When I started writing this post I had listed all of what consumed my mind. The list wasn’t all that long but throughout the time that I was writing it, I couldn’t help but have to go back in time having to explain exactly what it was that I was saying so that you can understand.

And then I stopped and thought, “hang on a minute, I’ve had my counseling days!” and paused to think about what I was going to write.

This post isn’t about looking back though I’m happy to be able to say! no, I will now be looking ahead instead.

I now have a new mantra, a healthy one at that, and one which will help me (IF I can keep my mind on it). It could help you too.

My new mantra is “ooo – that’s gonna get a scratch!”

You want to take your life to the next level, but you can’t just conjure a new sense of self out of thin air.

You have past experiences that have shaped the way you see yourself for better or worse and each time you try to change your life you draw on past reference experiences to tell you whether or not you’re capable. If you don’t have enough ‘evidence’ of success and competence it’ll be difficult to turn on a sixpence and without that evidence, it’s gonna take some time.

So what do you do?

With the help of a fellow blogger on medium.com, I have an answer and here it is:

Step 1 — Drill This Belief into Your Mind

When you want to reinvent yourself, you’ll essentially have to fake it a bit and will yourself into becoming this new person.

When you start to gain momentum by making tangible progress, you’ll start to believe in yourself for real, but instill this belief in your mind to stand a chance of making it to that inflection point.

What belief? The belief that the concept of you is totally imaginary, made up, fluid, and can change at any moment.

You can just wake up one day and decide you’re going to be more confident, assertive, and achieve your goals.

You may not think you can because your concept of self is so real, but you can, and reading this shit actually works.

Step 2 — Do Whatever it Takes to Get the New Concept of you to Stick

Adopting a new mindset is one thing, but adopting new habits and behaviours will help your subconscious mind accept the new you.

Your behaviours send a signal to your mind about which direction you’re moving in. You’ll act consistently in a certain direction once you maintain it long enough. Do this long enough, and you’ll erase old identity patterns. I read in a letter from my son that it takes at least 28 days to form a habit.

I’m preferring this advice given by Ant Middelton, where he uses 3 Pillars along with 3 strategies;

1.Ownership

2.Engagement

3.Accountability

used alongside and with these 3 states;

1.Commitment

2.Uncomfortableness

3.Familiarity

And then repeat.

You can follow these patterns yourself and they start with finding the teeniest tiniest thing to start making things stick.

You might have to try over and over again to get it to work. You see this every year with new years resolutions. People always talk about how most people fail with their new year’s resolutions, but they never talk about the fact that some people succeed.

And that’s the thing to remember. Yes, success is abnormal, but there are still many many successful people. You have to create the irrational belief that you’ll be one of them and take increasingly bolder steps to get there.

Increasingly bolder, though. Don’t start too bold. Just make the firm decision to change and figure out the next step after that — the smallest step you can think of.

You can even count reading these emails as a step if you’d like. Trust me, I’ve been on this side of the computer screen for a bit of time now — reading all this inspirational content just hoping it would seep into my brain deep enough to help me change.

Guess what? It is! All I need to do now is to learn how to not become so despondent where I stop, carry on, and stay positive.

I’m getting there, slowly but surely I’m getting there… & I hope the same happens for you too.