Transform Yourself – Create New Mental Pathways

The great thing about making mistakes is learning new and different responses to situations that work. It takes awareness first, and then the courage to act, and then thirdly, the resilience to re-train our minds toward new habits; this means essentially building new mental “pathways” that become the ‘default’ way of thinking and acting. The theory is simple. The practice is much harder, though not impossible. In fact, it’s very realistic to re-train our minds no matter how old or engrained we might think we are.

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I look at the way I interact with people and how successful (or unsuccessful) I am, and importantly, how assured and comfortable I feel, and I see this as a major cue for learning things I need to change. For instance, if we have a problem it will normally affect other people -- there will be a complaint or a resistance from others. Or perhaps the complaint comes from within us ourselves. This occurs when we’re not happy with how others are relating with us.

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Both situations demand from us a response. When it’s identified we need to change we should consider how to do it and develop a plan to address what’s required. On the other hand, when we identify within ourselves a lack of tolerance for the other person, we need to deal with the lack of acceptance and choose to move on (from the issue) for the sake of the relationship.

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This could be viewed as a process:

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1. Awareness: at this stage we need to somehow become aware of the many-times-daily that our awareness is piqued and then do something about it by problem-solving.

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2. Problem-solve: chew over the problem by defining it and looking at the options. What are the best solutions -- the ones you can implement. (We can’t demand anything from others.)

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3. Act: Requiring courage and conviction via mental will power, action is transformational. Acting is so counter-cultural to human nature. Most of us dream but do not ‘do.’ Acting is easy. Just do it.

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4. Continue: This is the important bit. Keep doing what you’ve resolved needs to be done. Monitor how it is received. Reinforce the ‘continuing’ process your own way. It needs to be repetitive enough for the new pattern / mental pathway to entrench. Some people read affirmations; others have symbols to remind them; others again use triggers of some kind to prompt the new action, re-training their mind from the old and faulty ways of responding.

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Importantly, don’t give up. Be tenacious. Become resilient to your failures and simply continue. If anyone can change “you,” you can. You really can. Imagine how good you will feel having conquered a large fear or having achieved that transformation you’ve always dreamt of achieving.

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Copyright © 2008, Steven John Wickham. All Rights Reserved Worldwide.