Who’s Influencing Who?
Posted: February 24th, 2009 | Author: eetion | Filed under: influence | Comments OffPreviously on UpThinker, I talked about a slew of strategies/things/ideas/tricks which led to more controlled thinking – basically how we could influence our thinking. Right now I’d like to throw out a long-ish reminder on why we should monitor the things that influence us. Yah know, like tv.
Influencing What We Think About
So, what things can be done to further influence what we think about? That is the question. The reason behind finding out what an further influence what we think about is because what we primarily think about can determine how we feel and else effect the things that we do throughout the day and the decisions we make. I think we can all accept that as true without throwing around any counter-culture or mysticism or religion.
Whose Goals Are You Chasing
Lets say that you know what your goals are. Lets say that you have a passion for those goals. Lets even say that you have action items identified for those goals. Lets say all of those things and take another, closer, look at “what goes in”, your intake.
What do you watch on tv? Does what you watch on the television have anything at all to do with your goals? I remember a time where I would sit in front of the television all day long watching one show, then the next, then the next, and the next. That was in the summer between grades during high school. Nothing I was watching had anything whatsoever to do with any of my goals. Are you in that boat as well? I remember thinking to myself All this television watching is doing nothing for my goals, but I bet I’m helping out the television networks’ goal to reach a large amount of viewership.
Because I wasn’t chasing my own dream, I was unintentionally being used as a pawn to help someone else reach their dream. The words sound nice enough, but once you realize that you’re wasting YOUR time and energy, your life, it’s not so nice. You’re the gray matter who doesn’t pursue their own goals.
Everyone has the option of playing on their own chessboard. If you choose to play on your own chessboard, you get to manipulate the pieces back and forth. If you do NOT choose to play on your chessboard, you will become the pawn on someone else’s and they will manipulate you back and forth. How do you like that.
Television is just another medium with which to be influenced. There are plenty of others such as books, music, movies, jobs, friends, places, and the list goes on.
Take a look at what your intake looks like through all your mediums of being influenced, and see if your intake aligns with your goals. If it does not, change it. If it does align, go you!
What you have to realize here is that all of these forms of intake, all of the mediums through which you are influenced, all of these things can direct your thoughts in all kinds of directions. If you can narrow down your intake to suit your goals, your thoughts will also benefit. This idea also spills over into topic of positive and negative thinking.
What Goes In, Might Come Out
If you’re constantly taking in negative things on purpose, you’ll probably end up thinking negative things or maybe even doing negative things as a result of that. You might not even consciously try to think the negative stuff, but when you made a decision to intake the negative thing, you just planted a seed in your head.
With the negative thing hanging around up there, you can zap it in its tracks with some of the methods mentioned in this previous post, but why even place the negative seed in the first place? Instead, why not place positive seeds in your head.
Some examples of influence mediums can be movies, music, books, blogs, television, and friends. You can take control over some of the stuff you take in. Turn off the negative and turn on the positive. Tune out the things that don’t relate to your goals and tune into the things that do. Read the synopsis of a movie before you watch it to see whether or not you can get something positive or goal related out of it. Don’t constantly read blogs that having a strangely obvious negative spin to them or have nothing to do with your purpose. Listen to uplifting music rather than music that talks about thinking negatively.
You don’t think what you watch, read, and hear have any influence on you? Try raising children. Children will prove to you that the things you do will influence the things that the children do. If you stick your hand up your nose, little Susie is going to stick her hand up her nose.
Look at teenagers! A teenager see’s a pop star wearing a ring through their nose, now the teenager wants to put a ring through their own nose. Fifteen year old Johnny can’t wait to get those new air Jordan’s that he saw on the commercial. Young Betsy wants that new short skirt that the girl on Nickelodeon was wearing.
Look at adults! Mr. Johnson, typically a tame person, is encouraged by his peers to pull a prank on the boss. In another scenario, Dr. Rosette is swayed by a certain scientific text to change the way she conducts her science experiments.
It’s rampant I tell you! What goes in, might come out; we live in a world of influence! If you have a choice in the first place, do what you can to bring in the good stuff that matches up with your goals. This is why you have never heard of anyone buying a cd with negative affirmations on it – I don’t know anyone who has a goal to live an unproductive life. Who wants to hear things like “you suck at life, you’re a horrible person”? Over time, though initially put off by the idea, “you suck at life” starts to sneak into your everyday thinking and eventually those thoughts will be coming from your own brain.
Remember, pick and monitor your influences wisely