Key Points
- Remember that the Subconscious handles everything that is automatic for us, and that includes our habits and attitudes, both of which rely heavily on our past experiences. Most of our habits, and especially our attitudes, have been put into our Subconscious by accident, not by intent.
- In order to create a habit, we start out on the Conscious level. We perform an action, over and over, until we are comfortable with knowing how to do it. Then we turn the action over to the Subconscious to handle every time the need arises.
- Our brains love habits, as they are great laborsaving devices. Once the neural pathways are set, the brain can use the energy in other places and on other things. We can be incredibly efficient using our habits. We get in a state of flow and have our work, our life, down pat. The downside is that we only get the results we have always gotten because of this mindless efficiency. Our habits now become traps, and we get stuck. We reject anything that gets in the way of this habitual flow. We want to open our minds to new possibilities, to create new futures, so we want to become mindful and purposeful in our habits.
- Attitudes form our emotional history and are built based on how we felt about our experiences. Positive or negative, helpful or not, our attitudes were built in the moment of the experience. The stronger the emotion, the stronger the neural pathway. And every time we revisit the memory, we reinforce the attitude.
- Attitudes are simply the way we lean, in relation to some stimulus. We either lean toward something, like a favorite food or music, and we call that a positive attitude. When we lean away from something, that is called a negative attitude. Positive is not good and negative is not bad; they are simply the direction we are leaning.
- Attitudes determine what we let ourselves do and where we let ourselves go. However, attitudes don’t show up until we set some kind of goal. Our goals become a fixed point in the future, and we either lean toward them or away. Leaning away causes procrastination and creative avoidance. Leaning toward causes energy and creativity to achieve the goal.
- Our habits, and especially our attitudes, are the reflections of our beliefs about ourselves and our abilities. Remember self-efficacy? Here is where that comes into play. Habits and attitudes are second nature, which means that they were learned. We weren’t born with them. And if something is learned, it can be unlearned. Because our habits and attitudes were learned in the first place, new habits and attitudes can be learned, as well.
- Our comfort zones are defined by our habits and attitudes, and our beliefs about who we are – our self-image. We can act a little better or a little worse that we know we are, but as long as we are acting close to our self-image, we are in our comfort zone. The challenge with our comfort zones is that they keep us from growing. We are stuck, unless we can expand them.
- When we try to grow bigger than our comfort zones, we get tense, like a stretched rubber band or elastic. All we want to do is eliminate the tension, and we can do it in one of two ways: move to the new picture or hurry back to the old one. We naturally seek the familiar, so in order to grow, we want to make the new picture more familiar than the old one we’ve been living for so long.
- Not all of our habits, attitudes or comfort zones are bad for us. Some keep us safe and out of trouble. We want to take time to analyze which habits and attitudes are helping us, and which ones are getting in the way of us becoming “more” than we were yesterday.
Key Concepts
- Attitude(s) – a consciously held belief or opinion that causes to either lean toward a thing or situation (positive attitude), or away from it (negative attitude). Attitudes can be thought of as automatic responses, stored in the Subconscious.
- Comfort Zone(s) – a limited area of perception and association where the individual or group can function without fear or stress; a defined physical or psychological area in which we feel at ease, with our anxiety under control.
- Current Reality – all that forms an important and vital part of what an individual believes to be real, at the moment.
- Habit(s) - a learned act or behavior that has become, through repetition, automatic, fixed and easily carried out.
- Mindful Efficiency – acting and being with purpose; efficient.
- Mindless Efficiency – going about one’s day and activities without serious thought or consideration; acting as if on auto-pilot.
- Self-Regulation – following an internal standard of action or behavior.
Application & Review Questions
Download the interactive PDF and save to your hard drive. Then, take time to reflect on the Application & Review Questions and answer them in relation to the concepts presented apply to your own life.
(See downloads)
Three Facets to Our Comfort Zones
As we look at our comfort zones, with an eye toward expanding them, we can break them down into three basic facets: the Routine zone, the Risk zone, and the Discomfort zone. Each has its own picture and emotional responses and is activated by the situation at hand.
- The Routine Zone is where we spend most of our time. We are in control, and this zone guides our daily routines: our morning beverage of choice, pizza on Wednesday nights and our favorite sports on the weekends; in short, our habits. Unfortunately, the things that make us comfortable can also be the things that keep us from growing. Our beliefs don’t match these next two zones, causing disharmony and we don’t move forward.
- The Risk Zone sits fairly close to our Routine Zone, as it is somewhat comfortable. The risk is that we might need to try some new things in order to make it more comfortable. Think of some exotic food, something totally unfamiliar. We feel doubt, skepticism, and uncertainty which automatically creates resistance to trying this foodstuff. However, we understand that sometimes we need to act within this zone, as there are some things we cannot avoid, like meeting new people or making presentations. It’s still uncomfortable, but we do them because we have enough reasons to take action – like getting that promotion at work.
- The Discomfort Zone lies beyond the Risk Zone and it is here that we find all those things we haven’t mastered yet. We can stare at this zone from afar, hoping to eventually gain the skills, knowledge and experience required, but we cannot stay in this zone for extended periods of time. We simply do not yet have the mindset to take the knowledge and experience to move Discomfort situations to the Routine Zone. There is too much resistance, and we self sabotage because we don’t believe we belong here, quickly retreating to our Routine Zone.
Are we trapped in these extended zones forever? Not if we don’t want to be. The key is to be able to mentally rehearse, seeing ourselves comfortably into new situations that would normally reside in the Discomfort Zone. If we can see ourselves, clearly – over and over – succeeding in these new situations, they become familiar. When we actually meet them in reality (perceive), and ask, “Have I seen this before?” (associate), we know we have. Then, when we ask, “How did I do?” (evaluate), and because it went well in our imaginations, our minds confirm that it will go well again, and we take the risk (decision).
(Extended learning – TBC)
Lou Stories (See Downloads)