How to Change Your Mind

When Motorola designed the first car radios for mass use back in the early 1930s, they had intense opposition.   Cities, states, and major companies felt that adding a radio to a car would be a dangerous distraction to the driver.

To fight this opposition, Motorola educated the world about the benefits of a car radio.  They explained how the radio could alert drivers of poor weather, road conditions, and help keep them awake.

By the late 1930s, Motorola won over their opponents by adding push-button tuning. This helped keep the driver’s attention on the road instead of the radio dial.  It also allowed drivers to change radio presets whenever they wanted.

This made it easier for drivers to find their favorite stations.  It also helped drivers adapt to new locations instead of being stuck listening to the same old stations or worse, radio static.

This concept proved true for me as I transitioned into adulthood.  In August 2006, just after graduating college, I packed my car and drove to Michigan from New York for graduate school.

While driving through Pennsylvania, the radio station I was listening to went out.  My car was no longer within the range of the stations I was familiar with.  At that moment, I realized that since I was moving to Michigan, I’d have to find all new radio stations and change my presets if I wanted to continue enjoying my radio.

Changing your radio presets can be daunting, just like changing your mind and how you think about yourself.   Before you change the way you think you have to know the thoughts you’ve been holding onto?

BONUS DOWNLOAD: Click here to get my free guide: 5 Strategies for Overcoming Negative Thoughts.

What Are Your Current Presets?

Do me a favor and pretend that your mind is a car radio. I know it’s a little weird, but try it for a second and consider the following questions.

What do you hear coming through your speakers?  What messages have been preset either by you or someone else?

Are these messages making your ride more enjoyable or are they making things harder to deal with? Are you traveling toward your goals and dreams?

Why haven’t you taken the time to change the station and listen to the good stuff?  Why haven’t you changed your mind or your presets to something that enriches and encourages you?

Perhaps you’re suffering from mental presets that you haven’t changed in a long time.  Many of us are still listening to those same old debilitating messages.

We keep telling ourselves stories about doubt, worry, and failure.  We cycle through thoughts of anxiety and fear, hoping that the messages will change.  But we rarely, if ever, take action to change them ourselves.

We just keep listening.

We keep listening because change is scary.  It’s unknown.  Change itself makes us anxious.  So we settle on the message that is already playing, that same message that keeps us stagnant.

But, if you wouldn’t listen to a song you didn’t like on the radio, why listen to those messages that make you feel bad about yourself?

Why not just change the station?

How to Change Your Mind

After the success of Motorola’s radio, they continued to make improvements to the design.  The radio, which originally required its own battery source and an antenna that was the size of the car roof, dramatically shrunk in size and cost to make.

But the most impressive improvement to the radio wasn’t in the form of subtraction.  It was the addition of the Scan function.

In 1953, they added the Scan function to the car radio, allowing drivers to automatically find radio stations within range at the push of a button.  This connected drivers to radio stations they’d never heard before. It also allowed them to try new music and talk radio for the first time.

Today’s cars have the same ability to scan and seek new options on the radio.  Just like those radios, you have the power to seek new messages to replace the old ones too.

Hit Your Seek Button

Seek strong positive frequencies for your life.  To change your mind, you can’t allow old negative messages to take up space anymore.  So let’s replace them with more positive messages.

Here are 3 ways you can change your mind:

Practice Gratitude

One of the best ways to change your mind is to change what dominates your thoughts.  For those of us fighting anxiety, the feeling of judgment often preoccupies our mind.

The best way I’ve found to change those kinds of thoughts quickly is to practice gratitude daily.

A simple way to practice gratitude is to write 3 things you’re grateful for first thing in the morning.  Adding this practice to your routine will help you start your days reflecting on good things.  This is much better than starting out the day thinking of things that may cause you anxiety.

While you don’t need any special tools to practice gratitude, I highly recommend The Five Minute Journal.

It’s the creation of UJ Ramdas and Alex Ikonn and it helps you practice gratitude every day.  I’ve been using this journal for over a year.  I love how simple, yet effective, it is for helping me keep a mindset of gratitude.

For 9 more ways to add gratitude into your daily life, check out this post.

Read a Great Book

“Everything you need for your better future and success has already been written. And guess what, It’s all available for free.”  — Jim Rohn

Books have been around for thousands of years and are full of life changing information.  Most of them are at your local library for free.

I know, I know… “who uses a library anymore?”  But this is an untapped resource of knowledge and opportunity that is absolutely free!  You’ll likely find something good that will help you change your mind.

Need help choosing a book that will help you change your mind about yourself? Visit my recommended list of books.

Two of my favorites are The Obstacle is the Way by Ryan Holiday and Daring Greatly, by Brene Brown.

These two books will help you look at life with a fresh perspective.

Don’t think the books have to be self-help books.  Even fiction books can be very helpful in reshaping and changing your mindset.  So don’t limit yourself to self-help books alone.

The Micro-Step Approach

The fastest way to change your mind is to take action and do something different or new.  We all have dreams and goals of being a better version of ourselves.  Yet, we rarely take the steps to achieve those goals.

Most of us get extremely motivated to change, only to come to a halt when the process gets hard.

Change is hard.  But, I’ve found in my life that we make those changes harder because we try to do too much too soon.

For example, let’s say that you want to be more confident during conversations.  So, you think through how you can make that happen and all you come up with is, “I have to put myself out there.”

You think you have to attend events and talking to people.  You tell yourself you have to talk to people despite your nerves being through the roof.

But just the thought of doing this makes your palms sweat and your mind race.  You grow immediately uncomfortable.  Now, the thought of “acting” confident is causing a negative anxiety spiral of thoughts.

The problem is, this plan of action is too much too soon.

If you want to change your life, look for the small steps you can take.  Then look for even smaller ones.

The reason small steps work is that they set you up for success and help you build momentum toward your larger goal.

Let’s go back to our example.  If you want to be more confident in conversations, you don’t need to introduce yourself to 100 people in a row.

Instead, just try to have one brief conversation with the cashier at your local grocery store.  You can take an even smaller step and decide to simply look the cashier in the eye when she greets you.  

Even though eye contact seems insignificant, it will make you appear more confident.

Most people don’t take the time to make eye contact with the service workers that we see every day.  So when you take the time to acknowledge the cashier or barista, you’ll seem different.  You’ll seem more confident than all the other people who never do it.

It will also help you feel more confident because you’re taking a small step outside your comfort zone.  This step will help you build momentum and gradually increase your confidence.  Plus, to start out, you don’t even have to say a word.

So look for the micro-steps you can take.  Make eye contact, wave a hand, give a smile, and then when you’re ready, say Hi.

Rome wasn’t built in a day, so don’t force your confidence to be the size of Rome before it’s ready.

Mind Your Thoughts

From time to time, you’re likely to get complacent with your thoughts and behavior.  It happens to all of us.  We get to a good place and stop looking for ways to change our minds or improve our thinking.

When that happens, we have to be mindful of our thoughts and how we are thinking of ourselves.  The goal is to not go back to how things used to be.  You don’t want to experience success with overcoming aspects of your social anxiety, only to revert to who you used to be.  So it’s important to check in with yourself.

When you’re checking in, ask yourself:

Is the way I’ve been thinking about myself making my life more enjoyable or more difficult?

If all is well, keep things going.  If things aren’t good or heading in a negative direction, then it’s time for a reset.  Use the 3 options above to help you get back on track.

Practice gratitude.  Learn through reading.  Take micro-steps toward your goals. Doing these 3 things will help you change your mind.

This post was proofread by Grammarly and ProWritingAid.

Next Action Steps

Practice Gratitude:  For the next 5 days, write 1-3 things that you are sincerely grateful for.  Try to do this first thing in the morning.  They don’t have to be enormous things, but they have to be things you’re honestly grateful for.

For example: This morning I wrote in my Five Minute Journal that I was grateful for:

1. The love and friendship that I share with my wife.
2. Getting 7 hours of sleep last night
3. The opportunity to practice starting conversations with coworkers.