Expand Your WorldExpand your world, create moments, have experiences and everything changes. Life is one big collection of moments. It is how you experience those moments, the decisions you make about them that makes your life what it is. Whatever is in your awareness and whatever you expect will be true for you because it’s what your brain sorts for and hence experiences. Lets use an example; three people, a Shaolin monk, a property developer and an Olympic middle distance runner, all have a completely different experience of life. The Shaolin monk dedicates his life to sacrifice and finding inner peace. He wakes in the morning, meditates, practices kung fu, eats only what his body needs to stay alive and sacrifices everything material. The property developer gets excited when he closes a deal worth millions, he has the opportunity to make a lot of money and buy anything he wants. The middle distance runner is focused every day on what she eats, how she trains, how much sleep she needs etc. These three people have a radically different experience of life. But why? It all comes down to what they focus on, the scope of their world. The monk had early experiences that led to values and beliefs that eventually caused him to make certain key distinctions that made him seek out certain experiences and follow this life’s purpose. The middle distance runner was the same. Whatever decisions and experiences have occurred up until this point in her life have led to the choices she has made about life and hence the opportunities that come her way. What about the property developer? He developed values and beliefs early on about wealth and freedom that prompted him to build an empire. Everything is about focus. Whatever you focus on becomes your reality. What’s to stop the monk from giving up his current lifestyle, moving to New York city, buying property and building a real estate empire? Nothing, it’s a matter of focus and choice. It is unlikely that property development, business and investing even comes into the realm of the monk’s consciousness. He is focused on a certain lifestyle with a set of belief systems that doesn’t even allow him to perceive such opportunities. The property developer would not even conceive of the idea of becoming a runner and competing in the next Olympics because opportunities to do so would not even enter into his thinking. These three people are experiencing the life they are living because it is what they focus on. It is the decisions they make on a regular basis and so these are the opportunities that seem to present themselves to them. You see, many people, maybe you too, believe they have to make do with whatever they have and accept their “lot” in life. This is because it seems as though the opportunities they want do not present themselves. This creates beliefs that some things are completely outside of the realm of potential for them. Remember, what you focus on and the internal experiences you have on a daily basis make up your life. I want you to try a little experiment for me; go to an internet search engine and type in “poverty” then hit search. What came up? I bet it was hundreds of thousands of results about poverty. How did that happen? It happened because it is what you searched for. If you were new to using the internet it may appear to you that this is all that is there because it’s all you’ve seen. Now type in “rags to riches” and hit search. What came up? A think I can guess. I bet you saw pages about people who began with nothing and created extraordinary wealth and opportunity. You get what you search for, even if you don’t want it. The human brain is bombarded with around two million bit of information per second. It can’t possibly pay attention to it all, you would simply go insane. So what happens is your brain has filtering mechanisms in place that filter out most of this information and allow about 134 bits in at a time. That’s a lot of information going unnoticed. But how does it know what to filter out? It filters out irrelevant “search results” based on what you focus on, your values, beliefs, past experiences etc. Expand Your WorldExpand your world and everything changes. I want you to go back to your internal search engine in your head and at the end of the search results click “repeat the search with the omitted results included”. Remember, it’s what you focus on and believe about it that causes certain experiences to occur. What if you were to radically change your focus? If you are not entirely satisfied with the way your life is going right now maybe you need to expand your world. What do I mean by expand your world? What I mean is that you need to change your focus. You need to go out and have totally new experiences and begin typing in the key words that will lead to more desirable search results. Here are a few things you can do to expand your world: Have new experiences To expand your world beyond what you are currently experiencing you need to have entirely new experiences. How do you expect to change you life if you don’t do anything new? Attend the religious celebration of an entirely different culture. If you are a catholic then go to a mosque. Plan a camping trip or go on a 10 day mountain bike trip. Go sky diving or bungy jumping. Visit a country on the other side of the world and immerse yourself in their culture. Volunteer by reading stories at the children’s hospital. Whatever it is be outrageous. Create new experiences to expand your world. This will most definitely change your focus and create an entirely new and richer experience of life. Change your focus If you focus on the same things all the time you will get the same results. I know that sounds unbelievably simplistic but your life is a result of what you have focused on up until now. Maybe you have been focused on staying afloat and paying the bills. As a result you work in a dead-end job that you don’t like with the fear that if you don’t you will not be able to feed your family and pay your bills. Change your entire focus. What areas of your life could you change by changing your focus? Be outrageous I might be criticised by some for this one, but hey, I’m outrageous. Until now you have probably played it safe. You have likely taken the easy road and worked in a so-called “secure” job. You have probably been conservative in your relationships and you probably don’t seek out anything that is too far outside of your comfort zone. Expand your world by being outrageous. If you have had an idea for a fantastic business you always dreamed of “some day” launching then launch it. Go out, apply for a loan, write a business plan, recruit a financial partner, seek out investors, whatever. Maybe you have had your eye on that gorgeous girl or guy that works at the coffee shop. So go ask him/her out. If your marriage has gone stale then be outrageous. Take your spouse on a romantic cruise or plan a surprise trip to Paris. Whatever is not working is happening because you keep repeating the pattern. You keep taking the safe route. It seems that if you were to go even slightly outside of your comfort zone then you would be in unfamiliar territory and it might end in disaster. You need to be outrageous sometimes in order to expand your world. Change your habits Habits are consistent behaviours that you engage in on a regular basis. A habit is a behaviour that has been neurologically linked. It is a behaviour that becomes first resort in a given situation. Some habits are good and some are bad. It’s not hard to distinguish certain habits as good and others as bad. These habits are generally the obvious and easy ones to change because they are right there in front of you. Other habits are insidious things that you don’t even realise are effecting you. Your life is the way it is because there are certain things you do and think on a regular basis. All of these collective thoughts and decisions have led to what you now experience as reality. If your life is not the way you want it then it’s because you are consistently doing and thinking things that are not congruent with what you do want. Take inventory of yourself and identify the habits that hold you back and what you may be able to replace them with to drive you closer to your goals. Maybe you can model those that are experiencing the things that you want to experience and adopt some of the habits they have. Expand your world and your world will expand“Expand your world and your world will expand”, it seems to make little sense when you put it that way. Here’s what I mean… If you follow the above-mentioned steps to expand your world then it will begin to take on a new shape. It’s a catch 22, at least it seems to be. You need to first expand your world yourself before it will begin to change. So in essence you are the only one that can expand your world. By adopting new thoughts and behaviours you will be automatically changing your life, which will lead to a seemingly automated effect that builds on itself. You are the only one that gets to consciously choose which direction this takes. Everything in life changes when you expand your world. Follow the steps listed above. They are simple but don’t underestimate the power of simple things. It is simplicity that creates most of the great things in this world. To expand your brain function check out My Brain Trainer Return to our home page from expand your world
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