How to use your brain to get what you want

In a post on here on Monday, I talked about the reticular activating system (RAS) and what it is.?Click here if you missed it.

Here’s how you can use it to get what you want.?

Firstly, you have to decide what that is and for many people they don’t know what they want.?

What you do have control of however is your own identity and the version of you that you want to be.?

A lot of the time we’re very passive participants in our own lives. Research from Harvard University suggests that most people don’t imagine their future selves.?

We should be obsessing about and filling our thoughts with the best version of us - our best future selves. This is where the reticular activating system comes in.?

Then, use daydreaming and visualisation to work for you.

Starting his life long exploration into why we daydream in the 1950s, Jerome Singer coined three staples in which we mentally procrastinate:?

• Poor attentional control which is our inability to remain focused on a task which is necessary but often undesirable.?
• Guilty dysphoric day-dreaming which encompasses obsessive and anguishing thinning?
• Positive constructive daydreaming (PCD) which refers to planning, playful and creative imagery that we engage in.?

Why does this matter? More recent research by Schooler and Smallwood explains that some procrastinating habits can actually serve us.

If you haven’t already, it’s time to capitalise on the benefits of orchestrating PCD to chase your own version of success.?

Studies using MRI scans show your brain cannot tell the difference between what’s real and imagined. As a result other systems within your brain start to direct your behaviour in response to what you see in your mind’s eye.?

When you direct your behaviour to ‘daydream’ or visualise the things you want to be, do experience and have you direct your brain and your RAS to proactively work for you as opposed to against you.?

For decades, elite athletes have been well known the world over to use orchestrated visualisation - also known as imagery as a bread and butter skill to help them hone skills, techniques and their mindsets.?

Simply close your eyes and imagine yourself excelling and being the best you. Put yourself in situations where you shine, visualising the best possible outcome. Include as much detail in your visualisation as possible, using all of your senses.?

The purpose of all of this is to pass command from your conscious mind to your subconscious mind.?Affirmations can also help here as you're telling the RAS what to look out for.

Remember, your brain is continuously looking to prove you right.

You then need to have very specific goals that you want to be working towards.?

I want to start a podcast.

Unless I outline exactly how i’m going to do this step by step, it’s not going to happen. I have also made this time bound so picked a date and I’ve worked backwards from there.?

I am giving my brain something to work towards

Finally we need to take deliberate action.?

It seems the RAS likes change more if it’s associated with physical action.?

Leonardo Da Vinci said ‘It has long since come to my attention that people of accomplishment rarely sat back and let things happen to them. They went out and happened to things’.?

So what are you waiting for?

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?? I help my clients - professional women in the corporate world - go from just about surviving to thriving using the evolution mindset method - a combination of mental fitness coaching and the power of your mind. Dm me the word 'info' if you want to find out more.