Removing Negative Associations

How do you go about removing negative anchors? What this means is that you have a negative association with something that’s good for you, or something that is somehow beneficial to you doing it. Or like a really bad tasting medicine. It’s good for you since you need it to get better. However, it tastes REALLY bad. How do you get past that negative anchor of bad taste associated with something that will help you? Here is a step by step guide to getting rid of those negative associations, so that you can start moving on to a more enjoyable life experience!

I will use a very basic example, which you can of course alter to fit your specific situation. Also let me say, that it’s a simple idea, it comes from making whatever it is more enticing, and removing any obstacles that are presented with it. So, I will start off by pointing out a very effective way to begin making the changes you want.

1) If someone has an idea that work is boring and painful, they probably wouldn’t be too enthusiastic about getting there and doing a great job. Even though you need your job, and it’s good that you have it, that amount of negativity is enough to make someone in this situation chronically late or worse, which would put you at risk for not having a job eventually. Imagine yourself doing something you want to modify positively (in this case – being at work and being happy). Generally we only do things that we’ve already imagined ourselves doing. Keep in mind however, how you feel about something you imagine also affects how you feel about actually doing it, so make sure you also imagine the feelings of happiness. What if you loved to go to work, and enjoyed being there, and felt good about it? Imagine this because this is what you want it to be like.

2) The second step is to identify a very happy state, or an “enticing” feeling. It can be anything, like something from your past, as long as it made you very happy, and you can see it, hear it, and most importantly feel the happiness from that time. Now, just put that memory and the feeling aside for later, mentally set it somewhere around you.

3) Next, think of the “obstacles” that currently give you the attitude that you have about work. For example, something like being bored or angry about being stuck in one place all day. Think of that for a minute, and feel those feelings that you have as if you were there at work now. Put those feelings aside too, only consciously put them somewhere separate from the good, happy, enticing feelings. Now you have two contrasting feelings, in two separate locations.

4) After a moment or so go back to step 1, see yourself being how you want to be. Happy, productive, enthusiastic, friendly….all those things that would really give work a nice shine for you! Those feelings you set aside from earlier of being very happy, put them back inside. Imagine grabbing them from wherever you stored them, and put them back inside yourself. Just feel all the best feelings you’ve ever felt, and pour them into the picture of you at work, and make the picture bigger in your mind as you feel these feelings.

5) At last, one more step: Remember the picture of you at work feeling unhappy, and remember the difference between these feelings, and the really nice positive feelings from the previous picture you just experienced. Once you have those negative feelings again, you have to send them away. You can make them go “poof” right before your eyes, or you can grab them and throw them as far as you can. Whatever it is that you do make sure to tell yourself that these feelings and this picture is gone. You can do it a couple times if you need to. Where before, these negative feelings were all you had to associate to how you felt about work, you now also have a positive contrast about the same thing.

Since you can actually feel the difference by now, you can start to connect and better communicate with the way your individual program for your feelings works. People naturally want to do positive things that feel good. This will make it easier to change your patterns from undesirable, to something much more appealing that you choose to feel. This process uses your brain by doing all of this with your mind and imagination. You’re not physically going through the steps of being at work or physically being somewhere that you feel really good about. You have to have these pictures, thoughts, and feelings all by using your mind, and it’s very effective if you put your mind to it (pun intended)! There’s things that we all may want to change for our own reasons, and this is an easy, effective set of steps to becoming who you want to be.