Let’s be honest here. It's frustrating as hell to fall back into old habits that you know are negatively impacting your life.
The sickening part is that you have put up with this for years. You know the feeling, like I do.
It's like trying to swim up the face of a waterfall.
We repeatedly come up with strategies to break out and better our lives.
Yet, we often end up feeling powerless to make positive change.
Is this how you are wired?
The fact is that our brains are responding to programming. This programme is always running.
We are always seeking comfort.
We're comfortable with familiar routines. These routines are highly seductive, almost magical neural pathways to pleasure.
Your mind doesn't want you to go off and experiment into unknown territory.
It makes a hell of a lot of sense to your MIND to do what it's doing.
To keep you to the known, safe and secure.
It's difficult for you to stop this programming because much of it is hard-wired.
Hard-wired as an evolutionary trait.
This was once important for your survival. We were talking about life and death here.
But today, you no longer need to worry about leaving your cave and the sabre-toothed tiger.
Of course, there are other threats to you, but they are not as life-threatening as they used to be.
This desire to seek comfort and avoid pain acts as a barrier. It's 'something' out there to prevent you from going outside your comfort zone.
Metaphorically speaking, going outside the security of your cave.
It's risky to start exploring a new world or different circumstances. So here you are in the modern world. The tigers and the cave-dwelling are no longer there! But the barrier is still hard-wired in you, keeping you from achieving what you want.
Your outdated and buggy program keeps you from becoming all you desire.
How do you break free from your programming
Many self-help books tell you you must destroy your old programming and create new ones. In some extreme cases like self-harm, for example, this may be true.
However, to achieve success, modification of the programme is far easier.
Comfort Traps
Your comfort traps are thoughts or actions where you go to escape anything you don't want to do.
This could be something you want to avoid thinking about or, say, physical activity.
Let's do a small exercise in this.
First, mentally take yourself into a comfort trap that you use regularly.
You might say that's impossible at this first stage because you don't know what this is.
This is a false statement—not because you are lying, but because your mind has not been approached in this way before.
But we are not going to give up quite so easily.
Take some time to define a comfort trap that you use to avoid a thought or action.
Once you have defined this, you will have something concrete to move away from.
Next, you should imagine breaking free from your comfort trap.
Imagine you are looking at two rectangles connected by a bar. This would look like a weightlifter bar, with the rectangles being the weights.
(You can download the graphic for this on the website)
The rectangle on the right shows the changed you. This can be as large as an image of a new self or as small as a singular changed outcome.
The main thing is that you see this rectangle as a new environment from your known comfort zone.
When you are on the right-side rectangle, you embrace something new—a new experience.
Now, you may think that you do not know your potential, and this could be true. But you have thought about how you would like your life to be.
These thoughts will have originated in your subconscious mind, which has access to more about you than your conscious mind.
You are capable of way more than you think you are.
Your conscious mind and the sense of your current self are restricting your potential.
Imagine this as a funnel with everything that is and what could be sitting above it. This is your subconscious, something like superconsciousness.
You will find a link to a graphic of this on the website.
Everything sitting above the funnel is trying to get into your conscious mind. But your conscious mind and sense of self are restricting the flow, preventing you from experiencing what your life could be.
This is why you can imagine what this potential feels like. You can imagine being motivated and having a happier and more successful life than you are right now.
You will use this motivation to understand the psychology behind conformity better.
Understanding this is the first step towards rewiring your brain.
Conformity ensures you stay in the confines of societal thinking and acting. Conformity means you are forever going nowhere.
Your Future Self
To begin with, identify a singular comfortable habit that you have. This should be something that you find yourself doing over and over again. It can be a habit of thought or action.
Now is the time for brutal honesty. I say brutal because now you may well encounter subconscious resistance. If you do, you must push through this resistance to get to the root cause.
The question you are seeking the answer to is...
What is this one comfortable habit causing me to avoid in my life?
You may need to break the question down to discover the answer to that question. For example:
What am I most likely to avoid in a work situation
What do I like to avoid in relations
In what areas of my life does this hinder my progress?
Any question that enables you to drill down to the root of avoidance is valid.
A word of caution
If your subconscious feels threatened by this questioning,, you can expect pushback. Be prepared for your subconscious to throw up distracting answers.
Remember what you are looking for here.
In one sentence:
A comfortable habit that's hindering or blocking your desired progress.
You must become aware of the habit and its effect on you.
The rewiring process:
Discover the one comfort habit you are going to work on.
Discover the thing or areas of life that this habit is blocking or hindering progress.
When the habit starts to surface, you bring up from memory exactly what the habit is distracting you from.
Set a ten-minute timer and override the distraction by engaging in what the distraction was shielding you from.
Give 100% attention for those ten minutes when you override the habit
You repeat this process until the habit becomes a weak and ineffectual distraction
What you are doing here is bringing awareness to the habit and rewiring it to trigger your desired outcome.
Over time, the habit loses its power.
When this happens, you will have zero resistance to carrying out what was being blocked.
Massive Change is Not Required
A tip here is not to think you must use this from day one on massive changes in your life.
This comfortable habit could be browsing social media. When that habit triggers, you set up a growth-oriented activity.
Example.
Choose something motivational that you like to read
The moment you detect the comfort habit, immediately reach for that book.
Doing so triggers a preset goal to read at least ten pages. You can read more, but you can't read less than what you said you would.
However, DON'T have an open-ended rule on reading, as that could become a comfort trap.
The Trap of Self-Help
Something else that we have to be careful of is the self-help trap.
There is such a thing as an addiction to self-help. And it's very easy to get addicted to.
Some people continue to buy self-help books looking for a magic button—a button that will release something within them, and their whole lives will change.
What you end up doing is repeatedly buying these books, but receive no long-term benefits.
If you recognise this, it is not a problem because you now have a method to deal with it.
I am not saying don't read this type of book. I'm saying don't use reading as an excuse for non action.
Take action and start picturing the life you want to live.
This way, you stand a chance of breaking free from the self-help read-only trap. Moving from reading to doing is where you find real and lasting success.
You align knowledge learned with action and energy. This alignment moves you up the ladder and way beyond the reader only.
So, a course of action here might be to pick up your favourite self-help book. But don't try to commit to implementing the whole book.
Take one aspect of the book, one key component you can align with something you want to change in your life.
Long Term Change
A lot of writing suggests that 30 days are required to change a habit.
But by following the process laid out here, we are engaging in incremental benefits. We are building change upon change. Each habit is identified and reassigned to a different outcome. Each time you do this, it's a step up the ladder.
Keeping Records
It's essential to keep a record of your progress. Replaced habits are soon forgotten, and your progress will be lost without records.
Also, it's motivational to record your journey.
Your record should focus on tangible results. Record what you have done and the results that you can see.
Your records should log experiences rather than feelings.
Are you going to enjoy this?
A vital factor of this method is that you should feel joy while doing this. It is the joy that will produce the results you are seeking.
You will lose the motivation to continue without the joy of personal growth and change.
If you lose motivation, you lose enthusiasm. Without enthusiasm, the process will fail. If the process fails, you will default back to your old habits. Back to conformity
It is the joy of change that supports change and then sustains it.
Never try to change for the sake of change. Back all change with the pleasure of engaging in the process.
This is how you escape the trap of conformity.
Your safety net
What if your mind's protective instincts are sabotaging your success?
We all have psychological defence mechanisms. They're like safety nets that protect us from perceived threats.
The key word here is - Perceived!
The human mind cannot tell the difference between a real and an imagined event. It cannot tell whether a threat is real or perceived as real.
Either way, you WILL get a reaction
This is a double-edged sword.
On the one hand, a threat or something risky can be imagined that will prevent us from achieving our goals.
On the other side. That same imagination can be used to make something appear less threatening.
Linking to the imagination is also a psychological defence mechanism. These mechanisms shield us from emotional pain. However, this pain can be hard to understand because we may no longer know its root cause.
Emotional pain will often hold us back from taking necessary risks for growth. And this is another crucial point here. Necessary Risks
Your mind evaluates a risk by examining the task's components and calculating the risk.
This is where the perception of risk comes in.
As discussed earlier, the human mind cannot distinguish between real and imagined events.
This means we need to determine if the risk is true or false.
Without this knowledge, we will likely avoid activities that may offer us great benefits.
During this evaluation process, we will discover a lot of false risks. You might find that only two out of ten opportunities carry unacceptable risks.
Also, keep in mind that risk is going to be relative to you.
For example.
You might have a low risk tolerance for becoming emotionally upset, but you might have a high risk tolerance for risking something that will change your life.
It's OK to be aware of these internal safeguards but not controlled by them.
A quick risk evaluation method is to imagine you and your risk factors are in an empty room.
You then view these risk factors separately from yourself. You disconnect from them so they are not controlling you.
They now exist independent of you.
This process will often allow you to stand back and review your safety net.
Another thing you can do is reflect on a recent situation in which you hesitated to take a risk. Then, play it forward as if you had gone ahead and taken that risk.
How did things turn out? And which decision you should have taken and why.
Ponder on what surfaces and think about it. Then, write down your thoughts and feelings.
Once you have documented your experience, you will have a chance to identify patterns.
You are looking for a pattern where your safety net caught what it should have allowed through.
What you're doing here is learning under what conditions to challenge your safety net. To look again and decide on either real or imaginary risk evaluation.
What's holding you back
On your journey,, you are almost certain to discover something that will shock you. This 'shock' is common for those seeking to change and advance their lives.
Without warning, you will discover that the thing you fear most will be the path you need to take to change your life.
Often, the fear you fear most will, after deep introspection, prove to be irrational.
Turning the Tide
Fear is a powerful emotion, and we often view it in a negative context. Yet, neuroscience shows that it can be a great catalyst for growth.
We must first seek to understand our fears and then turn that fear into self-discovery.
It's not uncommon to discover that our big scary fears are a bunch of smaller fears combined.
With these smaller parts exposed and dealt with, you can often turn that big fear into a powerful ally.
For each of these smaller parts, write down what might be a positive outcome by ignoring them.
What would happen if this were to take place?
What would be the best positive outcome?
What would be the outcome of facing this fear head-on.
So here, a good course of action might be to choose the least intimidating fear to start with and then work your way up.
Create a plan to confront any fear systematically.
Confrontation should be done by questioning the validity of the fear until you dissipate its energy.
The Return to Conformity
If we slack off on any of this necessary work, we risk continually restarting the process.
This happens when you don't follow a method. You end up starting over every few weeks.
Many of us fall into this trap of perpetual or continual restarts.
We fall back into old patterns and start paying attention to groundless fears. This cycle can be exhausting.
But worse still, it can set up negative repeating patterns.
By following the methods outlined here, you CAN create permanent change in your life.
It's best to remember that this is not a one-step process.
Instead of doing a complete life overhaul, choose one comfort habit you want to rewire.
Commit to that one habit. Focus on consistency rather than perfection. This is the antidote to returning to conformity.
Let what comes out of your flow in a very natural way. Don't be concerned about what scribblings emerge. It doesn't matter if you delete 90% of what you have written.
The 10% that's left will have the potential to change your life in so many positive ways.
And finally...
You may as well start today unless you would rather pander to your fears and return to conformity.
If you have found this helpful,, please consider sharing and subscribing. I have a lot more planned for Project New Mind.
Take care, and have a wonderful day
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