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One of the things you can use slotras for is to remind you of what you’re doing it for — what’s your motivation? You’ve chosen a goal and you are striving after it. Why do you want to achieve it?

Tap into your strongest motivations, including love, pride, anger, etc. It doesn’t have to be nicey-nice. It doesn’t have to sound pretty to others. In fact, nicey-nice thoughts are some of the weakest there are. If you want to be the best “to prove those bastards wrong” and that’s a really strong motivation that gets you going, use it.

For many people, a very strong motivation can be team-oriented — to come through for the team, to be the hero, to not let your buddy down.

In interviews with soldiers who have done heroic deeds, most of them say they didn’t do it for the “principle of democracy” or to promote the cause of freedom in the world. What actually motivated the soldier was “I didn’t want to let my buddy down.” Their fellow Marines were pinned down by a machine gun in a pillbox, for example, and the hero jumps in to stop it because those Marines are his buddies. He loves those guys, and love is an extremely powerful motivation.

And your wife is your buddy. Your family is your team. The people you work with are another team. Any organization you participate in is another team. If you are naturally and strongly motivated by your loyalty and commitment to any of these teams, use that motivation when you create your slotras. For example:

She’s counting on me. I won’t let her down.
I will come through for my family.
We must get these boys to land.

Use what gives you strength. That is the number one criteria for choosing your slotra: It must give you strength, it must retain your determination, and ideally, it will boost your motivation.

The book, The Long Walk: The True Story of a Trek to Freedom, is about how six men escape from a Soviet prison camp in Siberia and walk all the way across the continent to India. At one point in the story, the men had made it out of Siberia, across the Soviet Union, across the immense Gobi Desert in Mongolia and had entered Tibet. They still had to hike across the Himilayas, and were on the lookout for Chinese soldiers. If they were caught, they were finished. They didn’t have any money. They had no passports. Their chances of making it to India would seem remote to the most sanguine optimist. But they didn’t spend any time talking about what would happen if they didn’t make it. As the author, Slavomir Rawicz wrote, “We could not afford to think of failure.”

Being so close to the edge of death makes you accutely aware of the impact of your own thoughts.

Your thoughts make a huge difference, whether you are in a life-or-death struggle, or simply trying to accomplish a financial goal. It behooves you to use this fact to your advantage.

Find thoughts that help you, that motivate you, and practice them. Focus on the most motivating impulses you have, and build a slotra to capitalize on it.

Read next: Serendipity

Tags: slotrology by Adam Khan
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Many people have told me they dislike trying to think positive because it feels forced and phony. They say things to themselves they don’t really believe and it doesn’t seem to make much difference. Saying these positive things doesn’t really make them feel any better.

I think cognitive psychology has made an important contribution to this discussion. They’ve come up with a kind of anti-negativity process. It is arguing with negative thoughts. Finding mistakes in negative explanations. This is what I’ve called The Antivirus For Your Mind.

And since you already feel negative when you start doing this, it is fairly easy to do something negative, like find mistakes in your negative thoughts, to criticize your thoughts, to argue with your thoughts.

On the other hand, it is exceedingly difficult to say or believe something positive when you feel so negative.

After doing a little antivirus for the mind, you have lifted some of your bad feelings, so you are in a better frame of mind to do something more positive, like practicing slotras.

Slotralogy is different than positive thinking, although, of course, there is some overlap. The thoughts you’re practicing don’t necessarily have to be positive or cheery. The purpose is not only to make you feel positive, but to direct your attention in a good direction. When Dougal Robertson said to himself, “We must get these boys to land,” he said it with a kind of grim determination, not cheerfulness or enthusiasm. He would have had to fake any enthusiasm, and it was unnecessary. Grim determination worked just fine and it was way better than despair.

Nelson Mandela describes himself as an optimist. Not a perpetually cheery person, but one who “keeps one’s head pointed toward the sun, one’s feet moving forward.” I like that definition. “There were many dark moments,” wrote Mandela, “when my faith in humanity was sorely tested, but I would not and could not give myself up to despair. That way lay defeat and death.”

Notice that he didn’t give himself up to despair, not because he was naturally boyant. He refused to despair as a decision. He saw the practical implications of directing his mind deliberately, and used it. Most survivors of trying conditions, and most successful people do the same.

Al Siebert, author of the Survivor Personality, puts it this way, “The will to live is different from hopefulness or optimism. The survivors I have interviewed have not talked about being sustained by hope.” They are sustained by their determination, grim or not.

One of the reasons optimism is so powerful is that it is a self-fulfilling prophesy. Or at least it has a tendency to become self-fulfilling. Assume something is changeable, assume you can do it, and you’re more motivated to try than if you assume you can’t or that it is unchangeable.

When Jim Carrey first decided to become a comedian, his father, Percy, helped him out. Percy played the saxaphone when he was younger and dreamed of playing it for a vocation, but he gave it up to become an accountant.

Now he didn’t want Jim to give up his dream. Jim says of his father, “He taught me it’s better to go after something special and risk starving to death than to surrender.”

When he was only 15, Percy managed to get Jim an opportunity to try his talent on stage. In a Toronto comedy club, dressed in a yellow polyester suit his mom bought for him, Jim had his first experience entertaining people. It was a nightmare. The emcee made Jim the entertainment by making fun of him the whole time Jim was trying to do his bit.

Jim Carrey, who went on to become one of the most successful entertainers of his time, was so demoralized by this experience, he didn’t try again for two years.

“I have no idea what motivated me to try again,” he said, “I just felt like giving it a shot. Failure isn’t the end unless you give up.”

Although Jim may not realize what movivated him to try again, he reveals in that last sentence a principle, a statement, a belief that encourages persistence. It would make an excellent slotra. If you’re experiencing a setback, try practicing this thought: “Failure isn’t the end unless you give up.” Excellent.

Read next: Love is a Great Motivator

Tags: slotrology by Adam Khan
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There are two ways you can use slotras. One is to change your state in preparation for a task you are about to do, as illustrated in Build Up To It When Using a Slotra. The other way is training. Repeat things to yourself you would like to be in the habit of thinking.

Repeat phrases to yourself as a form of training. One good place to practice your slotras is in your car. You can say them out loud with as much feeling as you want without scaring other people. Repeat things you would like to get in the habit of thinking. Over time, those phrases will feel more natural to you and come to mind when you need them.

Even this idea isn’t new. Napoleon Hill and W. Clement Stone suggested it in their book Success Through A Positive Mental Attitude. They called phrases you repeat to yourself “self-starters.” They recommended you say these statements to yourself over and over rapidly. One of the self-starters they recommend is, “Do it now! Do it now! Do it now!”

They suggested saying a statement to yourself fifty times in a row every morning. And what happens? That thought comes into your mind when you need it. You have practiced thinking it. It has become comfortable and familiar and comes into your mind easily.

Whether you use this tool for a task you’re about to do, or to train your mind to think differently in the future, the tool is easy to use and works beautifully. As Napoleon Hill wrote:

Follow the instructions, no matter how abstract or impractical they may, at first, appear to be. The time will soon come, if you do as you have been instructed, in spirit as well as in act, when a whole new universe of power will unfold to you.

You can change your state. You can turn despair into determination, wishy-washiness into resolve, anxiety into courage, anger into compassion. This is not one of many basic tools. This is one of very few basic tools, and this is one you’ll find extremely useful.

You can take over your own thoughts any time. You are not the victim of what goes through your head, or at least you don’t have to be at any moment.

One thing this tool can be used for is to put your focus on a purpose, or the task at hand. Concentration is important. The statement, “I’m going to kill the bear,” would not only give the men courage, it would focus their minds on a clear purpose.

Figure out ahead of time what you want to be going through your mind in a particular type of circumstance. Practice the thought when you don’t need it. This makes the thought easier to think when you do need it. Practice the thought. Make it smooth. Make it natural.

Create-a-Slotra-Exercise

1. Think of a situation where you’d like to feel more focused or motivated, or to feel differently than you usually do in that situation.

2. Imagine being in that situation, feeling the way you want to feel.

3. Now ask yourself, “What would someone have to be thinking in that situation to feel that way?” What would you have to think to feel that way?

4. Make that thought into a good slotra.

And then, of course, practice that slotra often. You should be using this tool — practicing a new thought — several times a day. Make it a habit. Always have a slotra to practice. It only takes a minute, and you can do it walking, driving, shaving, eating, etc. Practice a new slotra three times a day for a month. More if it is really important. This tool gives you more control over your state of mind, which means your life will go the way you want more often.

To slice a tomato without a knife is not easy. You might even feel it is impossible. To change your state of mind without this tool is not easy, either. You might even feel it’s impossible.

The possibility of changing your thoughts is of enormous significance. The difference between someone who is ineffective and has a bad attitude and someone who is effective and has a good attitude is simply their mental habits. That’s what makes the difference: What kind of thoughts they think most of the time.

What Would You Like to Feel?

A lot of “positive thinking” books of the old days concentrated on being cheerful and enthusiastic. But there are better states of mind for many situations. How about determined and focused. Or motivated. Open and relaxed. Curious and attentive. Kind and affectionate.

My point is: Don’t aim for cheerful and enthusiastic necessarily. Think about what state you really want to be in, and create your slotras to make that state happen. Enthusiasm is not good for every situation.

And you want your slotra to make that state happen. If you’re trying to create a slotra that makes you feel motivated, for example, your slotra should not be: “Be motivated.” Your slotra should make you feel motivated. The statement “be motivated” doesn’t motivate. Niether does “I want to be motivated.” Do you see what I’m getting at? What thought will actually make you feel motivated? Make that into a slotra. What thoughts put the fight in you? What thoughts make you want to try? What thoughts fire you up?

“The world needs this!”
“They can’t keep me down!”
“I will come through. I won’t let her down!”

Whatever works.

Robert E. Peary, the first man to reach the North Pole, tried and failed many times before he succeeded. He had a motto he repeated over and over, especially after his trip where he lost several of his toes: “I will find a way or make one.”

Imagine yourself with a goal that means everything to you. Imagine that it is very difficult. And then say that to yourself. Can you feel the determination the slotra gives you? Peary was extremely persistent in accomplishing his goal. He tried again and again, overcoming tremendous odds and finally reached his goal. Usually history books don’t explain why someone is determined. But I’ll tell you why: He had a good slotra. Why did others fail or die? They didn’t have a good enough slotra, or they didn’t have one at all.

What many people don’t realize is that determination can be generated. It’s not like you are either determined or not. You can create a state of determination; not for all time, but here in this moment. Just as you can’t make your spouse feel loved once and for all, but you can definitely do it in the moment and most any moment you choose.

You’re looking for a slotra primarily that aims your attention or changes your emotions. Or both. Having an important reason to succeed is motivating — and it allows for strong interpretations of events (that is, interpretations that make you strong, determined and motivated, as opposed to interpretations that make you weak, demoralized, or afraid).

Having an almost continual focus on your clear aim allows your thoughts to be preoccupied with (and always returning to) something positive, something future-oriented, toward accomplishment and action. This is the most powerful, positive way to protect yourself from negativity.

It’s not a coincidence that the most undemoralizing book in history (Think and Grow Rich) was written during the great depression — which could fairly be named The Great Demoralization.

The point of all of this is to use your slotras to aim your attention in a way that creates a positive frame of mind. And to use this tool every day, even several times a day. The content of your mind makes a huge difference in how well you can overcome obstacles. Use the tools at your disposal. The main tools to use are:

Antivirus For Your Mind

Slotrology

Read next: Slotrology and Positive Thinking

Tags: slotrology by Adam Khan
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