Your brain is programmed to concentrate on the negative. Here's how you can change your thinking at any time and anywhere.
You've just hung up the phone with a key client of yours. You failed to close the deal that would have changed your real estate game. They don't seem interested.
Just now, you pitched ten prospective buyers and sellers. They all claim to be "interested," yet two weeks have passed. You check your inbox every hour, but nothing has arrived.
How do you respond to these circumstances?
If you're like most real estate agents, negative thoughts frequently invade your head. Why can't I just get a break?" "Perhaps my service is lousy." or "Perhaps I'm flawed in some way."
Negativity bias is the term given by neuroscientists to this innate brain behaviour. It's a psychological adaptation that helped us when we were using spears to hunt on the savanna 120,000 years ago.
Today, though, we react to a harsh email or challenging conversation as though our lives are in jeopardy because of this brain habit. We get obsessed on prospective threats and unable to perceive the wider picture as a result of a cascade of stress hormones being triggered.
Rick Hanson, a neuroscientist, provides a fantastic analogy for this peculiar characteristic of the mind. "Your brain is like Velcro for negative experiences and Teflon for positive ones", he claims in his book Buddha's Brain. You are built to forget all the positive things and to instead dwell over the bad when you lose a customer, when the potential sellers don't call, or when you encounter the thousands of other daily disappointments of life.
The incredibly effective Notice-Shift-Rewire transition
How can this ingrained mental routine be changed?
Three words: Notice, Shift, and Rewire.
According to pioneering neurologist Donald Hebb, "neurons that fire together, connect together," this straightforward approach puts into practice the fundamental idea arising from the neuroscience revolution of the past 30 years. The realization that the brain is not fixed serves as a reminder. Its behaviour is not like plaster. They are more similar to plastic in that they can withstand a push now and then but are still malleable enough to adapt to repeated effort
That is Notice-Shift-Rewire magic. By dedicating a brief period of time each day to this practice, we develop the habit of letting go of our negativity bias and entering into more constructive mental states, such as remembering our past victories, recognizing our strengths, and viewing life as a series of opportunities rather than a gruelling journey through failures and heartache.
How can you incorporate the Notice-Shift-Rewire technique into regular life?
1. Observe your tendency toward negative.
The first step is to become conscious of this common mental routine. Recognize when you start to doubt, ruminate, feel anxious, or feel afraid. Keep an eye out for when your mind starts conjuring up the worst-case scenarios of how everything could possibly fail.
2. Switch to a grateful moment.
The act of noticing creates room for new brain connections. By shifting, you can fill this area with a more useful concentration of your attention. The most effective approach to do this is to practice thankfulness for a few seconds. Consider one thing for which you are grateful right now. Your house. Your job. Your wellbeing. Your talents and strong points. Your drive.
3. Rewire your brain.
The hard work starts right here. This is what Hanson refers to as "just savouring," It takes 15 seconds to maintain this new perspective and deeply ingrain it into your mental architecture.
In the final step, we change our regular practice of ignoring the good. Here, we change the brain's reaction to all of life's positives from Teflon to Velcro. By quickly strengthening our recollections of all the positive things happening in life, we are turning our evolved wiring on its head.
The fact that this technique is quick, easy to use, and effective is its best quality. You may perform it anytime, anyplace, and in less than 30 seconds, and you will start to feel an mmediate shift in your mindset.
Check out one of these books to further your rewiring:
Train Your Mind, Change Your Brain: How a New Science Reveals Our Extraordinary Potential to Transform Ourselves by Sharon Begley
The Brain That Changes Itself: Stories of Personal Triumph from the Frontiers of Brain Science by Norman Doidge, M.D.
Rewire Your Brain: Think Your Way to a Better Life by John B Arden, PhD
Wherever You Go, There You Are: Mindfulness Meditation in Everyday Life by Jon Kabat-Zinn
Piece by Tanya Gordon, author of over 15 eBooks. She is Certified in NLP (how we operate), Hypnotherapy (unconscious communication) and Timeline Therapy (recognizing your beliefs about mindset and sales (money) – and recognizing that of your customer). She has studied the psychology of human behaviour and has proven absolute authority and true expert on mindset and sales techniques. She has ‘walked the walk‘ so her content and programs are highly practical and focused on results.
THE REAL eSTATE ™ PLAYGROUND IS A MINDSET AND SALES COACHING FOR FEMALE REAL ESTATE AGENTS.
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