How to Control Your Mind

The mind consists of many different parts that can each exert influence on your behavior. "You" may want to change how influential a part of your mind is. For example, the part of your mind that cares about getting enough calories and nutrients may urge you to eat rich fatty foods, but another part of you recognizes that in the long run, excessive over eating will ruin your health and your physical image.^[1] To control your mind, exerting self-control over behaviors you want to change is key. There are a number of tricks you can employ to change your mind and ultimately your behavior.

1

Avoid rumination. You may find yourself thinking about something negative, even when you really don't want to. There are a number of tricks you can use to control your mind and stop ruminating:

• Think about the worst-case scenario. Although this seems counter-intuitive and like it would just lead to even more ruminating, when you think about the worst-case scenario, and then think about whether you would be able to handle it; you'll likely find that you can imagine yourself handling the situation and this can help decrease your worry.
• Schedule time for yourself to worry. By setting aside time to think about your problem, you can rest assured that it will get the attention it (maybe) needs; this can help you stop thinking excessively about your problem when you don't want to.

2

Believe in yourself and that you can change. If you don't believe that you can change you're not going to try nearly as hard as if you believe success is possible. So, make sure that you're using positive thinking to face your problem. Try to keep in mind that you can change the way you think, that you can improve.

• Studies show that individuals adopting this "growth" mindset are more likely to make desired improvements than those who view their traits and skills as fixed and unchangeable.

                                             

3

Be optimistic about your abilities. You might think that being accurate about your ability to control yourself is key. However, studies show that being overly optimistic about your ability to control your behavior can help give you even more self-contro

• To be optimistic, try telling yourself that you will succeed and control your mind over and over again, even if in the moment you don't believe so.
• Try also to remind yourself of times where you successfully controlled your mind as intended. Reflect only on these successes and not on any self-control failures you might have had.

4

Re-appraise what you are struggling to control. Try changing how you look at the thing you are struggling to control. For example, if a part of your mind really wants to have wine but you are trying to stop drinking, try imagining the wine as poison. Imagine it going all through your body, infecting your cells and organs. Studies show that having individuals mentally transform (re-appraise) desirable things into less desirable things facilitates their self-control efforts to avoid the desirable thing.^[5]

• To do this, really try vividly imagining and playing along with the idea that the object you wish to avoid has changed its properties.

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• 5
  Avoid personalization. This is a thought trap where you take personal responsibility for things that are out of your control. For example, if your daughter fell down at school you might say "It is my fault that she fell" when in reality the situation was entirely out of your control.

  • To avoid personalization, try to think carefully and logically about events that you are personalizing. It can help to ask yourself some questions.
  • For example, you might ask yourself "What could I actually have done to stop my daughter from falling down, given that I wasn't at school with her?"

  

  6. Create a plan for your life. If you have a clear path for what you want in life, you may be less likely to be swayed by temptations that will hurt you in the long run. Write down the major things you want out of life: Is it a good career? Having a family of your own one day? Becoming financially wealthy?

  • You don't have to lay out very detailed steps for achieving these goals as part of this exercise; instead, remember to keep your overarching goals in mind so you stay on track in your life.
  • To form personal goals, it is important not to set the bar too high or else you will fail and this can kill your motivation.
  • Instead, set some big goals (e.g., learn how to code software), but break those bigger more distal goals into smaller more achievable goals (e.g., read 1 chapter of a software coding book every week). In this way you can see tangible amounts of progress as you work toward accomplishing your more distal goals.