• Would you like more say over how things go in your life?
• Would you be willing to have more influence and control?
• Are you finally ready to go from hapless victim to empowered hero?

I’ve previously shared that self talk exists even if we didn’t know it existed, and this self-talk works like a personal policy to continually cause and reinforce our thoughts and behaviors.

In fact, we all may be subject to policies we’re not aware of (even if we created them ourselves without realizing it).

In this blog post, I’ll show how, any place a set of behaviors exists, with or without conscious intention or agreement, there’s an opportunity for a conscious intention or agreement to be crafted.

Furthermore, this conscious intention or agreement can replace an earlier thought or behavior.

Policy: noun “a definite course or method of action selected from among alternatives and in light of given conditions to guide and determine present and future decisions”

You choose

Fundamental to your success in any initiative, you and others must behave in a way consistent with your desired results.

The more misalignment between actions and intentions, the more likely the desired results will not be achieved.

“All successful people men and women are big dreamers. They imagine what their future could be, ideal in every respect, and then they work every day toward their distant vision, that goal or purpose.”

–Brian Tracy

“Always, Always have a plan”

–Rick Riordan

How to choose

As we create power and a driving force, that force needs to be applied in a specific direction. Force without direction can create movement, but the result can be uncertain.

Since you’re looking for a specific result, we want to create some tools to direct the power you create.

Positive Affirmations are the tools we’ll use to direct our effort.

Positive Affirmations give us specific targets for thought and deed.

In fact, they will direct us even when we’re not thinking about anything in particular.

They’ll define boundaries for behavior.

By helping us create thought and behavioral norms, they’ll lead to habits if we persist in following them consistently.

Because they quickly begin to work in the background (if we let them) we often don’t even need to work that hard to develop the habits.

If we initially keep our Positive Affirmations at top of mind, we create habitual thoughts.

Those thoughts will begin to direct us habitually, even when we’re not aware we have momentum or thought or action underway.

For example

Have you ever pulled your car into your driveway, only to be startled at the realization you have no idea how you got there? You know you drove, but you have no awareness that you’d been driving?

This is an example of your internal habit to go home every night. You’ve practiced it so often, you can get home even when you’re not actively thinking about it.

By creating the very early positive affirmation of going home every night, then doing it consistently over a long time, you’ve learned you can get home on ‘auto-pilot’.

While going home may seem like ‘not a big deal’ because it may have never developed any emotional content or stress or fear or anxiety for you, it’s a perfect example of the calm, thoughtful, intentional approach you can develop around all changes in your life.

Change can be difficult (until you know how to create it reliably), but it doesn’t have to be painful!

Another related example

If you’re like most people, at some point you moved to a new home or apartment. You haven’t lived where you live now, for your whole life. So it was a change at some point, and you executed this change flawlessly.

Sure, you may have needed directions the first few times, You may have overshot or made a wrong turn a few times. However, eventually, you could get there flawlessly by the first route you learned.

Over time, you may have learned other routes. Eventually, you could get there at all hours of the day or night, in the light or in the dark, in any weather, from any direction, and you can do it on auto-pilot.

Similarly, you can use positive affirmations to create directional imperatives that, consistently rehearsed and lived, will result in habits that lead you to results you want.

You do not need to be the victim or servant of a world that only acts on you: you can create thoughts and behaviors that get the results you want in the world.

Recap of this lesson segment

• You can re-write your thoughts, beliefs, and habits, so they support you getting the results you want in life.
• You can invent entirely new and previously unimaginable ‘rules to live by’ that give you access to entirely new areas of life and things in those areas.

Progress Checkpoint

Answer these questions in writing (just a sentence or two apiece will do) and include the result in your PowerBoard:

1. What was most valuable for you in this lesson?
2. Describe something you learned that you didn’t know before.
3. Write down any ideas you have about new beliefs that could help you meet your goals.
4. Write down any areas of your life where you see new beliefs could help change that area.
5. Describe something you did during this course that you hadn’t done before.
6. Name something you created in this course that you hadn’t created before.
7. Describe a result you delivered in this course that you hadn’t delivered before.

Next: click here and create self talk that supports you…

More Information

• Merriam-Webster’s definition of “policy”
• Brian Tracy quote from: Personal Success
• How You Felt About Gym Class May Impact Your Exercise Habits
• The power of expectation and the power of belief — Michael Shermer: The pattern behind self-deception | TED Talk
• How to rewire your inner policy environment: Stress Patterns Build Up Over Time. Here is One Way to Break Free from the Cycle. https://apple.news/A9Y2-QjoGTqSJt_3u8sIRDA
• Mini-bios:
  • Brian Tracy: Wikipedia
  • Rick Riordan: Wikipedia

Photo Credits

• Everything Is Going To Be Alright: Photo by Viktor Forgacs on Unsplash. Link.
• Brian Tracy: Photo courtesy of Peter at BrianTracy.com
• Rick Riordan: By Rhododendrites – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, Link.