But as I said last week; a day is just a day. We make it what it is and our internal coach has a huge part to play in that.
Neutrality
Ok; we’ve established that now; there is no such thing as a bad day or a good day, but how do we really live up to that? How do you stop that one occurrence in the morning from clouding your whole day?
You need to coach your inner coach, and here is why.
You wake up, you stub your toe getting out of bed; what does your coach have to say about that?
“Awesome start you klutz!”
Now at this point, you have a choice; write it off as a one off or let it snowball..to some degree it does depend on what happens next, or more importantly how you reference what happens next.
A thought that becomes an > expectation that manifests into > a reality that forms an > experience.
Let’s go deeper; what if that whole process I described is repeated, and the experience is the same?
Kolb’s Experiential Cycle
This is a theory that really stuck in my mind when I was studying psychology. My mind likes order and I see in models and algorithms.
Concrete Experience
You stub your toe; you lose your keys; you get toothpaste on your tie; you ladder your tights; you’re stuck in roadworks….
Reflective Observation
You think about what’s happened/happening and give that event a label mentally.
Abstract Hypothesis
Here is the watershed; the fork in the road. You can label the event as ‘bad luck’, or ‘That wasn’t the outcome I wanted; I should change my approach’. This is the most important part of the cycle and where thoughts are reinforced in our minds.
Left or right…?
Active Testing
Deal breaker; if only we recognised it.
Active testing is the part of the scientific method (a set way of doing and testing things. This is where in theory, we test our concrete experience against our perception of the outcome. For example, leaving the house at the same time, taking the same route and becoming stuck at the same set of roadworks, instead of either leaving earlier or taking a different route.
OK, I’ve over simplified things in that example but it serves to illustrate my point.
If you attribute too many experiences to bad luck, you will conclude that you are an unlucky person. This isn’t true.
It self fulfils and we now have a behaviour that is based on those concrete experiences that just keep happening to us. We expect it to happen because it has done so many times before. So we find ourselves in the situation again and guess what? The same thing happens..
Why?
This know as a self fulfilling prophecy and usually climaxes with an ‘I told you that would happen’ from that internal coach. It can work for us, stopping us from engaging in harmful activities, or it can work against us, stopping us from pushing through our barriers.
But if our thoughts are that powerful, what would happen if we could only imagine the best for ourselves, all the time?
Breaking the cycle
Now we know what our limiting beliefs are we need to take action to stop them. This is easier said than done, don’t forget you’ve probably had these thoughts all of your life; I know I have.
Perhaps given to you by your parents then reinforced through those oh so real experiences they are now well and truly engrained.
Technically speaking it should take the same amount of time to rewrite them. If that’s correct, I’ve got something to look forward to on my 86th birthday.
Well I’m not having that; and neither should you!
Next week: Let’s finish this. I’ll explore some scripts that work for me in pt.4
BSD
broke-single-dad 