POSSIBILITY—Part II

How we think about life—how we “hold” life in our minds—tells our inner GPS where we want to go, what we want to do. If our minds—our mental machinery—think something’s doable, we have a good shot at accomplishing it, and if our machinery thinks it’s probably unattainable, we probably won’t attain it. The trick is in how we frame it in our own thinking. The magic comes when we mentally hold something as a possibility!

When we think about possibility—in relationships, in work, and in other situations in our lives—we’re thinking about what exists at the moment and what we want in the future. Sometimes what you’d like at the moment is impossible, at least for now—for example, wanting to buy a $500,000 house when you’re broke. Your assessment is based on how you are holding what you believe to be the facts. However, you can create possibility by finding ways to create additional money, even by enrolling others to invest in the house with you.

If our beliefs about ourselves and the world are filled with negativity, it’s impossible to see possibility. We will see only limitations and negativity.

We develop most of our fundamental beliefs about ourselves and the world during our formative years. We carry these beliefs with us, and they influence our thoughts and actions as adults. For this reason, I call these beliefs our Organizing Principles. Consciously or unconsciously, they often act on automatic pilot, coloring our view of everything.

When we’re on automatic pilot—when we’re allowing our programming from past experiences to run us instead of being mindfully aware in the present—if our beliefs are limiting and negative, then instead of seeing the world as full of possibility and miracles, our Organizing Principles will make us see it as a place where it’s likely that we won’t be able to achieve our goals or get our needs met. But it doesn’t have to be this way! You can change your Organizing Principles and open the door to possibility!

These old and limiting Organizing Principles were formed from childhood experiences that were, to one degree or another, emotionally traumatic. For example, when you were a young child, if the adults around you didn’t meet your needs in a consistent, loving way that made you feel truly cared for, you might have developed negative, limiting beliefs about yourself and what you can expect of other people. You might have developed the belief that you weren’t taken care of because you didn’t deserve to be loved and taken care of. This might have resulted in an Organizing Principle like “I’m not worth much.” Or you might have developed an Organizing Principle like “Nobody will understand or take care of me; I’ll always be on my own.”

If your mind holds such beliefs consciously or unconsciously, you will automatically work against possibility when approaching a new relationship or other new situation. If, for example, you believe “I’m not worth being loved and cared for,” you’ll engage in a relationship and sabotage your possibility of finding fulfillment in it because your thoughts and actions will unconsciously be aimed at proving that your belief is true—that you’re not worth being loved and cared for. You might not express what you want in the relationship because your self-image is that you don’t deserve it, or you might express it and then still sabotage it because you really don’t expect it and have resigned yourself to not getting it.

If you believe “Nobody will understand or take care of me,” then rather than seeing the possibility of your needs being met, you might create an attitude that drives your partner away. Because you believe that eventually you’ll be disappointed, you might unnecessarily defend yourself from disappointment and discourage the other person’s desire to care for you, thus reinforcing the belief you developed in childhood that no one will understand or take care of you. Or believing this, you might not start a new relationship to begin with.

You can let go of and eliminate these negative and limiting beliefs by consciously replacing them with new beliefs that open the door to possibility. I call these new beliefs Guiding Principles. Guiding Principles can interrupt your old programming and consciously focus your mind in the present, laying the foundation for possibility for you to achieve your goals.

For example, you could replace the Organizing Principle “I’m not worth being loved and cared for” with the Guiding Principle “Other people do like, love, and care for me.” You could replace the Organizing Principle “Nobody will understand or take care of me, so I’m going to have to do everything for myself” with the Guiding Principle “Other people do understand and care for me, and I enjoy allowing them to do things for me” and replace the Organizing Principle “I’ll always be on my own” with “I enjoy relationships with other people.”

Reflecting on the limitations created by your Organizing Principles will help you phrase your Guiding Principles with words of possibility. Mindfully acting on your new Guiding Principles can influence your thinking and your actions in every area of your life and open the door to possibility!