The reason our unconscious goes to so much trouble to maintain our beliefs is that human beings have a subconscious tendency to continue doing what they’ve always done, to remain consistent with what they’ve said and done in the past. Any attempt to change current habits of thought or action triggers the homeostatic impulse, which makes you feel uneasy and uncomfortable. Since the human brain seeks comfort and pleasure and tries to avoid and move away from discomfort and pain, your natural tendency will be to go back to the old ways of doing things. While this tendency is common, it must be overcome if you are to come alive and unlock your full potential. You must be willing to be uncomfortable or uneasy if you want the rewards of higher levels of personal effectiveness.
How We Cling to Limiting Beliefs
1. We make life choices that harmonize with our beliefs. We unconsciously choose situations and people that fit our preconceptions, while we avoid those people and situations that might weaken or contradict our beliefs. Our emotions, body language, and facial expressions also attract situations that match up with our beliefs.
2. We practice selective attention or inattention depending on the circumstance. Our minds tune in to phenomena that confirm our beliefs while avoiding, ignoring, or deleting anything that could weaken the belief. We selectively remember events that fit our beliefs and selectively forget those that do not.
3. We automatically distort, mold, or exaggerate evidence to reasonably fit our beliefs.
4. As a last-ditch effort, we may also rationalize contradictory evidence to upload a belief. Often this involves misinterpreting someone’s motives or claiming an ulterior motive.
The Mental Principles
To fully benefit from self-talk, you should understand the seven mental principles that support it. Principles by definition are timeless. They are in effect for everyone, everywhere, twenty-four hours a day. Just as physical laws do not discriminate, neither do the following mental laws:
1. Cause and effect. For every single effect in your life, there is a cause or group of causes. If you want to produce a specific result in your life, you must trace back from that result and identify the cause. The most important application of this principle is that your thoughts are causes and your circumstances are effects. In other words, causation is mental. Nothing happens by accident. Just because a cause cannot be determined does not mean there is no cause. However, many people attribute the effects in their lives—the results they achieve—to either good or bad luck. They do this for one of three reasons: (1) if it’s bad luck, to relieve themselves of a sense of responsibility, which deflects attention from the true source; (2) if it’s good luck, to appear modest or humble; or (3) because they are ignorant of the true cause.
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Successful men and women train their minds to think only about what they want to happen in their lives.
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2. Belief. The principle of belief says that whatever you believe about yourself long enough and deeply enough becomes true for you. According to your beliefs is it done unto you. Whatever you tell yourself repeatedly with feeling, you eventually come to believe. You do not believe what you see so much as you see what you have already decided to believe. For the most part, your beliefs produce your life experiences, not the other way around. Throughout childhood, you developed beliefs as a result of your most dominant exposures. For example, you learned beliefs from your parents, teachers, friends, and the media, as well as from your own interpretations of your life experiences. As you’ve moved through life, but especially during childhood, you’ve acquired a host of beliefs that are either partially or completely false. Many such limiting beliefs are in direct contradiction to what the Bible says is possible for you. And, once a belief is locked in, you tend to notice only those things that reinforce that your belief is true. This selective perception allows you to experience your own personal version of reality.
3. Subconscious activity. Any emotionally charged thought or idea that is repeatedly held in your conscious mind is interpreted by your subconscious mind as a command. You hold a thought in your mind when you dwell on it, mull it over, and consistently talk about it. Since the subconscious mind cannot distinguish between truth and fantasy, it accepts verbal input without regard to present reality. In effect, the subconscious is a perfect servant. It always agrees with and complies with what the conscious mind tells it. It becomes like a parrot, repeating and replaying the commands you’ve given it. Your job is to convince the subconscious that the condition you desire already exists. Once you do that, your subconscious then arouses your awareness to the opportunities around you that are consistent with your goals. You will attract into your life the ideas, events, and circumstances that harmonize with your most dominant self-talk.
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Whatever you direct your mind to think about will ultimately be revealed for everyone to see.
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4. Substitution. The conscious mind can hold only one thought at a time, either positive or negative. This means you are always free to choose a better thought than your current thought. Ask yourself, “How’s my thinking been working—in my marriage, my career, my faith, my health, and so forth?” If your current thinking is not leading to the results you desire, it is up to you to change your thoughts. But be aware that you cannot eliminate a thought directly. You can do so only by substituting another one for it. If I say to you, “Don’t think of an orange elephant,” you, of course, immediately think of it. If you say, “I refuse to think of an orange elephant,” then you’re still thinking about it. If someone tells you not to worry, you will continue to worry because you can’t concentrate on the reverse of something. It’s not possible. But if I give you something else specific to think about, then the new thought displaces the current thought. You can get rid of that orange elephant by thinking of a big white horse. This is the principle of substitution. Thoughts of worry are replaced with thoughts of faith and confidence. Thoughts of boldness replace thoughts of fear. You can exert control over your thinking and, by extension, your life by replacing any negative, counterproductive thoughts with positive, empowering thoughts.
5. Mental equivalency. This principle states that before physical creation, there must first be mental creation. Just as an artist must have a vision of what she is painting before her brush touches the canvas, you too must clearly see the end result of what you are striving to create in your life. Improvement in your circumstances is always preceded by improvement in your mental pictures, by improvement in the dominant images that occupy your mind. This means that you must develop a vivid mental picture of any goal you hope to achieve in advance of its actual accomplishment. Before you can have something new and different in your life, before you can have something new and different on the outside, you must become new and different on the inside, or in the way you think. An architect must cultivate the mental version of the home he is designing before he develops the actual blueprint. Responsible parents must envision their children today as the successful adults they intend for them to become. A place kicker must first kick a forty-five-yard field goal in his head before he actually kicks it with his foot. You must be willing to let go of the old you to make room for the new you. You must be willing to shake yourself free of your old pictures, of your old ways of thinking and doing, if you truly desire a new and improved life experience. Positive self-talk strengthens your upgraded mental equivalent, causing it to become a powerful magnetic force, attracting into your life exactly what you need to reach your goals.
6. Concentration. The principle of concentration states that whatever you focus on grows and expands. You will be effective to the degree that you can concentrate single-mindedly on only one thing and stick with it until it’s complete. If you dwell on your positive experiences, your blessings, your goals, and all the people who love you, then you will attract even more blessings, even more love, and even mor
e accomplishments. The more you emphasize your good health, the healthier you feel. The more you dwell on your spouse’s positive qualities, the stronger your relationship will become. This works for good or for bad, so be careful where you place your mental priorities. Whatever you stop thinking about or turn your attention away from tends to fall out of your life. So refuse to entertain thoughts of doubt, fear, or worry. See if you can go twenty-four hours with thoughts only of joy, abundance, praise, and optimism. See if you can go an entire day without a hint of fear, criticism, or negativity of any kind in your thoughts and conversations.
The apostle Paul describes this principle in Philippians 4:8: “Fix your thoughts on what is true, and honorable, and right, and pure, and lovely, and admirable. Think about things that are excellent and worthy of praise” (NLT).
You can build any virtue into your mentality by dwelling on that virtue every single day. So choose to think about good things! For more insights into this maxim and for specific strategies on increasing your joy quotient, I encourage you to pick up a copy of my book The 4:8 Principle.
7. Relaxation. Trying too hard mentally actually becomes counterproductive. Too much mental effort eventually tends to defeat itself. With a physical task, the harder you work, the faster you progress. The harder you work at digging a hole in the ground, the sooner you’ll have a ditch. The harder you hammer a nail, the faster it penetrates a two-by-four. But when you try to force things mentally—or press, as it is referred to by athletes—your mind freezes up and stops working creatively. This generally produces more of what you don’t want. Your subconscious absorbs positive self-talk fastest when you are relaxed and unhurried. Thoughts of worry, fear, anxiety, and doubt are all signs of a mental tug-of-war that must be eliminated. But wrestling with an unwanted thought just injects it with more power. Instead, calmly and gently replace it with a positive or constructive idea, and the negative thought will fade away. Practice blending your self-talk with a calm sense of positive expectancy, the feeling and knowing that God is in control of everything. As Romans 8:28 says, “We know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose” (NIV). Remember that God is always committed to your well-being.
7 Mental Principles
1. Cause and Effect
2. Belief
3. Subconscious Activity
4. Substitution
5. Mental Equivalency
6. Concentration
7. Relaxation
The P.E.P.P. Formula
Effective self-talk is created by using the P.E.P.P. formula: positively phrased, emotion provoking, present tense, and personal.
Use specific, precise, positively phrased language in your self-talk. Say, “I am reading for one hour every evening” rather than, “I am no longer wasting my evenings watching TV.” Instead of affirming, “I am not eating ice cream,” say, “I am eating only nutrient-dense, high-energy foods.” Since your mind thinks in pictures, it has trouble processing a negatively stated goal. It’s difficult, if not impossible, for your mind to create a picture of yourself not doing something. Stating self-talk positively also shifts your awareness from what you don’t want to what you do want.
Next, your self-talk should be emotion provoking, causing you to feel some of the emotions even before the experience. The more feeling you intermingle with your self-talk, the more quickly it impacts the subconscious. Experiment with using bold words that are fun and passionate. Use words you haven’t used much before. Break the verbal rut. Also, try adding feeling words such as easily, joyfully, radically, effortlessly, boldly, infinitely, or gratefully into your self-talk statements.
Next, your self-talk should always be in the present tense. The subconscious mind, where permanent change becomes rooted, does not recognize the past or the future. It operates only in the here and now. You can effect subconscious change best by communicating in the language your subconscious mind understands: the present tense. The theory of cognitive dissonance states that when you hold two psychologically inconsistent thoughts, you experience dissonance, or a sense of tension and inharmonious feelings. The subconscious, in an attempt to reduce the discomfort of the conflicting messages, does everything it can to create the most recently imposed suggestion or self-talk. Repetition of a specific self-talk statement narrows the gap between conflicting conscious and subconscious beliefs. With persistent repetition, old neurological grooves are erased and replaced, in effect creating upgraded mental software. Your subconscious computer then supplies you with the words, actions, instincts, mannerisms, body language, creativity, emotions, and other responses consistent with the most dominant mental images imprinted on the brain.
Initially, using present tense can feel a bit uncomfortable because you are speaking about the future as if it’s already here. Since this is not the way most of us learned to communicate, it’s bound to feel strange. Just accept that this is how your mind works. When you affirm your goals and dreams as if they’re already attained, you make the shift from being bogged down to being a visionary. The most powerful words in the English language are those that come after the words I am.
The last P is for personal. Self-talk that you design yourself—that is personal to your circumstances, your character, and your goals—is most effective. You’ll experience the strongest connection to the self-talk you have composed yourself. However, when you begin, it’s often helpful to borrow self-talk from other sources, and then edit to personalize it. Any self-talk repeated often enough will be internalized and become part of your unique mental makeup.
Formulating Your Own Self-Talk24
Because everything you think or say should lead to the fulfillment of your purpose and the accomplishment of your goals, you must regularly review your personal mission statement and identify your most important life goals. In addition, you should be clear why those goals are important to you and how you are going to accomplish them—the action plan! So before attempting to create your own self-talk, invest the time and mental effort, as discussed in lessons 2 and 3, to clarify the what, the why, and the how. After you have determined the results you’re striving for, imagine you have already achieved those results. See yourself as already in possession of your most important goals. Think “as if,” and experience the satisfaction and sense of accomplishment. Now ask yourself this key question: “If I had already accomplished these goals, what would I believe about myself that I don’t now truly believe?” Make a list of what comes to your mind. What would you believe about yourself, your abilities, your mental resilience, your personal habits, and your potential? What would you believe about your lifestyle? What would you believe about your finances in particular or the economy in general? What would you believe about the world? Finally, what would you believe about your particular future?
Answering these questions is a proactive way to develop the mind-set of the person you must become if you want to reach your goals. Before you can have, you must do; but before you can do, you must first become. And if you don’t lay the foundation of becoming the right person, then whatever you achieve will certainly slip away. It will not—in fact, it cannot—be permanent.
Let me share another technique for clarifying your beliefs: Think of one of the most compelling goals you want to achieve in the next three years. Develop a clear picture of it in your mind. Now answer this simple but profound question: Why don’t you have it already? If your goal is to be financially independent and that’s very important to you, then why aren’t you already financially independent? Why haven’t you already accomplished this goal? Whatever answers you come up with, whether they are logical, factual, or mathematical, and whether they are exaggerations, distortions, fears, or other excuses of the imagination, they are still real as far as accomplishing your goal is concerned. Every answer you come up with represents a limited belief or a blind spot in your mental equivalent. Self-talk helps you shore up your mental equivalent. It gives you the ability to create and
fortify beliefs that support the person you want to become and the goals you want to achieve.
You can turn any of your answers to your advantage by practicing positive opposite therapy, which activates the principle of substitution.
Positive opposite therapy provides you with the mental nourishment that must come before achieving goals. If you dwell on positive beliefs about yourself, they will take root and multiply into strong convictions, which will override old negative beliefs. You can best deploy your mental energies by focusing on where you want to go rather than where you are or where you’ve been. Remember, you can and do—either intentionally or haphazardly—determine what you believe. What you choose to believe about yourself is completely up to you. The important question is this: What should you believe? In light of who you intend to become during your lifetime, what must you believe today in order to achieve the right results tomorrow? We know that beliefs come first and results come second. So what should you believe? An accurate answer to this question requires that you first develop complete clarity about your future. The clearer your vision for the future is, the easier it will be to determine what you must first believe in order to get there.
If becoming financially independent is your goal, then your answers to the question “Why haven’t you already . . . ?” may sound something like this:
Success Is Not an Accident Page 14
