Excerpt from “The Secrets of Creating a Life Beyond Limits” by Rik Schnabel of Life Beyond Limits
Whatever you focus your attention upon automatically determines your predominant thoughts. Thoughts are simply composed of energy, thinking about something constantly adds more energy to that thought. Let’s see how this works in action.
Can you remember when you were learning to ride a bicycle? Once you worked out how to balance upon the bike and increased your confidence, you moved much quicker and took more risks, until the inevitable happened. While racing along a path you somehow lost your balance and all of a sudden, the bike flailed from side to side as you struggled to keep it upright. On one side was a blanket of soft green grass and on the other a solid fence loomed ever closer! In panic, you heard yourself say, I’m going to hit the fence, I’m going to hit the fence, I’M GOING TO HIT THE FENCE! And guess what? You hit the fence. By focusing on the fence and not the grass, the fence became larger in your mind, the grass smaller (it almost didn’t exist) and of course you attracted what you focused upon most. For this reason, footballers are trained to focus where they want to kick the ball. For this reason, racing car drivers are taught to look away from the direction of skid and instead look to where they choose to direct their car. They know that the moment they focus upon the obstacle, they hit it. In training rally drivers, should the driver be looking in the direction of a skid and an imminent collision, the trainers’ job is to whack the driver on the helmet to remind them to focus on where they want to go, not where they don’t want to go.
What grows in your life is predetermined by your thoughts – your focus. Not a single thought, but how often and how committed you are to having these thoughts and how deeply you feel about them. In fact, you have already created everything that features in your life right now.
The moment you become conscious and stop acting upon your unconscious programming, you become conscious of your repetitive thoughts and emotions. You will realize that your predominant thoughts are in fact congruent with the life you have experienced thus far. Think about a body builder – what do you think their predominant thoughts would be? Their body shape and muscle tone provide the answer. They focus upon their body of course; it is what is important to them. A successful businessperson will focus upon all the successful elements of their business, their key drivers that get them the results they desire and work on fine-tuning the unsuccessful elements.
An artist will focus upon using their imagination or expressing themselves while remaining in a free artistic state of thinking. Equally, a person who cannot seem to succeed is likely to be focusing upon their flaws and becomes a master of their flaws rather than a master of their success.
If someone is depressed, it is highly likely that they will be focusing upon the source of their depression. Should they shift their focus and begin to recall some of the wonderful things that have occurred in their life and focus upon duplicating these thoughts, their depression will often begin to fade. A person who is depressed is likely to be focusing upon what they don’t want (their depression) and therefore getting more of it.
About ten years ago, I worked with one of my first clients who claimed to be depressed. He of course was focusing upon all that was not working in his life and his prevailing depression. I asked him to tell me about all the things in his life that he loved doing or being. We completed a very long list. Nothing that featured on that list featured in his life! He hadn’t engaged in anything on the list for many, many years.
Often solutions are simple; Do more of what you love and you love more of what you do. My previously aforementioned depressed client, committed to doing his top 10 loves in the next 30-days and his depression magically vanished. I don’t believe depression is an illness – I believe it’s an 8 billion-dollar pharmaceutical industry in Australia that is well supported! Focus on moving beyond your issue and you will. Focus on the issue and you won’t – it’s that simple.
If someone tells you that every time they ask someone out on a date they get tongue-tied and muck up, they are telling you that they are focusing upon mucking up and not success. They are being inflexible in the context of dating and their associated behavior is not conducive to success. Another insight worth noting is that the financially disadvantaged focus upon what they don’t want and get it anyway – debt. This is called ‘Away From Motivation’ and usually provides short term results. Wealthy people however, focus upon what they do want – a desirable life or wealth. This is called ‘Toward Motivation’ and provides longer lasting results. ‘Away From Motivation’ is like moving only one-step away from the problem and not fully moving toward what you do want. Similar to denial, it doesn’t necessarily mean that the problem will go away, just like running away from debt does not ensure wealth. So it is best to focus upon what you do want rather than attempting to move away from what you don’t want, a subtle change, but a significant difference.
Look at your own life and you will see signs of what you think about most. If you don’t like what you see, change your focus and it will change your thinking. It’s really that simple. Can you see that what you think about most is what you are being? If you choose to become wealthy, don’t focus upon avoiding debt. How do you become wealthy? Become a millionaire in your mind and millions are much more likely to come. You must be the person you choose in the future now, create your future in the present! You cannot create your future in the future; you can only create your future in the present! Let me be clear here. This does not mean that if you decide to become a millionaire in your mind today that tomorrow your millions shall be delivered. To become a millionaire is a decision to change your mindset from this point forward and trust that it is inevitable and shall manifest at the perfect time. And the perfect time is when your thoughts, your feelings, your vibrations and resulting actions are that of a millionaire.
So in an energetic sense, what you focus upon expands (you attract) and what you do not focus upon contracts (you repel); the more attention you give to something, the more it expands. Therefore what is not in focus is not present in your life. For example; if you choose to lose weight, stop focusing upon your weight and focus on the new active, healthy and vital you. Imagine yourself thinner. Stop focusing upon the foods that put on weight and instead focus upon healthy foods and exercise. When I hear people create reasons why they have a specific issue and resist help, I know that they are not truly willing to move on and of course, they get to keep the issue.
There is a system in your brain called the “Reticular Activating System” (RAS). The RAS is a series of filters of the mind that delete, distort, generalize all the information coming into the senses. To what degree? Well imagine that you have around 2 Million bits of information that you could take into your senses at any given second (which you do by the way). However too much data would overwhelm you. So at any given second, the job of the RAS is to re-sort the information to obey your beliefs, align with your values, be congruent to your memories, and conform to your language and past decisions. In short, it will reduce the information coming into your brain from 2 Million bits of information down to seven plus or minus two chunks of information. In other words, 1,999,991 bits of information don’t even make it into our reality.
Let us just focus on one single filter, your beliefs. If you believe your children are naughty, they will become highly visible to you when they are naughty and invisible when they are good. They are both good and naughty, but you are more likely to see their misbehavior. You can of course change how any one of your filters work by becoming conscious of your thoughts or learning NLP. Equally, overcome procrastination by focusing beyond it and upon the task at hand and the outcome and how great you will feel when you complete it, rather than focusing all the work you have to do. If you choose to get motivated, find a great motive to move you forward — ‘Toward Motivation’. If you can’t find a reason to enjoy a task, find an aspect of it that you can enjoy or learn a skill to make it easier to enjoy the task. If you’re not looking forward to visiting your parents or in-laws, find a conversation subject that you would all enjoy discussing and swing it around. You can truly change your focus on anything and just by changing your focus you will change your life. Okay, I hear you ask — Anything? Yes, anything! Remember more is possible, unless you choose to invest in limited thinking. Even cleaning the toilet can have a better focus by thinking about how much better it will look with a sparkle!
So, you can focus upon what you choose to expand into your life and what you do not focus upon contracts. As a lack of focus reduces your awareness of something’s existence, it is true that something can almost disappear. In Lawrence Blair’s Rhythms of Vision, he describes Magellan’s first landing at Tierra del Fuego. As Magellan and his crew stood on the beach, they were met by the Fuegans, who for centuries were isolated by their canoe culture. The Fuegans had no concept of large ships; they had never seen one prior to Magellan’s landing. They had never seen a ship nor had they ever imagined one. The Fuegans greeted Magellan and his crew and while Magellan’s ships were clearly visible from the beach, anchored not far from shore, the Fuegans could not see them. The ships were invisible to their eyes because they did not exist in their reality; there was no frame of reference for them. The Fuegan Shaman was naturally curious. He wondered how the newcomers had arrived on their island. Seeing the large contingent of Magellan’s crew, the Shaman deduced that they must have arrived on the island using many canoes. However there was not a single canoe in sight. He squinted out to sea and after some time Magellan’s grand galleons materialized. Excited, the Shaman pointed out the ships, but his fellow Fuegans could not see them; they did not have a reference point from which to create the picture in their mind. Frustrated, he produced the reference and began drawing the shape of the ships in the sand. Soon, one by one, the Fuegans saw the ships. Their reality expanded to see the huge hulking vessels.
It is this understanding that begs the question. What can’t we see because we do not believe it exists? Whatever you can see at this very point in time is what you believe exists, nothing more. But it certainly doesn’t mean that what you can’t see doesn’t exist. I trust you now realize that beliefs are not necessarily true, just productive or unproductive. When I was a 4-year-old child, I saw my first apparition. It was of a man we know to be Jesus Christ. While I was too young to understand the significance of what I saw, from that moment on, I saw spirits with frequency. I now understand that one of the reasons I saw these apparitions, was so that I could move my consciousness beyond the seen. Without these experiences, I believe I would not be able to move my mind beyond limits and gain all the gifts I have been given in life.
The example of the Fuegans’ experience is similar to what we see when focusing upon a singular subject, such as a car we desire. If we decide to purchase a red sports car, suddenly, we see more of them appear. Miraculously, red sports cars seem to be everywhere. The desire for a red sports car is expanded in our mind and it seems that every other car on the road is almost invisible; we have sensitised ourselves to see red sports cars.
Imagine your favorite song. If you don’t have a favorite song, just choose one that you like and begin singing it or humming the tune in your head. Choose the chorus and repeat it over and over again. Now imagine the artist playing the tune or see the film-clip and see the picture in your mind or see the film clip and hear the tune. Now stop thinking about the tune. Forget everything you just remembered and don’t allow yourself to think about the song at all – think of anything and everything except the song. How did you go? It can be hard to push something away while you are focusing upon what you are pushing away. Now I would like you to think of anything but a big blue, fluffy bunny. That’s right, don’t think about a big fluffy blue bunny. Do not think about it at all. How did you go? Again, it is hard to not think about something without thinking about it. This is like trying to move from fear by focusing on the fear. This is also like trying to move from a position of lack while still picturing your lack. You just bring it closer. So, don’t focus upon what you don’t choose to have in your life. Focus upon what you do choose to bring into your life.
When you believe you are disadvantaged you demonstrate your disadvantage in your actions. You will manifest the outcome you envision in your mind. You may walk around staring down at the ground, shoulders slumped, feeling and seeing sadness. Your beliefs will have you expecting second best, receiving poor treatment, thinking you are worth less than others. If you are using this book to improve your wealth, be mindful of this next point. Once you improve your wealth it is important to feel worthy of your new-found gains or you will fritter away your new acquisitions and manifest your lack of worth. Just like the many examples of lottery winners that wake up a millionaire, fall back asleep into unconscious patterns, and loose it all.
Does it now make sense to you why the financially disadvantaged often put up with poor service and bad behavior, and Third World countries settle for much worse? In contrast, the wealthy seldom tolerate ill-treatment and demand respect. Those who are angry, needy and hateful glue themselves to their discontent. What we focus upon becomes larger in our lives. Focus upon prosperity and allow your prosperous life to expand.
Get your copy of “The Secrets of Creating a Life Beyond Limits” by Rik Schnabel Australia’s #1 Brain Untrainer and trainer of Life Coaching and NLP.
