Core, Communication, Leadership

What We Focus On We Get This seems like such simple statement, but there may be some things you may not know about this statement. Carl Jung believed that “we can't see anything outside of us that isn't us.” Which means we see things as we are, not as they are. So the world as we see it, is filtered by the makeup of who we are. No two people will ever see anything in the exact same way because both will look at the same thing from two very different points of view. Personality, life experiences and what they expect to see, hear and feel about something, is individualised as no two people are the same. A perfect example of this is when you hear of a story of a family in poverty, with a drunken father that beats up his two children. Their upbringing was hard and from the outside the same as each other, but end up worlds apart when they grow up and leave the family home. One child ends up living the same life in the same area and does the same things to their family as what happened to them. While the other ends up living a very successful life. The successful child saw what they didn't want to be and the other saw no other option. One focused on moving forward and how to be better and the other focused on what happened, not what they could do about it now. Our life is like this in every aspect. Imagine being in a dark room where you can't even see your hand in front of your face. All you have is a torch to see. How much of the room can you see? You can only see what is in its beam, right? Our lives and the way we experience the world is the same. We will simply not be aware of the things beyond our focus. So as you can see in the Wheel of Life where you have the most success is where you have put the most focus. The Map Is Not The Territory This subject relates largely to the previous page. Understanding this will change your mindset and how you communicate with others forever. See the best map of any city can only ever be a map or guide, it can never be the city itself. The map can only be a representation of the city. Based on our thoughts, values, beliefs, experiences and stories we create our own maps of reality, rather than reality itself. This is how your map is very unique and how nobody can have the same map. Everything is perception. When we look at how our maps are made understand this fact - There are two million bits of information coming at us every second. Unfortunately we can only process 132 bits, or 7 plus or minus 2 chunks of information. What this tells us is that we are constantly deleting, distorting and generalising this information so that we can allow the information that we consider relevant in, and leave out what we consider irrelevant. What we let in and what we leave out depends on our map of the world. If we believe that the world is a harsh place and that people are mean, we will delete evidence of kindness as irrelevant, or 'not really counting' and will distort kindness as 'they didn't really mean it' or 'they were just saying that' and will generalise evidence of hurt as "All people are like that". So if we are constantly deleting, distorting and generalising to make sense of the world and our map of the world is made up this way, is your map working for you? What are you leaving out? Are you getting the results you want, or do you need to change your map? We filter information to protect ourselves, but sometimes we filter out what we need. Can you see how important this can be for you? By understanding and re-evaluating your values, beliefs, actions and attitudes, you can change your map to coincide with what you really want and where you want to go with your life. Your Purpose What is your purpose in life? Who do you want to be? What attributes do you want others to see in you? When you identify your purpose amazing things can happen. You can let go of the un-resourceful attributes that don't really serve or best describe you. You may also find that you will give yourself permission to shine and not hide in areas of your life where you know you can be better. When finding your purpose you must first find attributes that can best describe you or how you would like others to describe you. Below is a list of examples of attributes to get you thinking: • Playful • Inspires • Loving • Passionate • Energetic • Enthusiastic • Generous • Adventurous • Grow • Giving Think of some attributes that would best describe you and write them down on the lines below. ________________________________________ ________________________________________ ________________________________________ ________________________________________ ________________________________________ Now that you have some attributes to describe yourself we can move on to your purpose. In the example below you will see how the use of attributes have created a purpose to live by. I, Luke Lee Tet see, hear, feel and know that the purpose of my life is to be a passionate and generous man who helps educate and inspire others to achieve their dreams. Can you see how I have used attributes and how I like to describe myself and how I would like my life's purpose to be in this statement? This is all about 'being' in this statement. Who do you want to be?