Opening Your Mind

 By Ron Stubbs   

As you begin to read this article I’d like to offer you a challenge. That challenge is to expand your thinking. Go WAY outside the box. Begin to see things in a new way. Reframe your focus a bit if you will. No, it’s not dangerous at all; in fact you may even surprise yourself if you allow yourself to practice the content of this article. So what am I talking about?

Dreams.

No, not the kind of dreams that you have while your asleep at night. But rather the kind of dreams that involve your life, your hopes, your aspirations. Those kinds of dreams that you dreamed life would be like when you were young. Those dreams.

For many of people, real life may not have quite matched up to those dreams. Things such as a mortgage, bills, children, braces etc. may have put a damper on those dreams of ours. After putting them on the backburner for a while we may even begin lose them, think them less important, trade them for a watered down version or not follow them at all.

So why if we choose not to follow them, were they important in the first place? Because we all need to dream.

Dreams are what makes reality. Think about it for a moment. Everything in this world that man has created all started out as a dream. Some good ones, some bad ones. But they were all dreams.

So here’s my challenge. It may have been a bit since you last dreamed so here’s what I want you to do.

Find a quiet spot. Get a pen and paper. Take 30 minutes and dream…Write down anything, ANYTHING that comes to mind. The wise dreams, the fantasy dreams, the possible dreams, the impossible dreams, the no way that’s absolutely crazy nuts dreams. Write them all down.

There are only two rules for this exercise.
 
• #1) What could be possible if there was no chance of failure? If failure was NOT an option, if you were guaranteed success; what could you do?
• #2) What could be possible if there was no fear? If fear was NOT an option; what could you do?

Now if you're lucky enough to have achieved all of your dreams, if you are totally satisfied with your life, yourself, your finances, your relationships, your job, your status in life; quit reading now. There’s simply nothing I have to offer you.

But if you like me, aren't quite "there" yet, if you haven't received all that life has to offer, if you still have some dreams left on that paper to fulfill; please read on.

So, still some dreams yet to fulfill? Good for you! Now let’s see about how to make those dreams come true.

The first thing I’d like you to do is circle the top three of those dream ideas that you put on paper. Now pick just one of those. Next, ask yourself why you have never pursued that dream. Write down the first thing that pops into your head. Whatever it is, just write it down.

Now I want you to draw a line through that negative thought and write the word VOID across it. Because that was the person you were yesterday. Not today. Today is the start of something powerful, something different, somebody new.

So many times we limit ourselves by our belief systems. What we can do and what we can’t do. Many of these beliefs systems are driven by fear and possibility of failing. So we try to “manifest” our ideas, use positive affirmations to make our dreams come true. But many times, in fact MOST of the time those methods produce poor if any quantified results.

Why?

In psychology there is a concept called “Premature Cognitive Commitment”. What this mean is that we operate out of habitual, automatic behaviors that we have learned throughout our lives. By learning and believing things about ourselves that may or may not be true.

Let me give you an example of this behavior.

Imagine a 5-gallon clear glass jar with 500 common household flies placed inside. The lid is replaced with clear plastic wrap. There will be enough air in the jar for at least 48 hours.

The flies are buzzing around the jar banging into the walls, the bottom and finally the clear plastic wrap on the top. They can see the outside world around them but can’t get to it. As they bang into the clear barriers, they will begin to make decisions about their environment, their capabilities and limitations. After 48 hours, when you remove the plastic wrap, 99% of the flies will stay in that jar. Why?

Because they have formed their personal “map of reality” about their outside world, their environment, their abilities and limitations about themselves. This is the very same thing that we tend to do ourselves. What this teaches us is that we have made decisions about ourselves based or what others have told us and what we have told ourselves.

But Ron, aren’t we taught we can change our behaviors and ourselves if we just think positive?

Check your dream list once again and tell me how successful that method alone has worked for you.

So what does work? Questions.

When we ask ourselves a question that we don’t know the answer to, the brain begins to search for an answer and will continue to come up with solutions to our question.

All we have to do is listen and be receptive.

Not all the answers will be good ones and we will constantly be battling that nasty old self-talk that tells us “we can’t do it, we’re too old, we’re not good enough”.

But yesterday is when we listened to that self-talk, today is when we do something about it.

When that nasty old negative self talk rears it’s ugly head, write it down, strike the line through it with the word VOID and ask yourself “How can I make this happen?” and then take some type of action to make it come true. Some step, no matter how small will begin the pattern of success.

The difference between success and failure is the quality of the questions you ask yourself.

So my next challenge to you is to ask yourself three new questions every morning and again three new questions that evening. You don’t need to answer them right away, let your brain work for you, percolate those ideas and come up with the answers. They just might surprise you.

Try this for 14 days, two short weeks, 336 hours and see what a difference asking questions can make for you in your life.

Here’s to you; the fly that escapes the jar and fulfills those dreams.