It’s sort of crazy to think about. You’re trying really hard in your business but you aren’t seeing the results you want to see. You find yourself falling back into old patterns over and over again. You wonder what’s wrong with you. Are you destined to repeat the same cycles for all of eternity? Can you ever truly find success?
The fact is that we as humans are prone to conditioning. If something happened a certain way in the past or we had a certain feeling, reaction, or habit in the past, then our nature is to let it happen again, whether we are aware of it or not. The things that happened in childhood, for example, can affect the way you think and react to your life and your success today.
There are probably things in your past you haven’t yet processed completely that affect your view of yourself and your actions. You might have a positive or negative view of your ability to succeed. You might have a positive or negative view of certain abilities that you need for business.
And most importantly for a business person, you might have a positive or negative view of earning money and accumulating wealth.
It’s unfortunate, but it’s often the case that negative conditioning gets the better of us. We have the experience of failing over and over again and aren’t sure it will ever get better.
Maybe you procrastinate. Maybe you keep making the same mistakes over and over again. Maybe you keep hearing that little voice in your head that tells you that you can’t do it.
You don’t want to feel this way. But, do you really have any choice?
The good news is that you’re not destined to have these negative thoughts and experiences forever. You can certainly overcome negative conditioning if you work at it. You can re-condition yourself through the use of planning, psychology, practice, focus, and perseverance to have a more positive outlook and outcome based on renewed thoughts and actions.
It’s important to be honest with yourself as you go through this process. You’ve been conditioned to think negatively and act negatively in certain ways. Be honest with yourself about what these negative things are – you might really have to dig deep.
You have to know what’s holding you back and what might’ve happened in your past that led to this negativity.
Thinking About the Past
Consider the past as it now relates to your business. Think about how you talk to yourself while you work. Think about the way you were talked to in school or at home as a child. What did you consistently fail at? What were your biggest struggles? What negative things did people tell you over and over again?
It can really help to write these things down.
Think about times that were even more recent than your childhood. Maybe you started running a business a few years ago and your early failures continue to hold you back even today.
Analyze the Negativity
Hopefully, you’ve written down the negative things, thoughts, and actions that have held you back your whole life.
You’ve thought about the fact that you tend to procrastinate, self-sabotage, have negative thoughts, and more.
Now, try to trace these things back to their roots. It might be the case that it was instantly obvious to you where the negative conditioning stems from. But, maybe you really can’t remember when it was that you stopped being confident in yourself and your abilities.
Maybe you can’t really pinpoint exactly why procrastinating is a habit for you.
Try to dig possible reasons up. Try to remember. But, even if you can’t remember, this can be a very useful exercise. Even thinking about the fact that it doesn’t have to be this way and that the problems did start at some point (and therefore can end at some point) can give you power over the problem.
Develop a Plan to Move past the Problem
You’ve thought about it all and you’ve analyzed it all. Now it’s time to take control.
You don’t want to give your negative habits and negative past all the power. You don’t want to give the negative things people drilled into you power. Just because you were told certain things as a child or people told you that you’d always be a failure doesn’t mean that’s true. It just means that you’re conditioned to think that way and possibly to self-sabotage because of it.
When you develop a plan to move past the negative problems and feelings you seize control. You start to see the world from a whole new angle. That’s a wonderful thing.
Now it’s time to be even more serious about this. Think about the ways that you’re negatively conditioned and that affect you the most. Maybe the answer for you is negative self-talk that runs on a constant cycle.
Develop a plan where you will strategically eliminate the problem of negative self-talk from your life by re-conditioning yourself with positive self-talk instead. It will be something you’re really aware of now but then it will become more natural.
Now think about each of the problems you’re dealing with in turn. How can you move past these problems? What can you do every single day to develop new and better habits and re-condition your thoughts and actions?
Give Yourself Small Successes to Recondition Yourself
One of the best ways to recondition yourself is to give yourself small successes. When you start to succeed it gets easier to smile. It gets easier to succeed in even better ways.
That’s why it’s so important to give yourself small successes. This is something I cover in my book, 5 Bucks a Day. This book teaches you how to come up with a small project, follow through with that project, turn it into a success that earns $5 a day of passive income, and to rinse and repeat.
Sometimes, you try to tackle really big problems and projects in business. You try and you try and you really want to do your best. But then a bright shiny object comes along and takes you off course. Not to mention there’s always something bigger and better out there.
But the fact is, you can’t find any true success if you never follow through with anything. If you’re always distracted and never following through, you’re only reinforcing those negative experiences you’ve had since your childhood. You’re only negatively reinforcing those depressing self-views and those pathways to failure. Negative conditioning is much more likely if you never have success or if you’re constantly starting and stopping huge projects and never really give yourself a chance.
But, when you focus and follow through with the project and complete it successfully, you start to see that you can succeed. You create new pathways to success.
You can snowball those smaller successes into even bigger successes.
If you focus on allowing yourself to have success in small pieces at a time, your self-talk will get better and you’ll be more positive about yourself and your abilities. You won’t have to deal with things like procrastination because you’ll actually enjoy what you’re doing. You won’t feel like a failure because you’re having real, true, and honest success.
Study Those You Admire
Another thing you can do to overcome negative conditioning is to study those you admire. People can really inspire us – especially those who’ve come from backgrounds that are similar to ours.
Maybe there’s someone who used to have really negative self-talk or who used to be faced with things like procrastination and constant failure. But today, they are successful.
If those people can do it, then you can do it. This was actually what turned around my life and business. I found someone who was succeeding with a skill that I had previously found difficult to profit from. I finally said to myself “if he can do that, I can do that”, and long story short… I did it. My life changed that day, it was like turning on a switch in my mind.
Surround yourself with success. Find yourself a coach or mentor. Read the books, blogs, and articles of those who are successful.
Do whatever you can to fill your mind with positive thoughts and surround yourself with those you admire and those who will cheer you on instead of bring you down.
Learn, Recharge, Regenerate, and Recondition
Fill your mind with knowledge about the projects you’re working on and your business overall. Develop laser-like focus on what you’re doing right now. Don’t allow yourself to get distracted at all. If you really focus and dedicate yourself to success, then you’ll naturally start to create new pathways to success and ditch those old pathways to failure.
Remember to give yourself time to recharge. Sometimes, you need to step away from the project. You need time to take a walk around the block, spend time with friends and family, and just get away from it all.
This is when you’ll be your most creative. It’s easy to stay in a negative cycle if you’re constantly working and constantly frustrated. By giving yourself a break and allowing yourself to recharge, you can get into that positive mind frame you really need to succeed.
By doing these things, you’ll regenerate your body, mind, soul, and success. This is what you need to be able to recondition. You can overcome negative conditioning in this way. You’ll develop a better mindset if you really work at it.
Eliminate negative thoughts and feelings from your past. Use your past failures to come up with new and better ways to succeed.
Be honest and open with yourself about what’s holding you back and what has caused this negative conditioning.
Analyze what’s going on in your life and be truly honest with yourself. Then, develop a plan to move past it.
Find yourself a mentor or coach. Study those who are successful. Study your business and do whatever you can to really focus on your success.
Find small successes you can accumulate over time to show yourself that you can be successful even if you didn’t think so on the past.
Hopefully, you’ll find that this is a happier, healthier, and more successful way to live your life and run your business. Here’s to your success!
Podcast: Play in new window | Download