Born To Try

Yes it was the title of Delta Goodrem’s smash hits and one of my cousin Tom’s favourite songs when it was first released. Although not a fan the title holds particular reference to the upcoming series of blogs. When you entered this world you were born free of beliefs and restrictions - you knew very little about anything and thought that absolutely anything was possible. As time went on you slowly started to develop beliefs about the world and your thoughts about who you were became more clearly defined. As you have grown in size has your world shrunk? Take a second to think about it. Are there areas in your life where you have given up trying because you think that it is too hard or not within the realm of possibility? When you were a child you were full of hopes and dreams - you thought you could be and do anything. Is it the same now? Or do you now have a set of beliefs that tell you that there are a limited number of possibilities?

    

As you read this you may find yourself thinking ‘that’s ridiculous, not everything is possible’. Is it? Or have we gathered so much evidence to support something that was once nothing more than a thought? Have we fed this thought so much that it has become an immovable belief that now stands in our way?

In the last blog we discussed identity and who we believe we are. How did you go? Were you able to make some distinctions about who you are and how you have been? Did you identify that there have been moments in your life where you haven’t been authentic and where things didn’t feel quite right? It’s likely that these moments occurred because there was a conflict in your beliefs - your beliefs about yourself and who you believe that you are supposed to be for other people.

    

In the blogs that follow we will start to take a deeper look at these beliefs and how they are created. During this series we will look at the concept of ‘reframing’ where we literally take one of your beliefs and change your frame of reference or the glasses through which you view the situation. We will undertake an exercise where we will ‘re-code’ or ‘re-pattern’ your beliefs by changing their submodalities and instantly changing how your react and feel. And finally we well as do a ‘part integration’ exercise where we will take the conflicting parts - listen to what each has to say and then move them to a place where they are both aligned creating a sense of harmony in your life. Sound good?

    

So to begin this series I want to create something for you. I want to create the idea and possibility that you are in charge of your own destiny - sounds corny and cliche but you truly are the creator of your own world. Think back to early blogs when we discussed the concept that there is no truth - let’s quickly refresh on how this concept works? The idea is that there is no truth, rather events that take place. Events occur and then we create meaning out of them. If you think about it this starts to make sense. The story that you tell yourself and the event  that occurred are completely separate - they do not and can not exist simultaneously or coexist in the same space. The event takes place and then the story follows - it happens that order. After the event occurs we create the meaning for the event from our individual point of reference which is determined from past experiences. The scary thing is this normally happens within an instant and with no conscious thought. This is a crazy way to live.

How many of you would make a major decision in life like buying a house for example without taking into consideration your finances, the type of house you want, the area you want to live in etc. You just wouldn’t do it. Then why don’t we not take our beliefs about ourselves seriously enough to look them and how we code the events that shape our lives? You can sell the house if you make a wrong decision but if you’re not aware of the beliefs that you create you are selling out on yourself and causing a chain of events that may have a negative effect on your life.

    

And this is what we will look at in the next few blogs. For now I want to leave you with a parable. Its an old Tao parable that is popular in NLP circles as it clearly demonstrates how our point of reference or the frame in which we view a situation determines how we feel about ourselves and the events that we face in life.

"...an old Chinese farmer lost his best stallion one day and his neighbour came around to express his regrets, but the farmer just said, "Who knows what is good and what is bad." The next day the stallion returned bringing with him 3 wild mares. The neighbour rushed back to celebrate with the farmer, but the old farmer simply said, "Who knows what is good and what is bad." The following day, the farmer's son fell from one of the wild mares while trying to break her in and broke his arm and injured his leg. The neighbour came by to check on the son and give his condolences, but the old farmer just said, "Who knows what is good and what is bad." The next day the army came to the farm to conscript the farmer's son for the war, but found him invalid and left him with his father. The neighbour thought to himself, "Who knows what is good and what is bad.”

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Until we meet again.

Dan

P.s. I would love to hear any feedback that you have on the blog as well as any areas that you would like me to cover.