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Unbelievable Success!
Ok, buckle up for a General Semantics ride ...
I've long been aware that I have some structural problem which precludes me from correctly collecting and evaluating data.
To be more specific, I cannot (or could not) seem to create a body of evidence of successes. Like, I will write a book. As soon as I do, I forget all about it, although it had never been. Just a day later, if I read it again, I go, "Bloody hell, that's amazing!" and I'm all surprised at how good it is - but as soon as I put it down, it has totally gone again and then I get depressed because "I haven't achieved anything, done anything with my life and it's nearly over ..."
For - hm, let's say 30 years, this has BUGGED me to kingdom come. It is so very ILLOGICAL and downright stupid, and of course intensely counter-productive, it really annoys me that I do this, but I've never been able to localise just what happens or HOW I actually do this.
Until last night.
What I might call my greatest achievement so far, In Serein, came into the conversation and I heard myself say, "In Serein is UNBELIEVABLE!"
That's when I got it.
Un-Believable.
What is something that is un-believable?
Something that cannot be believed?
A non-truth, of course. A lie, if you will. Something wrong, in any case, that doesn't deserve a place in the universal maps because only TRUE things, things that CAN be believed, get placed there.
If there was an evidence locker, like in a police station, for truthful successes and achievements, **In Serein would NOT be in there**.
It would be somewhere else, on the pile where you chuck things that cannot be real because they're not true. Unbelievable things.
Now, when I saw that, I had a mini-revelation on the spot. And first of all, I tested this and it is exactly right. Sometimes the words were "inconceivable" or "impossible" instead of "unbelievable" but the structure remained the same, and it basically covers ...
... ALL my art work.
... All breakthrough inventions.
... All books I've written, all trainings I've given.
... All poetry, songs, performances, triumphs of both personal and professional natures.
... indeed, it covers all successes, and especially those successes where I succeeded BEYOND MY OWN EXPECTATIONS.
I prodded this thing with a stick for an hour or more, but in the end, it really came down to a simple Korzybskian language-structural insanity.
Not low self esteem. Not karma. Not secondary gain. Not bad childhood experiences. Not self protection. Nothing of the sort at all - just a simple misunderstanding!
A bug in the operating system. A typo if you will.
This is what it is.
We are used and entrained to label things, events, occurrences and so forth with A SINGLE LABEL - that's Aristotle's "A thing is either one thing, or another."
Which is of course, rubbish even in Muppetville but much more so when you take energetic dimensions into consideration, because there, a thing can be many different things, many different manifestations, and would thus require many different labels.
Here is simply put what happens.
I sit down to write a book, say, "In Serein". I haven't written it and therefore, it is *inconceivable* to me that it should be incredibly wonderful; it is *unbelievable* that I should succeed in creating something special. It is an *impossible* task - or so it seems, because I HAVEN'T WRITTEN IT YET.
Now I do write it, but the LABEL DOESN'T CHANGE - even though I am doing it, experiencing it, finishing it, having done it now and it is there in all evidence, its label remains -as "inconceivable", "unbelievable" and therefore, forevermore untrue and it really never happened at all.
TIME and EVOLUTION have not been factored in the production of the label for the endeavour. The CHILD never grew up to become an ADOLESCENT, then an ADULT at all. All my projects and all my successes, especially the ones which were beyond my expectations, have suffered this fate simply by virtue of structure.
Aristotle has a lot to account for!
But anyway. Now and knowing this, it was really quite amazing what that did for my memories, and the self-concept adjustments are still happening even as I'm writing this now.
It gets better.
At the same time as the "success" evidence locker finally began to fill up as the old endeavours were being re-evaluated at light speed following this discovery, I saw something else.
Namely that we are entrained to ONLY learn from our mistakes!
What a nightmare is that, neurologically and reality-creation wise!
Always focus on OUR MISTAKES?
How on all green and purple earths and hells are we EVER going to build up a "pyramid of successes" if we do THAT???????
Power grows where attention goes. And where is it going? To our failures, mistakes, problems, what is NOT working. That's where the focus lies for people who, like me, love learning and who are truly dedicated to "becoming better" at what they do.
And in doing that focussing on our mistakes and failures, we're constantly surrounding ourselves with evidence of failure, further discount success and triumph as "unimportant" and "there's nothing that can be learned from that" - chuck! in the bin go the successes again ...
In the meantime, and with that in action, life is getting depressing.
So much failure ... and no matter how many successes, the slightest flaw, fault or failure is what draws the attention like a mesmerist's spiral ... look how you fucked up again, you idiot ... magnify your blemishes! Berate yourself! Circle the failures in red, count the mistakes, and totally ignore ALL THE REST which was good, and right, and proper, and worth being proud of ...
Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear.
Just imagine for a moment, dear readers all, that we could turn this recipe for a life of failure and misery around and made a new law, namely that:
We ONLY learn how to do things right and ever righter still by focussing on our SUCCESSES ...
... for they are, no matter how small, the signposts that you've found the right direction, they are the SEEDS of ever better and ever greater triumphs and successes ... stepstones, spiralling up and up, of course, they would, they must ...
This simple and most basic of turn-arounds, namely from trying to learn via failure and mistakes, to starting to learn via successes and when things went right or at least in the right direction, will have serious pay-offs.
Quite apart from making the path to success and more success all of a sudden crystal clear and EASY (ahm, exactly HOW do get to success from studying failures????!), of course you'll feel a lot happier all the time, as you focus on any aspect of anything that would be a little guiding light, a little glimmer that may be fanned into a flat out merry fire. Talk about keeping your eye on the success-ball!
The energy of that as well is really quite extraordinary.
In the "learning via failure" version, we have to go into the failure and try and learn "the structure of failing" which we affirm of course and get to practice by the very act of doing that. Then we have to do something or other (or try! whilst being depressed and feeling like a failure!) to somehow reverse something in order to move towards success, only of course, as we studied "Failure 101" and not "Success 101" we don't actually know HOW to succeed - the *structure of success* is still and will of course ALWAYS REMAIN unknown.
In the learning via success version, there is only forward movement, forward momentum as the ONLY focus is success, and how to get more of it, get it faster, bigger, brighter, spreading out over more areas of your life, and that of others ...
Sounds good?
Looks good?
Feels good?
Well, then it MUST be bad ...
No, just kidding, for the Catholics amongst us ...
So how do we do this?
Really simply, actually.
As it is logical and makes sense, there is no reason (!) as to why we should not road test the new proposed law of, "You only learn to succeed by studying your successes."
As no doubt you haven't done this yet, this will be a remarkable learning and experimentation process; I theorize that the outcome of your own personal experiment will be that the old law of "learning via mistakes" will simply be rescinded and replaced by the new law, to the cheering and celebration of all concerned.
In the beginning, there will be some old entrainment moments when you fall back into the old ways for a while, but this will soon become eclipsed by the sheer power and CORRECTNESS of the new approach, and of course, the reality feedback in terms of added success and feeling much, much better and more energised all around.
After a short while, the new entrainment is there, namely to focus on the successes and discard the failures as truly unimportant and you'll be on the road to as yet unbelievable success.
Just remember, that BEFORE YOU EXPERIENCED IT, of course it was unbelievable; but once experienced, the disbelief changes to delight and then certainty as the results come in - money, reviews, good feelings, sales, dates, whatever your evidence procedure for your own projects might be in ROCK HARD REALITY.
And there we have it!
Wishing you all the MOST unbelievable, inconceivable, improbably impossible success in the new Solar Year of 2004
:-))
Silvia
(c) Silvia Hartmann 2003
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