Have you noticed how our brains can prompt us to either promote or deny our own self-value?
Jenny Craig, a transformational coach and Women’s Advancement Compact (WAC) specialist, emphasizes in her recent WAC webinar the importance of positive thinking when attempting to advance our careers, maintain our health, and live richer lives. I came away personally inspired by a specific series of passages wherein she demonstrated the practicality of changing our brains, literally, in order to shed layers of negativity and reveal the powerful leaders within us.
Shape Your Own Brain
“I’m too fat, and thus, people don’t like me, are not attracted to me, or think I’m lazy.” This is an example, familiar perhaps, of how one negative thought leads endlessly to other negative self-projections. With a little deliberate “neuroplasticity,” something as simple as changing the statement “I’m too fat” to “I am sexy” can compel you to uncover how your negative emotions have been manifesting in other areas of life, including career decisions, and may be holding you back from leadership.
From this perspective, Craig strongly advocates for taking the steps necessary to re-carve the brain’s channels that may have been sabotaging your capacity to take life and career to their next levels. Her recommended approach is something we can all wrap our minds around and involves a methodology that uses reinforcement and evidence to back up your new outlook.
Don’t Miss Your Exit
Our brains’ neural pathways comprise what can be thought of as a neurological superhighway. When you decide to wave the fingers on your left hand, neurotransmitters travel this highway and take the necessary “exits” in order to prompt the physical action to occur.
Craig pointed out that, in evolved brains like ours, the subconscious serves as an autopilot, causing necessary functions to occur without the distraction of active decision making. For instance, we don’t have to create a new pathway each time we need to get toothpaste onto a toothbrush or find our way to our favorite grocery store.
Acknowledging this process, your new task becomes asking yourself which autopilot habits you possess that can make you a successful leader and all-around happier person. Similarly, which habits do you possess that may be sabotaging your success, health, and happiness?
Peeling Away the Anger
Now that you’ve hopefully engaged in a little self-examination, it’s time to consider the phenomenon of neuroplasticity. This property of the brain allows us to intentionally rewire our thoughts, notions, and outlooks to be more positive in nature.
An insider’s tip from Craig’s therapist days confirms why this is crucial. She indicated that when you start changing negative thoughts into positive ones, it may expose the layers of anger, resentment, anxiety, unforgivingness, and other negative emotions that you’ve been stockpiling.
As you start to release your negative past, “quantum leaps” in your self-value can occur. This is neuroplasticity in action and is the most organic way we can transform ourselves into the people we aspire to be.
Taking the process a step further, you can secure the newly emerged “you” into place by attaching a specific emotion to your positive thoughts. For instance, in the transformation from “I am fat” to “I am sexy,” supplement your new outlook with “… therefore, I am lovable,” incentivizing the affirmation.
And finally, to help the rewiring take hold, it is beneficial to “walk your talk” every day. Take responsibility for repeating and interweaving the positive thoughts. The more you practice being the new person that you’ve become, the more natural you'll feel in your position.
Dropping Anchor
The final step in reinforcing your newfound positivity is sustaining gratitude. Nothing is found to be more effective in chemically healing your mind and body than gratitude, and it’s yours for the taking.
It’s responsible for lowering your blood pressure, strengthening your immune system, and decreasing your anxiety. Intentionally spending time in a state of gratitude, particularly at the start of a day, is one of the best moves you can make to promote your own good health.
Craig recommends taking it a step further by pairing your grateful thoughts with a specific action or “positive anchor,” like twisting the ring on your finger. This will allow the grateful mindset to be activated whenever you repeat the action. In time, this strengthens the brain’s rewiring and perpetuates your feeling of gratitude, keeping you healthier in the process.
Change Starts Now
Knowing that happiness, success, and leadership are all within your brain’s reach, I am calling on everyone who suffers from self-imposed anxiety, negativity, and deprecation to immediately engage in the process of positive thinking, with the help of Craig’s approach. Your life, career, and impact upon future leaders are too important to remain unfulfilled any longer. To learn more about neuroplasticity, gratefulness rings, and Craig’s executive coaching services, visit her website Live Your Power.
Also, consider joining our free April 1st teleconference led by Jenny as a follow-up to her webinar on the topic at hand.
This article was originally published on www.womensadvancementcompact.com. Read the original here.
*Image of “woman“ via Shutterstock
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