What if, before you got out of bed and began your day, you took the time to ask yourself one simple question? “What is the greatest ideal of myself that I can be today?” If you were patient enough to wait for an answer, you would begin to think differently than if you just woke up and remembered yourself as the same person from the day before. In other words, if you waken in the morning, get out of bed on the same side, turn off your alarm clock the same way, use the toilet as always, look in the mirror to remember who you are, wash yourself in the shower the same way as the day before, groom yourself and dress yourself to look like everyone expects to see you, eat the same food for breakfast, drive to work as usual, see the same people at work that push the same emotional buttons and do the same memorized things that you know how to do so well, we could say that your mind and your brain would remain virtually unchanged.

A common principle in neuroscience says that “nerve cells that fire together, wire together.” Therefore, if you repeatedly think and act in identical ways on a daily basis, your brain will become molded into a specific hardwired pattern that will support the same level of mind. It’s ironic. Most people routinely think the same thoughts, perform the same actions, and secretly expect something different to show up in their lives.

If however, you were to sincerely think about a greater ideal of yourself before you started your day, you would begin to make your brain fire in new sequences, patterns, and combinations. And whenever you make your brain work differently, you just changed your mind. The working definition of mind, according to neuroscience, is the brain in action or the brain at work. You created a new mind than if you just continued on business as usual.

Because of the size of the human frontal lobe, you have the privilege of making thought more real than anything else. Thus, when you close your eyes and eliminate the barrage of stimuli from your external world, you can formulate a new image of yourself without distraction just by going within. And when you are truly focused and pay attention, there comes a moment when your brain does not know the difference between what is real in the external world and what you imagine in your mind. In fact, the thoughts you are embracing will become just like a real life experience in your mind. The moment this occurs, your brain up-scales its hardware to reflect what you’re imaging and intentionally thinking about. Consequently when you change your mind, you change your brain, and when you change your brain, you change your mind.

The quantum physics model of reality tells us that mind and matter are not separate elements. In fact, subjective mind has a true effect on the external objective world. Your mindful observation of reality matters. An intentional mind literally conditions and organizes matter into the blue prints of personal destiny. Hence, if reality is an extension of mind and your reality is your life then you might reason that by changing your mind, you should produce some identifiable changes in your life.

As you sharpen your abilities to observe some desired destiny from a new ideal of yourself instead of from the same old self, your life should reorganize itself in new and unusual ways. Why? Because the former personality, which is made up of how you typically think, act, and feel, created the reality you presently are living. But the new ideal has the ability to create a new life.

And lastly, if you committed to not arising to face the day until you actually felt like that new ideal, you would also be conditioning the body to finally work together with your new mind. Actually, your thoughts condition your mind and your feelings condition your body. And when you have mind and body working together, you have the power of the universe behind you. When you walk through your life that day, maintaining this modified state, something should be different in your world as a result of your effort. No one is excluded from this phenomenon.

I truly believe that every person is a divine creator. Independent of your race, gender, culture, social status, education, religious beliefs, or even past mistakes, there is a power within each of us that is common to every human being and we are all connected to it. This invisible consciousness is the quantum field expressing itself in all things. It is both personal and, at the same time, universal. It is the giver of life. This refined mindful energy is conscious enough to support, maintain, protect, and heal us every moment. It keeps our heart beating hundreds of thousands of times per day; creates more than 60 million cells every minute; and organizes hundreds of thousands of chemical reactions in one cell every second, just to name a few. It is also the same intelligence that creates supernovas in distant galaxies, that keeps the planets rotating around the sun, and that loves the lily into bloom.

When we take the time to develop a relationship with this mind, when we make contact with it, when we use it to produce desired events in our future, when we ask it to intervene in our lives and finally, when we emulate by being a creator, when we express its power, love, and intelligence through us, we become more like it-we become divine.

A good first step on this path is to do something that breaks your routine. I have found over the years that when you retreat from the world and eliminate the typical environmental stimuli that cause you to think in routine ways, you can begin the process of true change. In order to change, you have to think greater than your present reality, you have to dream beyond the familiar feelings you’ve memorized that contribute to your identity-self, and you must create a life that exists in a future time.

Because we share the same brain, we all have the ability to accomplish this feat. It only takes learning and reorganizing your thinking in order to prepare the mind for a better future. In the Breaking the Habit of Being Yourself workshops you will be given the information and the tools to understand and rewire your mind and body so you can break the habit of being yourself.