Reprogramming Your Negative Thinking, Beliefs and Behaviors (Part 1)

It all begins with "awareness." Before you can begin to change your negative thinking, beliefs and behaviors, you need to actually be able to catch yourself entertaining and performing them. There are 3 methods you can use to raise your awareness to the point where you can actually catch yourself thinking and acting in negative ways, right in the moment, as they're occurring. The first method is meditation. Through meditation you develop the ability to become still, quiet, and watch your thoughts without judgment. I don't think there could be a more valuable use of your time than learning to take a daily "time out" from your busy life by meditating. This practice has dramatically changed my life for the better and without a doubt raised my awareness to a much higher level. The second method of raising awareness I call cues and triggers. One way to implement this approach is to simply write down on a few 3x5 cards a word or phrase related to what you're working on. For example, it might be something like "awareness," or "watch your thoughts." Then you put these cards in places where you're likely to bump into them throughout the course of your day - such as the bathroom mirror, inside your car, on your computer, etc. Each time you see one of the cards you are gently reminded to be more aware. This card technique is not only helpful for raising your awareness, but can also be used to modify or change behavior. The third method of elevating awareness consists of using of an alarm. You simply set an alarm to go off on a regular basis, for example every hour. Then every time the alarm rings you simply take a minute to review what you've been thinking about. I've found all three of these approaches for raising awareness are very effective. If you seriously want to change your thinking, beliefs, and/or behavior, I recommend you implement at least one of the above techniques immediately, and preferably over time begin to use all three. In Part 2 I'll discuss what to do once you've started to become more aware of your negative thinking, beliefs, and behaviors.