Have you ever considered what we actually have control over?
What assumptions do we make on a daily basis, taking for granted that we know what will happen?
We had goals, plans, holidays and a very different path designed for the year of 2020. How much of it was taken off course due to Covid-19 and lockdown?
We started 2020 the same way we do every other year, planning around what has always been, being aware that some obstacles would arise and would take them in our stride. The same way we would every year.
Little did we know that our worlds would be torpedoed into a reality we never thought would exist. In some ways life completely stopped and in another way sped past us over the past 6 months.
I would like to invite you to start a personal learnings journal and to become more curious about who you are and what makes you, you. Stop, take a moment for yourself, become an observer of your own life over the past 9 months and explore the below questions without judgement, emotion or what you believe is right or wrong. (Definition of an observer – is someone that observes, watches or follows an event closely, without an emotional attachment).
What actually did I have control of?
What goals did I achieve and what goals did I not achieve? Why? Did I find myself stuck in fear or create new possibilities/opportunities? How do I feel and re-act when I feel out of control?
So what, really do we have control over? Lets break it down into our external environment and our internal environment.
Our external environment consists of everything out of our direct control – our laws, our government, with our internal world consisting of our emotions, feelings, beliefs – both conscious and sub-conscious, our choices, behaviours and actions. So what do we have control over? Some of us believe that we have control over our internal environment, yet I am curious to explore if we actually do?
How many times have we found ourselves emotionally re-acting to an event or situation and then afterwards feeling that our re-action could have been better? Remember that easy putt on the green you missed? How did you react? What names did you call yourself? Could you have controlled that re-action or was it like an immediate knee jerk re-action? And then what sub-conscious impact did this event have on your belief about who you are? And what impact did that one shot have on the rest of your game? We can put these questions into any context, from that one business event, to that one event that happened in your relationship. Did they all have the same result?
Even our internal environment, unless explored and trained, do we actually have very little control over. So maybe, we live in a false sense of security, believing we have control or what I call the illusion of control.
What impact would we have on our life if we were able to control and consciously choose our re-actions, instead of having the impulsive knee jerk re-actions?
By becoming conscious of our impulsive knee jerk re-actions, beliefs and behaviours, we can empower ourselves in both our external and internal environments, consciously choosing an action that will serve us in a positive manner and drive us towards our goals, dreams and desires that always seem to allude us.
We have an endless amount of power in our internal environment, if we learn how to harness our self-awareness and behaviours, to consciously choose our actions instead of subconsciously re-acting to an event. What power would this give you in your life?
Most of our lives we have lived in what we call the Loop of Insanity. So what is this Loop of Insanity? How does it impact my life? And why is it called the Loop of Insantiy?
Firstly, lets start with what we know as the definition of insanity – Doing the same thing over and over again expecting a different result!
An Event Occurs
We have an impulsive knee jerk re-action from a subconscious thought. (to the event without conscious thought and it is generally an emotional reaction). We then see a result of this re-action.
The result then subconsciously and consciously re-enforces a subconscious driving negative belief about ourself.
And this cycle then continues – hence repeating the loop of insanity.
So how do we change this?
It is great to be able to read and listen to new ideas, thoughts and information, but I have always noticed that for me the mental knowledge does not shift my subconscious behaviours, beliefs and actions on any permanent level, therefore always ending back up with the same result.
Yes, knowledge is power but without actual personal experience, self-realizations, self-learnings/observations and internal processed learnings we are unable to make a lasting shift. In order for our learnings to become a natural way of being, we need to learn them on a cellular level – like swimming. Once we have learnt how to swim, we don’t think about it, we just do it. It is called cellular or experiential learning. Our power and personal long lasting shifts comes from being able to identify our own subconscious beliefs and behaviours, then observing them on a daily basis to see if they serve us or not, and then consciously shift them when we nd ourselves doing them.
For me, it is important that my clients explore and observe their own behaviours and beliefs through their own experiences, therefore creating and consciously choosing a belief and behaviour that will have a lasting shift they are looking for. These shifts start opening us up to the realm of possibility.
PS – I would like you to observe your reaction to this article. What belief is being triggered and why?