It's All in How you Mix your Thinking

Written by Julie Silfverberg

Yum yum, perfectly cooked

Thinking is like a bit like writing; it is a process. A lot depends on the order in which you do things either on the page or in your head. So if you were to write, “The dog bit the man” I suspect you would expect your reader to have a different experience, than if you wrote, “The man bit the dog” even though you have used the same words and only lightly changed the order. So as you can see the order and sequence is important. 

Also if you were to add colour to your to writing by using adverbs and adjectives – you do remember those, don’t you – by saying “The big black dog charged the man and grabbed him by the arm…?” now you have even more of a response from the reader, possibly even a slight quickening of the heart rate (an unconscious physiological response) and a more detailed picture in the mind’s eye.  

In your mind you can also adjust the quality of your thinking by adding or removing colour or other details. Now that may strike you as a bit odd. But just think about it for a minute – let’s pretend you have decided to buy a new barbeque and you want to get a gas barbeque but definitely not a charcoal one because you think they are slow, smoky and often don’t deliver a great result. As you think about it now, notice the pictures you are making inside your head....I suspect the picture of the food from the gas barbeque looks bright, big and maybe even a movie, in other words attractive, while the food from the charcoal one looks less appetising. Or think about ordering food in a restaurant, you possibly have a picture in mind of what the food will look and taste like. Now of course if the served food does not match your imagined picture - depending on the qualities of your reference pictures - you will be either disappointed or delighted. Of course this may be just my mind’s eye talking. 

You might be thinking, so what? Just think about it, as you discover you can change the picture qualities in your mind’s eye you can learn how to change your motivation, make your goals more compelling and generally make it easier for yourself and others to achieve their goals and ambitions. So as you think about a future event now and if you discover you are feeling a bit unsure about it, just ask yourself are you seeing it completing the way you want it i.e. successfully? If not change your outcome picture until you are seeing the best result for you and notice how it feels. You might find any anxiety you had been experiencing simply dissolves and you have positive anticipation now.

Experiment Alert :-)
As you choose to begin noticing your anticipatory pictures more I would love to hear what you discover, so do comment below.

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