Key Number Five: You Must Be Willing to Explore... And Embrace..the Enfamiliar

All the talk in the world about what we can do to transform our lives is just talk... unless we are willing explore the new ideas for ourselves. Knowledge is only knowledge if we apply it... otherwise it's just information gathering. 

I know someone who would rather feel totally in control of her life than anything else. It is more important for him to know what is going to happen every  minute than to learn something new or explore the unfamiliar. This means he has a "safe" job that delivers few surprise and has very few friends... people scare him because they are unpredictable. It also means he can't handle feedback, so getting ahead in his organisation is difficult. He also prefers to be "right" rather than learn a new and better way to do something.

Compare this to someone who embraces the unknown and is willing to learn. Imagine the quality of life of someone who likes to discover the unknown and make it known and who doesn't have to be "right" all the time... they are happy to learn new and better ways to do things. They aren't threatened by change or by the unfamiliar but are curious to know more about it and integrate it into their ever-expanding wealth of understanding of them selves and their world. 

The truth is, many of us spend so much of our time worrying and trying to prevent the 'bad' from happening that we forget to enjoy our lives!

Who said that life can't be wonderful, rich, abundant and joyous in the presence of uncertainty? The only question is, 'what do we need to do to be able to achieve this?'

The first law of life to consider and embrace is this:

Life is uncertain

There is no escaping this and the more effort we put into getting rid of the uncertainty the more energy we're wasting. Instead of trying to control the inevitable, what about focusing on what you can control and influence? Focus instead on what you enjoy, what you do, what your strengths are and what you want to achieve. 

The fact is, in life there are few guarantees. You can't control your world. You control nothing when it come to the future. You have no control over the future. This sound negative, but in reality it's freeing. This is true, doesn't it free you to focus on what you can control?

The second law of life to consider and embrace is:

It is only in the unknown that I can learn. 

Think about this for a moment. If you already know something, isn't it in the realm of 'The known'? If you don't know something, isn't it in the realm of "The unknown"?

So many people fear the unknown. They will do anything to avoid it, including insisting they know best, that what they've been doing gets them by, that they don't need anything else, or they delete any evidence that things are not fine. Remember filtering? We distort, delete or generalise tomake sure the world fits our own map of it. If we have a belief that we don't like uncertainty won't we delete evidence that is contrary to this? Won't we distort our current experience to justify staying the same? Won't we generalise about how bad it is going into the known, because it 'went bad last time'?

Think about a situation in your own life that left you feeling anxious. Perhaps it was the need to learn a new skill or capability. Perhaps you needed to talk to someone you didn't know and you weren't sure how to do it. Perhaps you has to stretch yourself beyond what you were certain you could do. 

How did you feel? What did you do? Did you keep going or back off?  And after this situation... did you avoid similar situations after that or seek them out?

Most people will say they avoid situations that involve them going outside their comfort zone. Yet the only way to create the change we want in our life is to what I call the "Uncomfort Zone".

The third law of life to consider and embrace is:

The quality of your life will increase the more you are willing to explore the unknown

Look at the diagram below. Your problems are on the right, on a scale of between one and ten. Your level of willingness to grow and learn about yourself and your world - instead of trying to control it - is on the left. If you have a problem that you decide is a five out ten in severity, and your willingness to embrace uncertainty is a one, how big does that problem appear? What about if your willingness to embrace uncertainty is an eight? What does that do to how you perceive you problem? Notice that the problem now seems manageable?

10 10

9 9

8 8

7 7

6 6

5 5

4 4

3 3

2 2

1 1

The reason why most people find life tough is because they’re putting their energy into eliminating uncertainty. Eliminating uncertainty can’t be done. No wonder their life is hard.

Something to think about? Ask yourself, how much time and effort do you put into eliminating uncertainty? How much of your thoughts turn to control? How often do you bemoan the uncertainties of life of criticise those who ask you to come outside your comfort zone? How often do you feel threatened or afraid or unwillingness to learn?

All of these questions are designed to stir up the truth of what you are giving up in terms of joy, growth and learning when you hang onto your comfort zone.

I’m curious, what’s so great about a comfort zone? What is so appealing about playing it safe, living within the square, thinking the same, acting the same, doing what you did yesterday, and the day before that, and the day before that?

Our company attends a personal development exhibition each year in to cities. We offer people who are interested the opportunity to tin a coach or become a coach. They have the chance to win $1,000.00 of coaching where they can learn about themselves and who they are. Even if they don’t win, they can still have a free coaching session. compliments of our school. The session is valued at $200.00, and gives anyone who wants to the opportunity to discover more about themselves and what it is they want to focus on for the year ahead.

What intrigues me is that as the doors open to the exhibition the crowd rushes in… hundreds of people… and they all make the dash to the stand they have come to see… the fortune tellers.

What they want is certainty… certainty about how their lives, they choose instead to invest in one possibility. A possibility predicted by someone. And some of these people act on these predictions. I am not saying I don’t believe in psychic abilities, because I do. What I am saying is that looking for certainty in our future is surrendering our greatest gift… the ability to enjoy the ride regardless of where it takes us.

How do we do this?

Give up the need to be right. Surrender the desire to tin an argument, prove your point, correct someone else or remind yourself of your expertise. If you have a big case of “Certain - itise” then this will be a stretch for you, as it was for me. It’s worth sticking at, though, because you’ll start to relax and go with the flow. You’ll notice people’s differences with appreciation, instead of the desire to change them to conform to your way of thinking. People will be drawn to you and you’ll be a much warmer person to be around.

Get used to saying “Maybe…” Instead of having to know the answer, get in the habit of being curious about what all the possibilities could be. Someone says to you, “This won’t work.” Suppress the need to say how it will, or why you think it won’t work.” Suppress the need to say how it will, or why you think it won’t. Instead say, even if it’s just yourself, “Maybe…” or “I wonder…” or “Let’s see…”

For example, instead of saying, ‘I hope this works out,’ say “I wonder how it works our.”

Instead of saying, ‘I hope I get the job,’ say ‘I wonder if I’ll get the job.’

Instead of saying,  “I wish this was better,” say  “I wonder how this can be improved.”

Instead of saying,  “I wish this was easier.” say “I’m curious about how to do it easier.”

Do you notice the difference in how you feel when you say these sentences?

Why have you hopes dashed by using the word hope, when you can simply satisfy your curiosity by wondering about something?  Much less drama, and it eliminates the stories will tell ourselves.

Get curious about what you don’t know: The one secret to growth and happiness and fulfillment is to be curious about what is on the other side of the comfort zone. Be prepared to commit to stepping outside the walls of your comfort zone at least once a day. You will be amazed at how differently you start to view your world.

Acknowledge yourself: Even if you take one tiny step, take the time to acknowledge yourself for doing it. So few people praise themselves and this is why they don’t like themselves. Would you like or be attracted to someone you didn't admire in some way?  You’re no different. You are worthy of your acknowledge and what you have accomplished. More importantly, acknowledge yourself for who you are.

What do you recognise you need to give up? Is it about being right? List what you need to surrender to move closer to Level 1 lining. 

Think of at least five things you might have said "I hope..." to For example, 'I hope I get the job", "I hope I get the job", "I hope he likes me..." List them here. 

Change them to "I wonder..." Statements and notice the difference. 

What are five things you would like explore that are, at the moment, outside of your comfort zone. What would change in your life if you did explore them?  How would your life be improved?

Commit to one action each day that takes you outside your comfort zone. If you're not sure what that might be, borrow some ideas from the list here.

I could...

Dance

Go to the movies

Join club

Start actinglessons

Invite some friends to dinner

Join a gym

Do press ups for fun

Sing

Listen to some self-improvement CD's

Love

Buy a pot plant

Declutter a messy room

Dress to impress

Book and fo on a holiday

Give a gift to someone because...

Start a home based business

Register as an extra for a TV show

Ask the boss what I could do better...

                 ...and then do it

Learn how to speak in public

Join a book club

Learn a language

Ask for a raise

Read

Learn something new

Join a short course

Learn a musical instrument

Go swimming

Walk each day

Skip

Learn about a foreign country

Write an article about something I  want

Garden

Donate some time to a worthy cause

Sort through the photos

Get a hair cut

Ask someone on a date

Find out about a job promotion

Learn how to paint

Form a book club

Join a sports club

Commit to one kind act each day

Remind a child how phenomenal they are

The more you depend on forces outside yourself, the more you are dominated by them. - HAROLD SHERMAN

Key Number Four: You Must get rid of the Secondary Gain

Have you ever done something that is harmful to you, recognised it's harmful, and then kept doing it? It could be a recurring negative thought about yourself, such as "I'm not good enough." It could be a behavior such as over eating. It could manifest as self sabotage. Perhaps you want to save, and then the moment you get ahead you blow your entire pay packet on something you hardly need.

The payoff, whatever that is for you, has the ability to keep us doing, saying and thinking what we are sure we no longer need. The key to appreciating this is that we only think, say and do what we believe works. On some level, self sabotage has for us a benefit. No payoff, no repetition.

Don't bother telling yourself right now that you are the exception to the payoff rule. There are no exceptions to this rule.

I coached a student once who insisted they wanted to become better time mangers. They were articulate about how their poor time skill was costing them so much. They expressed total commitment to changing this behavior. Yet within a day they were back to the old patterns.

Why? Because on some level, staying with the old choice was working for them. By being poor time keeper they didn't have to connect with their partner, because they were too busy trying to manage their time.

Their payoff for poor time management skill new was not having to be real with someone they said they loved.

You could decide you want to undertake new study to get a better job or just because it's something you're interested in. Yet enrolments come around and you do nothing. You tell yourself that you'll  "do it next semester," or "no one will appreciate my efforts," or "no one my age gets the good jobs," "it's been years since I studied, so I'll be the worst in the class."

Lots of ways to experience pain, little perceived pleasure.

The key to this is appreciating that we do more to avoid pain than we do to feel pleasure. This is true for all of us, and the level by which we live our lives determines our willingness to tolerate pain. Level 3 players avoid pain, or risk, at all costs.

Level 2 players will take some risks, if they can mange the risks.

Level 1 players take the risk, because they get that if they don't succeed, at least they had a go.

We do more to avoid pain than we do to feel pleasure.

This key has been understood by psychologists for years. We want to avoid the feeling of failure, of self doubt, of lack of confidence. We don't want to fail or look silly or risk being rejected or any of the other fears we hold in our heads. The benefit of playing it safe is we get to avoid all of this perceived pain. 

If you want something in your life and find yourself falling short at the last moment, or of justifying why you're not doing it, or you see yourself avoiding it, then you are in the grasp of secondary gain. 

Most secondary again is a fear of going outside of our comfort zone. We fear the unknown. We fear not seeing how we can control every step that lies ahead of us. We want to have certainty about how things will play out before we act. 

Or so we think. 

Imagine a life where everything that was going to happen to you, you knew in advance how it would play out. You knew exactly what you had to do. You could see every mover every time. 

You would hat it. Because even though we think we want certainty about how things will unfold, what we want even more is to be challenged so we can find out what we are capable of. 

You are not designed to play it safe. You are designed as a learning machine. You have the capability to learn and apply intricate moves that are beyond even the most advanced computers on the planet. You have more neural pathways in your brain than there are grains of sand on every beach on the planet. You were built to test yourself because when you do you discover what you are capable of and it's only when you learn that you feel happy and fulfilled. 

The only way to feel happy is to feel the fear and to act regardless of it. 

You can't get happy playing it safe. It is impossible to feel a sense of accomplishment sitting still and convincing yourself that the risk isn't worth it. Every time you talk yourself our of attempting a new thing you move a step further away from who you truly are. 

Secondary gain is you telling yourself you're better off not stepping up.

We all  do it, but remember, it's what we do consistently that makes the difference. 

If you consistently listen to the "play it safe" voice, you are living at Level 3. If you listen to the "play it safe" voice most of the time, you are living at Level 2. If you hear voice, and do the thing anyway, you are playing at Level 1. You are experiencing joy, fulfillment and a personal sense of accomplishment because you know you have courage. 

Playing it safe teaches us apathy and mediocrity. No one can learn they have courage by playing it safe. The only way to find out if you have courage is to act when you feel fear. Especially when you feel the fear.

The only thing you can learn through playing it safe is mediocrity.

The only way to discover the courage within you is to act, even when you feel fear. 

Now back to secondary gain. When the opportunities presented to you  throughout life get sifted through the filter system in your mind as being scary and painful and risky it's easy to become  frozen in inaction. Then you start to "normalise" your backing away from the opportunity by telling yourself something like "I didn't want it anyway," or "I'm better off sticking to what I know."

There's the payoff. THe benefit is you get to hide from the truth... the truth of way you are capable of... and you avoid the pain of the fear of failing or of succeeding or whatever it is for you. 

This starts to breed the lack of self-confidence so many people say they experience in their lives every day. This then reinforces non-action, because how can anyone be expected to act when they have low self-esteem!

"Yep, I'd love to join that art class but I'm really low self-confidence and what if they're all really good and I'm not?"

"Sure, I'd ask for that job if I wasn't so shy, but you know how it is."

A perfect excuse to not play the game of life. Expect the only person it hurt is you.

One of the things I say to my coaching students constantly is that the only question I care about when coaching is what works. 

If telling ourselves we have low self-esteem was a strategy that worked then I'd say go for it, but I am yet to meet a client who has an extraordinary like and plays at Level 3 with their excuses.

If telling yourself "I can't" get you what you want in life then you keep doing it. I'm going to guess it doesn't, though, and suggest an alternative strategy.

Everyone has self-doubt and fears. Everyone wonders if they will have what it takes. No exceptions. The difference between Level 3 and Level 1 players is that Level 3 players let it stop them and Level 1 players don't.

Why passively accept the excuses you've told yourself if all they do is keep you from having the life you want and deserve?

The first step to dump the secondary gain is to identify it. For me I realised very quickly that I had bought into the "I can't do anything about being sick," routine because it conveniently stopped me having to take responsibility for getting well, getting a job and basically getting a life. It was the perfect excuse not to live, because I was afraid of the world and what it would "do to me" If I gave it a go. Fear of living was my secondary again. 

I worked with a client who said they really wanted to learn how to communicate better with their people in their company. They didn't change their behavior towards anyone until they gave up their secondary gain of needing to be the centre of attention whenever was a drama or confrontation.

A client of mine said they wanted to meet a great guy. That didn't happen until they came to identify and release their payoff. As long as they weren't in a great relationship they got to keep saying all the great men were taken. By saying this with her friends, my client go to stay safe with her friends who were saying the same thing, which meant she didn't have to risk getting hurt by anyone.

Her payoff was she didn't have to risk putting her emotions on the line.

Someone I know was raised with every advantage. Great family, money, gifts of houses and holidays. She keeps saying that life is hard. She is in her forties, has a temp job she hates, no relationship and a poor relationship with her family. She says she wants to be happy. That's all she wants, she says, to be happy. Yet she experiences anything but happiness.

Because to be happy she would have to give up her belief that life is hard. If she gave that up she would be responsible for changing her life. If she has to fo that she would have been responsible for everything that had happened to her until now.

She can't do that. That would cause her to much pain. She would rather keep blaming other factors outside herself for her life than take responsibility. Her payoff is she gets to not feel the pain of failure.

I think on some level she knows the truth. I think inside her heart she must be really terrified of how her life will play out. No one has rescued her yet. Each year she feels more bitter about how life has let her down. Each year she is further away from her dream of just being happy.

Yet she hangs onto the story that she isn't responsible because to do anything else would mean she would have to take risks and create change and hold herself accountable. What level do you think she is living her life?

I know someone who didn't have a happy childhood. To say it was full of hardship and setbacks would be an understatement. She was put down by her parents and told she was trouble. For years she was in trouble with her family and with the police. Growing up she seemed to make every wrong choice.

She got married and had two children and never saw her husband. She was overweight. She had bulimia. She spent so many years believing she was no good at anything she believe it.

Then she studied what you're reading now. It was like water to a woman in the desert. She couldn't get enough of it.

She realise that by telling herself over and over again she was no good she was setting herself up for not even having to try anything new. She identified her payoff for selling herself short and claiming her parents for their failing was that she didn't have to build any life beyond staying home with her children. Her payoff was she got to play it totally safe. As long as they were to blame for how she was she couldn't be expected to take any risks.

Perfect, except she was totally miserable.

So she change everything... not in her life... but everything in her thoughts. She stopped blaming her family for who she was. She stopped blaming her weight for her lack of friends.

She took 100% responsibility for her life. She focused on what she could control and influence. She focused on her strengths. She spoke kindly to herself, especially when she felt challenged. She got curios about how she could do things differently.

She gave up the stories about why she couldn't.  She dumped all the excuses about what wasn't working and let go of the excuses about who was to blame.

Most of all she stopped telling herself she couldn't. She let go of the secondary gain of being able to play it safe.

Her life began to change immediately. Her children, who had been running the house, began to see the changes in their mother and they began to change too. Her husband began coming home and being there, She started to get new friends who reflected her new beliefs.

Whenever she slips back into payoff mode she catches herself and say she has the resource she needs within her to do what needs to be done.

As a result she truly happy and fulfilled and successful for the first time in her life. Simply by changing   her thinking.

What level of like do you think she is playing?

The first step to let go of the payoff is to get real about what they are. Any area of your life where you life where you have told yourself you want it to be different but haven’t  changed it is worth looking at.

Identify the area you want to improve. What do you tell yourself about why it isn't how you want it?

Think of the area you want to transform or take to the next level. What has been the payoff of you not playing at that level until now?

What has the secondary gain prevented you from being, doing, having or experiencing? What don’t you have in your life because you have had the secondary gain? What do you have that you don’t want in your life because of it?

What are you going to take action on now that you have identified the secondary gain? What is going to be different from now on?

Key Number Three: You Must Take 100% Responsibility for the Results You Get in Your Life

This key continues on from the previous, because it asks us to to hold ourselves accountable for all of what happens in our lives, regardless of whether or not we believe we chose it.

This key is a challenge for some people to embrace, because they point out that sometimes something happens that they were not expecting, could not have predicted and could never have prevented.

I tell them to act as if it’s true anyway. Because it’s only when we take this key on totally that we get to learn from everything that happens, and not just the stuff we believe we chose.

Even if something happens in a different city, if effects you, take 100% responsibility… not for the event… but for how you choose to respond.

Take 100% responsibility for the results you get

This key isn’t about blame, as in “you asked for it,” but about responsibility for choosing how you respond.

It is totally empowering to accept how you respond to the events in your life is entirely up to you. I remember when I first decided to play with this as if it was true. I was recovering from being ill and noticed that I was getting much more curious about how to get well. And not just well, but just will, but how to get totally radiant with outstanding health. I began to play the game of life at an entirely new level.

Think of the times you’ve heard someone say “It’s not my fault,” or “I didn’t ask for this.” Did you see how powerless they became when they said it? Why di that to ourselves when we could say, “This is what has happened, I don’t like it and I’m determined to find a way to turn it around.”

People say “Why me?”

How about instead, “It’s me because I have the resources I need to deal with it.”

You have all the resources you need to create your ideal life

You have all the resources you need to create your ideal life. No one else is responsible for your transformation. No else is responsible for your results or your lack of results. You are responsible for whether you choose to feel happy, sad, content, overwhelmed, angry or empowered. Your parents and what they “did” to you when you were younger are in no way preventing you from Level 1 living. Neither is the bully, the person who attacked you, who ripped you off or beat you. The person who caused injustice in your life or the illness that took away some choice… none of these things are preventing you living at Level 1, If you choose to accept 100% responsibility for the results that you are getting, right now.

Accepting this is true Level 1 living.

The first thing you must believe is you are to play your life at this level is that you must create the transformation. Not someone else, not when you feel like it,  not when the going gets easier, or when others have done or said something, but right now.

I must create the transformation

The second thing to believe for total Level 1 living is that you can create transformation. You must believe that you have the resources you need to create the change you must have. You have to be the source of your own transformation. It’s no good waiting for your partner to change to be happy, or hoping the market will get stronger to save your business, or wishing someone else comes along to fix things for you.

You must create the transformation, right now, on your terms

Think of something you believe you do well. What do you believe is true about your abilities? How do you take responsibility for the results that you get? Answer this question in as much detail as you can.

Think of something you believe you are definitely not good at. What do you believe is true about your abilities? How do you not take responsibility for the results that you get? Answer this question in as much detail as you can.

What have you notice about the two experiences? What specifically is different about two experiences?

Think of something that you want to be good at or want to master. If you are 100% responsible for the results you get, what needs to change, right now? What do you need to commit to? Who do you need to stop holding responsible for the result you want?

For the next seven days, act as if you are 100% responsible for every result you get. Include in this the response you get from other and things that in the past you might have not chosen to take responsibility for.

Give yourself the gift of living at Level 1 as often as you can, and if you slip, be aware of it and then step up once more.

Key Number Two: You Must Choose What You Focus On

This second key flows from the first. It says that what we choose to search for we will find. What you focus on is what you will get. Think of a time you bought a car. Can you recall that before you decided to get the car you didn’t notice that particular type of car in your travels? What changed once you made the decision? How many of that type of car did you begin to notice?

Close your eyes once you’ve read these instructions. Think of all things in the room that are green. Think only of the green objects. Everything that is green. How many green objects are you able to count with your eyes closed?

Once you have completed that exercise, ask yourself, “How many objects are in the room that are red?”

Because you were focused on the objects that were green, you would have sorted for the green objects, You would have deleted all other colors. You would have been able to recall many more objects that were green than were red.

This simple exercise demonstrates how your mind operates. It sorts for what you tell it to focus on.

Focus on the hardships in life, and you will experience more hardships. Focus on life’s injustices and you will experience life’s injustices. Focus on ill health and you will experience ill health. Focus on  your weaknesses and you will experience disappointing results.

Focus on love and kindness, and you will experience love and kindness. Focus on the keys to health and vitally and you will experience the same. Focus on your strengths and you will experience even more success.

Because what we focus on is what we get. And what we focus on is what we get to the exclusion of everything else.

To demonstrate this, think about the times you’ve been on the world wide web and searched for something. If you type in “Poverty” you will find millions of hits for this one subject. Type in “Wealth” and you will find millions of hits for this.

What you search for is what you will find. One way to look at this is to realise that we exist within pure potential. ALL possibilities exist in every moment. The possibility you experience is based on what you search for.

If you focus on what you fear, you will only see what you fear. Focusing on your strengths is always to your benefit. What many people do is focus on what will be difficult or how they might fail, so they don’t even attempt the attempt the things they are sure they can do.

The secret to Level 1 living is to focus on where you want to go.

When I run trainings on Your Success I explain it like this. Imagine that your world exists within a warehouse where everything is contained. Health, wealth, poverty, sickness, happiness, sadness, loneliness, friendship, success, love and joy. You have a flashlight and you go searching in this warehouse. What you will find is determined by where you point your flashlight.Point it in one corner and you find health. Point it somewhere else and you find joy.

Point it somewhere else and find despair.

What happens if you turn the floodlight on? You suddenly see all possibilities. You exist with all of these possibilities at all times.

When I first learnt this I became immediately aware of how I had been choosing to focus on what my world lacked. And my results reflected my focus because it required a level of personal responsibility that I’d never before considered. But I knew that if I didn’t I was going to keep getting the results I was getting. And that was intolerable for me.

One of thing that is worth noting about this key is that when you shift your focus you may not see the change in your direction immediately. you may continue to see some of the old results you no longer want. Just as in life, there can be a lag time between when you shift your focus and when your life catches up.

Be aware of this and persist. Focus right now on what you do want to experience in life. Focus right now on your strengths and capabilities. The sooner you do this, the sooner you’ll get your desired results.

Ask Yourself these questions: .

• Does choosing to accept this key as true enhance my experience of life?
• Does choosing to accept this key mean I will choose a more empowering focus in some or all areas of my life?
• Does choosing to accept this key give me a powerful tool for transforming my life?

If you answered yes, then I acknowledge you, because this one key has the power to totally transform your life.

This one key has the power to allow you to see the magnificence in everyone.

This one key has the power to enable you to focus on your strength, thus allowing you to improve your results in whatever you do.

This one key has the power to release you from anger, because you will see the lesson in the situation, rather than the hurt.

This one key has the power to allow you to forgive whoever you believe has harmed you, because you’ll know that by focusing on love, rather than resentment, will allow you to feel peace.

This one key has the power to see that you are truly a phenomenal human being, capable of the most amazing feats.

People who live at Level 3 focus on what they can’t control and influence, and thus feel constantly overwhelmed and out of control. People at Level 1 focus on what they can control and influence, and thus feel empowered and confident.

Think of something you believe you do well. What is it you tell yourself about your abilities? What do you see in your mind’s eye? What do you tell yourself? How do you feel when you see yourself doing this task? Answer this question in as much detail as you can.

What have you noticed about the two experiences? What specifically is different about the two experience?

Think of something that you want to be good at or want to master. If your focus determines your reality, what would your focus need to be? What would you  need to see yourself doing? In your mind, create a successful attempt at this thing and see yourself doing it perfectly. Hear the seconds of successful attempt at how you would feel. Tell yourself what you would tell yourself as you did this thing with total mastery. Breathe as you would breathe. Look in the direction you would look. Be as specific as possible.

What have you notice about your physiology as you created for yourself this successful attempt? What have you noticed about how you feel?

For the next seven days, act as if what you focus on is what you get. Decide to search for evidence of your own strength and the strengths of others. Choose to see the positive in each moment. Focus on what you can do and what you can control and influence, rather than on what you can’t. Shine your flashlight on what you appreciate, what you can do, what you enjoy and what you may learn from every moment.

Give yourself the gift of living at Level 1 as often as you can, and if you slip, be aware of it and then step up once more.

Key Number One: You Must Take Control of How You Interpret Your World

Things do not change; we change. - Henry David Thoreau

Handy Tip: How do you break the pattern to telling yourself the old stories? It's easy. Think of an old story right now that you know has to go. As you think of that story, raise your left hand, wiggle your bottom, shake your hand, hold your nose and make a squeaky noise as you say "Poor me, poor me, poor me," until you laugh or feel totally ridiculous. If you do this each time you catch yourself in an old, unresourceful story you'll stop telling yourself and others about them!

Now that you know what you need to tell yourself to live a Level 1 like, here are the five tools to assist you to assist you to stay there. Each of these tools has been developed not becausee they are always true, but because by believing they are true people who choose them experiece extraordinary living. As you read each of them, ask yourself "What would my life look like if I chose to accept these beliefs a true?"

For lasting transformation to take place in your life, you must act as if these keys are true for you, regardless of the circumstances of your life. Every great story has a time when the hero is in despair, feeling that all is lost. The true hero then finds the resources that she needs to turn things around and emerge victorious. This is how you must play this game of life. To be a winner, there are certain keys that when applied consistently produce extraordinary results.

Key Number One: You Must Take Control of How You Interpret Your World

What determines the quality of your life is not what happens, your level of luck or hard times, your family, your income, your job or your friends. What determines the quality of our life is the meaning we give to the events that happen and the choices we make as a result of those meanings.

Throughout the world there are people who we know or know of who have overcome extraordinary hardship, loss or challenges and gone on to live remarkable lives. Despite their own suffering they have found a way to live lives of fulfillment and have made difference to our world. Throughout history people have made incredible sacrifices to achieve extraordinary success.

For years people held the belief that it was impossible for a human being to run the mile in less than four minutes. Then Roger Bannister did exactly that in 1954. He achieved the "Impossible" by mental and physical practice.

What is remarkable about this story foes far beyond what Bannister achieve. Within one year of his feat 37 other runners broke the four minutes mile. Another year after that, another 300 runners did the same thing.

Had four minutes become a longer time? No, had four miles shrunk to accommodate the runners? No. All that had changed was what people believed was possible.

What this tells us is that it isn't the event that has meaning. We can never see an event exactly for what it is. Our interpretation of an event, as we learnt in the Defining Moments exercise, is all we have.

Even if we try really hard to only interpret an event for what it is, we will still distort the event in our minds to conform with what we believe to be true.

This means that the map is not the territory. No mater how hard we endeavour to recreate an event or a situation, we will only be able to represent it based on our map of the world.

This one key has the power to totally transform your life. It is not the event in your life that shape you. It is the meaning you give these events.

Think about this for a moment. Think of what is happening in your life right now. Perhaps you're stressed or feeling overwhelmed or out of control.

What if you were feeling overwhelmed because of how you perceived the situation a certain way? Doesn't that mean you also have an equal power to choose to perceive the event in another way?

The first time I heard this key, I said there is no way anyone would say that if they knew what was going on in my life right now. I decided that the person telling me this must be heartless, because if they knew how hard things were for me, they would never say that.

Then I started thinking about it.

What if it was true? Just for a moment, I imagined my life with this key being true. I realise that it meant that how I was feeling about my life was entirely up to me. I had the power to change how I felt about it. Only I had the power to change how I related the world. Only I could change how I experienced this world.

And what I chose was going to shape my life.

It moved my illness into a completely different light. All of a sudden being sick wasn't a terrible tragedy that no one could possibly understand. It became an opportunity for me to learn about patience and compassion and forgiveness. My getting ill didn't have to be a barrier to my having the life I wanted. It was only going to be a barrier I chose to let it be.

I had the power to chooes.

Remember, the map is not the territory. No matter what is happening in your life, you can never interpret it accurately. You can only interpret it according to your map.

Your Map

Your map is made up of your beliefs, values and experiences. It is made up of other ingredients too, but we'll focus on these for now.

• Your beliefs are feelings of certainty about what something means.
• Your values are emotions that you want to experience on a consistent basis.
• Your experiences are what you believe had happened in you life up until now.

How you create your map is through what you see, hear, feel, smell and taste. These are all the senses we have to access our world. We can see an event, hear it as it unfolds, feel it happening, and perhaps we can also taste and smell it.

These six senses are all we have to record the world around us. We are being bombarded with an estimated two million bits of information every second. We could not possibly absorb and process all of this information. Most people can only mange 132 bit of information - or 7 plus or minus 2 chucks.

If we could suddenly absorb all of the information coming at us we would go made or would close down. Notice how you're sitting. Notice the sounds around you that until nor you may have been turning out. Notice any smells in the air. Notice the objects around you that you had deleted to allow you read this blog. If you were aware of all of this all of the time you would never be able to function.

So our minds protect us. It filters out what it considers to be irrelevant.

The question is: how does our mind decide what is relevant or not? What filter in is what we believe we need or will need for a future time. This explains why two people can view the same event - say, a car accident - and recall it so differently. They have recorded the event in their minds based on their own filters.

The filter in our minds constantly delete, distort and generalise about what an event means.

We delete what we decide is irrelevant. We distort what we experience so it can fit in with what we are familiar with and we generalise on thing to mean something we have experienced before.

For example, think about someone whom you don't like. They maybe do something that annoys you and violates your rules about how people about them that is likeable? Maybe they're loving to their parents or good you've magnified a habit they do that annoys you so that's all you notice about them. Perhaps you've exaggerated their dislikeable traits because they cause such intense feelings within you.

Finally, what are you generalising about them to cause you to dislike them? Perhaps they have a behavioural trait that you've seen someone else do. When the first person did they behaviour that did it to hurt you, so now you feel very strongly about what that behaviour means.

You can do the same exercise with tasks you don't enjoy, with places you've visited and felt strongly about, anything you experience in your life. 

Like something and disliking something is based on what we filter in and leave out. What we filter in and leave out is based on what we are deleting, distorting, or generalising. 

How your Filters Shape Your Life

Imagine for a moment you are faced with a challenging task. It's a task that you have never been able to accomplish successfully in the past. You feel intimidated by the thought of having to do it and you tell yourself you'll probably get it wrong. 

What are you filtering out to decide to be intimidated by this event? What are you filtering out to decide to be intimidated by this event? What evidence of your abilities are you deleting? What past events do you need to distort to give yourself the most anxiety? Aren't you needing to generalise about past results to make the decision to doubt your abilities this time?

Now think of a task that you know you are totally capable of doing. Something that you have has complete success in for a period of time. It could be tying your shoe laces or making coffee. 

What do you have to delete to decide you can do this task? Don't you need to delete evidence of when your first started doing these task? A time when you weren't totally successful? Aren't you needing distort your past results so that the times you weren't great at became simply"learning experiences"? To believe your ability to do these task take your decision to generalise that because you could do the task before you can do it again now.

Constantly, deleting, distorting, and generalising.

Think about this... what if what you are filtering out of your life are the very things that would mean your happiness, your success or your fulfillment?

Five years ago I was convinced that people were full of weaknesses and faults. I was sure that people were generally disappointing and incapable of anything except for selfish, self involved actions.

To believe this I had to delete any evidence of anyone's kindness, compassion or generosity, which I did easily. I had to distort their slightest comment to interpret it as thoughtless and mean. I had to generalis that because they would say one thing that I decided was mean that would equate to all of them being mean.

And this is how I lived my life for years. If you could imagine living this way for a moment, what do you think I thought about the world? About people generally? What relationships do you think I had?

If you've decided I didn't have many good friends, and that I had a poor relationship with my family, and that I was lonely, you would be right on track.

I realised that how I interpreted the world was up to me, and that id I wanted to experience love, happiness and fulfillment then I needed to start hunting for evidence of exactly that, instead of the opposite.

I had to change my map of the world.

Once I changed my ma, my entire experience of the world and of people transformed for the better. Since changing my map I have not met a single person I don't like. I have not experienced a situation I haven't been grateful for. I now only see the magnificence in others, even when they don't see it in themselves.

Had the word suddenly replaced itself? Of course not.  All that had changed was my map of the world.

For the next seven days, act as if the map is not the territory. Decide to give the best possible meaning to everything that happens and everything you see, hear and feel. Make the effort t filter in everything that is good, positive, and a learning opportunity our of everything you experience. Give yourself the gift of living at Level 1 as often as you can, and if you slip, be aware of it and then step up once more.