Greetings! Hope you are all well. Let’s jump in shall we.
Ever hear that internal negative voice tell you that you won’t be any good before you actually get started?
Do you know the voice I mean? It often shows up just as you’re getting ready to make your follow up call to go over the last details and invite them into your business. It might sound something like this.
“They’ll never do this.”
Or maybe it sounds like,
“They probably won’t be home. I’ll call later.”
Or maybe it sounds like this.
“What if they do say yes, you don’t really know what to do to get them started.”
Want a way to “shut it up?”
So did I. I learned this wonderful tool during a seminar I attended years ago that Amy Posner and Rebecca Fine facilitated.
Like all tools it requires you to “implement” the process, so you need to be engaged and aware. But it has a funny and fun side to it.
Here’s the premise. Continual negative thoughts are a learned habit…so you can unlearn them. They are not “natural”. It is something you picked up along the way probably with the help of family and friends….
Not sure you believe that? Ask yourself this. When you were a tike learning to stand and walk and fell more than you were successful…was there a voice in your head telling you, “you’ll never be any good at walking.”
No, of course not. And here’s the deal. You didn’t know when you were learning to walk that you could or would walk. It was a completely new activity. You didn’t know the future then anymore than you do now.
Seems hard at times to put ourselves “back there” because we know today we can walk and we’ve all watched countless children go through this process. But the youngster doesn’t know this as they’re going through the process and neither did you.
But here is what you did have and still do….the ability to learn with experience…and in this case unlearn.
Ready?
Ok remember the cartoon Tom and Jerry? The cat was always (and probably still is) trying to get the mouse. And just about the time the cat was about to eat the mouse “good and evil” popped up on the cat’s shoulders.
Evil look a lot like the “red devil” and Good looked a lot like a plump little angel.
The “devil” would if you remember goad the cat on to eat the mouse. “Go on…eat him, he’s been bothering you a long time!”
The angel on the other hand was always murmuring positive reinforcement, “You’re a good cat, let the mouse go.”
What’s this got to do with your negative chatter? This is how I was taught to use the tool.
- If you can, think back to when you first heard the negative voice. Don’t be too hard on that person…you didn’t come with an instruction book. But it helps to see that it came from “outside not inside.”
- Then choose some kind of a “figure” to put on your shoulder. I used the devil image from the cartoon because it was so ridiculous.
- Take your other hand (this is important and is loosely based on neuro linguistic training or NLP) and flick off the devil (like it was a bee) while you say “thank you for sharing.”
- Then turn your head to your other shoulder where you’ve put the positive figure and sort of “nestle in” to it while you hear it give you a positive reinforcement.
The reinforcement is simple. You can use anything. Here are a couple of examples.
“You go girl/boy.”
Or,
“Look at you being the professional CEO following through and following up right on time, I’m proud of you.”
I started out using the angel, but frankly it morphed into a wise cat somewhere along the way. I left the cat on my shoulder. It worked. The point being it isn’t important what images you use. But that you use images and go through the process.
Did it work for me? Yes it did. Did it work immediately, or quickly. Depends how you define quickly.
When I first started doing this I would flick off that problem and thank it for sharing oh…not more than halve a dozen times a minute. ;)
It was an interesting process until one day I realized that my “thinking habit” was much more positive than negative. It blew me away actually. I didn’t see the change happen I just realized it one day…I didn’t need to flick that pesky thing off my shoulder so often.
Here’s my take why this works. We can only think of one thought at a time. Plus habits are just patterns we’ve put together that we do unconsciously (that doesn’t mean we aren’t thinking – but that it’s below the conscious surface).
If we can break the thought patterns that don’t serve us and replace them with those that do…well the results would be pretty stupendous don’t you think.
So you are actually “changing your mind”…by breaking the (negative) thought pattern (remember you can only think one thought at a time) and replacing it with the “natural” one you were born with that said, “good job get up and do it again.”
Be prepared for the negative pattern to arise a lot in the beginning…but you’ll see the change if you – when you notice the negative chatter –
- Flick that little pest off your shoulder
- Thank it for sharing
- Turn your head into the positive figure
- Reframe the message into a positive one
No shortcuts here. Don’t just think about knocking that pest off your shoulder and thinking the words. |
Do the actions and say the words out loud!
(I can’t stress this enough, it is very important to your success in this exercise.) |
You might get a few funny looks along the way…but that internal chatter will be a whole lot nicer to listen to…and much more productive.
Remember it’s your mind and you can change it. Here’s to positive chatter!
Warmly,
Jillian
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