The Power To Change
In the post Progress is Powerful, we mention how inspiration and motivation is available to anyone at just about any time, simply by recognising and internally celebrating any kind of progress, no matter how small the step, toward a goal.
Starting to notice these small wins in everyday life takes awareness. If we have been primed by evolution to look out for danger and be alert for the bad, then we need to train ourselves to also notice the small achievements in what can sometimes seem a sea of challenge. It is worth taking a look then, at how we can change our mindsets to notice AND attract the positive into our lives.
Where does the power to change come from? Belief, drive, inspiration, motivation, behaviour, attitude, mindset. These are all terms we hear and read about all the time these days. They all sound like good things to have or to make changes to but what each word actually means and where to start with it all is another thing.
So while mulling these words over recently, I did some digging around the subjects of attitude and behaviour change to get better results. Something I found that I like is written in the book: What To Say When You Talk To Your Self by Shad Helmstetter (Grindle Press, 1986).
I summarise this section below. I think this is useful…
1. Behaviour – The actions we take (or do not take) ultimately determine outcomes, our results. Success can be quite subjective but for whatever that means to you, achieving it is largely done through personal actions/behaviours.
2. Feelings – If our behaviours determine our success, then why do we not only choose those actions that will work for us? Shad says the reason is because of the feelings we have about situations, things and people. These directly influence behaviour and actions.
Feelings about anything we do affects how we do it and how well. They can be positive or negative and contain one, two or a mix of the human emotions. Feelings don’t just come out of thin air though, they come into being by way of our…
3. Attitudes – An attitude is an outlook. A view or a take of a part of the world around us. Again, different people will have varying degrees of the positive and the negative. A unique patchwork of attitudes.
An attitude influences how we feel about something, which affects how we act, which influences our result. We have all heard about good and bad attitudes. A good attitude generally attracting good things and the opposite for a bad attitude. Again though, is this all an accident? Shad says not, our attitudes are entirely created from our…
4. Beliefs – What we believe about ourselves, our capabilities, our limitations and the people and things around us, directly influence our attitudes. So as you can see, this chain of processes continues. Beliefs manifest themselves via our…
5. Programming – This is where the process starts. This is the raw thought level. By consciously and actively choosing the thoughts we think and our “self-talk”, Helmstetter says that we can influence our beliefs and then down the line like dominos, the process continues until we create an action that gets a certain result.
The analogy he uses to describe the subconscious mind is that of a personal computer. When first bought, your computer includes all the hardware to function properly. (Box with CPU, RAM and hard drive for processing and data storage, a DVD drive, keyboard and mouse for data input. A screen to see output, speakers to hear output).
However, if you do not have an operating system and other software, then the system does not function. Also, if you have incorrect or bugged software, then the system does not function as intended.
When you use your computer, you are not necessarily conscious of how it is working but it is, transmitting millions of electronic signals. The program you are using is controlling all this, without you really “thinking” about it. The subconscious mind works in the same way. The programming it receives the most will determine what it should believe and so on as below…
- Programming creates beliefs
- Beliefs create attitudes
- Attitudes create feelings
- Feelings determine actions
- Actions create results
I have to say that I think What To Say When You Talk To Your Self by Shad Helmstetter is truly one of the most inspiring books I have read recently and I am going to write more about it in an upcoming post.
In the meantime, by subscribing using the form to the right, you can be taken to some amazing information on how you can program your own mind and learn how to become a digital entrepreneur in your own time:
Until very soon..
