Does Positive Thinking Work?
Not for 95% of the people who use it to try to change their behavior.

Positive thinking does not move mountains. Dynamite and bulldozers do! Unless, of course, you’re one of those lucky few who are hardwired in such a way that you can just think positive thoughts and changes occur. If it were that easy there would be no need for the hundreds of new books and CDs on self-help to be written and recorded each year.

Without a constructive process added to positive thinking it remains only wishful thinking.

The Conscious Mind, Why do They Want to Bypass It?
When I was much younger I believed the same thing that the conscious mind, critical mind or analytical mind needed to be bypassed in order to get the suggestions or positive thoughts to the subconscious mind.

But then, I realized that the conscious mind, using its tools of logic and reasoning, is what brings us to the conclusion that we need to learn a process to help us change something within us. So why bypass something that is definitely trying to help you?

I then began developing my left-right brain learning model which helps my clients establish harmony between their logic and reasoning conscious mind along with their basic instincts in the subconscious mind.

How are Habits Created?
Whether good or bad, habits are learned behavior, most of which is learned in the first few years of life. As children, we are like a sponge with feet, walking around soaking up everything our five senses come in contact with, including our dreams. The conscious mind, in the beginning, is not developed yet, so you have no filtering mechanism to prevent the negatives from becoming established.

All this information is then stored in your subconscious whether it is positive or negative and is affected by the laws of the mind, the Law of Association, the Law of Repetition and the Law of Reverse Action to name a few. By the way, The Law of Reverse Action means, every time you try hard to change something about yourself, the harder and more difficult it becomes.

Why is it So Hard to Change Habits?
The big problem is that your subconscious only identifies with owning the habit, and not whether it’s good or bad for you. It doesn’t have the capability of using reason or logic. Add to that, the subconscious mind retains the mentality of a young child functioning on raw instincts. It’s the same basic instincts a child needs to rely on to survive until the logic and reasoning conscious mind is developed.

Try thinking of the subconscious as a “stubborn little child” that is 10 times bigger and more powerful than your conscious logic and reasoning mind. This “child” is sitting on the floor surrounded by all your habits, good or bad, which take the shape of stuffed animals. Just try to force it to give up one of the habits (stuffed animals). Many have tried and many have failed.

The Difference Between a Behavior & Habit?
Habits are learned behavior. You have a habit of being confident. And the habit of being confident, like any habit, can have sub-categories.  Your confidence is:
High at your job
Low in personal relationships
Medium as an athlete
Low as an artist
High as a speaker in front of groups.

What has been learned can be re-learned if you use the same language that created the behavior in the first place.

Not everyone learns the same way.

So Many Methods, How do I Pick the Right One?
It can be overwhelming at times, but this is exactly what your conscious mind is structured to do, to apply logic and reasoning in order for you to discover what you feel most comfortable with.

But most importantly, does it sound like a magic pill or a process that with some effort and commitment on your part would be something you could use to accomplish your goals?

Early in my career, I realized that every approach can help someone. In the classes I taught for MDs, Psychologists, and therapists of all kinds I would always include the following:

“I can put my finger in my ear, and tell a group of people that when I pull it out, they will feel much better and happier.” And every time, there will be a few who respond positively depending on the type of group.

The point? Every self-help method will help someone. But are they one of the “few” and will the remedy last?

While my approach isn’t as simple as a finger in my ear, it is easy to understand, but also takes some time and commitment. The first thing you need to do is test yourself to discover your type of learning process, so you and I can fit the suggestions and thought process to your unique learning behavior. The test is free on this site.

Nothing Works For Me, Why?
Again, you can’t use a “One Size Fits All Approach”.

Not everybody learned the different aspects of their behavior the same way, just as everyone cannot learn to improve upon a good habit or remove a bad habit the same way. You must fit what you want to teach the mind into how an individual’s mind learns. Two examples:

1 – if someone learns more through what they see than what they hear, then wouldn’t it be more productive to show them pictures of what you want to teach them or have them imagine images, rather than teaching them everything verbally?

2 – if someone learns more by the literal content of your message, then wouldn’t it be more productive to speak to them in a direct manner rather than implying what they should learn?

It’s all about fitting what you’re teaching someone to their type of suggestibility/learning behavior. It’s also about a balance between the left and right brain. Everyone else seems to miss that. Both hemispheres of the brain are important and when they work together you get the greatest benefit.

What Would be The #1 Cause of Stress?
Overload!!! Your mind can only handle so many message units per second. Let’s just say it’s 1,000. And, everything you come into contact with through your five senses is sending dozens of message units. And you aren’t even aware of most of them: your body’s basic functioning mechanisms: heart, lungs, etc., the clothes you’re wearing – how they feel on your body, all the sounds near and far, all your thoughts, everything you come in contact with.

Now if you can only handle 1,000 messages per second, but you are taking in 1,500, 2,000, or 5,000, your subconscious takes over and prepares you for fight or flight. Modern-day fight or flight is far different from prehistoric times when the caveman wrestled with survival, for example. Today, you can’t physically fight the overload and you can’t physically run away from your overload, because it’s inside your head. So, you hold that overload inside and the fight turns to anxiety while the flight turns to depression.

Stress must be dealt with on both a conscious and subconscious level!

Why Do Fears Become Overwhelming?
Fear is not a bad thing. In the right dose, it keeps us safe. We don’t drive too fast; we don’t step too close to the edge of a cliff and fall off. Fear keeps us on our toes.

There are two categories of fear: general fear and phobias.

Fear is a natural response to situations, that, as I explained above can keep us safe. Phobias on the other hand are unrealistic fears. A normal fear of fire, for example, is good. But thinking everything you touch is going to give you a horrible germ that will kill you is not.

Someone can have a fear of flying and never have had a real-life experience that was frightening in any way regarding flying. But they could have had a dream, possibly from watching a TV show earlier that night, that had something to do with a plane crash. The dream was very frightening. They woke up having no memory of the dream but continued feeling fear. So now when they come into a situation that deals with flying they feel that emotional trauma but don’t know why.

To be successful in changing behavior for the better, you must utilize the logic and reasoning of the conscious mind, with the very powerful instincts of the subconscious mind.