How Reality Cycles control your mind
A "Reality Cycle" is a system, partly visible and partly invisible, that controls what you perceive. Since we are humans and our senses are limited, what we perceive to be "reality" is always partial and incomplete.
In the worst-case scenario, everything we experience in our daily lives has been "created artificially" by someone else, as in the movie The Truman Show.
If you see somebody doing something you would love to do, then it gives you a kind of meta-knowledge, a sort of unshakable confidence that IT CAN BE DONE. But if you've never seen somebody do something you would love to do, then what you are thinking about is merely a dream. You yourself don't think it is realistic. So although you may fantasize about it, you never actually do anything to make it happen.
Yet the problem is not that you can't do it. It's just that you've never SEEN or KNOWN someone who did it.
Here's a concrete example. Last Friday, I did some maintenance work on an accounting database for a childhood friend of mine. He makes about $200,000 a year from his professional services firm. He knows for sure that making that kind of money is possible. I know for sure also.
But if you've never seen that database and met my friend, how would you know that making $200,000 is possible? You might say "it's possible", but you will not believe it.
And because you don't believe it, it never happens. Why doesn't is happen? Because you don't even try.
And the people who do try, of course, don't keep it up long enough to see results. Or if the results don't match their high (unrealistic) expectations, they give up quickly.
But let's get back to the Reality Cycle mentioned above.
Your reality cycle can be made up of:
And those assumptions -- which can be empowering or disempowering -- are transferred to you quite naturally, in the course of your daily interactions with the people above, such as your boss.
For instance, every time you talk to your boss, your words and tone and body language totally reflects the fact that you are SUBORDINATE to him, and that HE has the power, not you.
So every day, you are "reminded" of who you are -- a simple employee with no managerial power -- whereas your boss is reminded of who he is -- someone who was "smart" or ambitious enough to rise to a higher organizational position, and who can rise even higher.
Your reality cycle maintains a certain psychological and social system in which you are who you are, and cannot possibly be anything more.
This is why people love traveling so much. They can escape from this intoxicating reality cycle.
Unfortunately, this escape is only temporary, lasting usually no more than two weeks per year.
The success secret here is to clearly describe your reality cycle and all the components -- visible or not -- that it contains.
Next, redesign that reality cycle. Identify the people who belittlte you or don't believe in you, and AVOID them at all cost. Identify the activities that don't produce anything useful to you, and ELIMINATE them. Identify the bad habits, the clothes you don't like, the objects that don't inspire you, etc. and throw them out of your life.
Then, CREATE a new reality system filled with people who support you (you can even tell them exactly what kind of compliments to tell you -- if they are okay with that, of course), books that empower you, business partners who understand your business goals, a working space that makes you feel creative (unless you're an accountant, in which case I don't recommend being creative!), etc.
To have an ideal life, you should learn to become a good movie director (Anthony Robbins has been saying this since the 1980s). You should decide exactly WHAT and WHO is allowed to be in your life; you should decide exactly WHAT you see, hear, touch, feel, etc. from the moment you wake up to the moment you go back to sleep.
To the extent that you can control 80-90% of the elements that make up your reality cycle, you will have the power to create the ideal life you want.
In the worst-case scenario, everything we experience in our daily lives has been "created artificially" by someone else, as in the movie The Truman Show.
If you see somebody doing something you would love to do, then it gives you a kind of meta-knowledge, a sort of unshakable confidence that IT CAN BE DONE. But if you've never seen somebody do something you would love to do, then what you are thinking about is merely a dream. You yourself don't think it is realistic. So although you may fantasize about it, you never actually do anything to make it happen.
Yet the problem is not that you can't do it. It's just that you've never SEEN or KNOWN someone who did it.
Here's a concrete example. Last Friday, I did some maintenance work on an accounting database for a childhood friend of mine. He makes about $200,000 a year from his professional services firm. He knows for sure that making that kind of money is possible. I know for sure also.
But if you've never seen that database and met my friend, how would you know that making $200,000 is possible? You might say "it's possible", but you will not believe it.
And because you don't believe it, it never happens. Why doesn't is happen? Because you don't even try.
And the people who do try, of course, don't keep it up long enough to see results. Or if the results don't match their high (unrealistic) expectations, they give up quickly.
But let's get back to the Reality Cycle mentioned above.
Your reality cycle can be made up of:
- your family (parents, siblings, and what they believe)
- your close friends
- your coworkers
- your boss
- your favorite magazines
- your favorite kind of non-fiction books
- your favorite fiction books
- the neighborhood you live in
- etc.
And those assumptions -- which can be empowering or disempowering -- are transferred to you quite naturally, in the course of your daily interactions with the people above, such as your boss.
For instance, every time you talk to your boss, your words and tone and body language totally reflects the fact that you are SUBORDINATE to him, and that HE has the power, not you.
So every day, you are "reminded" of who you are -- a simple employee with no managerial power -- whereas your boss is reminded of who he is -- someone who was "smart" or ambitious enough to rise to a higher organizational position, and who can rise even higher.
Your reality cycle maintains a certain psychological and social system in which you are who you are, and cannot possibly be anything more.
This is why people love traveling so much. They can escape from this intoxicating reality cycle.
Unfortunately, this escape is only temporary, lasting usually no more than two weeks per year.
The success secret here is to clearly describe your reality cycle and all the components -- visible or not -- that it contains.
Next, redesign that reality cycle. Identify the people who belittlte you or don't believe in you, and AVOID them at all cost. Identify the activities that don't produce anything useful to you, and ELIMINATE them. Identify the bad habits, the clothes you don't like, the objects that don't inspire you, etc. and throw them out of your life.
Then, CREATE a new reality system filled with people who support you (you can even tell them exactly what kind of compliments to tell you -- if they are okay with that, of course), books that empower you, business partners who understand your business goals, a working space that makes you feel creative (unless you're an accountant, in which case I don't recommend being creative!), etc.
To have an ideal life, you should learn to become a good movie director (Anthony Robbins has been saying this since the 1980s). You should decide exactly WHAT and WHO is allowed to be in your life; you should decide exactly WHAT you see, hear, touch, feel, etc. from the moment you wake up to the moment you go back to sleep.
To the extent that you can control 80-90% of the elements that make up your reality cycle, you will have the power to create the ideal life you want.
posted by Super Peter at 10:52 PM
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