In the last post we talked about how 17 seconds of unfocused, non-contradicting thought it equal to about a workday, and that about 2 hours worth would amount to about a year, working every day of the week. (If you could somehow work 24 hours a day, it would be more like 6 hours.)
It’s not a theory I can prove, nor do I know where to find evidence. All I know is that thinking things out first works really well for me. A friend in my Mastermind group also told me this works on a larger scale, in his experience, as in actually Doing a project, not just the planning stages.
Let’s do an experiment of our own to see if we can improve our lives with this theory.
That would mean we have to find out the meaning of “focused, un-contradicting thought“.
Let’s break it down.
Focused thought is when you keep your mind on one thing only.
Think of a goal you want to accomplish in the next week, or better yet, an item from your to-do list that’s not to-done.
For this exercise, accept whatever comes. Get a stop watch or alarm, and set it to go for 17 seconds. When we’re done, scroll down to the next part of the exercise.
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All done? What was your experience?. Before I taint you with the idea of what normally happens, take a minute to write yours down, if it helps, do the 17 seconds again, but write everything you think. (I didn’t tell you to do that before because about 60% of folks get mixed up trying to do both).
This will work SO much better for you if you don’t peek, I promise. It’s not an assessment of whether you’re good or bad at something, You just want to see where you are so you can realistically gauge how hard or easy this task will be for you.
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Finished? That was fast.
Most people can think of one thing for 17 seconds with no problem.
Where we run into issues is in keeping ourselves in creative language.
That’s the non-contradicting part. Think of the manifestation process as a three-part deal. The first part is discovering what you want, goal setting, planning, life management, whatever you want to call it.
The second part, which the film the Secret is largely, but not completely, focused on is the right type of thinking, that’s where the whole asking, then believing, then receiving part comes in. And this is also part of what Dr. Robert Anthony is talking about. Your mental focus is the seed of the tree that is your life. Bad seed, bad life.
Sidebar: Now if you planted bad seeds in life unwittingly, is it your “fault” that you get a bad tree. No. But you’re responsible for recognizing and changing it, now that you know that what you have is not what you want.
Review your experience with the 17 seconds of thought, get your notes if you had them.
Did you have all positive thoughts about your goal? Most people don’t. Even experts at positive thought, law of attraction, manifestation or personal development find that their thoughts are riddled with worry.
Mine went like this (I purposely didn’t go through the steps I normally would, such as worry in reverse, so I could give you the experience closer to how most people will have it.)
I have to write that sales letter for the group mentoring traffic generation thing.
God, I should have done that last week. I’m so lazy.
Well, no, I’m not lazy, I’ve just been busy. And I hate the name. Plus I put it off so I could do it from a place of “I want to help people get more clients and customers” not “I want to make money to pay debts, pay for health costs, find a great place to live here and go to Africa for a month or a year”.
Maybe I shouldn’t even do it. I can only handle 25 people at a time. I could make that membership site into an audio site instead. No, that’s stupid. Maybe it’s not.
Aaaaaaand time. Took longer to type than it did to think. So what happened there?
- First I said I was going to do something.
- Then I berated myself for having not done it.
- Then I rationalized why it wasn’t done.
- Then I rationalized again.
- Then I thought about not doing it.
- Then I went off on some other tangent that had nothing to do with the original purpose of the thought.
That is not focused thought.
We all think we’re being focused in our thoughts, but we’re really not.
Thought, unchecked, unpracticed, is a messy, sticky, jumbled mess.
What makes it unfocused?
Well, first, I didn’t stay on the topic. Second, when I did stay on the topic, I thought about things I didn’t want, rather than on what I wanted.
Can I go back in time and change events to make it so that I remembered to do the sales letter last week? Probably, according to Einstein’s theory of relativity. But I don’t know how. :)
So there’s no useful reason for me to beat myself up for not having the task done yet. It’s not as if making myself feel bad prevents me from procrastinating in the future.
Now we know what unfocused thought it. What is non-contradicting thought?
It’s when all the thoughts you’re having about something are in harmony. Instead of thinking, “Maybe I should do that. No, I shouldn’t. Well, maybe i could IF” – we want to pick one thing, and believe it’s possible and attainable, then act and think accordingly.
My entire thought train should have been about doing the sales letter.
– what to say
– how to make it come across the way I actually feel, rather than as a used car salesman
– folding in the fact that I can only serve a certain amount of people at a time as a reason why they need to sign up the first time they see the page.
– how to get it done quickly and effectively
– how much it will cost
Those are the things that would have been on my mind, under normal circumstances.
Next time, we will talk about how a person with a disciplined, productive mind would sound, and how to become that person. Until then, try this experiment.
Whenever you think of something you have to do or a goal you want to reach, keep your thoughts about it positive for 17 seconds. If you fail, start over. Keep the language creative.
You’ll find that if you concentrate, you can keep a thought from finishing a cycle of negativity, by just letting it float by, or changing the direction mid-thought.
Let me know how you did on the exercise below.