"Your natural gravitation is going to go towards what progression you are making on yourself"
Your natural state can be changed, but something tells me that you probably already knew that.
During the journey to re-programming my subconscious mind one thing became abundantly clear. When you have a negative mindset - everything sucks.
Everything is out to get you, things fall apart, break, don't work, or won't happen "just for me".
But when you have a positive mindset, things flow easier, things fall into line, someone gets in your way in traffic and it doesn't make you frustrated, there are synchronicities everywhere. Why? because that is where you are programmed to be in that moment. Think of our mind like a computer, zeroes and ones, binary. We feed it some data and the program responds to it as it should.
Well much like our positive and negative mind states, I believe that our natural gravitation can be programmed. How? progression.
When we make progress on ourselves it releases tiny bits of dopamine into our system, much like pressing the button on a pokie machine or taking our first sip of coffee for the day. Something that makes us feel rewarded, we can get addicted to these things, like our mobile phones. We aren't addicted to the devices themselves, but the tiny hits of dopamine every time we scroll to a new video or hit a button that makes a cute little 'ding' noise.
So why isn't everyone addicted to working on themselves then?
There are a few reasons. Maybe they don't believe in themselves, maybe they have some old programming from their upbringing, maybe working on themselves has caused pain in the past.
Phrases like "you can't do xyz" or "only successful people can have that" - "nice for you to have all that time, I have to work!" -sing loud in our minds.
Sometimes we make the commitment to do something then tell all our friends about it, we share it on social media, and then we don't end up doing the thing we promised!
Why? - that tiny hit of dopamine we got from our people rewarding us with their positivity!
Our subconscious mind does not understand the difference between doing something, and thinking about doing something - It's a computer remember, here's an example:
"I'm going to go to the gym" we say. Our subconscious mind doesn't even react to this 'going?" it says, "meh, whatever, let's not worry about it for now," - Going is the same as could, should, and would. Ineffective.
We tell our friends, and our social media - they react positively to us, and that gives us the dopamine from the idea - our subconscious mind then picks that up as; mission completed, sweet as.
Getting up and going to the gym however, that's a different story. We then get that dopamine hit from many psychological and physiological reasons.
However, the change might still not last, why?
Because we got that dopamine hit, it felt great - our subconscious mind wipes its hands and says "great, mission accomplished" and we lose that 'motivation' to keep going. This is where discipline must take over.
Making the decision to make constant progress on ourselves is no small feat, but it is necessary for fostering lasting change. Setting a challenge can work "I'm going to do 'x' for 'x' amount of days. Making a new permanent daily habit can work. Making the promise to ourselves is a powerful tool, we feel let down when we don't do the thing and that keeps us accountable at times.
What works the best? I'm definitely no expert, but here is what works for me.
Setting small goals
Creating challenges
Self-talk & Affirmation
Video accountability
Written accountability
Getting fed-up
Setting small goals
Sometimes we can be a bit too ambitious in our goal setting. It can be a great strategy to break it down into smaller and easier to achieve goals, this equals more dopamine hits per goal (yay).
Instead of attacking your journey by needing to lose 10 kilos or gain $10,000, start with 0.5 kilos, and $1,000.
Bonus dopamine hit - set a reward for yourself at the end of each small win; this solidifies to our subconscious mind that we are on the right track, maybe it's a coffee at your favourite shop, or a nice hot shower, whatever.
Creating Challenges
For me, the biggest changes I have made have been through challenges. However, this can be a slippery slope if not done correctly. If we set ourselves a challenge and don't stick to it, our minds can consider us a pushover and that can be bad for our menty health. We must find ways to meet our own standards consistently, so use caution!
"Dry July" was a great one for me - but only when I didn't plan a big party at the end of the month. Doing that is not effective, if we abstain from something for a month just to go right back into it, it's counter-productive. If your goal is to lower alcohol consumption, or maybe lessen fatty foods, it is more effective to lower the overall amount if the end goal is to "pig out"
This could be: no more takeout on weekdays, (same with drinking) its lowering the standard drinks per week, or amount of fatty food consumed.
Total abstinence and hard gym challenges worked for me to begin with. I emphasize the begin for a reason. I set the challenge to not drink alcohol for 30 days, and it felt so great, it is currently day 290 without one.
That challenge paid off. Big time.
However, I also set myself a 12 week gym fitness challenge at the same time. I worked out 7 days per week for the entire 12 weeks. What happened? I burned out my muscles, hurt my back, and ended up resenting going to the gym.
Had I of booked 1 personal training session per week, and exercised at home a couple times, it would have been better, and longevity would have been easier.
Now I am rebuilding that relationship with exercise using another technique listed here,
Self-Talk and Affirmation
This strategy for change is one of my all time favourites, and I truly believe that it has done seismic shifts in my waking life. I read the book titled "What to say when you talk to yourself" By Shad Helmstetter - and it changed my life.
Did I really write down some phrases and repeat them to myself in the mirror over and over? You better believe it, I created x3 personalised self-talk audios that I play myself regularly, plastered affirmations all over the walls in my room, and limit any critical or self-demoralizing words by replacing them with uplifting and positive ones.
Our self talk determines how we feel about ourselves, how we react to external and internal pressures, how we react in stress, what we say when we talk to others, our self-talk is our internal subconscious operating system and I could talk about it at great length. To sum it up I have an example.
"I always drop things, I'm so clumsy!" says Sarah. What Is she doing with this statement? - she is programming her subconscious mind to believe this about herself, and in turn creating more clumsiness in her life!
If she was to replace this statement with another "I handle accidents well" or "I accept that I have great coordination" - she would eventually reprogram herself into actually making these new things a reality.
Not only does changing our self talk make profound differences in our lives, it makes us better communicators, better in our relationships, better to work with, and we find that all areas of life can be improved on.
Here's a couple that I use daily:
"Every day in every way, things get better and better"
"I approach obstacles as opportunities with peace, and calm"
"I have a balanced mind"
"I am proud of who I am, I am worthy"
"It is always working out for me"
"I am more than enough"
Video Accountability
This one may not be for everyone, but again - it worked for me. Creating a TikTok account was easy, and I shared insights from that challenge mentioned earlier every day. The people watching eventually joined on the bandwagon and began commenting and messaging me, and guess what, that right there isn't only giving you a sense of community, it's a dopamine hit! (yay)
Written Accountability
This was a great strategy for me to achieve some harder to stick to goals such as the gym, and other adventures. It works like this, set up a messenger account (any app will do) with someone that you can send a daily message to. (For a portion I didn't even use a recipient I was just sending it to myself)
This daily check-in helped me to track my progress and pointed out the areas that I was struggling - Ill share you my template to copy:
How was my mindset today?
Score out of 10 based on performance
If not a 10, what can happen or change to improve on it?
What did I learn today? (books, podcasts)
Did I complete my main goals today?
What did I do today to push myself for better?
3 things I am grateful for from today
What do I need to do tomorrow to achieve my goals? (enter into diary/calendar)
Did I do any acts of kindness or service today? - or find one for later?
Getting Fed-Up
This is my least favourite strategy. One that can lead to some extremely dark paths, all of the challenges and all of the strategies I have shared with you in this post are so that you don't have to go through the pain of getting fed up with yourself. I repeated many painful actions over and over until it got so bad that I got over, being over myself. Don't use this strategy, please..
Remember, "Your natural gravitation is going to go towards what progression you are making on yourself" by focussing on becoming a better self, by picking up good habits, by programming our subconscious mind to work for us, our state changes.
Try this - picture yourself in 10 years from now if you change absolutely nothing.
What does your life look like? Who are your friends? What does your bank account look like? Where do you live? How healthy are you?
Now picture yourself in 10 years if you begin doing the things that you KNOW you should.
I leave you with a question, what future looks better?
~J.
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