Unfortunately, it’s only the more enlightened amongst us that actually question our thinking on a regular basis. The wise have known this for thousands of years. King Solomon, reputedly the wisest man who ever lived said “Every man is right in his own eyes.”
What this means in practice is that if our thinking is cruddy we tend to blame everyone else except ourselves …until such a time as we are shocked into realising that our my way or the highway attitude is leaving us short on our highway…alone!
If you think of what you’ve learned in life as being recorded information about yourself, others and the world around you then you’ll find it easier to understand that the information you learned at 7 (about adult authority for instance) is not useful at 27.
The operating system (what you think and how you think) needs an upgrade. More specifically, the content – your beliefs, and sometimes the style (the way in which you think) of your thinking needs an upgrade.
Here’s an analogy – If you have Windows 95 on your PC you might be able to do some of the basic things you want to do. You can certainly word process. But what you can do with 95 is NOTHING compared to what you can do with Windows 7, right? In some ways the two barely compare.
The thinking you learned at age seven was full of error, what we call cognitive distortions. You believed that if you wished hard enough it will come true, that things were always black and white, that you had to be perfect or no-one would love you. Rubbish.
But if you’ve never upgraded your thinking; that is what you will continue to use.
- Have you ever seen an adult have a tantrum because he or she can’t get their own way?
- Have you ever dealt with someone who completely stops liking you because of one incident?
- Have you ever met anyone who obviously has no talent but can’t stop dreaming of being a singer or actor? (X-factor anyone?)
The trouble is, no-one teaches us to upgrade our thinking. And then, when we are 20, 25, 30, 45 etc. we attempt to deal with adult situations with the thinking patterns of a child.
If you recognise you’re not coping well with a situation you could try the following questions:
- How am I reacting?
- How would I like to react?
- What do I have to believe is true for me to react this way?
- Does it work for me? Does it work for those I love?
- How would the adult I am aged x handle this situation?
If you’re interested in powerfully upgrading your thinking for profit and peace of mind, consider having a free explore your breakthrough session with Douglas Cartwright to see how Meta-coaching can work for you.
www.livingwords.net/freeintro.html
