Last time Eduardo, we discovered the structure of our mind and realized how powerful our subconscious mind was in subtly influencing our actions and perceptions. We also realized that we needed to zero in on the conscious mind because it's the gatekeeper of the subconscious mind. This issue will go into that aspect in greater detail.
Remember: control your thoughts or they will control you. If you don't control your thoughts, you'll do what a lot of people do and that's crash. Imagine you're in a BMW and you press the accelerator but don't make an effort to control the steering wheel. What happens? Sooner or later, you're going to crash because you didn't take control of the car. How much more control should you take of your own mind?
To illustrate this point, I want you to read the following sentences aloud.
Sentence 1: Eduardo, you're the happiest guy on earth. Everybody loves you because you're so nice and sincere. You're dependable, trustworthy, and you're what every person would want in a true friend. Nobody has anything bad to say about you.
Sentence 2: Eduardo, you're a total loser. You're nothing. You're a joke. Everybody dislikes you and stays as far away from you as possible. Nobody cares about you. You don't make a difference at all.
Notice the shift in your attitude and how quickly your smile turned upside down after reading the second sentence.
Let's break down what happened in your mind as you read both sentences. When you read those sentences, you thought of pictures in your head and those pictures evoked feelings which then went straight into your subconscious mind, which then resulted in the corresponding shift in attitudes and actions. Note that the sentences were colored with emotion. This is important because emotion penetrates to the subconscious mind like no other. If you emotionalize your thoughts, you can reach the subconscious that much faster. Think back to all those stories of people who've achieved great goals. They had thoughts of what they wanted to do and they colored those thoughts with emotion, powerful emotions such as desire.
But you know what the sad thing is Eduardo? Most people are constantly thinking in terms of Sentence #2 (hopefully not as severe though). They are always thinking in terms of negative thoughts and as a result, their attitudes and actions match those thoughts accordingly. How can we reverse this process?
On any given day, there are probably a million thoughts that go through your mind. The first thing I want you to do is just become aware of them. Really become aware of just how powerful they are. (You probably do know just how powerful they are now from just doing that example and from reading the previous 2 lessons.)
Now that you're aware that your thoughts hold great power, the next thing I want you to do is just listen. Really listen to what's going on there. You might be surprised as to what you find out. Some of you might find that you've been thinking in terms of Sentence #2 (hopefully not as bad as that), but something to that degree.
"I'm not smart enough."
"I can't do that."
"That's impossible."
Your subconscious mind is listening to all that and it's saying: "Ok. Got it. Now I'll just influence your attitudes and actions to prevent you from achieving any goal from now on because you think it's impossible. Because you think you can't do it. Because you think you're not smart enough."
Remember, your subconscious mind is just following the orders of your conscious mind. Some people think thoughts like that on a continuous basis and it's because they think those kinds of thoughts that they automatically dismiss any notion of trying to achieve anything. You know who these people are. You bring up an idea and they'll say:
"That'll never work."
"There's too much risk."
"It'll never happen."
So I want you to really listen and see what you're thinking. One way to keep track of your thoughts is to write them down, preferably 3 times per day. Once in the morning, once in the afternoon, and once before you go to sleep. Just transfer what's in your head on to paper. Don't try to change the thoughts in between because you'd just be defeating the whole purpose. Just let it out. That way, you can get a true snapshot of what's going in there. Many people who've tried this were surprised as to what was actually going on in their minds.
Now that you're aware of your thoughts and have listened to them, what I want you to do now is catch the negative thoughts that come into your head. Don't let them slip by. They're very sly so catch them in the act. For example, many students in school may think:
"I'm not smart enough".
Catch that thought in the act, choose a replacement and back that replacement up.
"I may not have the highest GPA, but I'm smart in the sense that I know when I need to go and ask for help as well as how to gather the correct resources to help me better understand the material."
Ideally, you want to do this automatically, but it won't happen overnight. It'll take some time. That's why optimistic people are so happy. They've already gone through that process several times so they habituated it so it's like there's never any negative thinking to begin with.
Keep it simple.
Aware
Listen
Catch
Replace
Soon enough, it becomes:
Listen
Be Pleasantly Surprised.
Most people are oblivious to the fact that they can change their thoughts. You have the power to choose what to think. You're not an animal that automatically reacts to its environment. You have the ability to choose what to think which leads you to actions that correspond to those exact thoughts you've chosen.
It's really easy to think negative. Standards imposed by society tell us how we should look like, what we should eat, wear, do with our lives, etc. You are getting impressed from people from all over so it's really eas for others to do the thinking FOR you. It's always an uphill battle until you develop the habit of thinking for yourself. Once you do that, it's a great liberating feeling.
Think of your mind as a hose out of control spraying every which way. You want to grab control of the hose, turn off the negative thoughts that are spewing out, and hook up your hose to positive thoughts and spew those onto your subconscious mind to influence your future thoughts and actions to be conducive to them.
In our next issue, we'll find out what we can feed our mind to nourish it.
To the inevitable achievement of all your hopes and dreams,
Brian Kim
http://www.briankim.net
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