Tag Archives: meaning

Stop Taking Magic Pills

Do You Take Magic Pills?

When I was a kid I used to love the Brady Bunch.

There was one episode where they were at some amusement park.

The mom told the two youngest kids they could go off on their own, but not to eat anything.

Otherwise, they would spoil their dinner!

So every opportunity they could, the kids ate. But they didn’t call it “eating.”

We’re not eating, we’re “tasting.”

We’re not eating. We’re just putting the ice cream in our mouths, and it’s going down our throats on its own.

Etc.

The truth is that any kind of meaning we put on anything is INCREDIBLY flexible.

Of course, our brains are hard wired to see danger in many places where it doesn’t exist.

Those that didn’t have this “danger around every corner” gene were removed from society.

Even if they were “wrong” one time out of a hundred, that was enough to end their genetic lineage.

Which is why some things are harder to “reframe” than others.

Like when there’s any question of social safety, your automatic brain response is “better safe than sorry.”

Only we don’t live in a society where getting any kind of social disapproval is dangerous. Sure, in our ancient history maybe, but not any more.

Which is why a lot of NLP “tricks” don’t really last. Imagine you’ve got two circuits in your brain.

One for “fear.” One for “pleasure.”

Sure, you COULD do a Swish Pattern, and practice replacing your “fear” response with “pleasure.” And it might feel cool when you do it.

But unless you drill it into your brain, several times, it won’t stick.

Imagine thinking that all you had to do to lose weight was to do ONE sit up.

Or if you were training for a marathon you only needed to go jogging ONCE.

Or if you wanted to learn how to play Moonlight Sonata, you needed to watch it on YouTube a couple of times.

But for some reason, this is how a lot of people “do” NLP.

Some kind of “once and done” magic fix.

Remember, we’re talking about rewiring ANCIENT brain patterns that’s kept us safe for MILLIONS of years.

Before we were even humans.

It’s going to take a while!

But each time is easy. Five minutes a day. A little journaling. A little daily introspection.

Make this a daily PRACTICE, rather than a magic pill, and you’ll be on the path to greatness.

And since most people are WAY too lazy to do ANYTHING other than take a magic pill, you’ll be WAY ahead of the game.

Get Started:
Frame Control

Do You Keep Falling Down?

Do You Keep Falling Over?

I was watching a friend of mine with her kid the other day.

They were having a conversation. Sort of.

My friend was talking, but the kid was only sort of talking.

Half sounds, half words. It was clear the mom didn’t really understand the words themselves, but she just kind of rolled with it.

Now, I don’t remember being that young, but I doubt the kid was too worried about making any mistakes.

If you’ve ever seen kids running on the grass, and they trip over their feet, most of the time they think it’s pretty funny.

Once I had this mountain bike. I rode it quite often, on the street, and decided to get those special pedals with special shoes so they can clip in.

First ride was going fine until I forgot I’d switched my pedals. It seems that getting out of them requires some practice.

I rode up to the top of this hill, during heavy traffic, to a big intersection. The light was red, and I coasted to a stop.

Only as I started to fall over did I realize my feet were stuck in the pedals.

And right next to me, was a car filled with cute girls.

Boy oh boy was that embarrassing!

On the other hand, it was valuable feedback. I spent the next ten minutes or so practicing how to get in and out of those pedals, in a parking lot without many cars.

I could have just as easily gone home and never ridden again.

This is the difference between how we “label” events that happen to us.

They can be valuable feedback, which can help us. (I ended up riding about 200 miles a week for a year or so after that.)

Or we can give up, thinking that “event” MEANS “failure.”

But nothing really means anything.

Sure, we have some instinctive, “go-to” meanings.

But if we depended on our instincts ALL THE TIME, we’d weigh a million pounds and we’d start bashing people in the head with rocks whenever we got into an argument.

How we label events plays a large part in how “scary” the events are, either as they happen, or as we imagine them BEFORE they happen.

If we imagine them the wrong way, we’ll IMAGINE something we call “fear” and that will keep us stuck.

But with some practice, you can learn how to imagine future events differently. So they’ll seem less scary.

You’ll be more likely to take action, which means you’ll get more good stuff.

Get Started:

Fearless