How can I retrain my mind to stop holding me back from success?

Rabbi Landau teaches that the first step is to notice what you've been teaching your brain. Ask yourself, he says, “what's the word you'd never let yourself become? Rich, powerful, ambitious?” That word points to what you trained yourself to hate.

Then, “un-train it.” Your brain only follows what you teach it. If you call rich people greedy or say success makes people miserable, it writes that down and steers you away. If you keep calling the result bad luck, nothing changes.

In A Soul at Peace, Rabbi Landau writes that the way out is not a war against yourself, because you won't defeat what you yourself built. His exercise there: choose one word you've gotten used to speaking badly about, such as “rich,” “ambitious,” or “successful.” Write down three real reasons it can be a vessel for serving Hashem, and say them out loud once a day for thirty days.

Going deeper: Rabbi Landau's teaching, level by level

Surface claim

What you trained, you can un-train.

Deepest human truth

The heart follows what we do, and words repeated every day become the new order the soul writes down.

More questions from this teaching

• Why do I keep sabotaging my own success?