I've built my entire career on helping people to have a more positive outlook
on life. There's an important model that as you understand it, you take immediate
control over the equipment. That's why you want to be here today.
It is what it is. You've heard that before.
It probably annoys you like it annoys me. Depending on who's saying it and why. All
it means is the way things are. It's the way your life is right now. It's who you
are, it's what you have, it's who you're with. It's the way things are right now
without changing anything, it is what it is. If we put this into a model,
I'm putting what it is right here in the middle of this line.
My job as a psychologist is to illuminate the obvious. Which is really
fun because I get paid to tell people things they already know. There's a lot
of obvious things that are unnoticed though. Obvious but unnoticed. This is
where most of the processes of our own mind exist. There are 2 of those
processes that are really important to understand if you want to have a more
positive outlook. And I'm not here to tell you just think positive. That sounds
trite and fluffy and it's not very useful. I want you to know exactly how
the equipment is processing your experience so that you can be in control
over that. So, let's take a look at 2 processes that are going on in your mind.
What it is is right on the middle of this continuum. And our mind is always
judging what it is. I'm going to call that process evaluation. Meaning, judgment
of what it is. And notice that you're always doing this. You can't turn it off.
You're constantly judging yourself, aren't you? Your spouse, your family. You
judge your boss, your co-workers. You judge the people in your community or
environment. You're judging me. It's fine, I'm judging you too. We, all do it.
Judgment is what I'm referring to is evaluation. The word evaluation itself
implies comparison with some standard. So, the only way we can judge something
is have something to judge it against. That makes sense, right? When we take what
it is and we judge it, we have to compare it to some standard in order to make the
judgment. So, think about what it is in your life right now. It might be your
marriage, it might be your finances, it might be how things are going with your
kids. Just call that to mind for a moment. Now, can you imagine in that great
imagination that you have going on in your mind, can you imagine anything
better than what you've got? Well, yes you can. Always. In fact, this is a true
principle. And just stay with me because my editor tells me to always avoid the
word always and never use the word never. I just used it. You can always imagine
something better than what you've got. True? Now, when we're judging what it is
and we compare it to something better, how do we feel about what we've got? It's
terrible. This is the feeling. This is the
direction of the judgement. If you compare what you've got to something
better, you're going to feel worse about what you've got. Are we clear about that?
And you're never wrong about how you feel. How you feel is 100%
consistent with the way your own mind is doing this process. It's very consistent.
You're probably getting ahead of me, aren't you? Can you imagine anything
worse than what you've got? Of course you can. And if you're struggling with that,
call and set up an appointment with me. I'll tell you some stories. You know what?
I go every day from my office feeling so
grateful for what I have. Why? Because people share their stories with me. And I
can see very quickly that it could be a whole lot worse. When we compare what
we've got to something worse, how do we feel about what we've got? Whoo-hoo! This
is how we feel. This is the direction of the comparison. So, notice you're never
wrong about how you feel. I already said that. You're never wrong about that. How
you feel is 100% consistent with the way your own mind is doing this.
What it is is all you got. It's all you've got. And it's always between
better and worse. You can always imagine something better. You can always imagine
something worse. You've heard, right? That happiness is a choice? This is how and
why. You don't always get to choose what happens to you. Sometimes that just
happens. Have you been around long enough to know that? What do you get to choose?
You get to choose which direction you look to make your evaluation of that
situation. That's significant. Pay attention to that because we're not done
yet. On the top part of this, I'll put the other process that is constantly going
on. And you can't turn this one off either.
I call it creation. you'll use that same powerful mind that you're using to judge
yourself to move forward and create something. And you can always imagine
something better. Well, this is good news in creation mode because what do you
want? Honestly, if I gave you a choice, would you like something better or
something worse than what you've already got? What would you pick? Duh, of course
you're going to pick something better. How are you going to create that? Well, you have
to first imagine it. Everything that's
created had to be imagined first. Even this marker that I'm holding, it didn't
just poof into existence. It was imagined by its creator first. That's a principle
that we'll get into in some other videos. Notice that you're going to imagine
what's coming. Now, when you imagine... Because you don't know. When you imagine
that what's coming is even worse than what you've already got, how do you feel?
This my friends is anxiety. That's 25 years of clinical experience in a
nutshell. It's when we imagine (Because we don't know) that what's coming is worse.
That's what gets us tied up in anxiety and fear. When we imagine (Because we
don't know) that what's coming is even better than what we've already got, how
do we feel? Whoo-hoo! Yeah. This is hope. What I've created for you here is called
the positivity vector. It's called that because I decided that that's what it's
called. It's the positivity space where no
matter what is going on right now in our life, no matter what your "what it is" is,
you can get in a positive place with that. And even better is possible for you.
That's creation mode. When we get clear about how we can use these 2 processes
in our own mind, it creates possibilities that were never
there before. It makes it possible for us to always choose
a positive outlook on life. That's how it's done. If that triggered some
thoughts for you that are making sense. You might want to follow up by getting
connected to Portable Positivity. There's a link down below. This is the little
book where I go through every aspect of the model that I just shared with you. I
think you're going to find that really valuable.