About Steven AitchisonMight seem a strange title for a blog post. I wanted to talk about how little things can change your mindset and how you can learn to change something, seemingly, insignificant to change the way you feel.
Last year it was time to get a few new pairs of socks as the trusty old black ones were fast becoming grey. So when we were out shopping for some things for the house, I noticed a 7 pair pack of socks and picked them up. It was the socks that had different colours on the toes and heals but these ones also had the day of the week on the arch. Now, in our house we never had a matching pair of socks, it seemed the sock devil would come in the night and discard a few socks which meant we never got to wear matching socks and it was messing with my mind. You see in our house I have my own sock drawer but apparantly my wife and two boys seemed to think it was a communal sock drawer and they were forever stealing my socks. After a few ‘hey, they’re my socks!’ moments and me chasing my sons around the house to get my socks off (inevitably they would hide and then pounce on me when I found them and beat the living socks out of me!), I gave up and now we all share the same socks. However chasing my wife around the house was a differnt story. So, when I bought the new ones with the days of the week, my thoughts were ‘it will be difficult to lose socks that had matching colours and days of the week on them’ so there should be no problem finding a matching pair after they had been washed.
Family quirkiness
Here’s what happened; my wife didn’t wear them as she didn’t really like them, my youngest son thought it would be quite quirky to wear unmatching ones, me eldest son was experimenting on the hypothesis that socks may actually be able to start walking themselves if he wore them long enough. I was trying hard to keep it together and match them all up as soon as they came out the washing. I would wear my Monday ones on Monday, my tuesday ones on tuesday etc. When Saturday came around it was a great feeling just rolling my Saturday socks on, it was the weekend and I felt great. After a few months of this and a few more sock packs I started wearing my Saturday ones on a tTursday and when I felt really adventurous I wore them on a Wednesday. I noticed that I felt better after slipping on those red Saturday socks no matter what day of the week it was because I had associated them with the weekend, free time and time with my family. It then became a little family joke, whenever we felt a little down or stressed just ‘Put the red socks on’.
The power of association
This is the power of association in action and shows we can give power to anything to make us feel better. I know a lot of women in particular wear certain clothes depending on the way they feel. And guys, remember the times when you used to go out scouting for girls saying ‘I feel lucky tonight I’ve got my lucky boxer shorts on…’ or ‘my lucky shirt on’.
What are your feel good associations? Let us know by leaving a comment below.
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There was a time in my life when wearing only black clothes could give me a great sense of confidence. And oh, I just remembered, back when I was a student, I had this camouflage cap, that I used until I destroyed. Made me feel tough.
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Very nice post.
.-= Dragos Roua´s last blog ..August Mariner Promo Code =-.
@dragos I bet nobody messed with you with you when you had your cap on
Back at uni, Birkenstock sandals – made me feel free and white tennis socks – very sporty
Nice article Steve. Many of our coaches using this when they do NLP.
This is a light hearted reply, and I am sorry but cant add much to the post, but I know someone who always wears red socks !
It certainly does get noticed, and to be honest it does give an air of confidence, so perhaps we should all get some…
by the way…Hello James.
But I don’t have red socks…I only have whites and black ones..does that mean I have to buy some?
Thanks for the great post! Enlightening..