Retraining Your Brain

Periodically, I need to re-train myself towards better behaviors, or better mindsets. this process of retraining yourself is how you can replace damaging or limiting beliefs with more positive beliefs and how you can help change damaging behaviors into making better choices for yourself.

Here is an example of me from several years ago, preparing a list of new beliefs and methods that I would read every day to re-train my brain. The issue was my stress level – it was off the charts and desperately needed to come down.

Since stress was the issue, I started with a list of what was stressing me out…

CURRENT STRESSES

• CHANGE
  • Plans
    • Daily
    • Long term
  • Routines
  • Income/work
• KIDS
  • Overwhelmed with demands
  • Stewing on current derpiness
  • Stewing on brewing storms
• MYSELF
  • Personal assumptive expectations that turn out to be wrong
  • Personally set too-ambitious goals that fall short
• MONEY
  • Having enough for the future
  • Fear of making bad decisions
  • Fear of unexpected situations draining accounts
• INEFFICIENCY
  • Life is inefficient
  • Why does that bother me so much??

• Money – I follow best practices such as Dave Ramsey.Therefore…
  • I feel safe and confident that I will always have enough money
  • I feel safe and confident that I will make good money decisions
  • I know there will be unexpected situations that affect my finances, and that my finances can withstand that
• Self – I list out priorities to verify, and reject goals in favor of continual improvement
  • for example, when traveling, I list out what are important features in a hotel, etc and verify these features in detail
  • Knowing that goals are restrictive… I instead seek to continually improve
• Kids – I have strong boundaries – I am their life coach, not a secretary
  • When kids have demands, I teach them how to handle it themselves.
  • When kids make bad decisions, I do not keep them from the consequences.
  • When I see bad things coming for the kids, I mention it three times. After that, their choice to not listen is them being derpy and I release myself from any responsibility.
• Change – I seek and am grateful for positive change in all it’s forms
  • I understand that change is an opportunity for something better.
  • I stop, decide if this change is better. If so, I am grateful for it.
  • If it is a change for the worse, can I do anything about it? Yes? Then do. No? Then accept it, feel a momentary frustration and move on.
• Inefficiency – I know I am better off with inefficiency than with stress. I choose inefficiency.
  • Stress wastes more time and energy than inefficiency.

Then, I made a compact, simple list that I can read every day to retrain my mind:

This is a process that I have used quite often. Retraining your brain is not a one-and-done exercise. I am continually finding new limiting beliefs and past pains that need rehab. Life continues and evolves and so must your beliefs and behaviors.

Give it a go…

1. List out what is causing you to feel stressed, or causing you to make bad decisions, etc. (what are the causes of the aspect of your life that you are unhappy with?)
2. For each, write down a perspective that would either give you a better mindset or help you make better choices.
3. From that, make a small number of bullet points that you can read each day.
4. Read it each day for at least a month or until you feel that you seem to use them automatically in daily life.

What limiting beliefs are you currently holding on to? What should your beliefs be instead? Are there perspectives you need to adopt to improve your well-being or decisions?