How Can I Change My Mind?
Change Your Relationship With Your Thoughts
Identify Your Core Desire & Establish A Clear Point Of Focus
Can I Change My Mind?
The obvious answer to the: "Can I change my mind?" question is "Yes!"
The less obvious answer to the follow-up question: "Do you really want to change your mind?" is most probably "No!"
Your mind is either working for you or, more typically, working against you and the reason for this inner resistance is that there is a part of your mind that is very happy with how things are and doesn't want to change.
For this reason, any attempt at personal change is most likely doomed to failure because the source and nature of this inner resistance is unconscious.
So the first challenge is figuring out what exactly is going on in your unconscious mind and then secondly knowing how to deal with that resistance in such a way that your unconscious mind starts working for you rather than against you.
How Can I Change My Mind?
This whole site is about learning how to think effectively and the precursor to that is learning how to not think, because:
- A quiet mind is an insightful mind and a resourceful mind.
- A quiet mind makes visible the autonomic and repetitive cycle of your thoughts, reactions and responses
The purpose of this article is to provide you with a framework or mental model to enable you to successfully address the "can I change my mind" question.
This framework involves 4 key stages and 10 steps within these stages.
[1] How Can I Change My Mind - THE IMMEDIATE STAGE
Step 1. Becoming Aware Of Your Thoughts
Basically, there are 2 ways of doing this. You can either spend thousands of dollars/pounds/euros etc and go spend the next 7 years visiting a psychiatrist. Or, you can learn how to practice mindfulness.
"Yes but....." I hear the voice in your head saying. But unless you know your invisible enemy, and his modus-operandi, you have no chance of beating him. The practise of mindfulness is the most direct and fastest way of gaining that insight.
There are many articles on this site on all aspects of mindfulness so I would refer you to the site-index on the left column for listings.
To kick start your search please see:
Step 2. Changing Your Relationship With Your Thoughts
As a result of your mindfulness practise you will very soon begin to see:
1. The repetitive nature of these thoughts
2. The triggers that give rise to these thoughts
3. The energetic states associated with these thoughts
The key take-aways from this step are understanding that:
- What matters is not the content of your thoughts but your relationship with your thoughts.
- These repetitive negative thoughts are a certain short-cut [or as I refer to it ”the ferris wheel of suffering”] to the
underlying negative emotional states and that are repetitively creating negative results in our lives.
Step 3. Living With Your Thoughts
The key to living with your thoughts is to develop a good working relationship with your mind and to have the tools, techniques and resources that work with all levels of your mind.
The objective is to have them all levels of your mind working together and moving you in the same direction, and at the same time!
Here are a range of tools and resources for enable you to successfully live with your thoughts
[2] How Can I Change My Mind - THE CHANGING STAGE
Step 4. Identify Your Core Desire
Unless your desire to change is greater than your powerful and deep-seated desire to keep things as they are, then I'm sorry to burst your bubble, but it isn't going to happen!
Your good intentions are going to end up in the waste bin alongside a lifetime's failed resolutions to change.
So, I ask you:
"Why do you want change your mind, your life...why do you want to change?"
So, to be clear, your core desire is that thing you want so badly that you
will do or become whatever it takes to get it, no matter how hard it
is or what the risk or expense is.
Here are 3 key steps to accurately identify your core desire.
Step 5. Establish Your Point Of Focus
Your point of focus is either helping you or hindering you.
We live in an energetic universe and it's not neutral, it is also a participative universe.
Over time, what you focus your mind on becomes your reality.
What is your point of focus? Is it aligned with your core desire?
6 Key guidelines to maintain your point of focus
[3] How Can I Change My Mind - THE REINFORCING STAGE
Step 6. Change Your Language – Understanding The Impact Of Framing
The choices of words that we use have power because of the underlying
emotional associations that they invoke and the actions that result from
those associations.
This applies as much to our inner dialogue as it does to the words we use in everyday speech.
Framing
is about how we define context, make associations, establish reference
points and emotional touch points all designed and positioned to convey
the sense and meaning that we want to convey.
There is a direct causal link between how we think about a situation,
the words we use to articulate those thoughts, the energetic state
associated with those words, and the results we create.
Change Your Language To Change Your Results
Step 7. Watch The Company You Keep
As Jack Canfield (and others) has said:
"You are the average of the 5 people you spend the most time with."
There are so many ways that we are affected by other people's emotions.
We are emotional/energetic beings living in an energetic universe that responds to our dominant energetic state in the experiences that we create and attract.
5 Steps you can take to protect yourself from the tidal swirl of other people's emotional turbulence.
Step 8. Understand How To Compound The Efficiency Of Your Habits
Habits are efficient and enable us to perform thought processes and behaviours without wasting time and energy figuring out what to do, and they do not require your conscious attention.
- Habits will sustain you, maintain you or undermine you.
- Good habits can give you an advantageous divergence from the herd.
- Small habits make a big difference over the long-term
Habits are the compound interest of self-improvement
[4] How Can I Change My Mind - THE ONGOING STAGE
Step 9. Focusing On HOW Not WHAT To Think
Acquiring and practising effective thinking skills is especially relevant in the current age of unreason.
You are seeking to change your mind in an environment where:
- Experts are denigrated and ignorance, bias and prejudice is celebrated;
- Woke thinking takes precedence over reasoned debate;
- Virtue signally takes precedence over private philanthropy;
- Intelligent discussion and agreement to disagree and respect for other shades of opinion are denied in the current cancel culture;
- Public debate is hijacked and taken over by group think and mob rule.
I
would suggest that alongside the practise of mindfulness and learning
how to not think, a continuous commitment to developing and improving
your thinking skills is of paramount importance to counter the
prevailing cognitive distortions to which we are continually exposed.
Step 10. How To Experience The Benefits Of Transformation By Renewing Your Mind
Renewing your mind is based on practices, not beliefs, that will have a profound and positive effect on your life.
This takes work and effort. The human mind runs on deeply ingrained and habitual patterns of thought.
Neural pathways in your brain get stronger with repetition and you will be training your brain to establish new pathways through new activities, new patterns of thought, and new behaviour.
Here are a series of "How To?" articles with practises and resource to help you continue with the ongoing transformation of your mind.
Return from "Can I Change My Mind" to Home Page
LATEST ARTICLES
-
Going With The Flow - The Balance Of Being And Doing
Steer The Boat Each Day Rather Than Plan Ahead Way Into The Future. Going with the flow is about learning to become comfortable with uncertainty, and learning how to exploit the potential hidden withi… -
8 Principles For Success
A Timeless Foundation On Which To Build Your Success. There are Universal laws and processes that work to support us and guarantee that we achieve all our goals. But first we need to know what they ar… -
The Loving Father
A Love That Will Not Let You Go. I had a loving father. I knew that I did, but I never felt it. My father was a good man but very damaged and unable to show his feelings. So I grew up knowing in my he… -
Your Ebenezer Stone Of Help
How To Stay Connected To Your True Source Of Power. Approximately 2,500 years ago the Israeli town of Kafr Qasim was close to the site of two battles between the ancient Israelis and their neighbours… -
The Stockdale Paradox
How To Deal With The Attrition Factor. The Stockdale Paradox is named after the late James Stockdale, former vice presidential candidate, naval commander and prisoner of war during the American-Vietna… -
Embrace Your Fear Of Failure And Uncertainty
We Celebrate Success And Ignore Failure. Numerous studies have been undertaken on successful people to understand what it was that they did to become so successful, how they did it and when they did i… -
The Wilderness Years - 3 Keys To An Exit
How You Got Into The Wilderness Matters Less Than The Lessons To Be Learnt There. The wilderness years can be described as any lengthy time, longer than a year, that is spend aimlessly; without an imm… -
Boredom – Your Greatest Threat to Results
We Live In A World That Glorifies The Results And Not The Process. We all know what we should be doing, but the trouble with that is that sooner of later we get bored. The enjoyment fades, the excitem… -
The Luck Factor - 4 Basic Principles
You Can Master The Art of Creating Your Own Luck By Mastering 4 Key Principles "The Luck Factor" is the title of a book published 20 years ago based on the research of Professor Richard Wiseman who fo… -
Your Relationship With Failure Is Critical To Your Success
Just Because You Have A Spectacular Failure Doesn’t Mean The Game Is Over. The thought that you could fail can really slow you down. But the problem is not the failure, the problem is your relationshi… -
Lost, Stuck & Going Round In Circles?
Are You Lost In Transition? To be in an alien North African city, late in the evening, in the dark, completely lost in transition from the main market square back to the obscure location of our Riad… -
Seeing Is Believing Or Is It?
Do You Believe What You See Or Do You See What You Believe? Like the characters in "The Matrix" we are fooled by the illusion that what we see is how things really are. Why? Because this is the mind's… -
What Difference Did You Make?
What Impact Will You Leave In The Lives Of Others? If you knew you were going to die tonight and you were given a few minutes to reflect before that happened, what would you say was the meaning of yo… -
Compassion Is Selfish And You Need It
If You Want Others To Be Happy, Practice Compassion. If You Want To Be Happy, Practice Compassion. Compassion is derived from the Latin words "com pati" meaning to suffer with. It has been defined as… -
The Placebo Effect - 2 Key Takeaways
The Power Of Expectation Of An Outcome Regardless Of The Lack Of Any Substance To That Expectation. Traditionally, the placebo effect occurs when false, or dummy, treatments of inert substances [that… -
The Red Pill
This Is What Will Happen After You Take It.
"This is your last chance," rebel leader Morpheus tells Neo, holding a coloured pill in each hand. “You take the blue pill, the story ends, you wake up in y… -
Transformational Life Hacks
This Has To Be One Of The Best Ways For Living The Best Life You Can Possibly Live. An online search on life hacks will invariably provide you with multiple links to ways of increasing your productivi… -
This Too Shall Pass
The Blessing And The Curse Of Impermanence. There is a story of a king who sought wisdom. Eventually he heard of a man living in a remote part of the kingdom who had a reputation for great wisdom. The… -
The Stories We Tell Ourselves
The Stories That We Tell Ourselves Are A Matter Of Choice. The stories we tell ourselves form the backcloth and the tapestry of our lives. These narratives shape and define our sense of self and how a… -
Who Do You Trust?
Trust Is A Choice And It Creates Your Reality. Nothing in life is permanent and nothing lasts forever. Every relationship ends in tears. Somebody leaves or somebody dies. This is how things are. This… -
How Positive Asymmetry Can Transform Your Life
Finding This Hidden Value Is The Key To A Huge Upside. Most of us spend our lives working to linear rules where there is an equal relationship between effort and result. Work hard you get a result. Wo… -
5 Tips For Developing A Growth Mindset
How To Be There When Preparation Meets Opportunity. The growth mindset holds the core belief that your intelligence and personality is something you can develop and that you can expand and grow. The p… -
Lost For Words? Experience Truth
If you can't think of the right thing to say, say nothing.
The concepts we employ, the categorizations we apply and the words we choose and use to articulate a direct experience put us in a double bi… -
Belief - A Terrible Tyrant Or An Empowering Servant
To Believe Or Not To Believe - That Is The Question. Nothing has inflicted more suffering on humanity than its beliefs and dogmas. The religious and cultural beliefs that sanction and allow or impose… -
How To Avoid Herd Mentality
How To Stay Far From The Madding Crowd. Herd mentality describes how we make decisions based on what everyone else is thinking and doing. It is also known as a mob or crowd mentality. We follow the he… -
Are You Trying To Teach A Cat To Bark?
We Suffer Every Time We Believe A Thought That Argues With What Is. When your mind is perfectly clear, what is, is what you want. If you want reality to be different than it is, you might as well try… -
The Value Of Slack
Slack Is The Capacity To Effect Change And The Resource To Deal With The Unexpected. Many organizations are obsessed with efficiency and try to ensure that every resource is fully utilized to its full… -
6 Tips To Help You Stop Trying Too Hard
Less and less do you need to force things, until you arrive at non-action. We are brought up to believe that we get what we want in life as a result of what we do, by the actions that we take, that ha… -
Your Point Of Focus
Is It Helping You Or Hindering You? Your point of focus is the central point of your attention. Your point of focus is a binary choice and the result of that choice is critical to your happiness, your… -
Your Secret For Success
To accomplish any success in life, you must identify accurately what it is that you hunger for, thirst for and long for. The purpose of this article is to look at the foundation of the secret for succ…