How to Build a Habit of Creating New Thoughts
Your Weekly Newsletter on Designing Healthier Minds
Photo by Maddi Bazzocco on Unsplash
Today marks the last day of 2019, and there’s no doubt that you’ve been giving some serious thought as to how to make 2020 better. You may have plans to lose weight, strengthen relationships, or save (and make) more money. And because I wish the best for you, I’m not even going to fill your mind with stats on the success of New Year’s Resolutions.
However, I’d like to give you a new way of thinking about them. Instead of fixing your mind on all the things that are outside of you, why not focus on the controllables?
Rather than focusing on arbitrary goals, we try to focus 100% of our energy on our commitments and controllables.
By focusing on controllables, you naturally close the gap between where you are and where you want to be. By focusing on outcome-based goals that are outside of your control, you increase pressure, decrease confidence, and make yourself and those you lead miserable in the process.
Burn Your Goals by Joshua Medcalf and Jamie Gilbert
Losing weight? Not a controllable.
Strengthen relationships? Not a controllable.
Even your plan to save and make more money is not a controllable.
The only thing you can control is what you do — the actions you take. The habits you build.
And since we are all about designing healthier minds, what better habit to build going into 2020 than one that helps you change the way you think?
Dr. Caroline Leaf is a cognitive neuroscientist and author who teaches that our thoughts, which are real things that take up physical, mental real estate in our minds, affect our brains. And that through intentional effort we can change toxic patterns of thinking and replace them with healthier ones.
Thoughts are like trees – as you are thinking you are changing, adding and removing branches
Dr. Caroline Leaf
Photo by Meriç Dağlı on Unsplash
In her book Switch on Your Brain, after laying out the scientific research she has done on how our thoughts affect our brain and body, she goes on to show you how to change your brain by changing your thoughts.
The 21 Day Brain Detox is her signature process for taking what she calls toxic thoughts and replacing them with healthy thoughts. While I love the idea of calling it a Brain Detox, I don’t care for labeling thoughts as toxic or negative. Thoughts just are. And the more beneficial way of investigating your thinking is to ask yourself, “Does this thought serve me?” So instead of referring to thoughts that we want to change as toxic, I’ll go on to refer to them as thoughts that either serve you or thoughts that don’t.
The 21 Day Brain Detox
The five steps of the 21 Day Brain Detox are:
1. Gather – take note of what’s going on in your mind and how your thoughts are serving you. What are your predominant thoughts, and how do they make you feel? To borrow a favorite question from Byron Katie: Who would you be without this thought?
2. Focused Reflection – think about the new thought that will serve you better. Imagine yourself becoming the person you want to be by replacing the old thought with the new thought.
3. Write – or draw things that fuel this new thought. Journal, write quotes or scriptures, draw images of this new thought.
4. Revisit – plan for how you will incorporate the new thought into your life. What are you going to do today to weave this thought into your life? Some examples include listening to what you say and how you say it, practicing awareness of what you are thinking, and finding time alone just for thinking.
5. Active Reach – practice your new thought. Set the alarm on your phone to practice the plan from step 4 at least seven times throughout the day.
In five short steps and as little as 7-10 minutes a day, you can build a habit of thinking thoughts that serve you better. That’s all, for just 21 days. Well, 63 days. Even though Leaf’s process is called the 21 Day Brain Detox, it’s three cycles of 21 days. So, if you were to begin tomorrow, January 1, 2020, you would have changed your first thought by March 4, 2020. And since this is a leap year, giving you a freebie day to do some new things in your life, you could by this time next year have replaced about five thoughts that weren’t working for you.
Why would you want to invest your precious time doing this?
I’m not a superfan of the New Thought Movement or some of the thinking around using your thoughts to manifest things (more on that in a future newsletter). What I can agree on, as evidenced in my own life, is that the way you think about things can influence the way you feel about yourself. And when you’re not feeling too hot about yourself, you’re less likely to take action and do the things you need to do to change your situation.
So, imagine with me if you will, the possibilities if you changed the way you thought in just five areas. How different would things be for you? How much better might you feel about yourself? All with an investment of 7-10 minutes a day. That’s all.
In 2020, you get to decide how to spend 8,784 hours, why not commit to spending just 61 of those hours creating thoughts that serve you better.
How to Try This On
Using the 5-step process of the 21 Day Brain Detox, you will:
1. Start with one thought that you want to replace.
2. For 63 days (three cycles of 21 days) work with this one thought using the five steps of the Brain Detox: gather (1-2 minutes), focused reflection (1-2 minutes), write (2-3 minutes), revisit (1-2 minutes), and active reach (1-2 minutes, at least seven times a day). Dr. Leaf explains in the book that the first 21 days are forming the thought in your long-term memory while the remaining two cycles work to build the new thought into a habit.
3. At the end of 63 days, pick another thought to redesign so that it works better for you.
Leaf has an app that will hold your hand through this entire process if you don’t mind shelling out $70 a year to use it. But might I suggest another option that will allow you to spend that $70 on something or someone else?
There’s an app that I use called Remente, where you can track your commitments digital style. I use the free option that will allow you to set three commitments along with milestones for each. Why not load this as a commitment in Remente, list out the steps above and add a completion date for your first cycle? Every day at a time you set, you’ll receive a notification from the app, reminding you to take steps on your commitment. I recommend that you leave your paper and pencil out the night before and to do your Brain Detox first thing in the morning as part of your getting ready routine.
Using Remente to track commitments is highly rewarding because you can see how many times you’ve taken action, and you can see how close you are to completing your commitments. My favorite part about the app is that each night it checks in with you and asks you to rate your mood and make a little note about your day. Also, at the end of the week, you’ll get an Insights Report that will show you your overall mood for the week and what you accomplished. It’s fantastic for keeping those new habits you want to build right in front of you, which is shown to increase your chances of success.
Close the gap between where you are and where you want to be by building a habit of creating thoughts that serve you better. And you don’t have to do it alone; I’ll be right there alongside you. So don’t wait, start today!
One of the thoughts that I hold that is no longer serving me is: There are already so many people doing what I want to do so why bother? The compilation of speeches given by Oprah Winfrey in this video is a goldmine for finding replacement thoughts for my old one. I’m reminded every time I watch it that there is no one else in creation like me and no one else can do what I was put here to do like I can do it.
To find out more about Dr. Caroline Leaf’s work, check out her interview with Steven Furtick where she discusses detoxing the mind.