🤯 TREE 566: How I change my mindset

Here’s how I change my mindset.

First, I have to notice that it needs changed. This usually happens in one of two ways:

1. A mental itch – I get an inkling that my worldview or my beliefs don’t fit reality very well. Something feels off, like the elastic of my mental underwear is too tight.

2. I am confronted by a situation or person that lets me know beyond doubt – even though I try my best to add doubt – that I am behaving like a nob/idiot/jerk/fool.

2 is like running full speed into a glass door. It’s invisible to me until after the impact. Once the anger and hurt fades enough so that I can think, it quickly becomes obvious what I need to change.

1 is more pleasant. It puts me into learning mode. I read and talk to people and try to figure out what’s needs changed.

When I see that change is necessary and have done research and/or metaphorically slammed my face into a glass door, my mindset is provisionally changed. I’ve seen the new way. But unless I put that changed mindset into practical action, I slip back into the old way of thinking. The old mindset has a strong physical presence in the neural pathways of my brain. The new mindset’s position is tenuous.

To strengthen my new mindset, I distil the new thinking into a short sentence and repeat it to myself a lot. I set triggers in my mind to say that sentence at key moments.

Example: right now I’m working on changing the way I think about driving, so I have a sentence that I’ve told myself to think every time I get in my car. When I think that sentence it reminds me of my new mindset and of the actions I want to take because of it. Over time, the new mindset will take hold and new actions will become habitual.

You may have the finest checked tablecloth and the most well-trained dachshund cake holder, but if you put the tar-and-rubber candles in the cake, that’s all people will remember.

I love it when music manages to be stylish as well as good.

Grow slowly
Jeff