The 10 Day Mental Challenge

Lab Notes

Hey all. I started this column a year ago today. Happy birthday, HTB.

Forget last issue. Forget Taco Bell. No one responded, except for one person, and she called me the antichrist. :) (Thanks, Katie) I'll try the conspiracy again next year, when I know more P/R.

By the way, it's mid year. How are your new years resolutions holding up?

Cheers.

The Challenge

I started the ten day mental challenge about twelve days ago. It's simple. Just go ten days without a negative thought. Indulge in one, and you have to start over.

At first it was easy. I cleaned up a lot of my attitudes about work, and my future. I took on extra projects. I smiled more. I spent fifteen hours straight one saturday planning a backend for my website. I called Lori for the first time since we broke up, and apologized for being such a jerk.

Day seven, I hit the snag. I forgot to set my alarm clock and overslept a whole hour. I freaked out.

I tend to get to work about two hours before I have to. That way I can leave early. I have flexible hours, so oversleeping was no big deal. Yet for some reason I was tortured myself by making all these terrible mental images of me getting yelled at and fired.

Talk about an anchor. Where did that come from? I've never had a boss like that, and certainly don't have one now!

Taking Notice

I thought about it. I'd been job-scared like that for as long as I can rememeber. No wonder I quit four jobs last year!

I probably wouldn't have noticed the pattern at all if it weren't for the challenge I'm on. Once you clear away the little stuff, the big stuff sticks out like a sore thumb.

Remedy

After work, I cured the symptom. First I did some submodality scrambling. For you non-NLP'ers, that means I took my mental movie of my boss getting mad at me, and made a mockery of it. I ran it backwards, turned all the voices into cartoon voices. Made the pictures tiny and black and white, then stretched them out and switched the color all the way to neon. I could laugh at it now.

Then I set my alarm clock. :)

Light and Sound

Remedial change isn't enough. For one thing, it's too easy. Generative change is more interesting and much more fun.

I have a mind machine at home. You put on some glasses with flashing lights, and some headphones with state-altering, rhythmic sounds. The effect is very hypnotic. It's a great way to meditate, and I find it helps me stay focused when I do changework.

In this case, I wanted to change the way I work. During a mind machine session, I imagined myself getting into work on a typical morning. Rather than just getting to work, though, I started imagining what it would be like to step into a really powerful state. I took on the kinds of attitudes and thoughts I'd used in some of my greatest memories. In this meditation, I began to combine these powerful states with my normal work state.

Since then, my attitude at work has shifted. I've become more proactive. In fact, I volunteered to take on two small computer programs that no one else had even thought of, yet which could automate quite a bit of the work we're now doing manually. I've found a much more empowering state than sitting around, worrying about being fired!

It was a simple change, too. One part affirmation, one part anchoring, and one part future pacing. Simple things work.

Wrapping Up

I got the ten day mental challenge from Tony Robbins in Awaken the Giant Within. It's a great exercise, and I'd recommend it to anyone interested in improving their lives.

I'm starting over again tomorrow (no major gripes, just lost my focus on staying positive).. This time I'm keeping a log. I'll let you know what happens.