As we come to the end of the year and ramp up to Christmas, this is a simple trick to help you improve your outlook by simply exploiting how your brain is wired for your greater wellbeing.
Don’t Press that Red Button…
What’s your mind picturing now you’ve just read that?
I bet it’s a big shiny red button that you can’t wait to press.
Your mind really does think in pictures. Which means there’s huge power in taking the time to choose the right words to describe how you want things to be, as the mind honestly can’t tell the difference between imagination and reality. This means you need to create compelling and vivid pictures in your mind centred upon what you want to be doing, not what you don’t want to be doing. Now is the time to readjust to the positive and to the solution.
This can be challenging at first. We have often been crafting and responding to negative focused sentences since we were small. There’s a plethora of ‘don’t run in the house, don’t shout, don’t snatch that toy… don’t get paint everywhere!’ commands from parents, teachers and family when you’re young.
So now is the time to reengage awareness about your language choice. Try this – keep tally over just one single day and to notice just how often your start point is a negative – with a ‘don’t’ or ‘not’ littering your sentences when describing your day to day life.
Why is this tiny readjustment so beneficial?
Readjusting to positive language will immediately reduce levels of stress and anxiety in your mind, whilst your subconscious works in the background to help you achieve that beneficial mental picture, so that it’s your reality.
AND here’s the clincher! Your brain in doesn’t hear the negative in a sentence. It doesn’t register the ‘no’ or ‘not’ in a sentence so mistakenly pictures the wrong thing, which is unhelpful for anxiety levels.
So you have to remove the negative and make the mental picture a picture of the right things, rather than not doing the wrong thing. Make sense?
Don’t believe me? Give this a try – read these sentences:
- I shouldn’t use my phone in bed
- Don’t eat the mince pies
- I won’t have a glass of wine this evening
- I don’t want to be stressed and overwhelmed this Christmas
What did you picture? How you’d use a phone in bed? How you’d be eating a mince pie? How you’re drinking a glass of wine this evening? How you look stressed and overwhelmed at Christmas?
So flip things around.
You have the power to do this, simply by choosing positive words for a new perspective. Now what images are sparked in your mind:
- I should leave my phone in the lounge at night
- Put the mince pies away
- I will have a glass of diet coke in the evening
- I will be calm and in control this Christmas
Now what are you imagining? Where you’d leave your phone in the lounge? Peeling a satsuma? Pouring a glass of diet coke this evening? How you look calm and controlled this Christmas?
Make this little change today and notice how life is easier when you’ve got your subconscious working to support you making the right things your reality. It’s a great first step and really works wonders.