Day 4 – Review and summary
Still working on the basic principles of changing one’s life. To do that, we must change our neuroassociations of how our nervous system and our emotions respond to events. To do THAT, there are three things that need to be decided:
1. Get an edge on yourself. There are three levels of decision necessary to comply with this part. Remember that when you “decide” something, you are about to cut off every other option. This first step is probably the one that carries the most weight. If you’re not THAT committed to the change, it probably won’t work.
A. Something MUST change.
B. I must change it.
C. I can change it.
2. Disrupt your current association patterns. Using a conscious turnaround with what you say or how you move will help you unscramble the old pattern of feelings and thoughts. The example of continuously scratching the surface of a record so that it will no longer play helped to give the process a visual touch.
3 Don’t just get rid of the old, you must also condition a new empowering association. Decide on a new pattern that you would like to reinforce and condition in yourself. Any thought, behavior, or emotion that is consistently reinforced over time will become a habit. Be sure to link pleasure with your new choice. If you reward yourself for even small changes, you’ll find that new patterns develop quite quickly.
For today’s assignment, build on yesterday’s list of four actions. Just look for Day 3 on this site or on my blog, link below.
1.) To gain leverage: write down ten reasons why you should trade now and the reasons why you know you can. Someone recently made the observation that in 5 years I will have arrived. Where that arrival will be, depends on me.
Did you know that most people spend much more time planning their annual vacation than planning their lives? I’m not sure why that is, but I’ve been there. Perhaps knowing that vacation time is very limited and you want to make the most of it… How does that relate to the big picture of our lives? I guess if I see my life as one GIANT vacation, but knowing that my time here is very limited, wouldn’t that change the way I plan? I think so!
2). If you can, come up with at least four or five ways to interrupt your own pattern. Try funny voice work, jumping, staring at the ceiling, grimacing—basically anything that changes physiology or shifts attention in a more powerful direction.
3). Rehearse your new behavior and this will help you condition yourself. By choosing where we are going, we are actually UNCONDITIONING ourselves (we are already conditioned) from what we don’t want and then consciously reconditioning ourselves to create the new habits we want. How wonderful is that?
So what would happen if we looked at life as something very finite? Would there be any benefit in not taking our time for granted? What would that look like? See you tomorrow –
Forward!