Now, what do I mean by when I say the pink elephant? Well, try this. Don’t think of a pink elephant. Well, you can’t. The first thing that pops in your mind is the pink elephant, and you gravitate towards that thought. The same thing happens when we say, “I don’t want. I don’t want to be like my father. I don’t want to be like my mother. I want to stop eating doughnuts. I want to not … etcetera, etcetera.”
When you’re thinking in the negative, your mind subconsciously takes out that negative connotation and thinks you want to move towards it. So if you say something along the lines of, “I don’t want to bite my nails anymore,” what your mind hears is, “I want to bite my nails anymore.” It doesn’t take the negative connotation. It takes the word don’t out, or do no want to. It takes it out, and you start to gravitate toward, subconsciously, towards whatever you’re talking about. So this is obviously counterproductive.
Unfortunately, it’s very common in our society to use these terms. I don’t want to be like her. I don’t want to be like him. I don’t want to do that ever again. I don’t want to drink that much. I don’t want to eat that food. I don’t want to lose money. Again, your brain is saying, “They’re talking about want and money.” Those are very key terms, so your brain’s going to start to focus and gravitate and pull you towards those imageries that you’re creating.
This is talked about a lot in neuro-linguistic programming or NLP. Oftentimes, it’s very easy to get somebody while using NLP to use those don’t, not type of characteristics, those negative tones. So you can use them to help somebody, but at the same time, thinking with your own brain and the words that you’re using … Again, we talked about this before. It’s managing your language. So again, right now, do not think of a pink elephant. Of course, your brain naturally just goes to that pink elephant. You can’t help but picture it. What we picture and think about the most, our brain and our body, and some say the universe or whatever or God, pulls you towards that image or whatever you’re talking about.
So I’m going to ask you today, in your five to thrive, write out in your journal what things do you talk about commonly that you do no want to do. I do not want to do more of this. I do not want to mess up in a presentation. Maybe you do not want to get into a bad relationship. What is it you’re constantly saying, and if you can’t think of anything, think about what you’re commonly hearing from other people. This will help you start to watch your language. You’ll notice this in other people too. Don’t correct them, but watch your own language and see where you’re using these negative words rather than talking about what you do want.
This tip was brought to us by Erin from Sweat, Dirt, and Soul. Thank you for the tip!
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