“You’re trying to create a pattern
and you have to start doing things a certain way,
and the more you do those things a certain way,
then it becomes who you are.”
Geno Auriemma, UConn Women’s Basketball Coach
To condition your emotions, start being aware of your feelings on a regular basis. This will start the new behavior pattern.
Ask yourself “Am I feeling positive or negative?”
If you feel positive, take a moment to dwell on it in your mind. Recognize you are blessed and emotionally ’wallow in feeling good’. If you feel negative, ask yourself “How do I want to respond to this?” and try to respond in the most positive way that you can. If necessary, force yourself to imagine an alternative, positive outcome.
The goal is to get in the habit of being ‘the observer’ of your feelings on a regular basis and thereby creating a new behavior pattern. The easiest and quickest way to do this is to set your watch/cellphone to ‘beep’ a few times during the day as a reminder to ‘observer’ your feelings. The more you do it, the sooner it becomes an automatic behavior pattern. By “wallowing in feeling good”, you are strengthening your positive conditioned responses of an existing pattern; and by responding in a positive way when something negative happens, you are conditioning yourself to always respond in a positive way, creating a new behavior pattern.
If you monitor your feelings frequently (4 or 5 times) on a daily basis, you will quickly and easily increase your emotional intelligence, and you will start to form a new positive conditioned response pattern to negativity. After awhile, you will notice that your thoughts are positive most of the time. And the wonderful thing about the process is that as you continue the pattern of being self-aware and thinking positive thoughts, the new conditioned response pattern keeps getting stronger and stronger and becomes the new you. And your emotional intelligence, and personal happiness just keeps increasing.
Remember, self-awareness and positive responses are the keys to condition your emotions for a positive emotional pattern. You have nothing but negative thoughts and feelings to loose, and a happy, blessed life to gain. And if you don’t succeed, no problem. Just try again later when you are ready. What’s there to think about?
This YouTube video explains ‘positive conditioning‘.
How to Re-Program Your Mind For Positive Thinking by Brendon Burchard.
“The world’s leading high performance coach” Oprah.com