Reality? Not Really!

Do you ever think about thinking? I mean, have you ever really just stopped to fully consider how you create the thoughts and behaviour that you create, or do you just accept your thoughts as being ‘you’? Most people will move through each day, being them and not even noticing the thoughts that they have and the subsequent and related behaviour that they produce. For many, thoughts are not even of their own creation, they are placed there surreptitiously and quite often intentionally by others, marketing moguls, the media and social media platforms. Today, many different information channels are competing to control your thinking and your emotional responses and by enlarge, you permit it because it isn’t part of your conscious awareness. You don’t even think about it, having someone else control your thinking is normal, right? Perhaps that is now what society expects and believes. The key question is, are you motivated to take action to change that and make your thoughts your own? That’s how empowerment is generated.

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Let’s start thinking about knowledge and thinking. What you consider ‘real’ in your personal model of the world. Epistemology examines the nature, origin, and potential limits of knowledge. Epistemologists study the concepts of belief, truth, and justification to understand the nature of knowledge. To discover how knowledge arises, they investigate sources of justification, such as perception, introspection, memory, reason, and testimony. The profession of NLP takes the concept of ‘thinking about thinking’ to a paradoxically simple yet complex level, creating a highly practical approach to ‘thinking on purpose’.

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So, what do the people who can control their thinking and behaviour and think ‘on purpose’ do differently and what are the results? What do they know that most people don’t, epistemologically speaking?

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Please consider for a moment that every second, of every day, approximately 12 million bits per second of information enter your neurology through your cognitive physiology, your five senses.  Your five senses are:

Visual – your ability to see

Auditory – your ability to hear

Kinesthetic – your sense of touch and your internal feelings

Olfactory – your ability to smell

Gustatory – your ability to taste

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That’s far more information than you can consciously process passing into the part of your neurology that in NLP parlance, we call your unconscious mind. So, your clever unconscious mind applies a series of information filters and filters down the information to around 127 bits per second, less than 0.1% of the original input! It’s only this tiny portion of information that you become consciously aware of. This is your first access to the world around you at any particular moment in time and you are already one enormous step away from ‘actual’ reality as a direct result of your internal information filtering process.  

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Your personal internal representation of the world outside of you is generated from the remaining 127 bits of data, which you have unconsciously selected according to your personal filters.  Your personal filters are, of course, unique to you and include your values and beliefs, your Meta Programmes (personal preferences), your attitudes, experiences and past decisions. Since nobody else on the planet has your filters, your resulting internal representation is completely unique. Your specific 127 bits per second of information, and nobody else will grab a hold of exactly the same 127 bits of information. This unique internal representation creates your emotional state, which affects your physiology and also produces your behaviour.  

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Once your internal representation is established, you transform your concept of reality for a second time by adding language. You label your internal representation with words that you choose. Now that internal representation has substance and reality, the words bring it into your conscious awareness and instal ‘reality’. Now, your concept of reality is two huge leaps away from the ‘actuality’ of the world around you. Your reality is of your own creation.

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It is the recognition of this simple NLP Model which makes internal change and thinking on purpose possible.  If you become consciously aware of your internal representations, you can positively affect them in order to change your emotional state, your physiology and your behaviour. Ultimately, you can change your concept of reality to serve you more resourcefully. You can create your own reality! Think of that!

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The selection of the most important bits of information is a process which is unique in every individual, that’s why we all have a different perspective on life and the world around us.  Everyone does this differently and in NLP, we respect and celebrate those differences.  Now consider, that every time you speak or perform an action, you change the way any observer feels.  It would be really useful if you could always change people’s feelings and behaviours in a positive way, wouldn’t it? Including your own! If your personal reality doesn’t feel good at the moment, then you have the power to change it by changing the way you think about it. Select a new 127 bits of information.  

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Understanding how you think is the first step on an exciting journey to getting in charge of your thinking and generating the capability to think on purpose and produce the thinking and behaviour that you really want to produce, thereby producing your desired outcomes, all of the time. During our Enhanced NLP Coach Practitioner Certification Trainings, we invest lots of time in training you how to accomplish just that and you will never look back once that skillset is installed at the unconscious level. You can choose your reality and therefore, create the specific future that you want to have and enjoy success without limits.

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