There’s quite a number of smart people out there who will tell you that the outcomes we create in life are largely controlled by our beliefs. As a matter of fact, I’ve personally made countless experiences that have demonstrated to me that this is a sound premise that holds a lot of truth and I consider it a good idea to take a close look at the implications it has. Time and again, I’ve watched people make decisions based on certain preconceptions that I would never have agreed with. Yet, as they believed these preconceptions to be true, they were pretty much willing to bet their quality of life on them. Looked at from my perspective and through the eyes of my belief system, it felt to me like they were limiting themselves and, therefore, missing out on opportunities. From their own point of view, they were merely trying to do the right thing.
Obviously, I won’t attempt to cover this whole topic in its entirety within just one article. Rather, I would like to shed some light on just one part of the matter that feels particularly intriguing to me. As it turns out, people are typically unaware of what really happens whenever our ingrained belief system takes up all the space in the driver’s seat. Usually, we don’t at all feel like being out of control when our inner autopilot runs our life. It’s different from being possessed by some alien force that controls our body while we’re passively watching the show. Well, at least I’m pretty sure it’s different. Anyway, what that little nasty alien inside of us takes control of is not so much our locomotor system, but our attention, or rather, those mechanisms that constantly steer our focus of attention and filter our perception of reality in very specific ways.
So, let’s look at this from an angle that not too many people can easily be bothered paying much attention to. Let’s ask ourselves: “What are the questions that my life is mostly controlled by?”
Consciously or unconsciously, we ask ourselves questions all the time. In fact, more often than not, we ask the same questions that lead to similar answers and eventually create similar outcomes. We ask these questions because our belief system tells us that knowing the answers is important and relevant to our life. Whenever we ask smart questions, there’s indeed a likelihood that knowing the answers can benefit us. However, there are a lot of people navigating their lives mostly based on really shitty questions that make it tremendously difficult for more useful questions to surface and take a more dominant and guiding role.
I think it’s safe to assume that we all know at least one individual in our social circle who spends a lot of time wondering what other people think of them. Obviously, it’s normal to have such a question in mind every once in a while, and even necessary as it allows us to put our own self-image into perspective. However, if a person gets into the habit of questioning themselves in this way over and over again, leaving them drained emotionally and frequently distracted from doing things that would actually make a positive difference in their life, this creates a problem that shouldn’t be ignored.
From a rational point of view, many of us know that most people are idiots, or at least behave and act like idiots in a considerable number of situations and in a variety of ways. However, for the bigger part of our life, we aren’t necessarily aware of this fact as much as we could, or even should be, not least because there’s no denying that we’re one of them. Truly acknowledging the foolishness of others essentially requires from us to own up to our own stupidity. Most of us happen to be rather reluctant to this idea. We want to take other people’s thoughts seriously because we want our thoughts to be taken seriously by others. But also, we want to maintain the illusion that we’re entitled to take our own thoughts seriously. Although, frankly speaking, quite a number of automatic thoughts that cross our mind on a regular basis aren’t worth the energy that it takes our brain to produce them.
Doing what’s necessary in order to lower the number of counterproductive and foolish thoughts that we have every day takes a level of commitment that not everyone is willing to invest. In this sense, it shouldn’t be hard to deduce how often other people’s opinions about us shouldn’t matter in any way. Still, more than likely, we need to make an effort if we want to be good at discerning in which situations we need to care, and in which situations we simply shouldn’t feel concerned.
Of course, this is just one of many examples, so let me give you a few more questions that a lot of people spend a lot of time focusing on:
- What can I do to make that person in front of me like me and prevent them from perceiving my point of view as contradictory to theirs?
- How is this situation I’m encountering out of my control and beyond my responsibility, so I don’t need to be bothered doing something about it?
- What can I do in order to keep myself busy and entertained, so I can avoid thinking about what I actually want to do with my life?
- How can I operate my everyday reality without leaving my comfort zone?
- What can’t I do, shouldn’t be done, or can easily be ignored?
- How can I justify the current situation I’m in, so I don’t have to live through the resistance that comes up when I put some thinking into figuring out my options?
- How can I describe, characterize, and essentially label, myself, so I can avoid situations that would force me to do things differently?
Obviously, what goes on in your head could be different and it can be phrased in all kinds of ways. In fact, it might not even be consciously phrased at all. All that this short list does is offer some arbitrary examples for how certain emotional patterns that a lot of people are driven by can be “translated” into language patterns, so we have something that we can work with.
The thing is, despite the fact that our inner mechanisms, strictly speaking, aren’t driven by language, we can make use of language to gain a better understanding of these patterns, and even harness language as a tool that allows for us to change the outcomes we constantly create. The questions that our life is largely influenced by show up as an automatic, and often unconscious, response to situations we encounter, meaning they’re part of the habit of being who we define ourselves to be. Therefore, in a manner of speaking, in order to change the questions that drive us, we need to break the habit of being ourselves.
So, how would your life change if you would imprint yourself with a different set of questions? What would happen if you’d come up with three, five, ten, or even more questions eligible to produce outcomes that are completely different from what you’ve been getting so far? And, what would happen if you’d start out with placing copies of that list of questions on your bathroom mirror, your office desk, your refrigerator, and your bedside table, so you are able to read and get into the energy of that set of questions as often as you can? What would happen if, each time life offers you options to choose from, you’d be choosing the one that a person diligently prioritizing the questions on that list would most likely choose? Truth be told, I don’t know what would happen. I can’t know, because I haven’t seen your list. All I can tell you is that my list has done wonders for me.
I cannot give you my entire list here, mostly for two reasons. On the one hand, the complete list is longer than this whole article. On the other hand, I want you to come up with your own ideas that actually work for you. So, all I’ll do is give you a few examples for questions that are very high on my list in order to jump-start your brain into getting creative:
- How can doing the opposite of what the vast majority of people would do help me create better outcomes than pretty much anyone else creates?
- What skills can I acquire and constantly improve on in order to make the most interesting difference for myself … in a week, in three months, or in a year?
- How do I need to define, describe, characterize, or label myself in order to be less affected by other people’s opinions and interpretations of reality, no matter if I’m even aware of other people having an influence on me?
- How can I constantly become ever more effective and efficient at what I do in order to become ever more able to make the kind of experiences I want to have?
- What are the details that other people overlook and that paying attention to bears the potential to give me an edge?
Of course, you might not know the answers to these questions, or you might not be happy with the answers you have. Then again, knowing or coming up with the answers is not what this is about. Instead, this is about having questions in the back of your head that are helpful when it comes to prioritizing and filtering the constant inflow of information that you’re exposed to in everyday life in a different way. It’s about enabling ourselves to be less of an idiot, more often. It’s about inviting ever new answers to these questions into your life and allowing these answers to change your description of yourself in whatever way serves you best, constantly expanding your perspective of who you can be and what you’re able to do. It’s about opening up to the idea that, even during times when we struggle with finding a good answer for a question that bothers us, looking for better questions might be an option well worth considering. And, it’s about allowing the best questions that we’re able to come up with to become the most powerful guiding force in our life.
So, at this point, there’s just one more question to ask: What are the questions that you are going to pick?
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