Lesson 01 · With Mike Hansen, MD

Diagnosing the Pattern of Brainwashing Yourself

A familiar setting can make a familiar action easy to repeat. Start by examining the pattern—not judging your character.

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What is my day repeating into me?

“Brainwashing yourself” is a metaphor here: choosing and testing what you repeat. Open a real notebook and describe one behavior, the situation around it and the result you want.

FOUR LINES TO TRY

Focus: What reminder will I actually see?
Emotional involvement: Why does this matter to me?
Agitation: What safe change could interrupt the old setup?
Repetition: At what next opportunity will I try it?

For example, someone who wants to read in the evening could leave a book in view and charge their phone elsewhere. That is an illustrative experiment, not a report of Dr. Hansen’s behavior or a guaranteed solution.

Leave the result blank until it happens. Then record what you prepared, what you actually did, whether the result changed and what you would revise.

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Sources and evidence

FEAR is Chase Hughes’s organizing framework. These notebook prompts are an original adaptation. Research on habit formation and progress monitoring supports some components; it does not validate the complete FEAR exercise or guarantee a result.

A small first application

Build my notebook plan

Read the lesson and four notebook prompts, then write three short answers. Pen and paper works just as well. No account or email is needed.

Your answers are not submitted or saved to an account here. Download a copy to keep your plan. Reloading or clearing the worksheet removes its current answers.

After you try it

Write what actually happened before deciding what it means. Did you do the action? Did you get the result you wanted? What else could explain the outcome?

A useful next step may be to keep the plan, change it, or choose another explanation. You can stop here and try it in your own life.

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