Your success largely depends on the state of your brain and the state of the brain is in turn impacted by the state of your mind. The latter can be changed into a positive state by working on a single attribute and that is Self Belief. Simply because,
If you believe that you can do something, you will…
Just this very attribute can change your life in unimaginable ways, as it has changed mine. I wasn’t always a very confidant and bold public speaker as I am today. I was shy and hence, unwilling to put myself forward even though I was determined, consistent and hard working. But won’t consistency, determination and hard work be enough to get you results? They used to be right, especially when we were at school and college? I wish I could say they were! But unfortunately, not any more. Well, at least not on their own and not beyond school and college. You need visibility too. You will have to step up and show yourself and showcase your contributions/ achievements. But how could do I do that when stepping up is what I dreaded the most? Well, that’s when working on my self-belief helped!
But honestly, self-belief doesn’t come instantly. It requires practice and conviction and a careful re-wiring of your brain. To believe in yourself, you first need to convince your brain that it can and will achieve what you want it to do. You see, the brain will do exactly as its told. If you keep telling yourself that you can do something, you will be amazed to see how well your brain cooperates in reaching that goal. And that’s precisely why, repeatedly feeding your brain with positive affirmations is the first step towards success.
In this article, I am going to share the exact techniques that help me and that can also help you in training your brain for success. Here they go:
1. Express your goals using positive and empowering language
One powerful way to re-wire your brain towards achievement is to use towards based motivation. State your outcome in terms of positively expressed goals versus away from and/or avoidance goals. Choose the words carefully and then write them down in a positive frame. Language can affect results. Simply start saying what you do want, instead of what you don’t want. Effectively, you edit the word don’t out of your vocabulary. Focus on what you do want to happen and not what you want to avoid because ultimately, what you focus on is what you notice and what you get more of.
‘If you haven’t got what you want, it is because you are not communicating correctly with your mind’, says psychologist, bestselling author, and motivational speaker Marisa Peer. She further adds that that the brain does what it thinks you want so you have to be very careful when telling your brain what you want.”
Marisa also encourages talking yourself out negativity and challenging situations by using empowering language such as ‘I want to do it, I choose to do it. I love doing it.’ By replacing disempowering phrases like I have to with empowering ones like I choose to, you are removing yourself from a victim position and putting yourself in control. You will feel fully in charge of your actions and that will eventually impact how you approach challenging situations in future.
2. Tell the brain exactly what you want by visualizing the outcome using sensory words
Tell your mind what you want by using detailed, precise, descriptive and powerful words. ‘Sensory words are more powerful and memorable than ordinary words because they make your reader see, hear, smell, taste, or feel your words. When reading non-sensory words, your brain processes text. But when you read sensory words different areas of your brain light up. Your brain processes sensory words as if you taste a sweet cake, as if you see a dazzling display of colors as if you feel a rough texture.’
Athletes and personal coaches are big supporters of visualization techniques because they are so effective. Imagining the outcome is their biggest secret to success. Visualization involves using your imagination and thinking what you’d really like to do. Determine it in your mind. Think of the goal as if it was already yours and what you and/or the things around you will look/sound/ feel like when you have achieved that goal. Focus on how good that feels and what the benefit is to you by using as many sensory based words as you can.
Remember, whatever you tell your mind, it will believe so be sure to tell it better things. In a blog in edge NLP the writer when referring to visualization says that he did not only see the outcome, he heard the conversations being carried on around him and really felt the sensations of achievement and success and all that went with it. ‘I even saw the change in my bank balance. Creating this visualization and dropping it into my timeline totally engaged me into the process; I was back in cause, owning my outcome and knowing without a shadow of a doubt that I would achieve it,’ he further adds.
3. Link massive enormous pleasure for achieving a goal and pain for staying the same/ not achieving
Everything we do in our life is driven by the twin forces of pain and pleasure. Commonly referred to as punishment and reward, we either seek to avoid pain or gain pleasure. The key to creating a change is to associate our action/goal with massive pain when we don’t do it and massive pleasure when we do it. By linking pain and pleasure to our goals, we propel ourselves in the direction of our goals. All success is a result of attaching massive pain and a massive pleasure to our goals. The more we link pleasure and pain to our outcomes, the greater is our desire to reach our outcomes. Pleasure and pain are also basic and intrinsic principles of human behavior.
These above three techniques will really help you in bringing you closer to your goals and outcomes and will re-wire your brain for success. Of course, these alone are not enough. You will also be required to put in hard work, determination, and knowledge. As I wrote in my Huffpost article on Limiting Beliefs ‘You need to stop believing in the myth that someone else will come to your rescue and believe in yourself instead. Ultimately, you own and control the most powerful weapon that can help you to get out of your own way: your brain. Do not underestimate its power – it will play a pivotal role in making any of your efforts successful’ After all as Henry Ford, aptly put it; Whether you think you can, or you think you can’t–you’re right.’
This article was originally published in Ready Mag