Did you know you have a bug in your brain?
Robert Christiansen wrote a book called The Bug in Our Brain that discusses the behaviors people have that are insidious – in life and in business.
These behaviors are deeply held belief systems that can do a lot of damage to our mental, physical, and emotional health, as well as to our relationships and the wellbeing of our businesses.
Fortunately, we can reprogram our brain by cleansing your brain of the negative, limiting beliefs and opening it up to healthier belief systems.
All of this is explained in his book, The Bug in Our Brain.
I was fortunate to chat with Robert during a recent podcast. During our talk, Robert explained why self-worth is so important and outlined some of the steps we can take to make some progress in this area.
The Bug in Our Brain: How Robert Developed the Concept
Back in the day, Robert was a software developer. He became very familiar with bugs and programming bugs. He found it fascinating how they could seemingly appear out of nowhere. You don’t know how they got there or why but it’s obvious something is not working the way it’s supposed to work.
It eventually dawned on him that the same could be true of our brain and our behaviors.
Some of those behaviors are proof that something isn’t working the way it’s supposed to, but it seems like we lack the power to make things right.
This leads us to repeat behaviors.
For instance, we finally pay off our credit card debt only to get back into debt again. We say we’re not going to have anything more to do with that toxic person in our life, and then we end up getting married to them. We lose 30 pounds only to gain back that plus an extra 10 pounds.
Is there anything we can do to avoid these behaviors?
We can, and it all starts with building up our self-worth.
Improve Your Life Now: Simple Yet Profound Steps to Better Self-Worth
What does self-worth have to do with your success as a business owner?
Actually, quite a bit.
Having a healthy level of worth helps you avoid self-sabotage and engage in behaviors that will help you achieve your personal and entrepreneurial goals.
Self-worth will help us overcome limiting beliefs and change our mindset around money and relationships.
Here are just a couple of the tips Robert gives to his clients so they can improve their self-worth, their behaviors, and their life.
Learn to Feel Good In Your Own Body
As a business owner, you may think your first priority is making sure your company is profitable. After all, how can you be happy and healthy if you’re not making an income?
Actually, there are some things that need to come first, one of which is feeling good about your body. If you don’t feel good in your body, you’ll often find ways to unconsciously sabotage yourself and your business.
This can come in the form of racking up debt, missing deadlines, or being too afraid to market your company and attend networking events.
In the end, money won’t do you much good if you’re not happy with your body.
Besides taking steps to improve your physicality – with healthy eating and exercise – you need to change your mindset around your body.
Robert says a daily mantra to help him accomplish this. He says, “I am a healthy, vibrant man. I exude masculinity in a safe way for all those around me. I feel secure.”
Robert points out that saying this regularly helps him to keep a complete physical presence. He feels whole, perfect, strong, powerful, loving, harmonious, and happy. In other words, he feels balanced. He’s happy with his body, with his physical presence.
And when he feels that way, he’s naturally drawn to healthy foods and activities that support his wellbeing.
Establish That You Are a Person That Can Be Loved
Millions of people feel that they are unloved. They don’t feel like anyone loves them or that they are unworthy of accepting love from others.
This is a horrible way to feel and can lead to damaging results, including severe depression and self-sabotaging behavior.
Everyone has the right to be loved. And even if we don’t always feel it, we are loved. There are people who care about us and our wellbeing.
Even if this wasn’t true, every single one of us has at least one person in the world who can provide us with love: Ourselves.
One of the most important relationships we’ll ever have is that with ourselves.
hat’s why, every day, Robert looks in the mirror and says out loud, “I love you, Robert.” He says it and he means it.
When we don’t feel self-love, we often don’t feel like there’s a point to try and do anything, let alone run a successful business.
But when we show ourselves love, we improve our self-worth, which allows us to enter into healthier relationships with our family, friends, significant others, co-workers, and even with money.
If you have love for yourself, the idea of setting and achieving life and financial goals doesn’t seem like an insurmountable task.
You Can Combat Self-Sabotage by Improving Your Self-Worth
There is a direct link between self-worth and self-sabotage, and it can seem like an overwhelming obstacle to overcome.
We might feel like we don’t have the power to change certain things in our life, particularly our level of self-worth. In turn, our behaviors reflect that and we start to sabotage ourselves.
Thankfully, we do have the power to change our mindset and develop deeper, stronger self-worth.
It can be difficult to put forth the effort to make these changes because it can feel like a struggle at times.
However, with regular action the steps that Robert outlines for us can help us cleanse our brain of toxic bugs and become happier and healthier, all of which has a direct bearing on what we’re able to achieve in life and in business.
If you’d like more information about Robert, head over to his website. There, you’ll find an introduction to a meditation that is a great primer for other Motive for Life self-improvement and self-worth building programs.
About Robert Christiansen
Robert Christiansen leads global delivery of CTP services and is accountable for the world-class team of CTP’s notable cloud professionals. Robert is a key contributor to CTP’s thought leadership and speaks regularly at CTP public events, workshops, and seminars.
Prior to joining CTP, Robert owned Cloud Nation, a Citrix XenDesktop service provider powered by AWS. He sold Cloud Nation before joining CTP. Robert owned and launched Bank Freedom, one of the first virtual banks using cloud services. Prior to Bank Freedom, Robert ran a successful internet marketing company providing SEO services to small to medium businesses. In his early days, Robert worked as a C++ programmer for 13 years.
Robert and his wife, Kimberly Christiansen, are actively involved in high school swim and water polo competitions. Robert serves as the Chairman of Board of the CDM Retreat Center, a registered 501(c)(3) and Kim dedicates her time as an elderly care service provider.
Robert attended California State University at Chico, and studied Computer Science and Mathematics.
