You are what you think!

There was an experiment conducted in New York University by John Bargh and his collaborators in which they asked their students, aged between 18 and 22, to assemble four word sentences from the five words they were given. One group had the words: Florida, forgetful, bald, grey, or wrinkled, words associated with the elderly. When they had finished the exercise they were asked to walk down a corridor to another room for some more exercises.

The experiment was to see how long it took these young people to walk to the next classroom. The result was that the students who had been working on the elderly set of words walked significantly slower than those who had not.

They had been primed. Asking their brains to think about words associated with the elderly had primed them to act elderly. Fortunately for the students it is a short lived effect. But it does indicate that our subconscious is susceptible to being conditioned by what it works with.

So just be aware that you can sabotage yourself if you fail to understand that what you think about can impact how you behavior. Even how fast you walk.