The core principles across multiple printable pages.
Quick-Start Cheat Sheets
How The Mind Works
Apply the Teaching
Quick-Start Cheat Sheets for How The Mind Works
How The Mind Works - Quick-Start Cheat Sheets
Larson's mental habit framework made immediately actionable in one reference guide.
Inside the Cheat Sheets
One page per core principle
The Law of Substitution
Negative thoughts and habits cannot be directly destroyed.
Subconscious as Creative Executor
The subconscious mind processes whatever is consistently impressed upon it as an absolute blueprint and proceeds to create thoughts, emotional states, and physical conditions that match that pattern throughout the entire system..
The Power of Visualization
Mental imagery held with deep subjective feeling serves as an absolute pattern for the subconscious creative energies to replicate.
Thought Trains
Thoughts have momentum and direction - they take you somewhere.
The Master Mind
The 'Master Mind' is achieved when the conscious and subconscious minds work in perfect creative harmony - the conscious providing direction, the subconscious supplying the mental material and creative power to execute..
Emotional Poise as Energy Conservation
Anger, worry, and fear act as massive energy leaks that deplete cellular vitality and disrupt cognitive function.
The Method
CBT, NLP and somatic principles built into every line
Every line on the cheat sheets is written in NLP presupposition structure - language that treats the principle as already true rather than something to aspire toward. This is not a stylistic choice; it is a functional one. The subconscious mind processes language that presupposes reality more readily than language that frames it as a goal. “Your attention filter is already working for you” lands differently than “try to change your attention filter.”
The layout applies CBT chunking principles: each principle sits in its own distinct block so the brain processes it as a discrete unit rather than as part of an undifferentiated wall of text. Cluttered reference material is processed as noise. Clean, spaced, visually distinct content is processed as signal. The design decisions are functional, not decorative.
Printed and placed visibly, the cheat sheets work as environmental priming - a principle from somatic psychology. What you see repeatedly, without actively reading, shapes your default perceptual set. A cheat sheet pinned above your desk works not only when you read it deliberately but when your peripheral vision catches it during ordinary work. The subconscious is always receiving.
Why we built it this way
How the Mind Works describes the complete cognitive mechanics of the DAR Rewire phase. Larson's conscious-to-subconscious pipeline - where the conscious mind provides clear direction while the subconscious supplies the creative power to execute - is exactly the mechanism the DAR Notice-Decode-Challenge-Choose-Decide sequence is designed to work with. You notice the old pattern (what Larson calls the old impression), decode its structure, challenge its validity, choose a new pattern, and decide it repeatedly until the subconscious takes it as the new default.
The law of substitution runs throughout both Larson's framework and the DAR Rewire process: you do not fight the old story, you build the new one. Every DAR Rewire tool - affirmations, future self journaling, deliberate thought replacement - operates on this principle. The piece Larson did not have is the body: DAR begins by helping your body feel safe and settled, creating the physical conditions under which subconscious impression can actually take hold, rather than assuming the mind can override a stressed body by sheer cognitive effort.
How to Use It
Three uses that actually work
- 1
Print and pin visibly
Pin the pages where you will see them without actively looking - above your desk, on the kitchen wall, beside the mirror. Peripheral exposure is the mechanism. You do not need to read it every day; you need it in your visual field.
- 2
Scan before a decision or challenge
Before a difficult conversation, a business decision, or a moment when the old pattern is likely to activate - read one principle deliberately. A 90-second scan primes the attentional filter before it is tested.
- 3
Use as a nightly anchor
The pre-sleep window is the subconscious's most receptive state. Reading one principle immediately before sleep is the highest-leverage moment in the day for impressing a new pattern. Two minutes - one principle, read slowly, felt rather than just processed.
Worth knowing
This is a reference tool, not a practice system
The cheat sheets give you the principles in a scannable, always-available format. They will not give you thirty days of structured daily practice - that is what the workbook is built for. If you want the 30-day practice system, it is here.
Who This Is For
You'll get the most from this if…
- ✓You want to understand how habitual thought patterns form and how to systematically change them without exhausting willpower battles
- ✓You have heard about the subconscious mind but want a structured, practical framework for working with it deliberately
- ✓You recognise the rebound effect - how trying not to think about something makes it stronger - and want an alternative strategy
- ✓You are interested in the history of positive psychology and want to understand the pre-scientific foundations of what CBT later formalised
- ✓You want to understand the relationship between self-image, cognitive quality, and what your mind can actually produce
- ✓You are doing identity-level change work and want a systematic guide to consciously impressing the subconscious with a new self-concept
Complete the Practice
Complete the How The Mind Works practice
30-Day Challenge Workbook
Build the teaching into 30 days of structured daily practice.
Habit Tracker & Goal Planner
Track the micro-habits that compound into lasting change.
52-Week Daily Affirmation Calendar
52 weeks of daily affirmations - one for every day from May 2026 to April 2027.
Affirmation Card Deck
52 cards to carry the teaching into every part of your day.
The Toolkit
All five products for this work in one discounted bundle. Save 30%.
Annotated Edition
Christie L. Russell's annotated edition with neuroscience and NLP commentary.
About the Work
How The Mind Works - New Thought, 1866-1954
Larson's practical framing of habitual thought and mental discipline - how the mind habitually attends, reacts, and organises experience, and how directed thinking reshapes outcomes.
The Science Behind It
Larson's prolific optimism-based approach is the closest New Thought comes to positive psychology as a formal discipline. His emphasis on the 'promise yourself' principle maps to self-compassion research - treating yourself as you would a good friend is one of the most evidence-backed interventions for sustained positive change. His insistence on consistency over intensity anticipates what we now know about neuroplasticity: small repeated actions create stronger and more durable neural pathways than occasional dramatic ones.
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