Change Your Mind; Change Your Life

Did you know that your mind can have a powerful influence over your life? There is evidence showing that it goes beyond just enhancing your mood. It may be possible to influence your actual life events – things you thought were just luck or chance – for the better by using your mind. Here is some information on how you can change your mind and change your life.

The Mind and Life Connection

There is all kinds of evidence out there that your mind and body are connected, but you may not realize that your mind has a connection with your life’s happenings. Negative self-talk – “I was never any good at math” – can actually play out in reality. Maybe you were taught math too soon, or had a poor teacher. But you’ve internalized the belief that you are no good at it, so now you avoid it and, when you do have to work in math, you really don’t seem to be good at it.

See how the negative affirmation becomes reality? If you decide you aren’t good at something, you won’t be. But if you decide you are, then the reverse may well happen. You can even phrase things positively by changing your thought patterns from “I am not good at ____” to “I am learning ____” or “getting better at ____.”

The Little Engine That…Might?

Studies have shown something interesting about positive attitudes. It turns out that approaching challenges and goals with questions – “Can I?” rather than “I can!” – may produce more positive results. Why is this? According to a New York University study, if you are asking yourself if you can do something, your brain is more likely to tap into the positive information related to the project or challenge. Interestingly, an imagined future tends to bring about a more positive state of mind than an absolute idea about the future.

Positive Affirmations

The term “affirmation” was used above – what does that mean, exactly? A positive affirmation is a self-talk that is positive, and its intention is to change negative thought patterns that tend to be self-defeating. Sources say that phrasing these positive affirmations in the present is important to internalizing them. Here are some tips on incorporating these affirmations into your everyday thought processes.

• Find out where you are thinking negatively. Listen to yourself for a few weeks and pay attention to how many negative terms flow through your thoughts. Do you have a lot of thoughts with phrases like “I can’t” or “I used to be able to” or even, “I am so stupid/clumsy/etc.”? Identifying these is key to changing them.
• Change these negative beliefs to positive ones. As noted above, you can phrase them with words like “I am getting better at” or “I am working on” or “I am learning.”
• Use these affirmations each day, and gradually replace the negative ones.

The evidence is out there that you can expect positive life changes from these changes of mind.

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