[bctt tweet="The more you understand how programmable you are, the quicker you'll change." username="QaziniKenya"]
Want to know the most frustrating yet most liberating concept in self-improvement?
If you were somehow able to fully embrace it in the moment, today, you'd literally be able to start transforming your life with a higher level of confidence. Most people know this logically, but it's hard to embrace emotionally. Most people never fully accept this concept emotionally, which leaves them feeling totally stuck with no hope to change their futures.
So what's the concept?
Simple - It's all in your head.
When you realize that the vast majority of the way you perceive the world isn't objective, you're free to change your perception. Of course, circumstances are real. Thinking positively isn't going to magically make money appear into your bank account. But, something like the belief that you can make more money will certainly impact whether or not you're able to in the future.
This logic applies to basically every area of our lives. Much of our success or failure is a construct of the mind.
Your mind is this self-fulfilling prophecy machine. Any time you try a new challenging situation, your mind digs into its mental cabinet to see when you've tried similar things before. It's wired to look for failures because your brain wants you to be safe. So most people dig into their file cabinets only to find nothing but evidence for why they can't be successful. And this evidence is so real to them that it might as well be scientific law.
You've been around people like this. The sky is falling to them no matter what.
While you can look at someone like that and feel pity, just understand that you're doing this to a certain degree yourself. Here are some things to look out for to let you know the power of your mind is working against you:
- You take large macro issues in the world and pretend like they're personally affecting you to a much larger degree than they are, e.g., people love blaming Donald Trump for their personal failures even though their lives were probably the same during the Obama administration.
- You state things matter of factly when they're very much subject to interpretation, e.g., the economy keeps people from getting ahead.
- You either believe or speak out loud certain 'that's just the way it is' type of phrases.
Many of these tells are subtle, but you constantly do this thing where you take your perception of reality and subconsciously define it as reality.
I just listed out many negative examples of how you do this, but you can use this same effect in a positive direction. How? By simply deciding things are going to be different. By asserting that these 'rules of society' don't apply to you. All of these new belief systems will need to be backed by massive levels of action, but the belief always comes first.
Once you genuinely understand that getting out of your own way is 90 per cent of the issue, you'll get out of your own way. But bringing yourself to the point where you realize that can be quite difficult.
So, what do you do?
Focus on drilling new beliefs in your head and counteract your old narratives. I do this all the time.
I will catch myself thinking negatively and have an active conversation in my head about whether or not that thought is actually true. Years of meditation have taught me that your mind is a liar. If you learn to sit back and observe it you can question your narratives and make new ones.
That's the key to your life, your narrative. Human beings are storytelling and pattern recognition machines. The more you understand how programmable you are, the quicker you'll change.
