There is an old saying: “I’ll believe it when I see it.”
That’s a problem, you see.
Because if you don’t believe it, you will never see it. It is out of your field of vision.
You cannot focus on what you cannot see.
And our brains want to make damn sure we are happy and contented so if we say we can’t see it, that bowl of cranial mush makes it totally hidden from view.
Brains are good like that.
And we cannot train them otherwise. What we can do is choose to see it in order to believe it.
Once we see it in our brain, it goes to work to make us see more and more of it.
And then possibilities begin to show up.
And opportunities. Many times they have been right in front of us all along, but we said we couldn’t see them, so our brain makes it so.
Once we see what is possible – thanks to our new focus – we can start to take action to make what we see in our minds into our new reality.
We see it, and NOW we believe it.
What an incredible difference in how we view our work, ourselves, and how we fit into the world around us.
Let/’s illustrate this a bit.
In this image, the focus is sharp on Briana. The background is just a blur of green. Oh, we can tell that it is a bunch of trees, but they hold no interest for us at all.
Let’s say Briana stands in for failure. All we see is failure. (Sorry Bri, just making a point and needed a strong visual metaphor… heh).
We do not see what is past the failure. Our focus in on what we are looking at.
We are absolutely sure that failure is our future, for there is nothing beyond worth looking at.
We can’t quit our jobs because we will fail.
We can’t change our relationships because we will fail.
We can’t write a book, it will only end in failure.
Because failure is that sharp, in focus subject that we are staring at.
In this image, the focus is beyond the subject and is now on the trees. And that changes everything. The trees are sharp and Briana is out of focus. She is no longer the subject of our focus. The trees are.
We look past the out of focus parts of the images to hopefully catch a glimpse of what is behind.
Because it is sharp.
Because it is revealed… and now we can see it.
We can find a new career, even at an older age.
We can write a book, or develop a class, or start a business.
We are no longer focused on the failure, we are looking beyond it.
And seeing the trees… and beyond.
The point of that visual exercise is to remind you that when you focus on something – even failure – you will find a lot of ways to make that happen.
Focusing on the positive, opportunities are then brought to the fore.
What you didn’t see before because of your focus on the failure, now comes into sharp focus.
But in a positive manner.
(My motorcycle is a Kawasaki Vulcan Nomad. Before I bought it, I do not think I had ever seen one. They were everywhere, of course, but I hadn’t ‘seen’ them because my brain was totally focused on Harleys. Once I owned one, I see them all over the place. That is our incredible brain doing its incredible brain stuff right there.)
When we stop looking for ways to fail and start looking at ways we can succeed, our brains will do everything it can to make what we want to happen actually happen.
Failure is a huge industry in our world today. Frightening people into thinking the end of the world is close sells newspapers, magazines, products, gurus, seminars, and garners vast amounts of the public assets.
It’s so powerful that when someone comes along and says “Hey, you can do this”, they are often ridiculed or ignored.
We are so sure of failure that any mention of success being possible is meant with derision and anger.
That is actually backward, in my mind.
There has never been a better time to start your own endeavors than right now. That is a fact.
Will it bet better?
Yeah, probably. Most likely it will.
But it will always be so.
Everywhere we look we see creatives making their way by doing what they love.
Success can be wild or mild or whatever you want it to be, but it can definitely be yours.
Refocus on what you want to be.
Stop focusing on fears that are mostly irrational anyway. (I don’t have to tell you that. You KNOW they are.)
Today is July 4th, 2018.
A few centuries ago some folks in my country had a vision of something never tried before. And they focused on it like a laser.
They believed it well before they saw it.
We celebrate this day in history, July 4, 1776. It is called Independence Day.
When will you celebrate YOUR independence day, and start living the life you know you were meant to?
See you all next time.