Morning all. It’s half one in the morning here and I’ve just seen a video that I think you all need to see. Watch:
My initial thoughts after watching the video (It seems to help me to center my thoughts by writing them out after watching something like this – I will write an article proper on this later on):
This video really resonated with me. Negative thoughts have always been a major issue with me, for nearly all my life. I struggle daily with repetitive thoughts and it seems that they only go away when I am busy, or in reality, as Tyler says, when I am in the present moment. Most of what is said in the video I have tried on some level, where I dabbled in and out of each technique or read some of the book, but I don’t think I gave each a fair chance. I would do a technique for a while, see some success and then for some reason, any slight ‘bump in the road’ would mean I would stop it and go back to old ways and old thinking.
In terms of the methods: I took anti-depressants twice in my life. I am not ashamed of this. Unfortunately, I don’t think they really helped me. This created a lot of negative side effects in me. Both times I was prescribed them, I was at a really low ebb and it seemed every day was piling a new ton of crap onto it. I couldn’t explain to anyone why I was feeling down and no matter how hard I tried, it just didn’t feel right. The stock response from the doctor was to prescribe drugs. They took the edge off the feelings but didn’t really address what the underlying issue was. They were treating the symptoms but not the actual problem. This caused me to look elsewhere (and go off them cold turkey – but that’s another story!). Meditating is a big one. It feels stupid at first, but it is amazing how after a few sessions, you start to notice that your brain quietens down. I couldn’t reader ‘The Power of Now’ as I felt it was a bit too new-age bullshit for my liking. Reframing negative thoughts to positive was working but it felt like I was fighting back a tidal wave of negativity that I couldn’t compete with. As for being in the moment, I just couldn’t do this as a one way strategy. My repetitive thoughts seemed to be always hammering away at my mind and eventually I always let them in. I think the only way to beat this negative loop is to do as he advises and work this on a multi-level approach.
Sadly, I have allowed negative thinking to really ruin my life. I am now 29 and think that I have wasted each year. I see the negative as outweighing the positive. I have done some cool stuff and met some cool people but sadly, I am letting negative bullshit hold me back. Yet, this video got me a little teary eyed. It seems like this is my future sending me a little wake up call. I am going to do the above techniques and see how I go. I reckon a little challenge is in order. Something that I can report back to you, to keep me accountable.
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Hi all,
Firstly, let me apologise for the delay in new content being added to the site. It has been a rather chaotic few weeks. From job interviews, to doing voluntary work to the birth of my Nephew, it has been hard to draw breath and write some new content!
Today, I have decided to post a short video on motivation, that Rob Judge has kindly allowed me to use on my site. It is something that a lot of guys have been emailing me about. To be honest, I don’t need motivation as I love women but if you have been in the game for a while or relatively new and constantly being blown out, you sometimes need a little motivational prod to get back in the saddle (so to speak!)
In this video he breaks down the factors of motivation, looks at how to solve the issues that may be holding you back and gives you the motivational kick up the ass that you’ve been needing. Do you find that your motivation is lacking? Do you find yourself saying, ‘I’ll do it tomorrow’ where you know that you won’t. As I am slowly learning, life is short and we need to make the most of every moment we have available to us. Watch this video and go on to better and better successes!
Please watch and let me know what you think in the comments below.
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Today’s post is about Competition. It’s a video of some random observations I have been noticing about Competition recently.
Enjoy and let me know what you think about it in the comments below.
Fear comes in many forms. There is the fear of death, the fear of failure etc, but today I am going to talk about the one type of fear that is affecting a lot of men in today’s society – the fear of approaching women in social scenes due to fear of rejection.
To understand how fear works, we need to go way back in the evolution of man. We need to go back to the beginning of our development. At one point, fear was a very useful emotion for mankind back in the caveman days. In those days, we lived as part of tribes. Each tribe was a unique and separate community to all the other tribes. You would live in a community of say a few hundred people, which would consist of men, women and children. Your community would live miles and miles away from the next community, so all of your friends, family, your social life, sex life, potential mates (of the female kind!) etc would be held within the confines of this community. Sounds great doesn’t it? All of your friends together. Not having to venture far to find a girl to mate with. Your family all around you, without having to spend hours travelling to visit them.
Yeah, on one hand it sounds great. However, what happens when you flip it. What happens when something goes wrong. On the other hand, it could turn out to be your worst nightmare. You see, if you were rejected by a potential mate in your community, in those caveman days, it was pretty much social death for you. It wasn’t as if you could simply move onto another girl. Most were already taken by other members of the tribe. You couldn’t go to another tribe or community, because they would most likely kill you for being an outsider. So what did you do? Nothing. You lived out the rest of your days alone, without reproducing and passing your genes onto the next generation. You died out. The end of the line for you. This was a fate worth then death. You see, one of the main desires for man, installed at a deeper level than most acknowledge, is along with the need for shelter, food and warmth, is to pass on their genetic makeup, to reproduce. Call it an ego thing if you will but all our brains want, is to protect us and ensure that our genes live on into the next generation. However, when you failed to mate with the girl for you, you were screwed. You live out a life of exclusion – no-one wanted to be tarred with the same brush. You remained dateless and were vilified by the rest of the community. Basically, you died without getting any!
As mankind evolved, we developed a fear of this happening and did all we could to avoid it happening to us. Our brains worked on ways to be socially accepted, to be appeable to potential mates in our communities and did everything possible to allow us the chance to pass on our genetic makeup, or to reproduce. Those who did, lived on. They had offspring and the genes of that man survived into another generation, allowing you to live on, in a sense. Our brains developed in a way, to stop us from doing things that would get us excluded or scare girls away. Sometimes this meant, it would stop us from approaching the best girls for fear of being rejected. In other cases, it would cause men to settle for a partner, of inferior quality, simply not to be alone.
OK, I GET IT BUT I’M NOT A CAVEMAN!
Yeah, I gathered but that fear, that inherited, developed over thousands- of-years fear as we evolved is still here today. That fear of being excluded is in our father’s brain. It was in his father’s brain and his father’s brain before him and so on (Women have it too in a different way too but for today, I will focus on men). That same fear emotion, which was around a long time ago is still with modern man today. That emotion, with its associated outcomes, of social exclusion and eventual lonely death are still linked, your brain still sees rejection for what it was back in the cavemen days.
It may be worth a quick detour here, to look at emotions. Fear is but one of many emotions. Emotions govern how we act and how we react to social and environmental events. Our emotions, makes do certain things in terms of girls, sports ability, treatment of family and friends etc. Our emotions govern our actions. As we, as humans, evolve, many of our current traits, mannerisms and emotions etc will evolve to adapt to the new lifestyle. However, not all emotions that we have carried from the olden days are still useful in the old format. Some are, many however, need to be rewritten.
Fear is one of those emotions that needs a serious structure overhaul. At one point this fear, was useful. At one point, the fear of not mating and being excluded was useful. You knew that you might have only one chance at finding a mate. To be rejected was death. If you were rejected by the girl, you had your chance at offspring rejected and could be rejected by the tribe. Yet, mankind has evolved. We have developed emotionally. We now longer live in isolated tribes. We can travel the world and meet new people. We can meet new women almost daily if you choose to do so. We can relocate our lives and live in new places. We can move away from family and make new friends. We live in a age when nearly anything is possible.
SO WHAT’S THE DOWNSIDE?
It sounds perfect, doesn’t it? However, we are still carrying this emotion (along with others), even though it is no longer useful in it’s current format.
However, please don’t get me wrong. Not all fear is a bad thing. I am sure, that like me, you have experienced fear of some description, when doing something scary. You want to be scared when going say, sky-diving. You need the heightened emotions and to do all that you can to survive. You need to feel fear when dealing with a aggressive animal, to avoid being hurt, so you can decide on the fight or flight response. However, when approaching a women, you should not be fearful. This is because, in today’s society, you are not restricted to just this one girl. It is not the end of the road for you and your future, if this one girl turns you down. You will not be excluded by everyone you know and love, simply because this one girl turned you down.
FEAR IS BLOODY STRONG THOUGH! I’M SURE YOU REMEMBER WHAT IT’S LIKE TO APPROACH A STRANGER ON THE DANCE FLOOR
That I do! As you walk towards the girl, your brain sends you panicked messages, telling you not to do it. It gives you sweaty palms. It makes you feel as if your legs are made of jelly. Your brain floods you with thoughts of ‘She’ll say no’ and others like ‘you’ll look like a fool’. You brain wants you to stop and turn around. It wants you to back away. Depending on the severity of the fear you have, it may try to trick you to go for someone easier to get, or not to approach any girls at all.
Reading that, it may seem that your brain is callous and evil, like it is trying to stop you from having fun or mating. However, it is simply trying to help you. Your brain only wants to help you and ensure your survival when alive and into the future. Unfortunately, your brain is working with outdated software. You see, your brain like computer software needs to be updated from time to time. Your brain is working with a emotion (fear) that at one point was useful but is now outdated and erroneous. It knows that the girl will judge you. She will. She will decide if you are attractive to her, someone she wants to sleep with. It knows that the girl holds the cards in terms of who has to approach (the guys!). As girls get hit on all the time, it is up to the girl to decide whether to reject you or accept you. Your brain however, is still linking rejection by a girl to the caveman days of rejection meaning social exclusion and eventual death. It does not understand what modern day ‘rejection’ really means. The fear emotion needs updating!
SO WHAT CAN YOU DO TO UPDATE THE BRAIN SOFTWARE?
To update the software and change the nature of fear, takes new and repetitive action. You will never be able to eliminate fear itself. Fear is one of the fundamental building blocks of our psyches. It is one of the most base emotions we have as humans. Anyway, fear is a good emotion to have. We want to feel fear in situations that call for it. We want to be afraid of the poisonous snake at the zoo, so we don’t anger it or touch it and get bitten. We want to feel fear when learning to drive. It makes you appreciate the potential risks that driving can bring and control the vehicle and pay attention to what is happening on the roads. Yet, fear is now not a emotion we need to feel when we fancy a girl at a nightclub and want to talk to her.
So let’s get you rewiring your fear emotion to help you approach girls. So here are my action steps to help rework fear:
- Go out often, as much as possible. Try different bars and clubs. By going to new places, you will get out of your comfort zone and prove to yourself that new things hold nothing to be scared off or to fear.
- When you see a girl you like, approach and talk to her straight away. Do not hang around in her general area, trying to think of something to say. If you are lurking around her, looking over at her now and then, you will come across as creepy and no girl wants that lurking weirdo!
- Do not bother with chat up lines or routines. Simply walk up to her and say “Hi, my name is …. what’s yours?” You don’t need fake lines to attract a girl. You are more than enough. Girls can see through fake lines like that. You will find your brain throws in plenty of things to talk about. You just need to say hello to her!
- Have no end goal in mind. You are not looking to pull (have sex) her. Girls can see through you, can sense if you are just looking to fuck her. Simply, the goal of this is to work through that initial burst of fear, to simply chat to another attractive human being. Eventually, that sense of fear will go and you will find yourself chatting to the girl without realising what you are doing, it will be normal! By being you, without any cheesy or pickup lines, the girl will get to see the real you. She judges you for you, the real you. Most girls find that far more attractive than the fake, rehearsed bullshit most guys try.
That’s it. Sorry but there is no magic bullet, no super hero power that I can bestow upon you, that will suddenly make your fear disappear. Simply, see a girl you like, approach her and talk to her. Do this enough times, and you will hard wire your brain into accepting that there is now nothing to fear from approaching girls and the possibility of them rejecting you. Not every girl will reject you and you may get some!
The upside of this is that it will help develop your social skills and ability to flirt as you talk to lots of new girls. Girls understand how much balls it takes a guy to approach her and they find that confidence, the ability to go through the fear they are facing and still talk to them as hot! And besides, it will give you some great stories to tell the grand kids, rather than, “I saw this hot girl, drank with my mates and then went home” stories you get when you don’t approach. Even if you go up to the girl and can’t say a word, or get told to go away, at least that is one more approach under your belt! Just look to improve each time. Build up to long conversations. Push yourself. Enjoy yourself. It’s should not be about her judging you. You should be trying to see if she is good enough for you. When approaching her, only consider that this is a girl that you liked the look of and simply want to see if she is cool. Don’t approach her and think about trying to sleep with her. Remove the pressure from yourself. Simply go over to her and talk – see if she is cool enough for you. You, my friend, are the judger!
Eventually, your brain will learn that it is a new time. Rejection is OK. If you do get rejected, you simply need to learn from the experience. No experience is ever truly bad. You can always learn from an experience. You can see what works and what needs to worked on. Then try again. People are different. Remember that. What works for one person may not always work for another, but you can always learn. Not all rejections are personal. A girl can be out trying to forget about a ex boyfriend and not open to new men, they may be having a bad week, just wanting to spend time with friends etc. Try not to take a girls rejection as personal, rise above the outlook of them rejecting you as a person and simply look at it solely as a learning experience. Take what you can learn from the rejection and use it to make the next approach as best as you can.
This will take time. Unfortunately, it is not a overnight thing. It will take some hard work and a lot of approaches. It will take time for the brain to learn from these new experiences and change its operating software but eventually it will. Eventually, you will notice a change. Instead of fear, you will start to feel excitement when you see a hot girl. You will be excited about the chance to talk to her. To see if she is cool which leads to seeing if you hit it off. This leads to you seeing if she is good enough for you. If she is good enough to be with you.
TIME FOR A WEEKLY TASK
Task: This week, I want you to go out and approach five girls in one night/day or if you need to, do it over five days. It is better however, to do as many approaches as you can as this will greatly reduce the learning curve in this. Simply, walk up to them and say “Hi, my name is ….”. Then talk to them. You will find that you can start chatting about anything. The weather, what they have been up to, the music etc. Have no end goal in this. Simply get used to feeling that initial fear of approaching a girl and then working through it anyway. Over time, you will learn to love the excitement or ‘fear’ of approaching a new girl and what it may bring!
[ratemywe]
I think we all carry baggage. We all carry the pain and effects from past events. We allow what happened before, to shape the person we are today and how we act on a day to day basis presently.
I’m sure that you’ve dated someone, who’s eyes glaze over when you mention something and they refuse to talk or change the subject. I’m sure we all know someone who was bullied, molested, beaten up etc at some point. As we don’t live in their head, we assume that they are fine and take them as we find them each day. However, we don’t stop and think about how their being affected by past events, how their attitude and behaviour may have been shaped by something that happened previously. Something that they are carrying around with them, like a heavy anchor keeping them shackled to the pain and misery of something in the past.
SO WHAT IS IT?
So a definition, would be this one from the Urban Dictionary:
| emotional baggage | ||
|
1. Painful memories, mistrust and hurt carried around from past sexual or emotional rejection.2. An excuse commonly used by Peter Pans and other immature men to avoid commitment yet maintain a sexual relationship.
1. I don’t think I can handle a real relationship right now. I need some time to get over my emotional baggage.
|
||
OK, I GET IT, HOW CAN IT AFFECT YOU THOUGH?
Let me talk about a personal experience for better effect. As regular readers of the site will no doubt know, I was bullied in Primary School by three boys. This was mainly name calling. It cut deep down on me. I had really low self esteem and was very shy anyway, so when they picked on things that were already very sensitive to me anyway (my lips, nose etc etc) I took each comment like a sharp knife to the side. I was hounded in and out of school, terrified most days to go outside in case I bumped into any of them. My life came to a standstill. Everytime, I saw any of them, I would freeze and become so scared. As I lived next door to one, you can imagine how restrictive my life become. Eventually, after some time and changes to school (and my mum reading them the riot act!), things gradually got better and I continued throughout school and then onward. I never thought too much about it again. When the thoughts or feelings came up, I would try and force them back down, rather than deal with the emotions that they brought. I just got on with life and acted like most normal people – college, friends, work etc.
The bullying was probably more than twenty years ago, yet I am still feeling and dealing with the effects today.
How do I know that I m being affected by them?
- Back then, I was picked on when I spoke up and sometimes said the wrong thing in class – Now I have a fear of saying stupid things and having the mickey taken
- Back then, I was picked on for standing out – Now, I try and avoid doing anything that makes me stand out. I notice the intense fear I feel when approaching girls, the desire to hide in the shadows, the move towards only doing what is necessary over what would be great work (which would bring praise and highlighted by managers). This has really affected my school results, career and life in general. The pain of potentially standing out overrides the want to be different and change things.
- Back then, I was picked on worse for trying to stand up for myself – Now, I avoid all confrontation usually or try and keep in with everyone no matter what side of the argument I am internally supporting or what I know to be true. This has really affected my career.
Just to be clear thought, I am not blaming the events for everything in my life. No, I am not saying that my life would have been perfect if these events hadn’t happened, yet I can certainly show and believe how these events have shaped my life and are still affecting it. A lot of what has happened has been down to my decisions and how I have handled situations. The events did affect me but I am allowing them to continue to affect me. I did go to College. I have had jobs and girlfriends etc. I have lived what most would class as a normal life.
SO WHAT HAPPENS NOWADAYS?
Yet, today, my dad said a throwaway commend about a few people that he had just passed in the car. One of them just so happened to be one of the boys who bullied me. It’s amazing how something that you thought had been hidden deep down in the shadows, hoping it never sees the light of day again can be brought racing to the surface with a single sentence.
Things had been going good though. Over the last few months, I had noticed a change in my moods, beliefs, attitude to life etc. There is something about writing as much as possible, mainly about yourself. When you turn the magnifying glass inward, in the hope that you self-analysis and suggested solutions to the problems found will help someone else, you don’t estimate the changes in how you view things and feelings in yourself that such a analysis will bring. A lot of things hidden away or ignored come flooding to the surface.
It only took someone from my family mentioning that they had passed one of the boys who used to bully me, stating that they had taken a girl home to set off a tidal wave of negative feelings. Now, I haven’t seen her. I don’t know her from any other girl in the place. It didn’t matter to me in that instance, if it was a ‘slapper’, a girlfriend, a friend or whatever else, at that moment, the feelings raged from deep down within. It was the feelings that the statement brought to me, rather than what it was actually about.
SO WHAT FEELINGS DID IT BRING?
The feelings of inferiority, the feelings of jealousy, the imagined direction that my life may have taken if I hadn’t been bullied and allowed to develop as life had intended, all came cascading back to the surface, fighting to be noticed next. I imagined me having never been bullied and more confident. I imagined the jobs that I may have tried for, if I hadn’t built up a reliance on my family and developed home sickness (not completely to blame but definitely a contributing factor).
Yes, some may argue that this was what life had intended for me. That the kids bullying me were simply acting out some plan that life had ready for me. It’s not like they were doing some ‘Final Destination’ style change to the plan of life and would have to pay later. Some may argue, that the point of the bullying was so that I could endure the pain and hurt, so I could eventually create a website to help others (which I have hoped it has), but that is not the main focus of this post.
WHAT IS THE POINT THEN?
Moreover, it is more that I thought I had dealt with these issues as much as possible. That I had cried enough to remove the hurt out. That I had gotten to the point where I could mention the bullying etc matter of factly when people were discussing bullying. That I had ran away from things enough for the feelings about it to stop chasing me. That I had passed the point where I suppose I even counted one of them as close to a friend as possible.
Unfortunately, now that I look at it, I know that, that belief to be complete B.S. I know fine well that simply burying it deep down was the problem. I have never dealt with the problems and beliefs etc that these events created in my life and personality. You could say that it is my choice to allow these past events to affect me, to allow them to mould my life direction and what happens now. You could say that it is silly, to allow past events to shape how I act in the present and plan for the future. Well, I guess I am silly. There is nothing wrong with you, if you are carrying past pain. We are all affected by things differently than others. One event can cause numerous different responses and actions.
I’ve allowed the fallout from these events to shape me and my life for too long. I am going to look into different ways of moving on from past hurt. It won’t be easy to face inner demons. Yet, the saying “what doesn’t kill you, only makes you stronger”, was made for such a situation.
HOW DOES THIS AFFECT YOU?
I want you to know turn the glass inward. Look at yourself. If you were honest, what are you running from? What are you hiding away from? What are the events in your past that you are trying to run from or bury away in the shadows? If you are anything like me, you will be always tired from your mind running, from avoiding dealing with the hurt and pain that is always there.
I have started to look at this sort of thing in terms of a car. The rear view mirror is a great and useful tool … for driving. It helps you see what is behind you and what the drivers behind are doing. It allows you to overtake safely and so on. But what if you are spending too much time looking back, back at previous events in your life? What if you are too busy looking at the past that the present is passing almost unlived and the future looks bleak? It makes more sense to turn and face these sort of feelings and demons but it will also take a lot of courage. Like looking in the rear view mirror, the past is OK for a quick glance, but you should be looking to what is happening now. Plan for the future but LIVE in the now.
I’m hoping that by looking at mine, that I can help others gain the momentum and courage to heal past hurt and to move on and enjoy life again, without the excess baggage of these things holding on.
Let me know in the comments below, the sort of things that are holding you back. What do you think are the events that have shaped your life? What past pains are you facing now that if you could get rid of them, would greatly benefit your life?
Looking forward to the answers.
[ratemywe]
We all tell ourselves a story about who we are and why we are doing, what we are doing. I do it. You do it. Even that weird guy shouting religious statements at you does it. In our mind, we star in a drama piece about the world (as we see it!). We allow this story, that we make in our minds, to dictate how we act in the outside world. Sound crazy? It is.
What is story-telling?
Story telling is a name that I gave to the beliefs that you hold about yourself. They are so deeply ingrained that you believe them to be the absolute truth and will not challenge them. You are so use to running this story in certain situations, it may appear as if you are running on autopilot. Story telling is the act of making a story up to continue the beliefs we have internalised about our percieved failings, successes, relationships, attitudes to work and pretty much everything else in our life.
Why is story-telling bad?
Story-telling is bad/wrong/unacceptable as it simply isn’t the truth. The story is something that you have made up, a view of the world that is not the relaity but from your point of view using your beliefs, past pain, experience from relationships etc to make a model of the world that allows these beliefs etc to stay true.
From this happening, you simply don’t challenge this viewpoint of the world as you accept it as your reality. It allows you to continue with these beliefs and stay in the comfort zone (without needing to change). These beliefs are a mix of positive and negative. The positive beliefs are normally acceptable but it is the negative beliefs that will cause you problems in your life. At one time or another the negative beliefs served a needed purpose in your life but as you adapt and learn and grow in life, these beliefs typically become outdated and obselete. However, few people ever update the beliefs to go along with the new you.
The word ‘story’ should give you some clue! The definition of story is: An account of imaginary or real people and events told for entertainment: “an adventure story. What that means is that, a story, is not real. A story is something that is made up to take events into account and give them meaning. It allows a person to understand a event and raw data and make it part of their life. Be creating a story, the brain allows you to understand past experiences and to avoid repeating the painful situiations by keeping you from repeating the. For example, you got hurt when a girl rejeced you when you asked her to dance in a club. The belief that it is possible that you could internalise is that you are not a ladies man. This belief will then stop you from approaching other women again and getting hurt. It is simply the brain trying to stop you from getting hurt again. This seems ok in logic but it will stop you from challenging yourself and developing your personality.
Another example would be by creating the story that you are not good at maths, you are less likely to try or to even improve your maths, which means you will avoid applying for jobs that highlight maths as a typical daily duty. This in turn limits your earning potential and the types of jobs that you ‘can do’. This in turn can make you feel stupid and when you have this feeling, the brain sends the story to you that you are feeling this way because you can’t do maths and so the whole cycle begins again. Your brain needs you to understand the signals it is recieveing. So by sending this story, you can deal with the emotions that the data is producing.
Is there ways to stop your story-telling?
Unfortunately, we cannot stop story-telling. It is a process of the human mind to give a story to facts we acquire from our own internal readings and from the information provided from external sources. It allows our brains to make sense of the data that it has been provided. We have been doing it for generations and it has become an ingrained factor in the human mind. Sadly, we can’tchange that.
So if you can’t stop story-telling, what can you do to help yourself? You can CHANGE THE STORY you tell yourself. At any point in our lives, I believe that it is possible to change the nature and ending of our internal stories to benefit ourselves and eliminate weaknesses.
- Anytime you say a negative statement – STOP. Ask yourself what real PROOF you have for this. Most of the time, the proof will be from a past event that you have allowed to give a meaning to include the rest of your life. So what if you couldn’t do maths at school – it doesn’t mean that you can’t do maths ten years later. This small act can reprogramme you in that moment and allow you to work with the resource normally you’d avoid.Afterdoing this for sometime, you may end up changing the story and create a positive link to the event.
- When you catch yourself running a story in your head (e.g. “why should I suggest that improvement to my boss in this meeting, no one ever listens to me”) simply pinch yourself on the arm or leg (subtlely though!). The shot of pain will stop the internal rumination and story-telling and bring you back to the real world. This will allow you to deal with the event that you would normally hide away from. Gradually, you will create some positive experience o reference and eventually your brain will link the previously negative event as a positive.
- Take a piece of paper and write down all the beliefs that you hold about yourself. For example, I am not good at maths, I cannot approach girls in nightclubs, I am not confident to speak to a public gathering and so on. Then either on your own or discussing with a friend, try and find evidence that supports or disproves the belief. Simply by refusing to believe the story, it can switch off the auto-pilot in the brain and refocus it. By telling the brain that you need proof of these beliefs, it will most likely show evidence of positive events that disprove the belief. The brain will always seek to be positive. Use this to your advantage.
- Ask friends and family to challenge you when they can see you telling yourself a story – ask them to get you to prove the story. Most times, you will find that you can’ and start to think differently about the event.
To conclude, the story you tell yourself is how you see yourself, or in reality how your brain has chosen to allow you to understand the data it is taking in. The beauty of this though is that you can change the story to suit you, you have the control. Change the story and in turn it should change your life.
[ratemywe]
