Conditioned Beliefs
If you want to change your behaviour, you will need to recognise and challenge some conditioned beliefs. As well as asking yourself the right questions and really digging into what you believe and why, there are also some practical steps you can take to put a spanner in the workings of your brain and start doing things differently. Around 45% of the things we do each day are repeated actions (granted, this may look very different now we’re in lock-down) and these repeated actions, habits and routines all help to form our conditioned responses. Have you ever felt you’re living on auto-pilot? Or found it difficult to make a change to your routine, even if it’s something you really want to do? That’s because our brains are comfortable with the familiar mental boxes our neural pathways have carved out for us, and take ‘cues’ from our surroundings that then influence what we do.
That’s why when we go on holiday we are much more likely to do something completely out of our usual routines. When I go on holiday, suddenly I’m hit with the desire to get up and exercise - something I hardly ever do in ‘real life’! Often on holiday we are eating differently (maybe even healthier) and feel more positive and optimistic about making changes once we get back home. But then once back home we lose momentum, and those conditioned ‘cues’ of our home environment ultimately make us fall back into the old routines. Like I said before, conditioning can take a while to break free from - but it can be done!
raising your vibrations
Remember the visualisation exercise we did a few weeks ago? I want you to think of that as we go forward with these ideas. As ‘out-there’ that raising your vibration sounds, I couldn’t think of a better way to put it (yet) so I’m rolling with it. Sometimes taking small steps that take you closer to the vision you had for your ideal future life can have a real impact on our behaviour. This could be something as simple as de-cluttering your wardrobe to more closely reflect the future version of yourself, or adding a few potted plants to your workspace. If you think back to the ‘big picture’ visualisation, what sorts of things were you doing that you could start doing today? What did your surroundings look like, and is there a way you could make your current surroundings look more like that?
Some would say it changes the energy around you and raises you vibrations; or others might say it changes some of the ‘cues’ that form parts of our conditioning - both work for me. I am a big believer in energy and also that physical things, as well as our surroundings, can impact on our energy. I am also fascinated by the way our minds work and some of the science behind how we can change thought patterns and behaviours that may be impacting on us negatively.
We can start to build a life that more closely reflects the vision we have of our future selves by making small changes, either physical or to our routines.
Here are just a few, practical things you could do to raise your vibration today:
develop a new morning routine.
create a positive working space at home.
de-clutter your wardrobe/workspace/bedside drawer/inbox… you get the idea.
take the first step to learning something new, valuable and that will take you closer to your vision.
CHANGING BELIEFS
It’s a lot of deep and heavy work uncovering and challenging belief systems, and you may now have reached a point where you feel ready to change some of the things that are not serving you.