According to the Society for Neuroscience “Imagination is often a prime casualty of the process of growing up. For most of us, by the age of 35 years, 95% of the creative-imagination neurons in our brains have atrophied from lack of use.” So, how can you get your habits to work for you?
A Childlike Imagination
When we are children we’re imaginative, playful, curious, and constantly growing to expand in our minds. In fact, even though we have big dreams, we’re nearly always living in the present.
Can you remember being a child and only concerning yourself with how much fun you could have that day and how much fun tomorrow would be? I know I can.
Growing Up And Growing Stuck
However, as we grow up, we abandon all of those wonderful things that gave us so much enjoyment. Sometimes, when I speak to my clients, I wonder if, as adults, we don’t believe that we “should” enjoy life. Perhaps it’s because we’re so pressured by society to “grow up” and “consider our future”. Consequently, we shift from the present moment to the future. Furthermore, our natural curiosity starts to reduce and we begin to accept the present as a “stuck state”.
As Ekhart Tolle (author of “The Power of Now”) says “When you feel confused or burdened by problems focus on THIS INSTANT and ask yourself: WHAT PROBLEM DO I HAVE RIGHT NOW? You will find that there is no problem NOW. A challenge that requires action, possibly, but not a problem.”
How Are Depressive Feelings Related To This?
One of the major challenges of focusing only on the future is depression – which according to the World Health Organisation currently affects 121 million people worldwide – WOW! It affects persons of all genders, ages and socio-economic backgrounds.
This information is clearly supported by the fact that most heart attacks happen before 9 am in the morning, the death toll significantly increases around holiday times and, according to The Gallup Group “92% of employees aren’t passionate about their jobs and feel they don’t regularly get to use their strengths every day”.
How Can We Shift Our Mindset?
So, how can you break out and realise that the map is NOT the territory? Well, one solution lies in the habits we have. Aristotle said, “Excellence is not an act but a habit”. And I agree with him.
The key patterns or habits that we want to ensure are working for us are the specific habitual ways of thinking, behaving and feeling that you operate. These thought and behavioural patterns are controlling your experience and perception of life.
Our Mind Is A Muscle
We know from neuroscientific research that each of our thoughts triggers and operates a network of bio-chemical reflexes in the brain cortex. When they fire (or are triggered) they produce the same conditioned response to the stimulus until the stimulus changes. See more about S-R reflexes and pigeons (yes, pigeons!) here.
So, consider a train on a train track. It continues to move forward and it will always follow the same track unless something happens to switch the tracks at the junction box.
Bandler and Grinder wrote in the Structure of Magic 1″ people block themselves from seeing those options and possibilities that are open to them since they are not available in the models of their world”.
So, how can we change this situation? We can re-train our thinking habits to change our experience. And as those of you who’ve trained with me know – I’m a big fan of the 21-day habit-maker.
Let’s Retrain That Muscle
Effectively, we take one thing at a time and re-set the default on our mind to get the new thought pattern or behaviour that we want.
- Identify a habit that you have in your life that you would like to release or that you would like to run or operate in a different way.
- Take some time to write out exactly, in detail, what your new desired behavioural or thinking habit is.
- Operate the programme and see what result it gets. Do you feel good? Does it give you the outcome you want?
- Make any adjustments to ensure it delivers the precise outcome you desire.
- Put it into action every day for 21 days consciously.
- To support you in your change, what you can do is either visualise yourself running the new pattern (make sure you see yourself in the picture) or even make a recording of you speaking the new thought or behavioural pattern aloud and then listen to the recording or run the visualisation 3 or 4 times per day.
- Remember to use sensory-based language – SEE, HEAR, FEEL etc.
- Every time you run this new programme – ask yourself – “how do I feel?” The key to all of this is linking a very positive state to the outcome.
New Habits Feel Strange
Be aware, when you begin to operate your new programme it may feel a little alien to you, and yet, you can trust that after running the programme just a few times, it will begin to feel completely as comfortable as an old pair of shoes.
So, take your 21-day behavioural training challenge and see how you can impact your life in just 3 weeks.
Feel fabulous in the NOW and enjoy!
Find Out More About Working With Me
To find out more about coaching with me, or if you’d like to arrange a call to see if we’re a good fit for one another, please send me an email to sarah@sarahmerron.com.
You can book coaching online here.
Find out about NLP Training here.
If you’re interested in group training and coaching, you can check out my Farcical Life Programmes here.
