Recently, scientific evidence confirmed the fact that our brains continue to develop beyond childhood. In fact, it has been my experience that we can rewire our brains at ANY time of life…
Sure, it probably seems like it would be more difficult the older you are, but I believe that this is only because we\’ve lived with a set of beliefs for so long that we don\’t want to open our minds to changing them. As you may have learned (in The Journey Back to Bliss), I spent over 10 years in a highly doctrinal church, filled with seemingly strong beliefs about how life worked, and yet life just wasn\’t working for me. Yet, once I had made the decision to open my mind to other possibilities about how life worked, I was able to rewire my brain, the way I looked at life and the beliefs that inspired my future actions and changed the way I felt about almost everything (in a positive way).
Here are the 3 basic steps to take to do the same…
1. Realise that everything is possible
Most people think this is madness… and most of those people NEVER regain their true happiness in life. Think about Thomas Edison or the Wright brothers — inventors of amazing things that we now take for granted — they were considered “mad” I\’m sure, because they believed that anything and everything is possible, if you set your mind to it. I\’ve written a whole chapter on this in my book if you want to know more.
The reason this is the first step, is that often we can\’t imagine that change is even possible. So you\’ll never get to step#2 otherwise.
TIP: If you\’re having trouble, try asking yourself a series of mind-opening questions each day such as: “Okay, but what if massive change and improvement WAS possible in my life? What would I shoot for if I could have the life of my dreams? What would my life look and feel like then?”. If you can freely engage your imagination (specifically the images and feelings of your new, improved life) like that each day for a while, you\’ll make steps #2 and #3 VERY easy (in fact, they\’ll almost happen automatically)…
2. Choose to change
Take responsibility for your life and actions, and make the choice to change. It needs to be your definite conscious choice so that your mind is engaged in the process. Part of this step is asking better questions (do this everyday for a while like I did with Gautama\’s quote) such as “what areas of my life and thinking are holding me back and creating problems?” and “what easy steps can I take to make my life a little better?”.
If you seem to be having trouble getting any worthwhile answers, then I recommend you take a look through my book for a bunch of ideas that worked wonders for my life.
Make sure you write down any ideas you get, then go to step#3…
3. Make a new habit
More specifically, make a series of small (easy-to-accomplish) new habits. You will obviously use the ideas you came up with in step#2. I recommend doing the EASIEST ones first — so that you build the new habit of building new habits! In doing it this way, it\’ll give you the enthusiasm you need to tackle some of the more difficult new habits.
There\’s a great free bonus called the “Ideal Average Day List” that comes with my book The Journey Back to Bliss, which is basically a list of the things you\’d love to have happen every \’average\’ day of your life, that would make your life better, happier, healthier, more fulfilling etc. I recommend making this sort of list that you check off every day (as many on the list as you can!), and make sure that any of your important new habits are on there.
By putting your focus on these new easy-to-achieve habits, you\’ll gradually begin to “rewire” your brain and, in fact, your whole life experience.
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