Are you the kind of person who waits for the right moment to come to do what you want to do? Whether it is breaking a bad habit, or saving, or investing, or finally reading that book, or building beautiful relationships, do you wait to feel good, happy, or inspired to start anything or finally finish something?
Yes, most of us base our decisions and actions on how we feel at the moment. However, when we always depend on how we feel before we act and decide, we are setting ourselves up for pain and failure.
But there is another route that many successful people tread. Instead of waiting for the right feelings, they create them. They use their bodies, posture, and actions to produce the good feelings that they desire and this propel them to do more until they achieve what they dream about.
For these people, they become what they want even before it happens. They act as if! Take confidence for example. They dress up, talk, walk, stand, think, and act confident. The result? They feel confident and they become confident.
Is this just another psychobabble and feel good strategy? No. Actually, this is a phenomenon called Biofeedback. And this has been found out to actually change neural connections in the brain.
An experiment was done on two groups. For the first group, the experimenters ask the participants to bite a pencil between their teeth while watching a funny movie. The other group watch the same movie in another room with a pencil between their lips.
After the movie, the two groups were given a questionnaire and asked to rate how funny the movie was. And what did they find out? The first group rated the movie as very funny while the other group did not.
Take note, the only variable that made the difference was the way they bit the pencil. And the experimenter concluded that the way the facial muscles were contorted affected how the participants felt about the movie.
When you bite a pencil between your teeth, you deliberately force your muscles to smile, and with your lips a pout. What happened was the contour of the facial muscles sent signal to the brain and the brain interpreted it as either happy or sad.
The posturing of the body, or muscles for this matter, influenced the action of the brain and the command it gives to the body and the whole system. In this case, the brain interpreted the biting between the teeth as smiling, and therefore it created the scenario of a happy person by triggering the right hormones to give the happy feeling.
So, you want to be happy? Act as if you are happy. Give your smile, think of happy thoughts, and relate with others in a happy manner. You want to be wealthy? Act as if you are wealthy, model the behaviour of the rich, talk like them, think like them, dress like them (but don’t spend like them yet). You want to be Godly and holy? Act as if you are a saint or an angel, glorifying God in all you do.
Acting as if, after a number of repetitions, will turn into a habit. The brain will strengthen the neural pathways that are stimulated for the particular action. And time comes that your acting as if will naturally become you.
Of all the actions that you are to take, it is becoming a loving person that I greatly encourage you to do. You’re losing love for your wife or husband? Act as if. Love is an action word not just a feeling. All the more reason to act lovingly if we are losing the feeling of love for our partners.
How? Serve your spouse, shower him with affection, take care of her needs, take time to bring her to a date. Share in the burden of the house, treat him like a prince, and do all these with gladness and thanksgiving in your heart. And soon, you will find yourself becoming a more loving person and your relationship all the more strengthened. All because you acted as if!
For consultations, you can contact me at 09177201218 or email me at kitbalane@boholchild.com. (By Kit Nemenzo Balane)