Why saying “don’t” won’t help you:
Language is the foundation of Neuro Linguistic Programming. This is where we use our sense of hearing. Almost every day you will hear people say things like “Don’t worry”. Think for a moment if I said to you:
“Don’t think about a pink elephant with purple spots”.
What are you thinking about? Chances are it’s the pink elephant with the purple spots. The brain will not process negatives well. The word “don’t” is a negative.
How many times have you said something like the following:
- “I don’t want to think about it”. Your brain immediately goes searching for the thing you want to stop thinking about.
Getting into a positive state:
Take your negative thought and state it in the positive in your own mind for example instead of saying “what I don’t want is…….” replace this with:
- What do I want?
- How can I best prepare for this challenge?
Think about what you want to do in positive statements. This will help you feel like you have greater focus and clarity about what’s important to you. That way, you will achieve clarity and get results.
Stop yourself saying “don’t”. Then think about what you want. Simply by adjusting this one word, you can start to retrain your brain in a more positive way.