Visualizations Of Possible Outcomes Of Interactions

[Afonso]

I've been more aware of my thoughts for the past weeks. One thing I noticed is that I'm constantly thinking and visualizing on my mind possible outcomes for future or past interactions. In these visualizations, I keep track of other people's reactions and facial expressions. I'm aware that I've been doing this all my life.

I go through an ordinary interaction and then recall it and imagine alternative behaviors and their outcomes. I think this is correlated to my deep child need for validation and approval. I also do this for future events, where I imagine all the different ways I can perform the future interaction and which behavior will have the best outcome - positive reactions from people.

I'm still trying to figure out how to clear these thoughts and why they exist in the first place. Maybe they happen to be my mind's way of manifesting its dependence of others' opinions. I'll try Leo's exercise on "How to stop caring what people think of you" and see if I get any results.

Does anyone have any idea of the root of such problem and what actions I can take to fix the deeper issue? I tend to think I'm independent of other people's opinions but this just proves it wrong.

[TeenVisionary98]

@Afonso It sounds like you summed up the reason for these thoughts pretty well. I did this, and still do to some extent, because I wanted to evaluate how I did in the interaction and what I could've done better. I was too focused on what I could've done better--but by focusing on the things we don't like about ourselves, our subconscious naturally gravitates towards them. 

I came to understand more about this in reading "Psycho-Cybernetics" by Maxwell Maltz, where he discusses the idea of Self-image and programming the subconscious mind. What you can do is establish a daily visualization habit, where you clearly see the person you want to be, and then go throughout your day "acting" and "feeling" like this new persona. However, constantly contemplating on what you could've done better in a certain interaction, and/or using willpower and effort to be a certain way disables your ability to be spontaneous, and as I said earlier, causes you to act in the manner that you see yourself as. Over time, roughly 21 days, you will notice a huge change in your attitude about how you carry yourself throughout your day if you visualize effectively.