John’s manipulation of his environment demonstrates that it is essential, in order to use mental rehearsal effectively, that we get away from the usual people, places, things, times, and events that make up so much of our daily routine and thoughts. One random interaction with any one of these distractions can initiate automatic associative thinking. That is one reason why travel often enables us to think more clearly about situations that have developed in our life, to plot our future more clearly, to arrive at decisions more easily, and to plan our next steps more fluidly. We are out of our
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