Change Your Middle Name

It is time to jump into a quick blog entry! I have been derelict in my writing lately and it has even stressed me out a bit. However, I had a few things floating around in my head the last few days while attending the Big 10 Wrestling Championships in State College, Pennsylvanian. Just by reflecting, there are a dozen different things that come to mind that might be of some interest.

I happened to be on the treadmill at the hotel this morning and a simple thought came to mind. Though most of my thoughts are incredibly “simple” this one seemed to make some sense, at least to me. We often hear experts discuss goal setting and many even speak of affirmations. The difference between the two might even be a little confusing. The way that I frame this, is that goals are all futuristic and affirmations are nothing more that taking a particular goal and putting it into the present. This can easily be done by adding the phrase “I am” before your goal. For example, if your goal is to workout 3 times a week, your affirmation would be “I am working out 3 times per week.” The thought behind this is that if your affirmation is continually repeated, it will eventually become reality.

This itself is nothing new or earth shattering. However, here is where my morning revelation I referred to during my workout today on the treadmill begins to take shape. How about taking an affirmation and making it your middle name? Using the previous example, goal being working out 3 days per week and affirmation being “I am” working out 3 days per week, I change my middle name to Mike “hard training” Hagerty. If you play with the words a bit, you can have some fun at the same time. Obviously, I do not plan to share this with everyone, but this does set in motion a couple powerful possibilities.

First, I can now visualize that this is who I am. It may also break through some old scrips that play out in my head that unfortunately may have more “can nots” than cans. I begin to completely reshape my thinking of who I am today vs. the old me.

Secondly, every time I hear my name or write my name on a piece of paper, I will be reminded of my affirmation. This to me seems incredibly powerful. It also allows me to seriously focus on one major goal and affirmation at a time. Additionally, if I feel that I want to create a new goal and affirmation, I just change my middle name to reflect that objective.

This certainly is not rocket science, however there is a lot of science on how and why affirmations are so powerful. Over time, a stated affirmation will become part of our routine or belief system. It no longer needs to serve us as a just a goal. It is just part of who we are. It becomes “standard operational procedure” and in a sense part of just part of our DNA.