Change Is Possible

Ok… But Is It Really?

Common Hesitations

You might have this nagging question - “Matt, I’ve been thinking the same way my whole life, is it realistic to believe I can change my thought patterns now?

I’m with you, and I was skeptical as well.  Here are the most common hesitations:

  1. Some have it, and others don’t. I look around and some people are just naturally resilient, naturally mentally tough… and then there’s me. I got dealt a bad hand and just need to make do.

  2. It’s just my biology. Thinking patterns aren’t something we can change, right?  Isn’t it just a part of us, like how tall we are or how introverted vs extroverted we are?

  3. It didn’t work last time.  I’ve tried before.  It was supposed to be easy.  But it just didn’t work for me.

  4. I’m not even sure I want to change…  Are you trying to turn me into a super-cheery Ned Flanders?

Maybe you’ve had one or all of these concerns. Don’t worry, there are answers.

Research-Backed Answers

Here’s four quick responses to those four hesitations:

  1. Dealt a bad hand?  It’s true some people are naturally more resilient, just like some people naturally have bigger muscles.  But research has shown that resilience isn’t a fixed trait, but can be grown, no matter what our starting point is.

  2. Just biology?  Nope, our thought patterns aren’t permanent traits like our hair color or height - we have the power to change them. Psychologists have gathered widespread evidence of this, carrying out hundreds of peer-reviewed, controlled trials showing it’s possible.

  3. Didn’t work?  My guess is one of two things happened: 1) You probably tried the thing.  For example, repeating baseless affirmations in the mirror like “I’m the best, all good things come my way” will only leave you more discouraged when they don’t come true.  2) Possibly you were promised a quick fix.  But after a couple days of trying, it proved to be harder, so you gave up without putting in real training.

  4. Ned Flanders? No, I don’t want you into turn into anything resembling that character.  I mean, if someone ever said “Hi-diddly-ho neighborino” to me, I’d turn around and walk away.

Now that we’ve addressed the initial hesitations, let’s dive deeper and look at what the science says.

Neural Pathways, Neuroplasticity, and Other Big Words

The OLD Trails In Our Brains

Fifty years ago neuroscientists didn’t believe our physical brains could change after a certain age.  But technological advances have led to incredible new insights into how the brain works. What was once a black box is beginning to be understood.  

So, what have neuroscientists found? Your brain is the command center that directs the parts of your body through neurons. These neurons link together to create messages. The same message sent multiple times will create a neural pathway.  And the presence of that neural pathway makes a thought easier to think and makes it easier for your brain to send that same message again.

Visiting Abandoned Houses

As a real estate investor, have you ever scoped out an abandoned house you just got a lead on?  There’ve been times I’ve pulled up to the home, seen the front is boarded up, and found out the key only works for the back basement door.

There’s one problem though.  Since I’m the first one to enter the house in 10 years, the grass and bushes are so overgrown they reach up to my shoulders.  And that’s saying a lot, because I’m 6’5”.  So what do I do?  I push through, blaze a trail, and hope not to get poison ivy (which I’ve only done once).

Now if a second investor goes to check out the abandoned house after me, he can just follow the trail I created.  It’s faint, but it’s a starting point.  And, as more and more investors check it out, the wider that trail gets and the easier it is to follow.

Repitition makes the trailS grow wider

Neural pathways follow the same principle.  The more you repeat a thought, the wider and stronger the neural pathway gets, making it easier for subsequent thoughts to follow the same trail.  That’s why a thought gets more ingrained in our mind the more we repeat it.  It’s an actual physical trail!

For some of you, it feels like your DDT’s have formed neural pathways as wide as a highway running down the middle of your brain. That’s how I felt, too, and I’m not even talking about the tiny 4 lane American ones.  I’m talking about the 50 lane mega-highways found only in Beijing.

New Trails Can Be Formed

Here’s the good news though, neuroscience has shown we can literally restructure these brain pathways by replacing harmful thought patterns with new, accurate ones. If you want the 50 cent word for this phenomenon, it’s called neuroplasticity.

And we can do this as adults.  The physical neural pathways of our brain can change, whether we’re eighteen or eighty five.

But just like with any ingrained habit, creating lasting change takes practice.  It takes repetition and time for the old neural pathways to disappear and the new one’s to become the strong, wide pathways your thoughts can travel habitually on - the latest research showing the number of days to be about 66.

So, if you believe the maxim “you can’t teach old dogs new tricks” applies to your thinking, your brain says otherwise.  It’s possible to take old, broken DDT’s and replace them with new, better thought patterns.  What was once only demonstrated by psychologists has now been confirmed by neuroscientists: you can change how you think.

How Do We Change?

Two Methods That Don’t Work

There are varying opinions on the best way to change your patterns of thinking. Some people teach you should just ignore any distorted, destructive thought that goes through your mind. This isn’t helpful though, because when you don’t treat it, it doesn’t just magically disappear. It just grows. Others teach that you should plaster over these harmful thoughts with cheery platitudes and blanket statements. This isn’t helpful either, because trying to cover them up without addressing the root cause just lets them come back stronger the next time.

I run a house flipping business, so renovation analogies are near and dear to my heart. My contractors were recently fixing up a house that had mold in the basement. This is clearly a problem that needed changing. I’m not an actual contractor, but in my experience I can tell you one fix that wouldn’t work - purposefully ignoring it and pretending it wasn’t there. Clearly the mold would just continue to grow. The same thing happens when you try to fix toxic thoughts by just ignoring them, they only get worse.

I can also tell you another fix that wouldn’t work - just painting over top of the mold. Sure, it would look good for a couple weeks. Maybe even a month. But if the core problem isn’t confronted head on and removed, it’ll only come back stronger. The same thing happens when we try to fix toxic thoughts by painting over them… they only get worse.

The Three Step Method

The real method of change involves addressing the problem head on. This is what America’s leading resilience experts from UPenn teach, and it’s what I’ve found to be tremendously effective in my own life. It involves three simple steps:

  1. Recognize the DDT

  2. Challenge the DDT

  3. Replace the DDT

Continuing with the rehab analogy, anytime you go into a house that needs fixing up, you need to start by identifying the problems, one at a time. This is what step 1 is all about - Being aware of your thoughts and recognizing the specific DDT’s holding you down.

After you identify the issues with the house, you need to get to work on demo. Often this requires tearing out the old, broken parts of the house. This is step 2 - Challenging the DDT’s with evidence and truth.

Finally, after you’ve identified and demoed the issue, you’re ready to replace it with something new and better. This is step 3 - Replacing the DDT with a new, better thought.

In the next articles, we’ll cover each of these three steps in depth, getting you started on transforming how you think.,

Take the next step...