The human mind loves labels. They just make life so much easier than having to analyse every single thing we do.
Labels are the identity we either give ourselves through our repeated thoughts and actions or are the identity that we accept from our friends/family/work colleagues who label us with their views of who we are.
Creating these labels creates familiarity which makes the label feel real.
We then define ourselves by these labels, often without consideration of what proof there actually is to back these labels up. We just accept them as fact.
We all know someone who is ‘lucky’…who always lands on their feet.
We all know someone who is a yo-yo dieter…‘who will never lose their weight’.
These labels almost predict our future behaviour before we have taken a single step.
They almost become hidden mantras by which we inadvertently live by.
In this lockdown period, I have heard a number of people say, ‘That’s typical me, I’ve screwed up…again’, or ‘It’s just me…I always do this’.
If you label yourself as someone who always gives in, who never succeeds, as someone who misses their training sessions or always binges when stressed or down, you may find yourself creating a self-fulfilling prophesy.
You have literally given your mind a blue print for how to act next time things go wrong.
This in turn strengthens your Identity Loop:
Look familiar?
To combat this, the next time you start to label yourself after a negative experience, make a pact with yourself to only define yourself based on evidence.
Turn your head a virtual courtroom where hearsay and unfounded speculation aren’t admissible.
Look back at your actions and count every time you successfully completed your desired habit and also every time (for whatever reason) it didn’t quite happen.
If 80% of your efforts are successful, you have simply done an amazing job and you have no right to label yourself a failure! Label yourself ‘successful’ and look for all the times you didn’t fancy turning up but you still stood up and got counted.
Start using this as evidence for you to actively start re-labelling yourself in a positive light.
Anything over 51% and you are headed in the right direction.
You may just need a little help to boost your score.
Realistically, the positive and successful you has cast more votes for succeeding than failing so the only way you will feel like a failure is if your mind is putting more weight on the times you didn’t succeed than the times you did.
If this sounds like you, work on being less biased towards the negative and make a huge effort to start being more neutral in your personal observations.
Yes you may need a little extra help to increase your success rate but you have cast more votes towards being successful than against it so your foundation is building.
Looking at how many votes you cast for a positive label helps bring non-judgemental awareness to ourselves which in turn helps prevent rash, ‘Screw this’ behaviour which leads to a spiral of self-sabotage.
It helps bring balance to our actions and prevents us repeating the same mistakes over and over again because, well, ‘That’s just what I do’.
More importantly, it allows us to make errors without feeling like we failed. It allows us to see that we are human, we can fail and it doesn’t define who we are. Learning to accept and acknowledge we won’t always succeed is essential in achieving any long term goal.
Self-acceptance is one of THE most important traits you can master and this techniques supports this mindset.
Change starts and finishes in the mind so training your mind is as important as training in the gym when it comes to making any new habits stick.
Look for evidence…look for the balance of success vs non-success and vow not to fall victim for easy negative self-labelling.
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