In my last article we considered the power of why and how that word can have both positive and negative uses, such as being perceived as a victim mentality or of used in a positive way being a powerful tool to help you analyse the past.
So, having used the power of why to examine the past, we now need to change our future. How (notice the use of the word How already) can we do that?
Our minds are designed to react to our thoughts and as such by using words in a negative or closed manner the mind simply implements the instruction it is given. For instance as Henry Ford is reputed have said “if you believe you can you are right, believe you can’t and you are also right”. I believe this statement is essentially saying that your mind will react to your own belief (or instruction if we consider the mind and brain as our bio-supercomputer).
So by giving your mind the instruction, I can’t do that or I can’t do that, the mind interprets that instruction based upon it’s understanding (from your past behaviour along with societies’ interpretation of the word) as an instruction to stop. What’s the point in trying, I already know it can’t be done. The mind has an almost infinite number of tasks to consider every second or every day, as such it prioritizes the instruction (i.e. I can’t) and moves on to deal with the things it can change.
So, using this simple example and remembering that the mind builds it’s neural networks based upon repetition (i.e. the more you do something the easier it gets), we can see that the more often you tell yourself (your mind) that you can’t, the more likely you are to be correct and as such it’s a self-fulfilling prophecy and one that can become difficult to reverse the longer you repeat such thoughts.
So how (again we use the word) can we reprogram our mind? Our thoughts, whilst seemingly random and sporadic, are actually the result of our past learned behaviours and are the result of our mind interpreting the world (and indeed universe) around us via our senses. The majority of the thoughts we have, I propose, come not from mindful thinking, but from our mind taking in data from our senses (eyes, ears, nose, touch, etc) and providing us with potential opportunities and things to consider.
As such we need to manage our thoughts and hence the resurgence of the “mindfulness” movement that is currently ongoing. In my view mindfulness simply means being aware of your thoughts, the universe, environment, people and situations that are affecting you, and taking control of your mind’s interpretation of those. By being ‘mindful’ we can catch negative thoughts, (instructions to the mind to provide a decision for us to act upon) and can intercept those thoughts. Using how therefore, instead of can’t, changes the mind’s perspective and rather than being a negative instruction, has now set the mind (the most powerful supercomputer currently known to us) off on a new task, i.e. to find a way to achieve your particular desire.
The more times you replace can’t with how, the more automatic (habitual behaviour is created this way) the response will become and when you encounter a challenge your mind will immediately look for ways (sometimes very very creative ways) to solve your problem as quickly as it can and will strive to provide you with a solution to enable you to achieve the desired outcome.
So, as I hope you can see, the word How is a very very powerful tool in your armoury and should be used every time you think you can’t do something. The more you say you can, the more likely you are to find a way to do so.
This article is brought to you courtesy of www.karmacise.com. Copyright© 2016 Wayne Norcliffe All rights reserved.