Observation Bias (Observation Freedom!)

It seems obvious that the things we think about become more readily apparent to us than those we don’t pay attention to. Considering the fact that we create our own realities – largely by default, simply by paying attention to things somewhat randomly before we understand the nature of the creative mind – the accidental impacts of letting our minds “drift,” as Napoleon Hill would say, can be monumental.

This week is about reprogramming what we’re paying attention to in the external world, so that we can cultivate what we want rather than what we don’t want internally. In doing so, we lay an easy, intentional path to grow into what we wish to grow into.

In a world where many of us have spent decades in schools and careers where we are trained to look for ‘problems’ and ‘weak links,’ etc., identifying positive traits around us vs. negative traits can entail a mindset reversal.

While looking for a ‘problem’ can be a true asset in an emergency or crisis or in a business process (i.e., what is causing the yogurt to go bad and how can we fix it?), if that mindset is accidentally carried into general day-to-day thinking, it can be corrosive to the human spirit.

Moreover, as we ultimately become what we think about, misapplying that process to social or spiritual arenas can actually design an evolutionary process where we *grow* problems!

In picking which of the 13 principles to focus on this week, I put ‘organization’ at the top of my list. This is because I struggle with organization, and I consistently think about how I struggle with organization.

As soon as I chose the word, I began to look around the room I am in and notice things that were well organized. But – a little negative voice also came into my head. It said: “Those are things other people organized. The unorganized, messy spaces are because of you.”

I immediately began to think of the mental diet: I now have practiced that (due to the help of my fabulous guide, Peaches) and so I can jump in and just realize not to criticize myself. And I can combine my awareness of that negative self-talk with other practices from the course.

For example, when I write out my gratitude cards and my positive experience cards today and tomorrow – and perhaps for the whole week – I will focus on highlighting the times when I have been organized, efficient, etc. And this will help me to build that belief, and once my subconscious is trained on those thoughts, it will begin to manifest that reality.

So I’m extremely excited for this practice – both for its ability to help me grow in the correct way that I wish to grow, and for its ability to help me spot shortcomings in my thoughts and then create more valuable beliefs in my self-concept through the adjacent practices.

This then is your prescription. For seven days you must not allow yourself to dwell for a single moment on any kind of negative thought. You must watch yourself for a whole week as a cat watches a mouse, and you must not under any pretense allow your mind to dwell on any thought that is not positive, constructive, optimistic, kind.