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SLOTRAS
are especially practical in situations you know will happen again.
Create slotras for situations when you have the same argument
with the same person again and again, or the same thoughts after
the same golf slice, or the same explanations for why your client
said no. Use slotras for situations where you'd like to change
the way you usually respond.
You can change your thinking with this
simple tool. You can make your insights stick. You can make your
new ways of thinking change the way you react to those tired
situations.
The antivirus for your mind is very powerful,
but you can add to the power by making a slotra from your insight,
and repeating it. This can put your new way of thinking where
you need it. The next time a similar situation happens —
a situation that used to make you think negatively and commit
thought-mistakes
— you will want to have your new way of thinking replace
the old mental habit. Slotras are especially good at answering
this need.
You can think of this as training. A good
analogy Tom Miller (author of Self-Discipline and Emotional Control) uses
in his corporate-training seminars is that your mind is like
a horse. If you’ve ever ridden one of those rented horses
that follow a certain path every day, you can get a sense of
how your mind works and what it takes to change the way you think.
On a rented horse, it doesn’t really
matter if you pay attention to where you’re going. The horse
knows where to go. You can just relax and enjoy the scenery.
The horse has done it a thousand times before. In the same way,
when your spouse gets that certain look on her face, you have
the same thought you’ve had a thousand times before. You
don’t have to figure out how to interpret her look. You
don’t have to figure out what to feel. Just like the horse,
your mind will go where it has gone a thousand times before.
 But
let’s say you want to go a different way on the horse. What
would you do? At a fork in the road the horse usually goes right.
It has always gone right, but you’ve decided going left
at the fork is the best way now. You’ve had an insight and
now you know going left is the best way. But every time you come
to that fork, if you aren’t paying attention, what happens?
The horse will go right.
It is not enough to “know” it
is better to go left. You actually have to think of it when you
are at the fork. Remembering an hour later doesn't help.
When you’ve thought the same way many
times, your mind is like that horse. It knows where to go and
you don’t even have to pay attention to it. But if you want
to go a different way, you have to do it deliberately. You have
to remember to think the new way when the right time comes. The
insight isn’t enough. “Knowing” the better way
isn’t enough. If you’re not paying attention, or if
your brain doesn’t really have any other option than the
old way, that’s the way it will go.
If you have always gotten mad and yelled
when your child spills something, that’s what you’ll
do next time unless you remember your new insight the moment
your child spills something.
It may work perfectly well to take a deep
breath when you’re anxious but the method doesn’t do
you any good unless you remember to use it when you’re anxious!
Five minutes later may be too late.
 That’s
where slotras come in. A slotra takes your new conclusions and
places a sign at the fork in the road, so you can remember to
steer your horse down the new path when you come to it.
The whole idea of a slotra is to put the
new thought where you need it.
Ideally, the circumstance will trigger
the new thought. The situation will act as a reminder to think
the new thought.
How? By practicing saying your slotra over
and over while thinking of situations where you want the slotra
to come to mind.
This is a powerful and simple mental tool
that can make a huge difference in your life.
Read next: Practice
Clear and Simple Slotras
This article is part of a series on Slotralogy.
Read the first section here: Slotralogy
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