Our lives are a product of our habits. The things that we do on a consistent basis define our circumstances. Because of this, we are where we are, due to our habits.
Many of the habits that determine and define our lives are those that we often have a very difficult time noticing. The reason for this is because the most powerful and transformative habits that we engage in are those that take place strictly within our minds, often being informed by our day-to-day experience but, at the same time, directly manipulating those same experiences.
To live the life that we truly desire to live, we must develop habits that allow us to become the person we must be to fulfill our greatest aims and desires. Much of this is, of course, built on physical actions. But, to truly change our lives in the best of ways, we must radically transform our mental habits.
Through the act of transforming our mental habits, we transform our perception, our assumptions, our beliefs, and, most importantly, ourselves.
Through the act of radically transforming ourselves, we grow to become the person that we need to be in order to fulfill our deepest aims and desires so that we, in turn, can live the life we truly wish to live.
The Power Of Neuroplasticity
Within the field of neuroscience, there is a concept known as “neuroplasticity”. Neuroplasticity is a relatively recent discovery, and its implications are upon first glance, simple. But, dive a little deeper, and the implications become truly radical.
The term “neuroplasticity” refers to your brain’s ability to adapt and transform itself.
For many years, the world’s leading scientists assumed that the brain was plastic up until a certain point – several years past reaching adulthood – and then, after that period of plasticity, your brain was fixed. Once that period of plasticity ended, many people thought, your brain could no longer adapt or transform.
Recent discoveries within the field of neuroscience have, of course, lead to the discovery of neuroplasticity. These discoveries have lead to a radical shift in the way we perceive the brain, because we now know that the brain is never truly fixed but, rather, in a perpetual state of transformation.
Your brain never stops building new neural structures and rearranging old neural structures. Because of this, your brain possesses the ability to adapt to any particular circumstance or situation.
Everytime you learn a new fact or engage in a new experience, you develop a new neural structure that your brain can then use to inform your decisions regarding similar ideas and experiences.
The truly magical thing about neuroplasticity, however, is the fact that its power can be activated at any time.
Everytime you visualize something meaningful to you, affirm a new concept of yourself, or transform your self-talk in a way that is novel and meaningful – among many other ways of harnessing the power of neuroplasticity – you transform your brain, creating new neural pathways and transforming old ones as a result.
By making use of neuroplasticity, you can radically transform yourself, allowing you to fulfill your deepest ambitions and aims, so that you may live the life you truly wish to live.
The Key To Radical Transformation
Everyone possesses the power to transform their brains and, as a result, their lives. Everyone possesses this power, and everyone can make use of it.
But, it must be said, there are some people who put this power to use and find more success in doing so than others.
The reason for this is quite simple: radical transformation is built on several key ideas. Each one of these ideas is equally important and, if they are ignored, aimlessness and stagnation often result.
To begin the process of radically transforming yourself, you must first know why it is that you are choosing to radically transform yourself.
More often than not, your reason for doing so is due to the fact that there is a particular set of aims and ambitions that you desire to bring into fruition. This ambition may, perhaps, be related to the work that you are doing, the money that you possess, or the impact that you intend to leave upon the world; among an endless series of other possibilities.
Regardless of the aims and ambitions that you hold, you must be aware of it and, in doing so, you must be clear on what it is and what it means to you.
The clarity that comes from knowing what you truly desire allows for the second idea to be acted upon. This second idea involves knowing the kind of person you need to be in order to fulfill the aims and ambitions that you hold. By knowing the kind of person you need to be so that you can fulfill your aims and ambitions, you become aware of the mental habits that you must adopt to create the massive success you desire.
To share an example of this, let’s say that you wish to become a successful actor. But, right now, you lack the necessary acting skills, you aren’t confident in your ability to reach this particular goal, and you feel insecure about your various “flaws”.
A successful actor is, of course, the exact opposite of those things. Rather than being insecure and uncertain of their abilities, a successful actor is confident and full of self-confidence, because a successful actor knows who they are and is confident in the extraordinary abilities that they possess.
The mental habits that you would need to develop, given this example, are those pertaining to your self-confidence and the ways in which you see the world so that you may, in turn, see the world as a successful actor would and become capable of delivering extraordinary performances.
Once you know what it is that you desire, who you must become to fulfill your aims and ambitions, and the mental habits that you must develop, you must then begin developing those habits.
But, for you to develop these ideas, you must know the ways in which these habits can be developed and, more importantly, you must engage with the third key idea of this process: being consistent and engaging with the conscious creation of new mental habits every single day.
Through the act of being consistent and taking your brain into your own hands every single day, there is nothing that you can’t do.
Making The Most Of Your Brain
The easiest and most effective way to develop new mental habits is to, quite simply, spend at least five-minutes talking to yourself everyday.
Everyone talks to themselves. More often than not, this self-talk is purely internal and, because of this, we often fail to notice and consider what is being said.
Just because we may not notice our self-talk, though, does not mean it lacks power or influence over our lives. Rather, our self-talk is what actively shapes our brain and, in turn, who we are and the life that we live.
To change your life, then, all you must do is take control of your self-talk. By taking at least five-minutes to speak with yourself – speaking out loud or internally; both are equally valid – you engage in the conscious creation of new neural pathways, and it is these neural pathways that define every aspect of yourself, including the mental habits that define the individual facets of your day-to-day experience.
There are two questions that must be asked and answered, however, before you can begin engaging in this process. These two questions are “What should you say when you are talking to yourself?” and “How should you talk to yourself?”
The first of these questions is easily answered, but only if you know who you must be to fulfill your aims and ambitions, as well as the mental habits that you must develop in order to become that person and to be that person.
To work with the same example, if your ambition is that of being a successful actor, then you must speak to yourself as if you were, in fact, a successful actor.
But, this self-talk should not consist of idle talking that evokes no real feelings – affirming that you are a very well-paid and successful actor when you are not may evoke a sense of falsehood.
Rather, this self-talk must consist of specific qualities that you are choosing to give birth to. These specific qualities must be affirmed and engaged with as if they are present facts, and in doing so, you must feel them to be the present facts they are becoming.
A successful actor possesses a myriad of wonderful skills. Skills such as the ability to take on a new pattern of speaking, to see the world from the perspective of another, to change one’s body-language; and so on and so forth.
Regarding the second question, as you speak to yourself, affirm that you possess these skills. Express a sense of gratitude and pride in the skills that you have developed, know that you are a truly wonderful actor and that, by virtue of possessing all of the skills a successful actor requires, you are destined to be a successful actor and to astonish others with your abilities.
That is what you must do when you speak to yourself. You must affirm and express only the best and most lovely qualities that you possess and that you wish to possess. As you do so, you must allow the feelings to come forth from such self-talk. For it is these feelings that allow for neural pathways to be created even more quickly, allowing for speedy transformations of the most radical sort.
The specific time and place that you engage with this self-talk does not matter in the slightest. Engaging with your self-talk while on a walk is just as effective as engaging with your self-talk while lying on your bed in a relaxed state.
But, above all else, you must be focused on your self-talk and, through this focus, you must allow the feelings of being the person that you wish to be to come forth and take hold. By doing just that, you can become the person you wish to be and fulfill any aim or ambition that you hold within your heart.
There are truly no limitations to who you can become and what you can do.
Conclusion
You are in your own hands. You, and only you, possess the power to become who you must become to fulfill your deepest aims and ambitions.
By making use of the extraordinary gifts you have been given – your brain, and its inherently plastic nature – you can become who you wish to be and do anything that you truly wish to do.
All you must do is know what it is that you wish to do, determine who you must be to do what you wish to do, and be consistent in transforming yourself so that you can reach and experience the great heights you are meant to.
Max Akin Writing 