How Classical Music On a Spanish Subway Helped Reduce Crime, Plus More Unusual “Priming” Examples That Can Support You In Moving Toward Your Goals and Dreams
In his groundbreaking book Blink, bestselling author Malcolm Gladwell shines a light on how subtle changes in our environment can influence our behavior, often unbeknownst to us. He calls this phenomenon “priming.”
A great priming example involved an experiment in Spain, where authorities decided to start playing soft, low-volume classical music over the loudspeakers on the subway in an effort to reduce crime.
The results were startling… just by introducing the music, vandalism, littering and other crimes drastically decreased!
When surveyed, commuters later reported that hearing classical music made them feel happy, less stressed and relaxed. The music had affected their behavior without them even realizing it.
3 priming examples to help you move toward your goals and dreams with greater ease and speed
When you think of the four domains of your life – relationships, health, vocation, and time and money freedom – what are some of the goals and dreams you have in each of these areas?
Would you love to find your soulmate? Elevate your current relationship? Take your health and well-being to the next level? Create greater career or business success?
Whatever it is that you would love to create for yourself and your life, here are three powerful “priming” examples that will help you feel more inspired, happy and connected to your goals and dreams each and every day… so that you keep moving toward them!
1. Use the power of your words
You may not always have control over what happens in your life, but you do always have the power to choose how you’re going to respond to your circumstances.
This said, you can prime yourself to feel grateful, deserving and successful by using positive, powerful, uplifting words as you go through the day, starting when you first wake up.
For example, you can wake up and say to yourself, “Today is going to be a great day!” Even if you don’t know what the day holds for you yet, you can make a decree to yourself that it’s going to be an extraordinary one for you.
You can also practice other positive affirmations throughout your day, such as:
I am loving and deserving of love.
Every day I am showing up and doing my best.
I am healthy, happy, and beautiful inside and out.
When you use expansive, uplifting language like this that reflects what you’d most love to be doing or feeling, you are internally priming yourself to have a successful, productive day… which will put you in the best position to move toward your goals and dreams!
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2. Write down your goals and dreams daily
According to Dr. Gail Matthews, a psychology professor at the Dominican University in California, when you write down your goals on a regular basis, you become 42% more likely to achieve them?
Each and every day, I highly recommend you write down your top five goals and dreams, preferably in a journal that you can go back to easily.
This doesn’t have to be a long, time-consuming exercise – it can even be a few words describing each dream – but as you write the dream down, take a moment to go inward and experience what achieving that dream would feel like for you.
When you write down your goals and dreams on a regular basis, they become ingrained in your subconscious mind and become a part of who you are, which helps to guide your thoughts and actions each day.
3. Surround yourself with the images of what you’d most love
When you think about the environment you are in the most, either at work or at home, what types of things do you have in your environment that may be subtly affecting your behavior?
What artwork or objects do you keep around you to help remind you that you’re a spiritual being having a human experience? And that there’s a power within you that’s far greater than any circumstance, situation or condition you will ever find yourself in?
A great way to feed your senses with uplifting, empowering images, that are aligned with your goals and dreams, is to have a vision board.
You can also tape pictures up where you’ll see them regularly, for example, on your bathroom mirror. Then, as you’re brushing your teeth each morning and evening you see that beachfront property you want to buy or that place you want to travel to, for example.
Or try putting an image of what you would love as wallpaper on your smartphone, so that every time you open your phone, it’s the first thing you see!
Looking at images that represent you living your dreams will help put you to keep those dreams front and center in your mind. And as you know, where focus goes, energy flows and results show!
Priming helps you become the architect of your own life
Instead of letting your environment affect your behavior without you even realizing it, you can choose to consciously feed your senses with subtle cues that are aligned with who you want to be and what you want to create for your life.
So go ahead and do an experiment – choose one of the three priming examples I shared with you above, and apply it to your life for the next seven days!
Do this, and you’ll quickly experience increased inspiration and motivation each day that will help you move toward your goals and dreams with greater ease and speed.
To discover how to direct the power of your thoughts, so that you can create extraordinary results in all areas of your life more quickly and easily, click here to download my free ebook, Stronger Than Circumstance.
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