Habits

Are you getting the results you want in your life right now?

If you are not, it may be due to how you are choosing to pay attention to specific things while disregarding others. In other words are you focusing your attention on one thing at the expense of missing signposts in your daily life? By paying attention to these signposts instead, you will put yourself back on the path of getting the results you do want.

How are you sorting information at the moment? Are you even aware that you are doing this?

Each and every one of us has our own model of the world that is created by our internal filter system in our mind. This internal filter system sets up our values, our beliefs, attitudes, habits, behaviors and our emotional responses. Additionally, every thought/belief we have, we make up. We fabricate them from our internal filter system.

Our unconscious mind is able to take in about 400 billion bits of information every second. Our conscious mind, however, takes in about 2,000 bits of information per second. Every second we take in information and our conscious mind “sorts” or prioritizes what is important to us. Our mind will ‘generalize, distort and delete’ information so that it can take in what our ego determines is most important from moment to moment to fit our model of the world.

Additionally, our beliefs that we consider are important, in turn, are filtered by negative or un-resourceful thoughts (This is also known as away from motivation. Away from what we want.)

Not only are we generalizing, distorting and deleting, but we have an additional layer of negative thought patterns. Examples of negative thought patterns fall into 3 categories:

• Negations – phrases set in the negative. A negation is a word or phrase that denies or contradicts that something is true, has happened, or is the case.g. “I can’t, I don’t, this is not, you won’t, I haven’t, this doesn’t, never, nothing, no, none, no one, nobody, nowhere.
• Modal Operators of Necessity – phrases where something has to be done out of necessity rather than choice. E.g. “I must, I should, I have to, I need to, you’ve got to.”
• Negative Comparative Deletions – phrases that make a comparison in the negative, but don’t explain what we are comparing. E.g. “This is the worst, this is the most useless. This is totally hopeless, this is a lost cause, there’s very little time, there is no possibility here. Nothing will ever come of it. Nothing is going to work. This will never happen.”

These thoughts become habits of disempowerment that govern our behavior, keep us stuck in a dysfunctional orientation and create disempowered outcomes in our life.

These beliefs drive us to resolve the psychological tension that builds up inside of us. It directs the focus to our ego’s agenda. Our ego is designed for survival and helps us to survive no matter what however, this creates an end result that simply resolves tension that arises when our egoic agenda is threatened and is not the outcome we set out to create.

It puts the power and energy into perpetuating the habit of creating disempowered end results instead of what we love.

So guess what?

You are doing this whether you are aware of it or not. It is happening either unconsciously or consciously each and every day.

If you are not getting the results you want in your life, you are creating the obstructions in your mind that hide the signposts of your success, the intuition and wisdom that is coming to you. Furthermore it’s important to become aware of your habits of disempowerment.

You may have the habit of generalizing what you observe in the world around you. E.g. all major road signs in cities across the US look like “X” therefore they look the same all around the world. We know that this is not always true.

We may also use phrases to generalize such as: This is the way it’s always been. This is the way I’ve always done it. This is the way it is. However, is this the actual reality now?

When we don’t see anything that is familiar to us, we can unconsciously drop into the habit of deleting and/or distorting what we perceive to fit our model of the world.

Have you ever been lost? You are driving in an unfamiliar town or city and you end up somewhere else other than your desired destination. When you have thoughts such as,  “I don’t want to be lost, I can’t be lost, I need to find my way out” this is a habit of disempowerment that puts all the power in the belief of being lost, incapable, powerless, unsafe, etc. This habit keeps you stuck in a loop of dysfunction and disempowerment.

Where are you telling yourself you can’t, you don’t, you need to, you must… and from there, you spiral down further and further into a habit of disempowerment?

Do you check in to see if there are signposts corroborating the reality of what’s going on, what’s happening in your life?  Do you stop to check in to see what is coming up for you and see if it is the truth, see if you are focused on your end result? If you don’t, you are simply buying into your beliefs and habits.

Here’s another habit we do. We develop “inattentional blindness” or perceptual blindness. This is the failure to notice something that is completely visible because of lack of attention.

You are so focused on your beliefs, things that you take personally, things that you perceive as important or stressful, that your attention is diverted  elsewhere away from your true heart’s desire.

On several occasions my former partner would stand in front of the pantry door and say, “Where’s the pepper, I can’t see it, I can’t find it.” I would slide in front of him and literally pull it off the shelf directly in front of where he was standing and go, “Here it is.”

His attention was on, “I can’t find it, I can’t see it”  and the frustration he was experiencing. That made him blind to seeing what was in front of his face.

Where are you keeping yourself stuck in the habit of putting your attention on what you don’t want, at the expense of not having your attention and focus on what you do want, on what you love?

Here’s another habit. Have you ever looked at something and later you realized you were completely wrong? Yes, we’ve all done this. This is called motivated perception. We come to the conclusion of what we are seeing, based on what we are predisposed to believe. We fill in the gaps.

I was mailed a package and the address was incorrect. It said, 355 instead of 3355. When I looked at the address initially, I could have sworn it was the correct address. My mind distorted what I was looking at to make it fit my model of the world. My mind filled in the gap so it would “appear like” the correct address. When I took a 2^nd proper look at the number, it was clearly incorrect.

Let me run something by you:

Three birds are sitting on a telephone wire up in New York and they decide to fly south for the winter. How many birds are left on the wire?

None?

Well actually there are three. They decided to do it. Which is different from physically doing it, physically acting upon it. (There’s that delete, distort and generalizing again.)

We often convince ourselves that it is the same thing. We decide that something is appropriate or a good thing to do, but that is as far as it goes. We don’t act upon it. However, because we decided it was a good thing to act upon we think it is the same thing as actually doing it, when in fact it is not.

It’s a habit. Where are you doing this in your life? Where are you  perpetuating the habit of deciding to do something but you never actually execute it? You never fully follow it through?

On top of that what if you are driven by away from motivation? I’ve got to get this work done. I can’t forget to do that. I’ve got to get myself registered. I need to be on time. I have to earn ______ amount of money. This is the only time available and I have another meeting scheduled  at that time. I can’t be in 2 places at once!

What are you really focused on?

Your very thoughts become habits and your habits keep you stuck in a structure, a matrix of disempowerment. Your habits hold this dysfunctional structure in place. Your habits can keep you in a “Victim” structure where you are focused on survival, where you resolve your psychological tension, the stress, where you react, where you keep buying into your beliefs and reactions. You buy into what’s coming up for you. This is a habit!

You have a habit of buying into your beliefs and identity that have their roots in maintaining your survival and that perpetuates you being in your Victim structure/orientation.

The good news is, there is another option.

The alternative option is cultivating creative habits.

We all get triggered each and every day, we all have beliefs and habits that we are running every day. However we can choose to buy into them or we can choose to check in to see what’s coming up for us and refocus on our true end result instead.

Creative habits can replace your dysfunctional habits. This in turn will short circuit you going into your Victim structure and/or being able to quickly exit it. Creative habits perpetuate you being in a creative structure that is connected to your Superconscious, your intuition and the wisdom within you.

Here are some examples of Creative Habits:

Making choices daily that are aligned with your true heart’s desire.

Doing written guidance each week

Receiving and acknowledging the wisdom that comes to you via your Superconscious intuition.

Following through and actually taking action upon what’s obvious from your intuition.

Intending or expecting “magic” each day, intending or expecting your end results each day even if you don’t create them. It doesn’t mean anything if you don’t create them. You’re still holding your end results.

Self-Awareness – checking in with yourself to see if what’s going on is the truth, the reality and if you are focused on your true end result or not. If you are not, refocus on what you do want.

Applying principles, premises and tools that give you greater self-awareness.

Creative habits are habits of empowerment. They create momentum and energize you.

Each day you have a choice to maintain yourself in habits that keep you stuck or creative habits that set you up for success and the life that you truly want.

Isn’t it time to create some new habits?