What We Know About What We Don't Know

If you are interested in what your brain is doing right now, I highly recommend this book:

Thinking, Fast and Slow 

by

Daniel Kahneman

I'm intrigued by these 3 quotes and specifically as they relate to Drawing Solutions:  How Visual Goal-Setting Will Change Your Life:

"You experience greater cognitive ease in perceiving a word you have seen earlier, & its this sense of ease that gives you the impression of familiarity." 

Kahneman suggests that you will think more fondly of something (cognitive ease = simple, not foggy or blurred) when you have seen it before.  He is speaking about words here, but let's translate that to your daydream about that you or that life you desire.  The more you "see" that picture of your new self or new life, the more familiar you will become with it.  AND if you draw a simple symbol that (to you) represents what you desire and look at it frequently, the easier it will become to take action and turn that fantasy into reality.

"You do not have to repeat the entire statement of a fact or idea to make it appear true." 

Worried about whether you are capable of becoming or achieving what you dream about?  This statement reminds me of the "as if" principle.  Why not imagine that world or the you -  you want to be as if it is who or what you are right now?  The more you imagine your fantasy self as if it is your present state, the sooner your brain will find it easy to believe it is your reality and construct the rest of the world around you to reflect that truth. 

"Findings add to the growing evidence that good mood, intuition, creativity, gullibility, and increased reliance on System 1 form a cluster. At the other pole, sadness, vigilance, suspicion, an analytic approach, and increased effort also go together. A happy mood loosens the control of System 2 over performance: when in a good mood, people become more intuitive and more creative but also less vigilant and more prone to logical errors."

This brings us back to what Jenn Lim's talks about in her Delivering Happiness platform.  If you want to create positive change in your life, smile.  When it gets hard to turn the pedals over on your bike, smile.  If you want to tap your intuition, your creativity, your true nature...think about how grateful you are to be healthy, be friended, be a pet owner, be alive.  Cut loose that left side of your brain (System 2) to free you to be more of who you truly are.

The brain doesn't know the difference between what is real and what is fantasy.  Start living your fantasy life inside your head first and watch how it begins to play out in the world around you.  #meanit