That’s Not How It Is - This Is How It Is

Posted on 8 January 2008

Everybody on this lovely planet of ours has their own way of looking at things. We all, and you’re included in this so don’t go thinking you’re not, distort, generalize and delete information. It’s the human way of doing things. Obviously some people (like my mother-in-law) do it more than others, but the reality is that it keeps us sane (unlike my mother-in-law) and without the ability to do so, life would be difficult at best as we’d have to constantly be reassessing everything on a daily basis.

 

Obviously then this distorting, generalizing and deleting gig is really cool then? Well yeh it is, but it also has its drawbacks. It’s a bit like beer in that respect. I like a beer or two but know that if I have too many it stops being a good thing (especially for those around me who usually get annoyed with me wanting to hug them, the women don’t like it either) and the same can be said with DG&D. If we do it too much we slip into autopilot and seldom stop to question our beliefs and actions.

 

Some people expect all politicians to be corrupt so they don’t spot the good one helping the community. They don’t think there are any honest people out there so they never notice the shopper telling the checkout person that they gave them too much change and they simply know that the New England Patriots are a bunch of camera using cheats that should be stripped of their draft picks for eternity. So they fail to believe that they deserved to go 16-0 this year. Er, sorry about that last one, I inadvertently let my own DG&D’s out of the kennel there. Go Patriots! Ok, maybe not.

 

As I said before we need to DG&D but the danger arises when we start to believe our version of reality is the true version of reality and stop recognizing what we are doing. That is when we can become entrenched and stuck in the way we think and start to believe that there is only one way to see things, our way.

 

As a Life Coach one of the most important things I do is to align with my clients and help them to see what they may be blocking out. It can be tricky to do but also very worthwhile. Not many people find it easy accepting that they could have been wrong on something that they believed in for so many years, just ask my mother-in-law (ok that’s enough mother-in-law jokes for one post, Kate if you’re reading which I sincerely hope you’re not, sorry).

 

Try questioning what you believe to be true more often. You don’t have to do it all the time, but when you do it with an open mind and a preparedness to accept that you maybe wrong slightly more often than you’d like to believe it will open up a great many opportunities and possibilities, just ask my mot… oh forget it. 

Enjoyed this post? Please share it!

Digg it | Stumble it |

 

Comments are closed.