What you believe is always at the heart of your actions. A psychological experiment in the 1960s proved this beyond doubt (and countless other experiments on human thought processes since then).

Dogs were placed on an electrified floor that gave them small shocks they could not escape. When they were moved to another room where only half the floor was electrified, many dogs didn’t bother to move away from the shocks even though they could.

They had learned to be helpless.

Human beings also learn to be helpless. We get into life’s unavoidable negative situations but then end up believing we can’t change anything.

So if we know that it’s what we believe that creates the foundations of our actions, all we need to do is change our perspective to get back on track. After that, the motivation will come to make positive changes.

Action – Explore one area in which you feel helpless. What are you assuming? How have you ‘electrified the whole floor’?

2 Responses

  1. I love George’s post and had the best laugh of my day. I often feel that I am hitting the same wall over and over. Electrified or not, it gets old. I have never considered this negative thinking but a realization that I can’t control things so deal with situations and make the best of them that I can.

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