t succeed and we will give-up. So, let’s watch a video that will help us recognize our negative thoughts. Take 3 deep breaths and relax. This puts our mind in a ‘quiet’ mindset. Be sure to ‘click’ the bottom left corner to start each video.
YouTube:The Honest Guys – Stop Negative Self-Talk
So the MOST IMPORTANT thing is to program our minds to be more positive. Let’s watch a video that explains how to do this. YouTube:Brendon Burchard – How to Reprogram Your Mind
To easily program our minds to be more positive we should set our smartphone to ‘beep’ a few times each day to remind us. Each time we hear the ‘beep’, we ask ourselves “are my thoughts positive or negative”? If we catch ourselves thinking negative thoughts, we force ourselves to think more positive thoughts. Do this for a few weeks and we start to program our sub-conscious mind to be more positive. This is an important habit that we want to practice throughout life. It’s called “mindful thinking”. If you practice ‘mindful thinking’, your life will be happier and easier.
Once we have programmed a positive mindset, it will be easier to program our minds to achieve our goal because we will believe we can program our sub-conscious minds for anything.
Next, we need to understand the power of emotions when programming our sub-conscious mind. Neurologist have discovered that our emotions are an important enhancer when programming our sub-conscious mind. Anything that we think about with high emotional intensity is more quickly and more deeply embedded into our sub-conscious mind, especially when done before falling asleep, or right after waking up because this is when our mind is in a ‘theta’ mindset.
Now let’s put this all together and program our sub-conscious mind to achieve our goal.
The key is to imagine the goal that we want to achieve while in a calm, relaxed ‘theta’ state of mind. We must imagine that we have already accomplished the goal and feel the emotions that go with having accomplished this goal. We want to wallow in the good feeling of having achieved our goal and truly immerse ourself in that vivid mental image (visualization) and we want to repeat this often, especially before falling asleep or right after waking up.
Through the frequent repetition of thinking about our having achieved our goal with high emotional intensity – just before falling asleep or right after waking up, we program our sub-conscious mind to send us thoughts throughout the day with ideas of what we could do to make the goal a reality in our lives.
The last step is to follow through and take actions aligned with our goals. As we complete each task that our mind suggests, we are one step closer to the achieving our goal. The secret to success is to imagine having achieved our goal and to keep thinking about it often, with high emotional intensity, while in a ‘theta’ mindset, especially before falling asleep or right after waking up. REPETITION, REPETITION, REPETITION!
And now we know how to be the active creator of our reality by programming our sub-conscious mind.