Do you think it's time? You know, to do a little reprogramming of the brain. How to
reprogram your brain? I'll give you some ideas today about mental hygiene and how it's done.
Programming a brain is not easy. And I'm throwing that out there right up front as a disclaimer. It
is, however, possible. And I will give you some clear steps to do that you're going to need to do
all of them to effectively reprogram your mind. I love that my job entails illuminating the obvious.
This is so cool, you guys. I get paid to tell people things they already know.
But there's so many things that are obvious but unnoticed. And the next thing that I'm going to
share with you is in that realm. Obvious but unnoticed. Let's go there for a moment. Like
your clothing. Can you feel it? Well now. Because I called it to your attention. Or the fact that
we're speaking English. Anybody noticed? Obvious but unnoticed until it's called to your attention.
The process that I'm about to call to your attention is on all the time in your brain
and you'll notice it as soon as I call it to your attention. It's called
metacognition. Metacognition. Break that down. Cognition means thinking. We'll put that at this
level. Metacognition is a higher level. It's thinking about thinking. You tracking this?
Notice that you can do this. Thinking about thinking creates a little space.
And in that space is where choice exists. That's going to be extremely important. Because a lot
of things that happen we don't have any choice or control over. This one, you do.
Think about your thinking which will allow you to start to steer or direct or reprogram that
thinking in a way that will serve you well. We want to get your brain working for you not
against you. And the first step is to turn on metacognition. Think about your thinking and
keep thinking about your thinking while we finish this video. As you're doing this metacognition,
the first thing that I want you to notice is that you have been programmed already.
That's why we're talking about reprogramming. You've already got some programming. Notice it.
Pay attention to it. Acknowledge it. And by programming, I mean things as basic as language.
Okay? Here we are speaking English today. Did you notice? Yeah, it's obvious. But you've been
programmed to speak english. Now, you may have a different language that you speak as your mother
tongue as your first language. Well, then you were programmed in that language. I was programmed to
speak English by people who didn't give me a choice. They just programmed me. Now, is this
evil and nefarious? No. It's just how it operates. We get programmed as little children not only to
speak a particular language but to see the world around us in certain ways. To handle relationships
in certain ways. This is programming. And programming is strong. It doesn't want to change.
We can change it but it takes some work and some effort. So, acknowledge that you've been
programmed already. And then decide whether your current programming serves you well.
Because maybe it doesn't. What if you were programmed to speak English but you find
yourself living in Mexico? Oh, well maybe Spanish would be a better language to use in Mexico.
I just use that as an example because the way that you've been programmed to think about yourself
or to think about relationships or the world itself may or may not be serving you well now.
Determine whether your programming is serving you well. And don't be too attached to being
right. See, this is one of the problems we run into because we know that we're right.
And I'm not saying we think we're right. We know we are. Whatever it is that you're programmed with
already feels right to you. It's not because it's right. It's because you're used to it.
And that's why it comes so naturally to you. Well, it doesn't mean you're right. I think we
need to practice humility here. And the way I define that is we give up our need to be right
in exchange for being open. Because that creates some new possibilities. And we have to have that
openness to enable us to do the hard work that's required to actually do the reprogramming.
This question probably goes without saying but I'm going to say it anyway. if we're going to
reprogram our brain, what do we want to program it to do? What's our target? Where are we heading?
What's our destination? Do you think that might be an important question to ask? Pick a target.
Where do you want to go with this? If you're trapped in some kind of negativity
or pessimism or fear then maybe you want to replace that with positivity or optimism or faith.
Okay. Pick a target and that will help us to know how we're going to do the programming. One of the
things that makes reprogramming difficult as we've already discussed, is our attachment to being
right. We have this sick tendency as human beings to believe whatever we think. Just because we
think, it doesn't mean that it's true. We have to lighten up on our attachment a little bit to the
old beliefs and that will allow us to attach to some of the new ones as we pick our target. It has
to be believable to us. And that means detaching from whatever it is that we're already hanging on
to. Just a quick example, one of my clients has been working for years, now decades actually,
on losing weight and I asked her in our session together the other day. I said, "Well,
what weight do you want to be?" And she popped off immediately with a number. She said, "Well, 174
pounds." And my response to her startled her a little bit. But made a huge difference. I said,
"174 is available". And that somehow triggered something in her brain to where,
"Oh, there's a possible target for me." It's available. She just needed to know that it was
available. And somehow that triggered for her a process that she was able to start reprogramming
her brain in that direction. Here's something that might help
as you pick a target. Simply ask the question "If not this, then what?"
If not this, then what? If not this thing that's troubling you or that you feel discontent over,
then what? What would you replace it with? That'll help you to identify a target. One
of my colleagues told me that everything we experience is like it's projected on the inside of
the box like you're locked inside of this box. And that's all you can see is what's on the walls. And
there's instructions for getting out of your box but they're printed on the outside of your box.
That's the dilemma. Because as we get locked inside of our own head, we don't always see
the things that we need to see. Or connect to the principles that we need to connect with
in order to move forward in our life in powerful ways. You don't have to do this alone.
Hire a coach. Hire a coach who can see the outside of your box and read the instructions to you.
Someone who can help you to see yourself more truthfully or in ways that support your growth and
development. We don't have to do this alone. And the collective intelligence of those outside of us
is greater than the intelligence we have in our own head. Let's use those resources wisely.
Be humble enough to trust others who have reasons to know and hire a coach. I know some of you have
already done this. Would you please share what your experience has been working with a coach?
How that has turned on the lights for you? How it's helped or supported you and whatever
goals or objectives you've been working on? Put it in the comments. We would love to hear from you.
Finally, the thing that we cannot get away from when we're programming is practice. Practice.
It is going to take some work. You've heard that happiness is a choice, right? We hear that all the
time. Okay, fine. Yes. It is a choice. Just like playing the guitar as a choice, just like speaking
Finnish is a choice. Both of which I've chosen to do by the way. And it didn't come naturally. I
had to reprogram my mind to speak Finnish. Now, my programming is English. Well, to reprogram and to
finish is a choice, right? Yeah, you can choose it too. You can see with the language example
that the choice isn't enough. It's necessary but not sufficient for reprogramming your mind. You're
going to have to hire a coach like we talked about before. You're going to have to commit some
daily practice and routine and repetitions to this. This is what I mean by practice. Same
thing with the guitar. I chose at the age of 50 to learn how to play the guitar. Now, I can already
play the piano, I can sing. I'm fairly musical but the guitar was a whole new set of skills. To
program my mind for that requires practice. So, no apologies folks. It's going to take some practice.
Here's an analogy that's making a lot of sense to me. You brush your teeth every day, right?
I hope you do. I mean this isn't a video about dental hygiene but you know the importance of it.
You don't brush your teeth today and then think, "Oh! Well, I'm good.
Yeah, oh, yeah. I brushed my teeth. I'm good."
And you never brush your teeth again. Doesn't make sense. What are we doing for our mental hygiene?
This is an important part of practice because it will take daily, weekly, monthly practices
for you to reprogram your mind. Don't be afraid of the work. And we've got your back with this too.
This is why I developed Live On Purpose Central. Live On Purpose Central is where you can find
the resources to help you program your mind. Go.liveonpurposecentral.com. Come over there
and see what we've got going on as a support to you in reprogramming your mind. You've got this.
And we can help you to do it. Programming requires a lot of work as we talked about
in this particular episode. You don't have to do it alone. Come to Live On Purpose Central where
you will find all of the resources and the programs and the courses that will help you
to reprogram your brain. Come and check it out. Go.liveonpurposecentral.com. I'll see you there.