CHAPTER 1
SECTION 1 FIRST STEPS TO UNDERSTANDING YOU
Building a stronger more focused you
LUKE LEE TET
Wheel of Life
Self-assessment is very important when making a change of any kind. Who we are, how we see ourselves, and how we think the world sees us is vital to the results we get. So we need to be absolutely honest with ourselves about where we are in our life and what we need to enhance.
By allowing yourself to be the best version of yourself, you can have the ability to help others understand and strive for their dreams as well.
A really solid place to start is with the Wheel of Life, a simple but useful tool for self-assessment. Following is an example.
When creating your own Wheel of Life, use the illustration as a guide. If the centre point was zero, no success in this area, and the outer edge was ten out of ten, that couldn't be better.
Fill out the Wheel of Life by putting a line through each triangle at the point of where you believe you are at in this particular area of your life. For example, if you were to put a line through the centre of the triangle titled Family, this would indicate that there is room for growth and improvement, although you see it as having average results. The Wheel of Life also suggests which areas of your life you have been focusing on and where you have not.
We Get What We Focus On
This seems so simple, but there may be some things you may not know about this statement.
To paraphrase Carl Jung, "We can't see anything outside of us that isn't us." Which means we see things as we are, not as they are. So the world as we see it is filtered by the makeup of who we are. No two people will ever see anything in the exact same way because both will look at the same thing from two very different points of view. Personality, life experiences, and what they expect to see, hear, and feel about something is individualised, as no two people are the same.
A perfect example of this is when you hear of a story of a family in poverty, with a drunken father who beats up his two children. Their upbringing was hard, and from the outside the same experience as each other, but they end up worlds apart when they grow up and leave the family home. One child ends up living the same life in the same area and repeats the same experience on his or her family, while the other ends up living a very successful life. The successful child saw what he or she didn't want to be, and the other saw no other option. One focused on moving forward and how to be better, and the other focused on what had happened, not on what could be done about it.
Our life is like this in every aspect. Imagine being in a dark room where you can't see your hand in front of your face. All you have is a flashlight to see by. How much of the room can you see? You can only see what is in its beam, right? Our lives and the way we experience the world is the same. We will simply not be aware of the things beyond our focus.
So as you can see in the Wheel of Life, where you have the most success is where you have put the most focus.
The Map Is Not the Territory
This subject relates largely to the previous section. Understanding this will change your mind-set and how you will forever communicate with others. The best map of any city can only ever be a map or guide; it can never be the city itself. The map can only be a representation of the city. Based on our thoughts, values, beliefs, experiences, and stories, we create our own maps of reality, rather than reality itself. This is how your map is very unique and how nobody can have the same map. Everything is perception.
When we look at how our maps are made, understand this fact: There are two million bits of information coming at us every second. Unfortunately, we can only process 132 bits, or 7 plus or minus 2 chunks of information. What this tells us is that we are constantly deleting, distorting, and generalising this information so that we can allow the information that we consider relevant in, and leave out what we consider irrelevant.
What we let in and what we leave out depends on our map of the world.
If we believe the world is a harsh place and that people are mean, we will delete evidence of kindness as irrelevant, or "not really counting," and will distort kindness as "they didn't really mean it" or "they were just saying that" and will generalise evidence of hurt as, "All people are like that."
So if we are constantly deleting, distorting, and generalising to make sense of the world, and our map of the world is made up this way, is your map working for you? What are you leaving out? Are you getting the results you want, or do you need to change your map?
We filter information to protect ourselves, but sometimes we filter out what we need.
Can you see how important this can be for you? By understanding and re-evaluating your values, beliefs, actions, and attitudes, you can change your map to coincide with what you really want and where you want to go with your life.
Your Purpose
What is your purpose in life? Who do you want to be? What attributes do you want others to see in you?
When you identify your purpose amazing things can happen. You can let go of the un-resourceful attributes that don't really serve or best describe you. You may also find you will give yourself permission to shine and not hide in areas of your life where you know you can be better.
When finding your purpose, you must first find attributes that can best describe you or how you would like others to describe you. Below is a list of attributes to get you thinking:
• playful
• inspires
• loving
• passionate
• energetic
• enthusiastic
• generous
• adventurous
• grow
• giving
Think of attributes that best describe you, and write them on the following lines.
___________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________
Now that you have some attributes to describe yourself we can move on to your purpose. In the example below you will see how the use of attributes has created a purpose to live by.
I, Luke Lee Tet, see, hear, feel, and know that the purpose of my life is to be a passionate and generous man who helps educate and inspire others to achieve their dreams.
Can you see how I have used attributes, how I like to describe myself, and how I would like my life's purpose to be in this statement? This is all about "being" in this statement.
Who do you want to be? What's your life's purpose? Here is the statement again where you can fill in the blanks. Remember, it must be authentic and something you can claim and live by.
I, ___________________, see, hear, feel, and know that the purpose of my life is to be ___________________ who ___________________.
How does that feel now, knowing who and what you want to be? When you say it, does it give you goose bumps or tingles? Or is it a work in progress? Either is fine, as this may stretch your thinking.
The next step is to truly believe and action this newfound purpose. You can either do this with your family, as long as they are non- judgemental, or in the mirror. Now say it out loud and make your audience believe it. This is not about selling the statement, it's about believing it. How will you know if you land it? It will resonate with you and your audience like no other statement. It will come from a place of certainty and your physiology will be positive, energetic, open, and true.
The Three Universal Fears
So what do we fear? Our fears are always the same:
• Fear of not belonging
• Fear of not being loved
• Fear of not being good enough
In some form or another, at least one time or another we seem to surround ourselves with some form of fear. In most cases, we choose not to move forward out of fear or uncertainty about a place we have never been before.
Are you one of those people who say, "When the fear passes, I'll do it"? Ever noticed that you never actually do it? There is a reason for that. Your confidence never grew because you didn't step out of the boundaries you made for yourself.
Waiting for the fear to pass is like waiting for a bus that isn't coming. Fear is an inevitable part of who we are. We have a fear system that was needed to keep us alive in early mankind as it gave us the capacity to spring into action whenever we saw or sensed threat, known as fight or flight. This is how mankind was able to survive—unfortunately, we become hardwired for hard times.
We are no longer in times where we need to kill or be killed or face extinction. Still this hasn't really changed our wiring. Courage can only be found by taking action, not waiting for fear to subside to take action. Action will never arrive; you must act to feel courage and to build confidence.
So what do we fear? Our fears are always the same:
• Fear of not belonging
• Fear of not being loved
• Fear of not being good enough
These fears keep us in a play-safe mode. They keep us from really growing, taking risks, stepping out, making mistakes, and truly living.
You can handle anything that comes your way. We as human beings are powerful beyond measure. Unfortunately, you have conditioned yourself to not know this strength because in most cases when the fear has arrived, you backed away. Understand you are so much stronger than you give yourself credit for.
In most cases, you've probably tried your best not to feel that fear, but for some unknown reason you felt it anyway. This is because what you focus on you get. You focused on not feeling that fear, and that's exactly what you got.
To really find out how strong and resilient you are, you must embrace uncertainty. Feel the fear and do it anyway! One thing you must ask yourself when feeling a fear is: Will making this decision impact me in a negative or positive way? If the answer is positive, then trust your instincts and take a leap of faith. We can't expect our results to change by continually doing the same actions.
Ask yourself these questions:
• What do I have to gain by taking action on this?
• What do I have to gain by not taking action on this?
• What will happen if you don't act on this?
• What won't happen if you don't act on this?
Fear will be around forever. It's the meaning you give that fear that will hold you back from living and experiencing some truly great moments. Trust your subconscious mind to guide you by not allowing your decision making be controlled by your emotional state.
Defining Moments
"What if everything is happening right on time?"—Sue Krebs
Everyone has a defining moment. Who we are and the decisions we make are based on these moments as they tend to mould us. These moments can be a mixture of emotions from highly pleasurable and outright painful.
We give these moments meaning so we can understand them. From those meanings we create a belief to support that meaning. Once the seed is planted, we go searching for evidence or proof to support that belief; even if it is painful, we will still go looking for it.
See, the power of belief is so strong, our minds can't help but hunt for proof to support it. For example, how many people do you know say, "I am really bad at taking tests. Every time I take a test I fail"?
They don't go out to deliberately fail a test, but their mind is trying to show them that the merit they have given one bad test is true. They continually underachieve on tests because they have a limiting belief about their performance.
So our defining moments will only be what meaning we give them. Understanding a defining moment can create great self-awareness. Complete the following exercise, and record the first thought that comes to mind once you ask each question.
Remember a defining moment.
- How old you are you?
- Where are you?
- What happened?
- Who was there?
- What was said?
- What did you tell yourself in that moment?
- What beliefs did you carry forward from that one defining moment?
- What would you have wanted to happen?
- What you tell yourself today as a consequence of the beliefs you've held onto and expanded on since that moment?
- What price are you paying for these belief? What consequences are you seeing and feeling because of the beliefs you have created? What price will you continue to pay in one to five years?
Circle the beliefs you want to keep
- Would you like to create transformation? Now that you are aware of what you have been telling yourself, ask yourself: Is this pattern going to serve, support, nurture, and challenge me moving forward?
- If the answer is no, then what would?
Sometimes our old beliefs can be so embedded into our minds that it can be hard to think in any other way. So creating change can be very difficult for some people. If this is happening to you, ask yourself: In this situation, what would I tell someone I cared strongly for? What belief would I want a child to have?
Moving forward is about self-awareness and making sure we can reinforce our new beliefs. These new beliefs need to become who you are as a person and something to live by. Ask yourself the following:
- What price will I pay if I don't reinforce these new beliefs?
- How will I feel about myself if I don't reinforce my new beliefs?
- How will I feel about others? In relationships? My career or business? In my future?
- What will I be giving up if I choose not to create change?
- What do I have to gain by changing my beliefs? In terms of how I feel about myself? Others? My life? My career or business? Relationships?
- What is something you can do to reinforce your new beliefs on a daily basis?
- What is your commitment?
- What did I learn as a result of this exercise?
This can be done for as many defining moments as you choose. The more you can do, the more you will understand why you are who you are and why you choose what to believe in. Remember, all beliefs are made up.
Remember the three universal fears (fear of not belonging, fear of not being loved, fear of not being good enough)? Which one has come up for you in this exercise?
The only meaning to something is the meaning we give it!
Pain and Pleasure
The secret of success is learning how to use pain and pleasure instead of having pain and pleasure use you. If you do that, you're in control of your life. If you don't, life controls you —Anthony Robbins
Our lives are shaped by what we have learned to associate pain and pleasure with. We tend to try harder to avoid pain than head toward pleasure. This has a huge impact on our behaviours. We link pain to our behaviours, emotional states, and events and do our very best to avoid pain at all costs.
So the meaning we give something can make a massive impact on the way we interact with people, the way we do business, the way we love, the way we communicate, and the way in which we live our lives. Our emotional state plays a big part in what we link pain and pleasure to.
By saying that pain sounds a little scary, we can use it to be one of our strongest tools. For example, if you were able to link enough pain to smoking, you would find it so much easier to quit. If you linked enough pain to any bad habit or situation you would like to change, making that change would be so much easier.
The key to this is finding something else to focus on that gives you massive amounts of pleasure. This can replace your bad habit or situation and state it in the positive. I see too many people try their very best to make change by using a negative to replace a negative. An example of this would be when someone tries to quit smoking. I have seen firsthand a lady wanting to give up smoking and replaced her cigarettes with food. She put on weight like never before, and it didn't take long before she was back smoking again. She wasn't able to link enough pain with smoking and so replaced that void with something she could gain pleasure with, food.
The same lady then said to herself, "I can't do this on my own," and went to a hypnotherapist to make a longer-lasting change. This change lasted less than a month because she was still not able to link enough pain to her addiction to smoking. She saw pleasure in smoking, not pain. What if she was to watch someone very close and dear to her pass away from emphysema? Or was given a look at some medical images of a smoker's lungs? She would then have enough reference to link enough pain to smoking and have reference of pleasure by wanting to live longer and healthier. However, even that may not be enough. It all has to do with her "map of the world" and what she considers pain and pleasure.
This is just one example of how someone can see so much pleasure in something not good for him or her and removing or distorting the pain that is associated by the decision (such as to light another and continue to smoke).
There are questions that you can ask yourself to help understand your decisions and actions, none more potent or important than
• What is this decision or action costing you right now?
• What will this pattern continue to cost you if you don't make changes?
• What will it cost you to make changes?
• What would be the most important reason for making changes?
• What do you have to lose by making these changes?
• What are the benefits of making these changes?
Once you put your decisions and actions to the test with these questions, you start to see how you can break down any bad habit to make a change. These questions allow you to see the pain your decisions and actions are causing you, and the pleasure in which you can feel on a regular basis if you were to make a change. It all comes down to how honest you answer these questions.
