How To Reprogram Your Mind For Success

0:07Welcome to today's episode of the Mindset Mentor Podcast. I am your host, Rob Dial. If you have not yet done so, hit that subscribe button so that you never miss another podcast episode. And if you're out there and you love this podcast, please do me a favor, give us a rating and review however you listen to us. The more positive rating reviews that we get on each platform, the more that those platforms actually show this podcast to people who have never listened to it before, and it allows us to be able to grow. Today, we're gonna be talking about how to reprogram your mind for the success that you want using psychology and science as well.

0:40Now, you are here because you understand that if you want your life to be different, you have to change. And the key to change and achieving the success that you want in any area of your life comes down to the ability to change your mind, to reprogram your mind to create the life that you want. Your thoughts, your habits, and your beliefs are the driving forces behind all of your actions. Let me say that again. Your thoughts, your habits, and your beliefs are the driving forces behind your actions, which in turn is going to determine your life, your outcomes, your success, or lack of success. So by understanding the psychology behind this and the science behind the mental reprogramming, what we can do is we can kind of take charge of our own lives so that our future doesn't look like our past does.

1:33Because you're not here because you want the same future that you've had in the past. You don't want them to be identical. You're here because you want them to be different. And if things are going to be different, you have to be different. And the biggest piece of being different is reprogramming your mind. It sounds kind of weird and out there to say reprogram as if you're a computer, but in turn, as we start to go through this, you'll actually really see the ways to reprogram yourself. So we're going to really explore how to reprogram your mind for success using really proven psychological techniques in science because I'm a very skeptical person.

2:07And I know a lot of you listening are skeptical as well. That's probably what you like about listening to this show. That's probably why you listen to me because we're probably both skeptics in a little ways. So I'm going to show you through science and psychology exactly how to reprogram and change your mind, change the structure of your brain by doing these things. So let's dive into it. before we talk about how to change the mind, you have to really understand the mind. Okay, before we talk about how to reprogram, what is this thing we're trying to reprogram? We got to understand how the mind works itself.

2:40And so the mind really consists of two parts, right? There's the conscious mind and there is the subconscious mind. Now, other people would say there's also the super conscious, which is like your connection to God or source or all that stuff. We're not going to talk about the super conscious, which is could be your higher self. We're going to talk about the conscious mind, we're going to talk about the subconscious mind, right? The conscious mind is responsible for our day-to-day thoughts and decisions and actions while the subconscious mind stores memories, it stores your habits, it stores your beliefs, and will actually bring up automatic thoughts without you even having to think about it.

3:16So let's dive into them both real quick so you can understand them, right? So we have the conscious mind. The conscious mind is known as your quote unquote thinking mind, right? So as you're listening to me, as a thought is in your head and you're like, okay, what is conscious subconscious? That right there is your conscious mind coming up and speaking. It's where we process most of our information and we make decisions from and it accounts for roughly 5 % of our cognitive activities. That's really interesting, isn't it? Because you might be saying, hold on, how's it only responsible for 5 %? Like I know all of my thoughts.

3:51I know all the things that I'm really focusing on throughout the day, that I'm thinking throughout the day. But this is why we often struggle when we're attempting to change our habits is because we think we can just change our conscious mind, which is 5 % of the stuff that we think about, but we're not actually changing our subconscious mind. I know there's been times before where you probably sat down, you decided to set some goals, you wrote your goals down, you're like, this is exciting, I'm super excited about it, and that's your conscious mind that's excited about it. And then there's a part of you that's in the background that's like, yeah, but that's not possible, or that's going to be hard, or we can't do that, or you're going to have to change a lot.

4:26And then it's going to give you fears and limiting beliefs, and it's not going to allow you to be able to change. And so the way I remember reading this in a book back in 2009, and they were saying the way to think of your conscious and your subconscious mind visibly to understand the power of both of them is if you were to be able to hold your conscious mind, it's like the size of a golf ball, right? And so you have a golf ball in one hand. And in the other hand, you have your subconscious mind, which is the size of a basketball. Now, which one do you think is more powerful? It's going to be the one that's larger, right?

5:02And so we have to realize that our conscious mind, our thinking of, oh man, I need to go to the bathroom. Oh, I need to call back Sally. Oh, I need to do this. It's just basically your conscious mind. Our conscious mind can only handle so much at once. So if you want real lasting change, what you got to dive into is a subconscious mind. That's 95%. Because on the subconscious mind, on the other hand, it's responsible for approximately 95 % of our mental activities. And it operates automatically, storing our beliefs, storing our habits, storing our memories. And most importantly, it's responsible for regulating our emotions and carrying out the majority of our daily tasks.

5:39And since our subconscious mind has such a significant impact on our lives, it's really crucial to focus on reprogramming that part of our brain in order to get lasting change, which is what I'm going to give you techniques for today is how to reprogram the subconscious mind. Because your conscious mind wants to do better. Your conscious mind wants a different life. Your conscious mind wants to be successful, wants to be a great parent, wants to go make a million dollars. But why the fuck aren't we doing it? Oh, because it's like David and Goliath here, right? And so it's like this huge Goliath is like, you got to change me before anything else.

6:13And so really, it's crucial to focus on reprogramming the subconscious. So to understand it, there's millions of bits of information, of processing that happens in your brain every single second. And that is below your conscious thought. Below conscious is subconscious. Subconscious, right? So that's below your conscious thoughts. So you're not necessarily thinking about them all the time. It's your brain reacting to certain things immediately. It's your brain reacting to certain situations immediately. And sometimes, you know you've done this before. I've done this many times. Sometimes your brain, many times, your brain will react to a person or it will react to a location or it will react to even like a smell.

7:00And you don't even notice it until after it happens. So you might be, you know, in a certain location. You might be walking and it might be kind of getting dark and you hear a sound and the sound triggers a part of you and your brain to think danger and your body immediately goes to fight or flight. That wasn't a conscious thought of, oh my gosh, there might be danger behind me. It's like an immediate thing that comes in. Now, if that can happen just from the thought of hearing a sound, is it possible that it's happening all day long for many different things that can trigger us for good or trigger us for bad?

7:36Absolutely. 100%. Sometimes you can meet somebody that you're just like, I don't know. I just don't connect to this person. They don't feel right. It doesn't seem right. And it might not be their fault, but it could be that they remind you of someone else and your subconscious is automatically reacting to them because it remembers what happened last time that you were around the other person that it reminds you of. So your subconscious reacts. Your conscious mind usually catches up later on down the road. And so like, for instance, you might be like, well, like, what does that mean? It's processing millions of bits of information per second, right?

8:12So like, I'm going to say, hey, focus on your right thumb right now. Now you can focus on your right thumb, but were you focusing on your right thumb before? No, you probably weren't. Does that mean that there was no input coming from your right thumb before? No, there was definitely input coming from your right thumb. It's just that your subconscious was paying attention to it. your conscious mind was paying attention to, you know, me and what I'm saying, or it was paying attention to the road because you're driving or pay attention to you picking up the weights because you're at the gym right now.

8:41And so your brain was processing the information coming from your right thumb, but it was filtering it out because you were thinking of something else. And so really what it comes down to is, you know, if I say, hey, focus on your butt that's in the chair right now, now you're feeling it. Focus on the clothes that are on your skin and the way that it feels. Focus on the way that the room feels and the air conditioning that's circling around. Or focus on the sun that's on your skin if you're outside. Right? Your brain's constantly processing all this stuff. But really what it comes down to is, are you paying attention to it?

9:13Usually we're not. And so what we have to start diving into is being able to change our brain to filter out the things we want it to filter out and not pay attention to those things, things we might be fearful of or limiting beliefs, and filter in the things that we do want it to pay attention to. And so that comes down to something called neuroplasticity. If you've been listening to this podcast for years, you've heard me talk about neuroplasticity many times. If this is your first episode, neuroplasticity is simple in describing what it is. Neuroscience has proven that our brains are not hardwired.

9:46They have the ability to change and adapt to circumstances, and that's known as neuroplasticity. Like your brain is like plastic. It can be molded. It means basically, and the The simplest way of saying it is that our brains can form new connections and reorganize existing ones. And that allows us to learn new skills, to change our habits, even recover from brain injuries. And if we can change our brains through neuroplasticity, through the reprogramming I'm going to talk to you about, if we can change our brains, then can we rewire our brains for success? We sure can. and we just need to be very clear on what thoughts, behaviors, habits need to change in order for us to change ourselves and eventually change our lives.

10:29And so if you just think that things are magically going to change because you know about the subconscious and the conscious mind, and now you know about neuroplasticity, nothing's going to change, right? We need to be very clear on what thoughts, what behaviors, what habits, all of that stuff that need to change in order for us to change ourselves more than anything else, and then eventually change our lives after that. So by being consistent, because repetition is a mother of skill, by being persistent and consistent with what I'm about to teach you and practicing these patterns over and over and over again, your brain will eventually start to adapt them as a new norm.

11:01Okay. So let's talk about a couple different techniques for reprogramming your mind. So the first one is something called cognitive restructuring. Okay. Cognitive restructuring is a technique that is used in cognitive behavioral therapy. and what it involves is identifying and replacing the irrational or negative thought with the thought that you want. Okay, so the same way that your subconscious mind will immediately react and then your conscious mind will catch up to it, you have to identify the thoughts that come up that maybe your subconscious threw in there. And as your conscious mind catches up to it and says, oh, I don't really like that thought, then you replace it with the thought that you want.

11:40And so the process really helps people recognize the impact that your thoughts and the thought patterns that you have and how they affect your emotions and how they affect your behavior. And really what it comes down to is giving you the tools necessary to change and to challenge the patterns that you might have that you want to get rid of. And there's been a bunch of studies that have proven how cognitive restructuring actually works. but really what they've done is they've demonstrated the effectiveness of cognitive restructuring in treating a variety of psychological disorders. So they've actually used cognitive, if we can use this to use it on depression and anxiety and obsessive compulsive disorder, can we change it based off of our negative thoughts?

12:26Yeah, we can use it to change our negative thoughts. And so if it's been used to treat depression, if it's been used to treat OCD. It can also be used to change your negative belief patterns or your fears into something completely different. And so by practicing the cognitive restructuring, you can reprogram your mind to think more positively or to think that what it is that you want, you are actually going to get versus being such a cynic and not believing that you can do whatever it is that you want, or not being so negative to yourself, or not speaking so down to yourself. And when you start to think more positive, you start to change the thoughts that you need, you get rid of the thoughts that you were thinking, you start replacing them with the thoughts that you want, you get a greater sense of self-belief.

13:12And in turn, success can come from that. And so the thing I always say is you can't control your first thought, but you can always control your second thought, right? You know, your first thought usually just pops in from your subconscious and your body reacts to it. And then your brain, you know, your conscious mind kind of catches up to it. And so your second thought, your first thought usually comes from the subconscious. Your second thought requires conscious decision making from you. I noticed that I just said this to myself. I noticed that I said this. Now I need to change it to something that I want.

13:40So like a good example would be like, let's say that you're wanting to grow a business. And the first thing that you're thinking to yourself, maybe you just started your business and you're doing decently well and starting to go kind of well, but it's starting to feel uncomfortable because you're not used to doing so well. And you're like, man, I want to grow to this number per month. And you're like, yeah, but it's going to be real hard because I fuck everything up. Right. And you start to feel down on yourself. Usually that's like a subconscious thought from childhood, being down on yourself in some sort of way.

14:10And what you do is you think to yourself, I screw everything up. Okay. Okay. So that thought just popped into my head. That's really interesting, automatic thought. And you take yourself out of your head and you look at it as if like you are another person and looking at your thought. And you think to yourself, is that thought going to support me in growing my business to a million dollars a month? Nope, probably not. If I'm thinking to myself, I screw everything up, that's not going to support me in getting to a million dollars a month. No, it's not going to. So what I want to do is I want to replace that thought with three pieces of data that show to me that I am not a failure.

14:47So if I'm thinking to myself, I'm a failure, I screw everything up, and that's the automatic thing that comes out of my subconscious, I've now become aware of it now what I want to do is I want to bring three pieces of data Not like hey, but don't worry rob. You're not a failure. You're awesome, right? Because then usually bs meter goes off And we don't pay attention to it So you replace it with three pieces of data that show that you're not a failure, you know, oh what happened? Okay I graduated one of the top people in my high school. Okay, that shows i'm not a failure You know, I set a goal a couple years ago to lose 20 pounds and I did it I'm an incredible father.

15:19Okay, right there. Those are three pieces of data that show that I am not a fuck up, that go against, and I'm restructuring, goes against the automatic thought, and I'm proving my automatic thought false. That's what cognitive restructuring looks like. And so you identify your bad habits, and when they come up, you replace them. You know, if you want a beautiful garden, and you're looking at the garden, and weeds are always going to come up in any garden at some point in time, you have to pull out the weeds and plant the seeds that you want. And really, that's what it comes down to. Pull the weeds and plant the seeds.

15:52Pull the weeds and plant the seeds. And this is a constant thing you're going to have to be doing for a really long time. So that's the first thing. The second thing you want to do is visualization. Let's be real. Visualization seems corny. You know, you close your eyes and think about what it would feel like to achieve and to get your goals. And it's like, okay, hippie, whatever, dude. But this stuff actually really works. And so So visualizations are really powerful tool that can be used to reprogram your subconscious mind because when you're closing your eyes, especially if you do it early in the morning, when your subconscious mind is still kind of on a lot from, you know, it's usually just your subconscious mind when you're asleep.

16:28If you do it really early in the morning, like within 15 minutes of waking up, it can be a really powerful tool used to reprogram your subconscious mind. And once again, that's 95 % of your thoughts and feelings. So what it involves is creating mental images of desired outcomes, the goals, the situations, what you want your life to look like. But the important part of visualization is you first have to know what it is that you want so that therefore you can go and visualize it. So the example that I was given is my favorite example of how I use visualization is back in 2017, my number one goal for 2017 was to move to Italy with my girlfriend at the time, who's now my wife, and move to Italy and be there for six months.

17:07And the goal was I wrote it everywhere. I put it on my mirror. I put it on the back of my phone background. I put it on my computer background. It was to move to Italy by July 1st, 2017. And I would wake up every single morning. Then I would visualize what it would be like to be walking the streets of Rome, to be able to walk and go get a morning coffee and to smell the coffee and to sit in the sun in a neighborhood that's in Rome called Tristevery and what it would look like and what it would feel like. and I tried to bring all of my senses in. And I visualized it every morning, every morning, every morning, every morning, every morning.

17:40And I went from massive doubt to like, I don't think I'm gonna be able to make this happen to literally leaving and getting there by June 1st, which was a month earlier than we planned because I was so excited and I worked so hard because I woke up every morning attached to my goal, got myself excited about my goal. And then it made me work harder towards my goal every single day. And so can you visualize the house that you want on the beach? you know traveling to Rome with your children and touring the Colosseum and what that would look like and you know by visualizing ourselves achieving our goals what we're doing is kind of brainwashing ourselves to actually believe that success is possible which in turn increases your motivation and your commitment to the goals that you have because all too often we just simply don't believe that we can do it like we want to but we don't fully believe we can do it and so you're kind of brainwashing yourself to believing that it's possible and getting you excited to do it.

18:33And there's been tons of studies that have shown that this works. There was a study that was done in the Journal of Applied Sports Psychology that found that athletes, specifically golfers, who practice visualization techniques experience significant improvements in the performance. And so what they did was they had them before they would go out and do a round of golf as a pre-performance routine, they had them sit down and visualize for 15 to 20 minutes that they would make every single putt and what it would feel like to make the first putt on, you know, T-box one, and then, excuse me, on the green one, two, three, four, five, and actually visualize it.

19:07And what's crazy about it is they had them visualize making the putt and all of them who visualized making the putts had the greatest improvement in their putting. That's kind of weird how that happens, huh? So that's the next one. And the last one we're going to talk about is affirmations. Affirmations also seem corny and woo-woo-y, but affirmations are just basically positive statements that you're going to repeat to yourself over and over and over again that help you reshape your subconscious beliefs about yourself. I always recommend that you have one or two very specific affirmations about yourself and what it is that you're creating in your life.

19:42And what you do is you habit stack them. You brush your teeth in the morning. You brush your teeth in the evening. As soon as you get done brushing your teeth, immediately do your affirmations and do them 10, 15, 20, 30 times. And there's a ton of research that show that affirmations, what they lead to is improvements in self-esteem. They reduce stress and your overall well-being as well. So they found this in many different studies and journals that they've had, but the Journal of Psychological Science actually found out that people who engaged in self-affirmation activities actually increased activity in the regions of the brain that are associated with self-referential processing.

20:18What the hell does that mean? I know I had to Google as well. Self-referential processing means thinking of yourself versus thinking of the outside world. So they had increased blood flow to the parts of the brain which make you think of yourself and the way that you evaluate yourself in the world, which made it easier to start changing their brain to be positive in the way that they thought about themselves. So research has shown over and over again that affirmations can have a really, really big impact on your mental state, but also contribute to a more positive outlook in your life. So that's how you brainwash yourself to be more positive.

20:52So it's real simple if you think about it. Essentially, cognitive restructuring, visualization, and affirmations are the way for you to brainwash yourself. Not me. I'm not brainwashing you. The news isn't brainwashing you. Your mom, your dad, the outside world is not brainwashing you because you were brainwashed coming up. We all have been brainwashed by everything that's ever happened to us. But now you get to take control. You need to step into the driver's seat and take control of your own brainwashing. And that's what you can do. And that's how you reprogram your mind to be successful by using cognitive restructuring, by using visualization, and by using affirmation.

21:28So that's what I got for you for today's episode. If you love this episode, please go ahead and share it on your Instagram stories and tag me at RobDialJr, R-O-B-D-I-A-L-J-R. Reach out, say hi. Love to chat with you on Instagram as well. And if you're out there and you want to get some extra tips and tricks to improve yourself, if you go to mindsetmentorjournal.com right now, it is absolutely free. You can download my free journaling lesson, my video on how to actually get better at journaling. And then I'll actually give you 30 free journaling prompts as well. So once again, if you want that for free, it is mindsetmentorjournal.com.

22:03And with that, I'm gonna leave you the same way I leave you every single episode. Make it your mission, make someone else's day better. I appreciate you. And I hope that you have an amazing day.