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My takeaway from Jack Canfield’s book, “How to Get from Where You Are to Where You Want to Be.”
Principle 10: Release the Breaks
Mike
Tyson. After him, I lost interest in boxing. A pugilist who was as infamous for
his bite as he was famous for his fight, Mike Tyson was the meanest dude. The
baddest man on the planet.
The
other infamous dental mental was Luis Suarez, who was a phenomenal knock out
specialist with the Liverpool Football Club. Since moving to Spain, perhaps
there are better meal deals there, he has stopped sinking his teeth into raw
human flesh. His right foot is causing most of the pain. To opposing teams.
Mike
Tyson. When he was too good to ignore, they say the power of his punch was
equivalent to half a metric ton. Taking a punch from Tyson was like having
a Grand Piano land on your face. More than the power, he was feared for his
speed and positioning.
But,
if the continuum from research to successful application is a clean straight
line, you, even if you are Average Joe, can whup Tyson. If you did your job
well, you don’t have to face the music. If you were sloppy, the Grand Piano.
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If
you think that is impossible, they have done that to cockroaches, mice and
dogs. At least in the labs. They subject these subjects to electric shocks,
close down all their paths to escape and then watch them surrender. Taking
it lying down. Helplessness. Learned.
If
you think cockroaches, mice and dogs are not in the league with Mike Tyson,
what about elephants? How do you tame the elephant if not by dissolving the
wild spirit in it? Again, how do you tame the Grand Piano thrower?
Make
the titan feel tiny.
Canfield
uses this mental manipulation of the elephant to illustrate a point about
comfort zone. He writes, “A baby elephant is trained at birth to be confined to
a very small space. Its trainer will tie its leg with a rope to a wooden post
planted deep in the ground. This confines the baby elephant to an area
determined by the length of the rope-the elephant’s comfort zone. Though the
baby elephant will initially try to break the rope, the rope is too strong, and
so the baby elephant learns that it can’t break the rope. It learns that it has
to stay in the area defined by the length of the rope.
When
the elephant grows up into a 5-ton colossus that could easily break the rope,
it doesn’t even try because it learned as a baby that it couldn’t break the
rope. In this way, the largest elephant can be confined by the puniest little
rope.”
The
writers at Reuters published a graphic description of this conditioning process
in the segment, “Trapped and Tamed” of their 2007 article, “FACTBOX: How do
you domesticate an elephant?”
“--Once
trapped, the youngest, easiest to train, elephants, were lassoed and tied to
stakes, and unsuitable animals freed.
-- Pulled into tight, wooden “crush”
enclosures, the elephants were tamed into obedience by a method called the
“phaajaan”, or breaking of the spirit, which is still used today.
-- Trapped barely able to move for days or even weeks in the crush cage and deprived of sleep, they are alternately starved or fed, until they accept chains or harnesses without a struggle and respond to rewards.”
This
type of influence is referred to as “The Baby Elephant Syndrome.” This method
uses external constraints to program the animal into giving in to learned
helplessness, minimizing its natural potential and creating a new limiting zone
of comfort.
Jack
Canfield’s lesson in this chapter is about limiting beliefs and how to release
them. As a human we share components that describe our self-integrity.
We hold that we are competent, good, coherent, wholesome, stable, capable of
free choice, adaptable and self-determining.
We
hold dearly to our roles in life, our social identity, our belief system, our
relationship, goals, purpose and meaning. Central to our psychological
well-being are the feeling of being in control of one’s choices (autonomy), the
feeling of connectedness to others (relationship) and the feeling of being
effective and skilled (competency).
World
peace! If we all think alike and feel the same, our world view should align.
Hold your elephants. Because of environmental factors and our internal build
up, we translate the attributes a bit differently and embrace each at different
level of gravity. We most likely interpret information and meaning that
reinforces what we already believe and value.
Canfield’s
novel approach of likening limiting beliefs as the car’s emergency brake should
hit a nerve. The analogy has the power of coherence and clarity. Most of
us drive a car. And we know how we are slowed with the emergency brake on.
The
author suggests three ways we can release the mental emergency brake.
1. You
can use affirmations and positive self-talk to affirm already having what you
want, doing what you want, and being the way you want.
2. You
can create powerful and compelling new internal images of having, doing and
being what you want.
3. You
can simply change your behavior.
Let’s
start in the reverse order. What Canfield proposes in “you can simply change
your behavior” is to embrace new norms. He writes about getting used to
expensive designer shirts and high-class resorts.
I
read it as urging us to get out of a stereotype cast and to embracing new
standards. Be open to possibilities so that our mind does not shut us off when
we step on the threshold of something much better.
My
American idol, Steven Pressfield will have nothing to do with these step
improvements. He believes that all the uncertainties
and excuses are vile venom spewed by something evil he calls resistance with a
capital R. He believes that Resistance is hell bent to stop you from getting
even a level higher.
He
calls Resistance diabolical and it has every intent to kill us. His antidote
delivers a direct and definitely deadly blow to our conniving enemy. A full
speed, full power Mike Tyson punch to the head. The Grand Piano treatment. Dr
Pressfield’s prescription? Just do the work. Swoosh.
If
you are to write, go to your den, write. If you are to work out, go to the gym
and not the sofa. Set yourself a schedule and follow the schedule. He often
shares this quote by Somerset Maugham to illustrate his point, “I write only
when inspiration strikes. Fortunately, it strikes every morning at nine o’clock
sharp.”
Moving
up the list, Canfield suggests that we do not get stuck in last season’s
persona. Thinking the same thoughts, maintaining the same beliefs, speaking the
same words and doing the same things.
This
triggered a flash card in my brain. I vividly recall the evening I was lugged
into an Amway business opportunity meeting. With Resistance sucking every
ounce of focus from me, I was no better than a seated mannequin.
Every
word explaining the stack of PowerPoint was forgotten as it left the speaker’s
mouth. Except this question, “Do you really have three years of experience
or do you have one year of experience repeated three times?”
Getting
stuck is about a lot of things we tell ourself about ourself inside our head.
We have to be watchful of the language we use, especially when we make a
mistake.
Like
they say, don’t give your mistake a permanent residency. Don’t say, “I always
screw up when it comes to making a presentation,” when you know the real issues.
“I was nervous, I spoke too fast. I can overcome this by practising to pace
myself.”
The
use of self-affirmation and positive talk to save us from sliding into an
emotional recession is being carried below our conscious level. Researchers
found that this happen when our self-integrity is threatened such as when we
are criticized, when we are rejected or when power is taken away from us.
It
is one of our inborn coping strategies and part of the 16 components of our
psychological immune system. While our physical immune system protects us from
most virus and diseases, our psychological immune system attempts to shield us
from stress and burnout, and other emotional upheaval.
The
system’s potency is fuelled by our feelings of optimism, growth, control, openness
to new ideas, coherence and the adaptation to environmental changes. Embedded
in the whole scheme of things is our ability to strengthen our belief, achieve
our goals and behave appropriately. There is a self-respect component which
involves the degree of positive self- estimation, self- esteem, and temperance
when it comes to pride. *
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| Aaron Burden on Unsplash |
Through
repetition, the neural pathway to the part of our brain that is involved in
positive self-evaluation and hopefulness is strengthened. Science has proven
that we have to ability to rewire our brain through consistent reinforcement of
a thought. This is the power of self-affirmation. Scientists have MRI scans to
prove it.
Canfield
devotes six pages to creating and practising self-affirmation. He vouches that
it works for him even though he focused on numbers and things, like $
100,000.00 and a red Porsche Carrera. You can’t argue against success. He has
the bottom-line to prove it. And I assume the Carrera too.
Researchers
found that self-affirmation is most effective when linked to components that
make up our sense of personal integrity which include our roles, values, group
identities, central beliefs, goals and relationships. A red Carrera is all
right if it works for you. What makes you hot?
These
questions probably hold the key to effective self-affirmation, “What makes you
hot? What sets your hair on fire?” Time and time again, researchers asked their
subjects to write an affirmation with their most important value and to explain
its significance.
The
other part of the equation is the impact of writing versus reading. While most
self-help gurus ask you to write your affirmation and read it 3-5 times a day,
those who participate in researches were asked to write. Does writing your
affirmation three times a day beats reading a written one?
Does
hand writing make us feel more intimate to the stuff we are writing and
therefore deepening our relationship to what’s being written?
An
article at Forbes lists three benefits of writing by hand.
1.Handwriting increases
neural activity in certain sections of the brain, similar to meditation.
2.Handwriting sharpens the
brain and helps us learn.
3. Handwriting forces us
to slow down and smell the ink.
Piggybacking the third
point, the slowing down allows you to contemplate as you write, and maybe,
helps you create a deeper impression of the affirmation on your brain.
And of course, you have to
write in the affirmative. After all, you are writing a self-affirmation. You
don’t write “I don’t want to be hard and cruel,” but you should pen, “I am a
compassionate friend and colleague.”
One important thing about
writing self-affirmation that researchers found true. The affirmation you write
must be uniquely yours. You can’t get others to write for you. You can’t copy
another’s affirmation and adopt it.
There are some questions
which we will delve further another day. Can we use the one bath to attract
many birds approach in writing affirmation? The keystone idea where we write an
affirmation, true to our value and it leads us to the achievement of a few other
things important to us? Like getting the Porsche Carrera without making it the
main target?
Writing your affirmation
is one of the actions in life which makes you a sure winner. The answer to whether
you will achieve what you wrote for may take some time. While that task is
percolating in your brain, you would have unconsciously adopted a more positive
view of life. If you continue writing for two to four weeks, you should be
happier.
You take vitamins to boost
your physical immune system, how are you boosting your psychological immune
system?
Would you like to get to
where you want to be? What’s holding you back? Take an inventory. Are you still
into last season’s beliefs? What are you talking to yourself about? How are you
talking to yourself? Now, take out a pen and a notepad. Start writing your
affirmation. When you are taking a break, please send the link of this blog to
10 of your friends. As you get out of learned helplessness, I am hopeful you
will pick up the positive habit of learned helpfulness. Thank you.