The RAS or reticular activation system in our brain is incredibly powerful. We all know that when we focus on something we get the task done. How about if you can focus your unconscious what that we cool?
Ever gone to buy a car and seen the exact car, including the colour around every corner?
They were always around. It just that you were focused on them. There is a whole load of stuff to go through on how that happens and that will come in another blog. Bottom line is we will only see the world as we choose to see it.
Your focus on crap and you will get crap…
While we know that if we put fatty greasy food in our face we’ll get fat, the exact same applies to our minds. Like a diet of bad food will make you put on weight, same with your mind. Put ‘shitty’ thoughts in your head and you’ll get a build of ‘shitty’ stuff and get ‘shitty’ outcomes because of ‘shitty’ thinking.
The power of focus and activating your RAS is a critical step towards achieving your goals or getting anything done. What happens is that if your mind-filter is not set up properly you won’t let in the good stuff, the stuff you need to get where you want to go. The way our mind works is that it will take in all around it, over 2 million bits per second, and filter it. The first 3 big filters are deletion, distortion and generalisation. This is a coping mechanism by the brain because it can’t process the 2 million bits.
Deletion: The brain simply cuts out information, like what you are wearing and other sensations you take for granted, wearing a wedding ring, cap or shoes, until you notice them as you probably are now, you don’t feel them. Your hearing beating and your breathing you simply don’t notice them until you become aware.
Distortion: Your brain will decide that what its taking in is like something else and categorise it. Put that bit of information into a box to best process and digest that data, saying to itself, “Oh…that like this other thing, right Ok, put it here.”
Generalisation: This one clumps things and say,s “All men are like that.” “We always do this.” It bumps certain information into this box and not identifying the difference and nuances.
The above are just the first filter. After that we have a raft of others, including space, time, environment, matter, beliefs, values, experiences and many more. All of these filters are passed through to create a final piece of data of which you can react or respond to which becomes your behaviour. Its what the world sees.
Having your focus properly set is key to how you perceive the world, filter it and respond or engage it. We must be responsible for how our internal programming is set up if we want to get what we want. Only you can program your RAS and control your filters and how you behaviour. If you don’t them you’ll wander through life and get to the end and wonder WTF was that about regretting you had done things or done things in a particular way…you decide.
Need help on understanding how you work, get in contact.. cheers.
Stuart Keith
Dad's My Hero 