State Your Goal Positively

Let’s do small exercises. I will give you two instructions, and I will give 5 seconds to give you time to do each instruction immediately after I say it. Are you ready?

First Instruction: “Don’t think of a pink elephant” (5 seconds…)
Second instruction: “Don’t think of your left foot” (5 seconds…)

Oke, they are not so difficult, aren’t they? Wait.., AREN’T THEY?

Now, let me ask you: what did you actually do, after hearing the instructions? Did you follow my instructions, like “not thinking of a pink elephant and your left foot”, or did you actually think of a pink elephant and your left foot instead of not thinking of them? Hmm…a bit confusing, is it not?

Well, not really. But if you’re interested to know how our brain processes this kinds of instructions, just go through the following passages of mine..

The brain, our brain, can only understand a negative by turning it into positive. You have to think of it to know what not to think of. In order to avoid something, you have to know what it is your are avoiding, and keep your attention on it. Whatever you resist, persists. Eventually, what you imagined “don’t want” almost inevitably turns into reality, or, what we can say, it is self-fulfilling.

This explains what children usually do. Parents sometimes tell their children what not to do (“don’t jump, don’t touch that, don’t do so-and-so”), only to find that they seem more inclined to do the very opposite: they will do what they aren’t supposed to do. Really, there’s nothing wrong with the children. However, parents will get upset because their children process the instructions with their normal brain. Funny?

Unfortunately, this process also works to goal-achieving statements. Let me give you two common and simple goal-setting statements:

“I want to lose 5 kgs in weight”
“I want to stop arriving late at work”

Can you now understand, why these kinds of statements usually fail? Correct. It is because your brain will focus on the “weight” or “arriving late” instead of not thinking of it, and stick with it.

After we understand the weaknesses of expressing our goal like that, how do we state our goal better?

The solution is, focus on what you do want, rather than what you don’t want or what you want to avoid.
Let’s get back to our previous goal statements. Instead of you want to lose 5 kgs in weight, you might want to reach a certain weight within a certain time. Instead of saying that you want to stop arriving late, why don’t you reword it into “You want to start arriving on time”?

Now, you might want to try it out by yourselves. Write down a number of wishes, goals, intentions, whatever. Then check whether you have expressed them positively. If not, rewrite them in positife terms. If you find it hard to do so, just focus on what you do want, and make that your positive outcome.

With practice, you will eventually acquire the habit of positive thinking.