Just had another HUGE brainwave around self-suggestion.
I mentioned in my last post that I never really had much luck with affirmations, well that’s not entirely true. There was one …
I use to be a big procrastinator, then I heard the really simple suggestion of saying “Do It Now” to yourself 50 times every day.
So I tried it
And it worked.
After I’d done it for a while I found that I would think to myself, I can put that away later, then a little voice in my head would pop in and say “Do it now” and I’d remember that I wanted to stop procrastinating and I’d do it.
It actually worked really well, of all of the affirmations I tried. Now I know why!
Because, like I said in my last post, it takes that significant amount of repetition to actually get anything to stick!
50 Times Every Day!
This realization also came with another. You can loose these ingrained items much easier than you gain them.
I’ve been in a lot of plays and I cannot recall all the lines from every one of them. Why is this? Well despite having spent countless hours repeating the lines over and over and memorizing them, when I stopped doing that … it all went away.
And when I stopped saying “Do It Now” 50 times every day (because at the time it was so ingrained I foolishly thought it would be there forever) well, now that little voice pops in very rarely indeed.
So if you really want to change a behaviour, be more productive, feel happier, build a laughter habit, you need to be doing it A LOT, every day, and don’t stop doing it.
Now chances are once it is ingrained you can do it a little less, maybe only once a day, just as a reminder (I’m not sure of this – it might vary depending on what the behaviour or feeling is). But you may need to commit to doing this for the long haul.
But really what cost is that in order to be happier and more successful in your life?
Until the next time, keep laughing and continuously repeating your desired behaviour until you have it.