« Remember this feeling... | Main | Anchors »

The Structure of Our Behavior

Our behaviors flow from whatever particular state we are in at
the moment. When you look at your own life you will notice that you
act different depending on what state you are in. If you feel
depressed you may find yourself watching more tv, eating more, etc.
When you feel really confident you may find yourself cleaning,
exercising, etc.
When you become aware of this you can begin to influence your
behaviors more because you can put your focus on changing your state
rather than trying to control each behavior that happens in those states.
Our states are created by two things, our physiology and our
internal representations. Our physiology has the biggest effect and is
the easiest to change. Specifically I am referring to your posture,
breathing, voice, and physical tension. If you were to describe
someone who was depressed you may say shoulders slouched, head down,
shallow breathing, kind of quiet. The oppostie is true for someone who
exudes confidence, they would be standing straight, head up, speaking
more intensely. Whenever you want to feel different the quickest and
easiest way is to change your physiology. Straighten your posture,
hold your head up, take a deep breath, and speak with more intensity.
You will find that this works every time you do it. As you master your
abillity to create your state you will find your behaviors changing
naturally. If you want to change a habitual behavior use this
information when you get to that time when you usually do this
behavior and intentionally change your state and notice that you may
want to act differently.

Comments (1)

Jim Pinto:

I know this is true, I suffer from depression. In these moments you don't really have to focus on your underlying thoughts, they just seem to take over. Now I would love to learn how to combat this and be able to quickly change my thought patterns to those of motivation, or in this case exercise to raise the seratonin level in my brain. I used to be an exceptional athelete until a car accident left me with herniated disc's in my cervical and lumbar areas of my back. I know that exercise is the key to my mental and physical well being, but I find it very hard to motivate myself.

Post a comment

(If you haven't left a comment here before, you may need to be approved by the site owner before your comment will appear. Until then, it won't appear on the entry. Thanks for waiting.)

About

This page contains a single entry from the blog posted on August 18, 2006 3:01 PM.

The previous post in this blog was Remember this feeling....

The next post in this blog is Anchors.

Many more can be found on the main index page or by looking through the archives.

Powered by
Movable Type 4.1