Part of my job as a Life Coach, is to facilitate workshops and teach. I am currently teaching Cognitive Behavorial classes to the probation population. Cognitive research shows that in studies with prisoners, when you change your thoughts, you change your behavior.
How does it work? Cognitive means, thinking, and we are Restructuring what goes in to the thinking. Cognitive Restructuring involves training the brain to change the way it thinks. The first thing you have to do is identify what behavior it is that you want to change, identify the thoughts that surround that behavior, identify what behavior you wan to replace, change your perception about how you think about that behavior, identify the new thought, practice it and then put itinto action steps. This sounds like a lot but it actually works. It takes 30 days to form a habit. So we have the client practice this new thought for 30 days, live it, breathe it, sleep it etc. until it becomes a “habit” like brushing your teeth, etc. When clients have actually tried this cognitive restructuring approach, they are amazed at how it works.
It is a simple matter of mind over matter. What you feed your brain, thoughts, comes out in behavior. If you feed it negative thoughts, negative behavior follows, if you feed it positive thoughts, positive behavior follows. Your brain can not think negative thoughts and have positive behavior. We are not wired like that. This process does take a commitment on the clients part. I say that if your reality pain is worse than the new pain, (that of change) then you will be willing to make this commitment and practice the new thoughts. After a while you begin to surround yourself with positive people who have positive behavior. Positive people do not want to be around negative people.
So the next time you are tired of getting the consequences from your negative behavior, give Cognitive Restructuring a try. You will be glad you did.