Why did I DO that?

By Ron Stubbs   

This article is about beginning to learn why we are like we are and what it takes to change our thought processes and opinions about ourselves.         

    Why is this important?
    Because one key to change is becoming aware of how we got there in the first place.

Q. So how DID we get here?
A: In psychology there is a concept called Premature Cognitive Commitment or thinking.
    What this means is that we tend to act out our lives out of automatic, habitual behaviors. Ones that we have done time and times again till we know longer consider what we are doing, we just do it. We make up our mind about our environment and the world around us based on the filters we have installed from childhood.

Q. So do these filters get installed?
A:  By our experiences. Our “truths”. Or rather our hallucination of the truth, of reality.
    You see, everyday we watch the world and have experiences. What we tell ourselves about those experiences, what meanings we put upon them shapes our views. Imagine for a moment a big, five-gallon clear glass jar. Now fill that jar with 500 houseflies. Put a piece of clear plastic wrap over the mouth of the jar and shake it up. No worries, there is approx 48 hours of air in the jar for the flies.
    The flies will begin buzzing around the jar, banging into the sides, the bottom and top. They can see the outside world; they know that it is there but they can’t get to it. As they bang against the jar they begin to distort their view of the world they knew and begin making cognitive decisions and self-limitations about their environment. When the plastic wrap is removed 48 hours later, when the jar is open, 99.9% of the flies, 499 of them will stay in the jar.
    Why?
    Because they have made cognitive commitments and self-limitating thoughts about their environment. They simply decided it couldn’t/ wouldn’t happen, and so it became truth to them.
    Sound familiar?
    This is the very same thing we tend to do to ourselves. What this teaches us is that we have made decisions, estimates and decided what we can and cannot do based on our life experiences and what people have told us that we believed. Even more profound is that we have made those estimates and limiting decisions based on what we have paid attention too!
    Just like the flies in the jar we have made decisions about who we are and limited our capabilities based on the filters we have installed. We continue to act out those beliefs even when the proverbial plastic wrap is taken off our jar. Just like those flies we have created our map of reality. Our internal representation of self.
    As humans, these ideas of self form our opinions our belief systems and views of the world around us. And while those values and belief systems made have been useful at one time, just like the plastic wrap was once true for the flies, those beliefs mad not be true today.

Q. So how DID they get there?
A: Human beings are conceptualizers, storytellers, and thinkers. Our main communication medium is language. We are meaning making machines. We have to place our stamp, our version or hallucination of reality on everything that enters our minds. We have to have a meaning i.e., our interpretation of the event, in order to process the information so our minds can then take the appropriate actions. We all begin constructing a story about life and our relationship to it almost from the moment we are born. In a sense, each of us not only has a story but also is the story. We write our life script, our movie, in which we are the main character. We are the heroes. We get to choose the scenes, setting and appropriate music for our theme song. Things happen to us. Some good things, some bad things. We take actions. We witness events and outcomes. We make decisions, some good ones and some bad ones. We have good guys and bad guys. We draw conclusions. And then we weave it all into an on going, always consistent, never ending narrative tapestry based upon our unique hallucination of reality around us.
    The main theme of our story, our life script, is our sense of self; who we are or better yet, who we believe we are. Our life script and who we become is heavily influenced by what we were told when we were young and what we chose to believe about ourselves at that time.
    Were we told that we were smart or stupid? Lazy or hardworking? Are our siblings really better than us? Are we beautiful, handsome or homely? Are we destined to be rich or poor? Are we supposed to act the role of the victim or the hero? Are we part of an elite group or a persecuted minority? A good person or a bad person? A winner or a loser?
    When we were offered each of these views, which of these scenarios did we believe about ourselves at the time, accept them as truth and allowed them to be embedded in our young subconscious minds and become reality for us when we grew older? When we were children, our world was typically very small; it consisted mainly of our parents, teachers and other grownups that we automatically labeled as the authorities on this exciting new world we were born into. We were positive they knew what they are talking about. They had to know everything. They had seen it all we thought, they had been there, done that and their words must be right. In this picture, it is only natural that we designed our stories, our scripts, about ourselves based on the definitions, examples and influences that our parents, our teachers and those other authority figures that we knew were right had given us. They provided our basis for our imagined strengths and weaknesses, whether or not those definitions were in our own best interests.
    To better understand the impact of critical language on children, it is vital to understand that children hear and process language differently from adults. They take things said more literally than adults and tend to believe without question, especially when those ideas and statements come from an authority figure. When we were young children we didn’t particularly have the intellectual maturity to question our evaluation of our parents, to let their words roll of us like water on a ducks back.
    Example; we are 3-years-old and just spilled orange juice all over our clothes at breakfast and our stressed out, late for work parents yelled, “Can't you drink that without making a mess of yourself?”
    Typically we didn’t think: “You know, I think my parents have too high expectations of me. They have placed upon me very unrealistic goals for the short time I’ve been on earth. I am only 3-years-old. As a matter of fact, I would say that the majority of my fellow nursery school friends come to school with some portion of their breakfast on their shirt. So I am not going to let this bother me!” Well, at least, most of us didn’t anyway.
    As children we accepted their evaluation of us. We didn’t ask questions, we just obeyed. If they said we couldn’t drink without making a mess, we must become that mess. Ironically, when we become our parents’ negative projection it is a form of "honoring our parents." A “good” child listens to what their parent tells them and accepts it as truth, often literally and we are pre-programmed by our parents, teachers and other authority figures to be “good” children. When the grownup in our life says, "you are stupid," we accept that we are stupid. When they ask why we “can’t do anything right,” we accept our incompetence as a “true-ism”. When we are told that we are a “bad boy” or “bad girl” naturally we assume this must be true. We might even try harder to be good. But all the while we know deep inside in our hearts that we must be bad. After all, mother or father knows best, don’t they?
    Children haven’t yet developed the critical faculty that allows adults to evaluate new information, rejecting or accepting it based on our past experience. In their short lives they simply haven’t accumulated the life experiences and definitions to base those decisions on yet. Children are listening and watching forming their little pictures of whom they are and how life is. And they generally believe what they are told literally, whether that picture is positive or negative.
    How else could we convince them that a fat old man with a snow white beard, wearing a red velvet suit, riding in a sleigh pulled by flying reindeer, will come down their chimney (even if there ISN'T one) with a bag of presents just for them every December 25th, but only if they behave themselves the entire rest of the year? Wow, I’d love to meet the parent that came up with THAT story to make their kids behave.
    We become products of our personal map of the world. Our skewed view of reality. Our hallucination of the truth.
    If you continue to think and act in the same way; you’ll get the same results. You MUST begin to change your thinking in order to change your reality.
    What I call “historical truth” is immaterial. Since everything is true to the person believing it, evaluating whether it’s right or wrong becomes a moot point. If YOU believe it, it’s true. What you FOCUS on becomes your truth.
    Now toss into the mix our constant need to be “right”. That’s right, we all have a need to affirm that we are right. What this means is that if we have a belief that we are a loser, that we “can’t” do something; we WILL be right. We will create situations that will MAKE us right. We will deliberately self-sabotage ourselves in the name of being right. We will distort reality, attract a negative and then act on that negative….just to be right.

Q. So what do we do about it?
A: Since the subconscious mind processes information at 1-3 million bytes of information or thoughts per second and we can only “hold onto” seven (plus or minus 2) of those thoughts, it’s imperative that we learn how to choose which thoughts we hold onto. We do this by changing focus.

Q. Why are you choosing to do what you’re doing?
A: You may be telling yourself that there is NO way in hell that you are choosing to being stuck in your present life and not achieving your goals and dreams.
    But take a moment and re-examine that belief…
* Is there any time that you begin to doubt yourself?
* Any time you begin to question worthiness?
* Any time you begin to question your abilities?

    You may be stuck because you are DAMN good at focusing. Only trouble is; you are focusing on the “cant’s” instead of the “can’s”. By allowing yourself to doubt or change focus to negative you are getting what you want. And that is to be right!

Q. Do you think of possible or impossible?

A: Chances are you’re presently thinking in the impossible. That is to say that you may have told yourself you can but there is still a nagging doubt and you are retreating to “safe” ground. What you have already always known. Remember when you were writing down those dreams and asking yourself why? Was there a little voice that said “because”?
    Instead of asking what’s wrong, ask what’s right! Focus on possibility instead of the impossible. We’ll get to the impossible soon enough.
    Toss out the rulebook about what you “have” to do… Because when you focus on what you HAVE to do, you’re not focusing on what you WANT to do.
    Here’s my suggestion: Quit focusing on making a living and begin focusing on making your life.
    “Have too” changes focus from possibility and moves it into impossibility.
    Young children are taught to play games with each other. Author Robert Fulghum taught us in his great book, “Everything I Wanted To Know I Learned In Kindergarten” to play nice, share and take naps everyday. Children play games everyday and are taught that they may win, or they may lose but never, never, EVER QUIT! People grow up learning that they must play, struggle, compete, and finally win or lose. Since there can only be one winner in a game, most of us learn to lose. Learn to do things that we don’t want to do but do anyway, because “it’s the right way to play the game”. But to quit just to quit is unthinkable.
    So what happens if we “quit”? If you quit doing something that you perceive you must do, you may just find out that you didn’t have to do IT at all?
    Here’s a few tips on beginning the process of change:

#1) Write down one of your dreams. The top one. Number 1. Now write down your intent for that dream. Now write down 4 things about that dream that you can put into action this week! AND THEN DO THEM!!! Focus intent with action. Don’t think small, think large. If you begin to think small, you act small and will attract small. Focus with intent to be large, to be successful and to do it with ease. Record each day what you did and how it felt. Record ALL emotions.

#2) Create a focus plan. The focus plan is one thing to do each day that brings you closer to your goal. Whether eliminating self-talk, changing focus or physical effort, it’s all action.
    A focus plan is:
* What you want
* Why you want it
* What you need to get it
* What actions you are taking every day toward that goal
    Notice any voices that are speaking to you, ones attempting to stop you. When you begin to hear these, CHANGE YOUR FOCUS TO THE POSSIBLE!

Here’s the success formula:
* Focus in what you are brilliant at to achieve your goals, dreams and create wealth. Each and every minute of the day you decide your intentions. Make them positive ones!
* Record and document those actions and emotions.
* Stay away from and / or eliminate toxic people from your life. What you surround yourself with influences you greatly.
* Stop negative self-talk. CHANGE FOCUS
* Talk and think about what is right not what is wrong.