I call it second guessing life.
Some people call it being practical or even logical but the outcome is still the same.
Whilst we may be right some of the time we cannot be right all of the time, which means lost opportunities, experiences and even maybe greater success in one or more areas of life.
Everyone has what in NLP we call presuppositions.
They have them about themselves and about life.
Presuppositions are the things that we suppose, assume or even feel that we 'know' about ourselves or life that we have a feeling of certainty about, despite often having absolutely no evidence to back it up outside of our own emotional responses or one off previous experience.
Presuppositions form the basis for a lot of our assumptions about ourselves, and our abilities, and they can be the blocks and barriers that stop us ever achieving our potential or experiencing the true possibilities that exist out there for us.
When it comes to out goals, hopes and dreams we can have reoccurring thoughts or feelings that form a psychological barrier between our thinking and our level of desire, performance and even action.
That internal dialogue is so often then turned into presuppositions that we accept as being true regardless of their origin.
Unless circumstances radically change (like inheriting money or life changing circumstances that demand rethinking and re-evaluation) those thoughts often remain until the years pass and unfulfilled goals, hopes and dreams become regret, frustration or acceptance of what could have been.
Hence so many people live lives of hoping and wishing rather than doing and experiencing their goals and dreams.
Consider your own self-talk and the 'reasons' that you have for putting off some or even many of your goals, hopes and dreams? Here are some simple examples: • When times are hard most people complain and say things like, 'if only we had more money', but few actually do anything about it because they presuppose that they can't or they simply don't want to do anything in the first place.
• Millions of people today would love to own their own home based business but never do anything about it because they presuppose that they don't have the skills, money, time or resources.
They also think that they would have to give up their day job or lose out in some way.
That simply is not true and anyone today could start their own home based business for as little as $100 if they put themselves out to see the facts not the fears.
The Internet represents the single most explosive opportunity for anyone to make money from home in a matter of months.
• People coming out of bad relationships tend to assume that they will never find the right person and that relationships are just not a good investment of their emotional energies.
Not true! Relationships form probably the greatest part of human experience but only when we find the right ones.
Success in anything is never about simply achieving it.
Success is about falling and picking yourself up and trying until you get what you want.
Being married once to someone you just put up with could be called failure whereas being married three times and finding the right partner may indeed be classed as success.
The trouble is that it is all merely what you presuppose for opinions are like belly buttons.
Everybody's got one.
What really matters is whether we feel happy, excited and satisfied or sad, frightened and unsatisfied.
Acceptance is a location of choice on the journey of life whereas success is a chosen destination reached through patience, action, persistence and the embracing of challenge.
- David Green - Below are some typical examples of the sort of presuppositions that most people have to one degree or another.
You might be interested to know that people who have great relationships, happiness, financial success, consistent excitement and joy about life rarely have these thoughts about what it is that they desire.
1.
I am too young.
2.
I am too old.
3.
I am not experienced enough.
4.
I have to wait until the children get older.
5.
What would people think? 6.
What would people say? 7.
I did not have a good enough education.
8.
It' not that simple.
9.
If it were that easy every body would be doing it.
10.
I don't have enough money.
11.
I live too far away.
12.
The circumstances are not right.
13.
The economy is not right.
14.
I don't want to borrow money.
15.
I don't have the skills.
16.
I did not have a good education.
17.
I am not fit enough.
18.
One day I shall do it.
19.
I don't know what to do.
20.
I would not know where to start.
21.
It would mean taking a risk.
22.
My husband/wife would not support it.
I believe that there is a one to one relationship between presuppositions and achievement.
Find any achiever and you won't find those presuppositions associated to any aspect of what they are achieving.
So, maybe the lesson here is to be careful what you think because your unconscious views those thoughts as wishes to be granted?