Feb
5
Day 5,6,7 – Negative Thought Patterns & Requests to the Subconscious
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I learned a great deal this week in terms of going easy on my expectations as well as knowing when to push myself.
The request before bed to my subconscious to help focus during the day seems to help a little bit as well.
I’ve learned that it takes the right combination of physical preparedness, planning and correct mindset to function at a high level for long stretches of time. For me, missing one of those “legs” of the stool can break down my day.
I’m going to continue to try and optimize all 3…
Stay tuned…
PS I have recently purchased The Art of Focus from Shane Parrish of the Farnam Street Blog. I’ll be doing an in-depth review later.
Feb
2
Day 4 – Negative Thought Patterns & Requests to the Subconscious
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Today was average. I have to be patient with small, steady improvement instead of expecting perfection.
There was a little too much distraction and same old lack of direction but lots of good focus and definitely moments of improvement.
Lots of detailed tasks coming down the pike and lots of opportunities to grow.
I’d like to do better in “free time” and I need to keep putting myself in positions to do well.
Negative thoughts were out in full force and I was able to deal with about 60% of them. Slow and steady.
Feb
1
Day 3 – Negative Thought Patterns & Requests to the Subconscious
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Great day… way better than yesterday.
What helped was having clear, actionable tasks and goals I could focus on. The emptiness and vacuum that can occur without visible tasks/goals leads to idleness and distraction.
Negative thought patterns don’t seem to come up when I can channel my energy.
Asking my subconscious before bed to help me focus at work seems to help as well.
Jan
29
30 Day Trial – Negative Thought Patterns & Requests to the Subconscious
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Over the next 30 days, I will be doing two 30-day trials:
- Eliminating negative thought patterns
- Making a request to my subconscious each night before bed
The motivation for #1 is to avoid staying in negative thought patterns. I am skeptical about being able to flip negative thought patterns but I am going to try this technique for 30 days.
Josh Korda talks about something similar when he discusses replacing an unskillful thought with a more skillful one.
The motivation for #2 is to see if there is any benefit to be had from the subconscious working overnight.
For eliminating negative thought patterns, I found the following excerpt very interesting:
Instead of trying to resist the negative thought pattern, you will redirect it. Think of it like mental kung fu. Take the energy of the negative thought and rechannel it into a positive thought. With a little mental conditioning, whenever the negative thought occurs, your mind will automatically flow into the linked positive thought. It’s similar to Pavlov’s dogs learning to salivate when the bell rang.
…
Step 1: Turn the negative thought into a mental image.
Step 2: Select an empowering replacement thought.
Step 3: Turn the positive thought into a mental image.
Step 4: Mentally chain the two images together.
Step 5: Test.…
This type of mental conditioning gave me a lot more conscious control over my internal states.
I will report back periodically. I am very excited to try these out!
