S.T.O.P.! Change how you view yourself and the world!

We tend to view the world through simplified models. These models allow us to be more efficient, process only needed information and reduce complex processes such as driving a car, playing a sport or hiking an easy trail, to a simple task which doesn’t require much active thought on our parts.

These mental models are a useful, even necessary part of life, allowing many things to be handled outside of our concious awareness and enabling us to respond instinctually to regularly encountered situations.

The problem occurs when we are unable to (or too slowly) recognize change in our environment.  For example, a mildly distracted driver poses no threat, and can process stop signs, traffic signals and other vehicles on the road — but not the child who dashes unto the road ahead. The stop sign, signals and other vehicles are all things that fit well within the mental model of driving, a child in the road does not.In addition to the mental model we use to interact with the world outside ourselves, there is also the model we create to represent ourselves. This is the set of beliefs that empower or limit our accomplishments, success and view of our own ability.

Like a man who has worn eyeglasses so long that he forgets he has them on, we forget that the world looks to us the way it does because we have become used to seeing it that way through a particular set of lenses.
– Kenich Ohmae

Seymour Cray, who created the fastest supercomputers of his time, was known for hiring recent college graduates. Why? Because they’d yet to learn what was impossible!

The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable man persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man.
– George Bernard Shaw

The most damaging phrase in the language is, “It’s always been done that way.”
– Rear Admiral Grace Hopper  

So how are we to wake up to what’s going on in and around us?

S. T. O. P.

Stop, Think, Observe and Plan.

Stop what you’re doing.

Think about what’s going in and around you.

Observe your inner and outer environment. Assess your mental and emotional states, as well as the circumstances and situations you encounter, as accurately as possible and then…

Plan accordingly. Look at what changes have to be made and start to make them… today.

Remember there’s no such thing as a good or bad belief — only an empowering or limiting one.