Ever notice how quickly you stop listening, get bored and think random thoughts (Bloomingdale, partying or vacationing) when the conversation turns and does not directly connect to your interests?

Sure, you love your significant-others; enjoy your friends and associates, but your profound emotions, feelings and thoughts are about you, yourself and your shadow. After two-minutes of hearing about them and their problems, potential solutions and ideas, your brain cries like a baby for the pleasure, pride and relevancy of returning your mental pictures to you, you and you.

Triune Theory of the brain.

Want to apologize for being an egomaniac? You are just being homo sapiens and acting according to Dr. Paul MacLean and his Triune theory of the brain.

You instinctual (oldest) brain is concerned about your survival 24/7; we call it your Lizard, Dr. MacLean labels it the Reptilian Complex. Of course you are the leading actor, writer, director and producer of the movie of your life. Oh yeah, your film will be very well received by the only critic that counts – your ego.

Your second oldest brain produces your feelings and emotions (gross senses) and is called your Limbic System. Included are your Amygdala, Hippocampus, Hypothalamus and Cingulate Gyrus brain structures.

These brain structures are intimately linked to pleasure and pain together with learning, memory and motivation. Speedlearners adore the strength of your powerful feelings for learning and memory. We are hardwired to seek pleasure and avoid pain by a link between our Lizard and our Limbic neural pathways.

The newest of your three brains is the NeoCortex (< L new brain). It specializes in order, reason, language and speech. Symbolized (verbal and written) thinking including math and the sciences is its specialty. It owns the Knowledge Economy.

What Motivates You

Feelings motivate the behaviors of humans. The single most important phrase to recall is Feelings Follow Imagery. Some personalize it as What your eyes see your heart (emotions) is bound to believe. One more once, Feelings follow imagery.

Profound Fact: you can motivate yourself to study, learn and remember by using your conscious mind (will power) to create and maintain mental movies of positive outcomes and successfully completed activities.

Do a one-minute warm up exercise of guided imagery prior to studying, test-taking, interviews or presentations by creating mental scenes of your success. See yourself holding the returned exam with a circled A+ at the top, and let your face break into a wide smile.

How about seeing yourself at your office (sitting at your desk) with a plaque on the door entrance reading Executive Vice President. Notice your feet are crossed on top of your antique desk and you are enjoying a hearty laugh.

One minute of a pleasurable mental visualization prior to an interview or giving a presentation to your board of directors affects your feelings for up to 60 minutes, and acts as a driver and motivator to attract the same feelings of success.

Can you access your visual and auditory cortices and mentally hear the enthusiastic applause as you receive the Man of the Year Award and are handed a bonus check for $15,000 by your CEO? Use your creative imagination to install this scene as a long-term memory in your brain. You are inventing your own permanent memories.

Successful visualizing is in the details. Smell the cigar smoke in the catering hall; see the vivid colors of the forest of flowers decorating the tables. Hear the exciting music of the society orchestra as a dozen couples sway to the rhythms of the show tunes. Your job is to remember the smell, taste, sights and sounds of your personal success and use it to create more of the same.

Affirmation

Whatever you repeat to yourself silently or in a whisper for 2-3 minutes daily for 21 consecutive days, with a burning desire and strong feelings, becomes a command (order) from your neocortex to its structures to seek and deliver.

Now that sound really stupid, your words are not magical, why would an affirmation cause an effect?

Motivating words and symbols at the right times of day penetrate your comfort-zone and status-quo to directly enter both hemispheres of your brain. Just prior to falling asleep (hypnagogoic) and prior to fully awakening (hypnopompic); also during meditation and periods of Daydreaming are such times.

During these precious moments your brain has a vibrational frequency (EEG brainwave rhythm) bypassing your censor (gatekeeper) and accepting conscious suggestions called Affirmation or orders.

Your conscious commands are similar to how Google returns your answers to a typed inquiry; they search your data systems (programming) for similarities. Here your brain searches you long-term memory for relevant associations, and uses your senses to continue to examine your ongoing environment for a Eureka moment.

Since the 1980s professional athletes used affirmations and guided imagery because it is mental practice (rehearsal) to win. If it did not work they would not waste their valuable time.

Scientific research confirms the efficacy of both these motivators. See: Royal College of Psychiatrist, 7.10.04, University of Derby, Dr. Paul Gilbert Title: Human Ability to generate feelings through imagery...

Make an Affirmation

Every Day in Every Way, I am Speedlearning Better And Better. Every day in every way, I am Speedlearning better and better. Every day…etc.

You may create a similar affirmation by substituting Healing for Speedlearning. Could you insert Getting-a $25,000-Promotion for Speedlearning? Sure. The secret is your burning desire followed by strong feelings and relevant mental-movies.

a) Make your affirmation unique and personal.

b) Motivate yourself with powerful feelings

c) Create Mental-Movies of success

d) Always see positive outcomes

e) You must use the present tense.

Endwords

We are familiar with our Visual and Auditory senses driving (motivating) our thoughts and behaviors. We see facial expressions and beautiful appearances and are moved to unexpected action; the right words (heard) spoken with controlled emotion can drive us to war. Napoleon notes that Men will die for a little ribbon (medal).

Most of us pay less attention to the third major sense, Kinesthetic, our feelings. We are depressed and create the mental image in our minds eye of our child or significant other and we are motivated to try harder.

Suddenly the odor of lavender finds its way into our office and we instantly visualize the face and unconditional love of our Grandmother and stiffen our resolve.

One executive told us he would chew tobacco when he was stressed (though he hated it) because he instantly visualized his beloved Grandfather who shouted in his left ear – You are my boy and will overcome all obstacles. And he did as he was told.

Activate your primary senses – sight, hearing and kinesthetic (feelings), including gustatory (taste) and olfactory (smell) and you can be motivated to succeed. They drive your thinking and your behaviors. And they cause your left and right hemispheres to move in-sync (coherence) for full brain activity.

See ya,

copyright © 2007 H. Bernard Wechsler
http://www.speedlearning.org