By Tom Lancaster
What are the things that really piss you off about your field? What do people assume to be truth that you know is complete BS? In this article, I’m going to talk about 5 things people say all the time that really piss me off, and talk to my truth about those things. Enjoy!
1. Creation is hard
We are obsessed with the idea that life is hard. Parents, teachers, friends all tell us that we have to work hard, that life isn’t easy or fair, and that it takes a lot of effort to get the things we want in life. But the truth is that creating the life that you want can be simple, joyful and fun. You just need to know how…read on to find out!
2. Comfort is good
We live in a world of risk management. Of heated car seats. Of 24 hour deliveries. Of stagnation. Of dissatisfaction with the comfortable world around us. Most humans are always looking for ways to be more comfortable, but in my experience, more comfort leads to more misery. It seems nice, it seems safe, but we are not designed to be comfortable, and it is only outside of the comfort zone that we can really experience life.
This seems counterintuitive but think of the most memorable times in your life. Where were you? What were you doing? I’m willing to bet that you were exploring somewhere new, doing something new (The first time I…) or meeting someone new.
It is in new experiences that we find out who we are. It is in stepping into the unknown that we find out what we are made of. It is by taking risks that we learn and grow and become more. So get out and do something that makes you feel uncomfortable. Go on an adventure. Ask him out on a date. propose double what you normally charge to your next client. Who knows what possibilities lie on the other side of that uncomfortable choice.
3. Manifestation is just about knowing what you want
There is this idea that to have the things you want in life you just have to know what they are. Write a list. Ask god. Hope that they will show up in your life. But the truth is that simply wishing you had more things, more love, more whatever actually emphasises the not having of those things. Wishing, hoping, praying — these are all passive activities that reduce your power as a manifestor. “But you said it was easy!” I hear you say. It is. In order to crest the things you want in your life, you have to FEEL what it is like to have them. To go into your imagination and experience the world you are creating. Here. Now. In this moment. Step into the future in your mind and experience who the person is that has that great relationship, or the impactful business, or stands on the top of that mountain. How do they BE in the world? What do they wear? How do they think? Where do they hang out? How does it FEEL to be that person.
Your mind can’t tell the difference between a real and an imagined experience — so every time you go to that place in your imagination, you are building the neural circuits you need to bring that creation into the present.
And then suddenly you find yourself with a realtor being shown around the exact house you imagined, or you bump into a guy in a coffee shop who happens to be the missing piece for your business. It’s that simple.
4. I’m just not an ‘intuitive person’
I’ve heard so many people tell me that ‘intuition isn’t a thing for me’ or ‘I’m just not that intuitive. Bullshit. The truth is that just like Japanese, you need to learn the language. Andy Puddicome, founder of Headspace, puts it beautifully — “isn’t it funny how we try to think our way out of an overactive mind?” How many people reading this have had a brilliant idea in the shower, or while walking the dog, or while otherwise distracted from thinking? That’s intuition talking. That’s your gut feeling making itself known. We are all intuitive, we just get caught up in thinking, and the more we fell pressure — deadlines, conflicts, etc — the more we try to think our way out of it. My advice is this.
The more urgent a situation seems, the more you need to slow down. Make a cup of tea. Go for a walk. Take the day off. If it’s REALLY urgent take a week off.
The second you slow down, your intuition will guide you.
5. There’s nothing I can do
This is the one that pisses me off the most, and I’m going to talk about it in detail. A victim mindset is the surest way to make sure that you never get the things you want in life. The belief that life is happening “to me” and not “for me.” Because this is also creation at work. Our words become our reality. Our thoughts become our things. And if we believe that things are outside of our control, guess what? We will never have control. And it is also the simplest thing to fix. There is a distinction here between simple and easy. Just because something is simple doesn’t necessarily mean it is easy. But it doesn’t need to be hard. However living with a victim mentality is extremely hard.
We constantly seek out information and experiences that bolster our belief system. It’s called confirmation bias. We do it unconsciously, and if our belief is that the world is against us, we will notice every little thing that confirms that belief. There were no muffins left at the bakery. It’s raining, again. My best friend in the whole world said one thing today which I interpreted to mean that even they hate me. If you’re living in this world, I understand. One of the reasons it pisses me off so much is that I lived it for YEARS. I was depressed, and I couldn’t break free.
It all has to do with the Reticular Activation System. What the hell is that? It’s a tiny part of your brain, and its job is to filter the information coming in. We receive something in the order of 11,000,000 bits of information every second through our senses, yet we can only process around 50 bits/second, so what happens to the other 10,999,950 bits? They are simply discarded. The RAS scans the incoming information for anything it deems relevant, which translates to this:
We see what we believe and what we have experienced.
How often have you had the experience of someone saying to you “Have you seen the advert for xxx?” or “have you heard the new song by XXX?” and suddenly the thing is inescapable? This is the RAS at play. It’s not the case that overnight, this thing has erupted and taken over the world. It is simply that until your friend mentioned that new model of BMW, it wasn’t relevant information to your RAS, so even though you’ve crossed paths with the new BMW several times, the information hasn’t made it through. As soon as it is brought to your attention that a thing exists, suddenly you see it everywhere.
So how does this all relate to feeling like life is out of control and there is nothing you can do?
You can train the RAS to allow in the information that you want.
I talked about this earlier in this article — if you can consciously and deliberately imagine yourself as the person you truly want to be, whether that is rich, famous, having a global impact or simply not depressed anymore, then you start to train your RAS to allow in information that supports this position. You start seeking out people, and things and experiences that confirm this bias. You start to take control of your life and your destiny. You start to see that the cost, the hardship of making a change is way, way less than the cost of sticking to business as usual.
Let’s illustrate this with an example. When I was at my lowest, I struggled to get out of bed. Literally having a shower felt like the biggest and most overwhelming thing I could achieve in a day. I would lie in bed thinking all the thoughts that confirmed this position. My legs are so heavy. Even if I do have a shower I’m just going to have to come back to bed anyway so what’s the point? Nobody cares if I do get up so I might as well not bother. Over and over again. When people did show up and try to help, as they often did, I either pushed them away or allowed them to help in the ways that confirmed my position — lots of being told it’s ok, it will pass, don’t push yourself etc. And I would go through phases of up and down, times where I could function like a human in society and times when I definitely couldn’t. But nothing changed until I took control.
I started to meditate on what it would be like if I had energy. I visualised getting a job, what the office would look like, how it would feel to sit at my desk and meet my colleagues. I forced myself out of my pyjamas and into daytime clothes. I asked myself the question “what would I do if I wasn’t depressed?” And then I meditated on how it would feel, what the experience of walking through life as a non-depressed person would be like. And my world began to shift around me.
That was less than a year ago, and it was just the beginning of a radical shift in my consciousness, and my entire experience of reality. Today, I fucking love my life. I wake up every day excited and energise about all the ways in which the universe is going to surprise and delight me. And it all started with a shift in frame, from “I have no control”, to “I have control”.