Suppose you have the bad
habit of dwelling too much on
the same negative thoughts.
And
suppose there ’s no outward
physical manifestation
associated to them. It’s just
negative
thinking, like “I’m so
depressed” or “I hate my job”
or “I can’t do this” or “I hate
being fat.”
How do you break a bad habit
when it’s entirely in your mind?
There are actually quite a
number of ways to decondition
a negative thought pattern.
The
basic idea is to replace the old
pattern with a new one.
Mentally resisting the negative
thought will usually backfire —
you’ll simply reinforce it and
make it even worse. The more
you fire those neurons in the
same way, the stronger the
pattern becomes.
Here’s a little method I use to
break negative thought
patterns. It’s basically
something I
conconcted from a combination
of the swish pattern from NLP
and a memory technique
known as chaining. I usually
find the swish pattern alone to
be weak and ineffective, but
this
method works very well for me.
Instead of trying to resist the
negative thought pattern, you
will redirect it. Think of it like
mental kung fu. Take the
energy of the negative thought
and rechannel it into a positive
thought. With a little mental
conditioning, whenever the
negative thought occurs, your
mind
will automatically flow into the
linked positive thought. It ’s
similar to Pavlov’s dogs
learning
to salivate when the bell rang.
Here’s how it works:
Let’s assume your negative
thought is a subvocalization,
meaning that it’s like you hear
a
voice in your head that says
something you want to change,
like, “I’m an idiot.” If the
negative thought is visual (a
mental image) or kinesthetic (a
gut feeling), you can use a
similar process. In many cases
the thought will manifest as a
combination of all three
(visual, auditory, and
kinesthetic).
Step 1: Turn the negative
thought into a mental image.
Take that little voice, and turn
it into a corresponding mental
picture. For example, if your
thought is, “I’m an idiot,”
imagine yourself wearing a
dunce cap, dressed very
foolishly, and
jumping around like a dork. See
yourself surrounded by other
people all pointing at you
while you shout, “I’m an idiot.”
The more you exaggerate the
scene, the better. Imagine
bright colors, lots of animation,
rapid movement, and even
sexual imagery if it helps you
remember. Rehearse this scene
over and over in your mind until
you reach the point where
thinking the negative thought
automatically brings up this
goofy imagery.
If you have trouble visualizing,
you can also do the above in an
auditory fashion. Translate
the negative thought into a
sound, such as a jingle that you
sing. Go through the same
process with sound instead of
imagery. It works either way. I
happen to prefer the visual
method though.
Step 2: Select an empowering
replacement thought.
Now decide what thought
you’d like to have instead of
the negative one. So if you’ve
been
thinking, “I’m an idiot,” maybe
you’d like to replace that with
“I’m brilliant.” Choose a
thought that empowers you in
a way that disrupts the
disempowering effect of the
original
negative thought.
Step 3: Turn the positive
thought into a mental image.
Now go through the same
process you used in Step 1 to
create a new mental scene
from
the positive thought. So with
the example “I’m brilliant,” you
might imagine yourself
standing tall, posing like
Superman with your hands on
your hips. Picture a giant light
bulb
appearing just above your
head. The bulb turns on so
bright that it ’s blinding, and
you see
yourself yelling, “I’m
bbbbbrrrrilllllllliannnntttt!”
Again, keep rehearsing this
scene until
merely thinking the positive
line automatically brings up the
associated imagery.
Step 4: Mentally chain the two
images together.
Now take the images in Step 1
and Step 3, and mentally glue
them together. This trick is
used in memory techniques like
chaining or pegging. You want
to morph the first scene
into the second scene. The NLP
swish pattern would have you
do a straight cut from one
scene to the next, but I
recommend you animate the
first scene into the second. A
cut is very
weak glue and often won ’t
stick. So instead pretend you’re
the director of a movie. You
have the opening scene and
the closing scene, and you have
to fill in the middle. But you
only have a few seconds of film
left, so you want to find a way
to make the transition happen
as quickly as possible.
For example, one of the
hecklers in the first scene might
throw a light bulb at the idiot
version of you. The idiot you
catches the bulb and screws it
into the top of his head,
wincing
at the pain. The bulb then
grows into a giant bulb and
turns on so bright it blinds all
the
hecklers. You rip off your dorky
clothing to reveal a shining
white robe beneath it. You
stand
tall like Superman and yell
confidently, “I’m
bbbbbrrrrilllllllliannnntttt!” The
hecklers fall to
their knees and begin
worshipping you. Again, the
more exaggeration you use,
the better.
Exaggeration makes it easier to
remember the scene because
our brains are designed to
remember the unusual.
Once you have the whole scene
worked out, mentally rehearse
it for speed. Replay the
whole scene over and over until
you can imagine it from
beginning to end in under 2
seconds, ideally in under 1
second. It should be lightning
fast, much faster than you ’d
see
in the real world.
Step 5: Test.
Now you need to test your
mental redirect to see if it
works. It’s a lot like an HTML
redirect
— when you input the old
negative URL, your mind should
automatically redirect you to
the
positive one. Merely thinking
the negative thought should
rapidly bring up the positive
thought. If you ’ve done this
correctly, you won’t be able to
help it. The negative thought is
the stimulus that causes your
mind to run the whole pattern
automatically. So whenever
you
happen to think, “I’m an idiot,”
even without being fully aware
of it, you end up thinking, “I’m
brilliant.”
If you’ve never done
visualizations like this before, it
may take you several minutes
or
longer to go through this whole
process. Speed comes with
practice. The whole thing can
literally be done in seconds
once you get used to it. Don ’t
let the slowness of the first
time
through discourage you. This is
a learnable skill like any other,
and it probably will feel a bit
awkward the first time.
I recommend you experiment
with different types of imagery.
You’ll likely find some
variations more effective than
others. Pay particular attention
to association vs.
dissociation. When you ’re
associated in a scene, you’re
imagining seeing it through
your
own eyes (i.e. first-person
perspective). When you’re
dissociated you’re imagining
seeing
yourself in the scene (i.e. third-
person perspective). I usually
get the best results when I
dissociate in both scenes. Your
results may vary. You may have
to do some mental
camera work if you switch from
dissociated to associated or
vice versa, but it can be done
with practice.
I did a lot of this type of mental
conditioning during the early
90s. Whenever I uncovered a
negative thought, I plucked it
out and redirected it. Within a
few days, I had reprogrammed
dozens of negative thought
patterns, and pretty soon it
became hard for my mind to
even
produce a negative thought or
emotion. Everything kept
getting redirected to the
positive
side. I think that ’s partly why I
felt so confident about starting
my own business right out of
college — I used mental
conditioning to redirect the
thoughts of self-doubt to a
more can-do
mindset. I also used this a lot
while in college, and I’m sure it
helped me graduate faster
than normal. I still had to deal
with plenty of real-world
challenges, but at least I wasn’t
battling my own self-doubt at
the same time.
This type of mental
conditioning gave me a lot
more conscious control over my
internal
states. Today it ’s so
internalized that I just do it
automatically without even
thinking about it.
My subconscious took over at
some point, so whenever I have
a thought like “I can’t,” it
automatically gets twisted into
“How can I?” That’s actually
supposed to happen – with
enough mental conditioning
practice, your subconscious will
take over. Memory experts
similarly report that with
practice, techniques like
pegging and chaining are taken
over by
the subconscious, just like
riding a bicycle
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