Just Who IS in charge here, anyway?

Five simple steps to a vibrant, fulfilling life

by Scout Wilkins
Art work by AJ Johnson

c 2009 Scout Wilkins Dream Weaver Life Coaching 610 North First Street Suite 5, PMB 197 Hamilton, MT 59840 www.scoutwilkins.com I would like to acknowledge the contribution of my friends Anfernee Chansamooth (www.mypositivechange.com ), Carmen Breakey (breakey@hotmail.com) and Kande Benson for responding to my request within our community for their favorite simple methods for identifying and dispelling limiting beliefs. 2

Contents
Are you feeling completely stuck - and completely tired of it? ................................................................... 4 Are you ready to change all this? .................................................................................................................. 4 Step One Understand the incredible power of your inner mind ................................................................................. 5 The captain and the crew - where does the true power lie? ............................................................... 5 The Hidden Programs in your life. .................................................................................................... 6 Step Two Understand the mechanics of how we each create our own reality ............................................................ 7 We filter out almost all the information that comes our way. ............................................................ 7 Think of your mind as a search engine. ............................................................................................. 8 We choose what we filter for. ............................................................................................................ 9 By choosing what we focus on or filter for, we create our own reality. ............................................ 10 Step Three Make new choices ........................................................................................................................................... 11 You can make a conscious decision to choose the reality you want to create. .................................. 11 Pay close attention what you say. ...................................................................................................... 12 Step Four Identify your limiting thoughts and beliefs .................................................................................................. 13 Examine your current results. ............................................................................................................ 13 Listen to the language you use. ......................................................................................................... 13 Imagine Your Future. ......................................................................................................................... 13 Make a list. ........................................................................................................................................ 13 Step Five Begin to release your limiting beliefs. ........................................................................................................... 14 How do we change something that is an unconscious choice? .......................................................... 14 Begin from an internal position of gratitude for your younger self. .................................................. 14 Reframe the belief. ............................................................................................................................ 15 Challenge the Belief. ............................................................................................................................ 15 Pull a visual disappearing act on the belief. ...................................................................................... 15 Ask yourself new, positive questions ................................................................................................. 16 A note about why vs. how questions. . ......................................................................................... 17 Consider using the power of Neurological Repatterning. ........................................................................... 18 Allow releasing your limiting beliefs to become a lifelong habit. ............................................................... 19 A personal note ............................................................................................................................................... 20

Are you feeling completely stuck, and completely sick and tired of it?
Do people discount you because you dont offer ideas or opinions? Do you want to find a great relationship but know that youre actually avoiding going the places you might meet interesting people? Do you know that if you could just get STARTED on that book project youve been thinking about for eleven years now, youd get it done?
Sometimes it can feel like we are our own worst enemy. We make a decision to change something, to do something differently, and have the very best intentions - but we slide back into the same old habits. Or sometimes, were just so sure we cant do something that we never even try.

Are you ready to change all this? Read on!

Come on a journey of exploration to see how your inner mind works, and how you can enlist it as your ally in making powerful changes in your life. Youll learn why you can feel so stuck sometimes, while other times things are easy and flow smoothlyhow important your inner game is, in achieving what you want most, and specific actions you can take, right now, to shift things in favor of making your conscious desires come to life.

Step One

Understand the incredible power of your inner mind

As you probably know, there are two areas of the mind, the conscious and the unconscious. What you may not realize is how constantly and consistently your unconscious mind is playing the background programs that actually run your life, and how little control we generally exercise over those programs. Im talking about the pictures that pop up when you think of something, the little voice inside that tells you what you can or cannot do as well as the behaviors that happen automatically, without you even hearing the little voice directing them. The big news is that you can actually control those programs far more than has been believed in the past and making the choice to do so can fundamentally change your life.

They may even believe that theres a reef in that area because of prior experience, or because of fears instilled by others, and refuse to go there altogether - they may hold a flat out mutiny. Perhaps you can remember a time when you were altogether stopped, consciously wanting to make a new choice, and just not able to make it happen. This may have been the underlying battle that was going on inside. The true power behind turning the ship lies with the crew - that is, your unconscious mind. You are most likely to end up where the crew wants to go. The captain may be strong enough to hold them in place which you will experience as feeling completely stuck. But without the crews participation the ship is going to move very slowly, if at all. Of course, the real juice in life comes when the captain and the crew are aligned, and the sails fill, carrying you to the destinations you consciously choose, with the full, gleeful support of everyone on the ship.

The captain and the crew - where does the true power lie?
Your conscious mind accounts for about 5% of the thinking that moves you forward your unconscious makes up the rest. Its a lot like a captain and a crew on a ship. The captain, your conscious mind, has a plan for where the ship should go, and directs the crew to steer it there. The crew, your unconscious, has their own experience, and depending on how aligned they are with the captain, they may jump to follow orders willingly, or they may act begrudgingly, with dragging feet.

The hidden programs in your life.

Your unconscious runs programs for all the behaviors you play out, and it acts according to the beliefs that you have installed in your lifetime. It does this at a hidden level the same as the act of breathing and blinking your eyes. Your inner mind does not have an agenda - it does not judge whether what you expect is good or bad. It just finds what you expect, and brings it to you. For example: if you believe, at the deepest, hidden level, that you are just not a person who will ever be in good shape your unconscious will work to make it so. It will plop you down in front of the TV, flipping through the channels. If your deepest expectation is that you are fit and healthy, it will send you in directions that make that true you will find it easy to get up and go to the gym. Your unconscious mind will bring your innermost beliefs to reality; therefore, you need only look around your life, at the results that are currently present, to see what you believe or expect at the deepest level. The great news is that, even if your current results are not the ones you want, once you have identified those beliefs, there are steps you can take to change them. The metaphor of a computer is obvious and completely appropriate. When you change the software you are running, the results you get will change. Read on!

Step Two

Understand the mechanics of how we each create our own reality

We filter out almost all the information that comes our way.
Scientists estimate that we are bombarded with approximately two million bits of information every minute. Contrast this with the fact that we are able to take in and hold about four or five chunks of information in our conscious mind at any given time. The difference in magnitude between those amounts is almost impossible to imagine and the way that we deal with it is this: our unconscious mind continually sorts what is coming in. It looks for information that fits what it already believes to be true. Information that doesnt fit is deleted, distorted or generalized so the world ends up looking the way we expect it to look. Have you ever had the experience of considering buying a new car, and you choose an unusual make, model and color something you havent seen, or have only seen rarely only to find that all of a sudden they are everywhere! This is the result of new filtering. You are now aware of that make, model and color, and voila, you see it. I recently saw a red Prius, and thought to myself, Wow! I didnt know they came in that color! Since that day, I have seen that color more often than any other.

Think of your mind as a search engine.

This process can be compared to a search engine on the Internet. When you do a search for poverty, you will find all sites that have to do with poverty. In the Internet world, it is as if nothing exists except poverty. On the other hand, do a search for hope, and see what different results you get. Our minds function in the same way. As we move through life, unless there is an event or a decision to change what weve got entered in the search engine, well keep seeing the same things. Our world will follow a predictable pattern, and well come to think of reality as a pretty fixed way of being. Until one day we take a new class, or have a new experience that shifts us out of the old ways of thinking, and pushes us into new territory. From that point on, nothing will ever look the same again. 8

Have you ever taken an art class and had the experience of the world looking different once youve mixed paints to imitate it? What experiences can you remember that have shifted your perceptions and made the world look different to you? Sometimes its a major unexpected event that makes us view things differently. There are lots of examples of this shift throughout our lives, where our unconscious beliefs and expectations have been changed. The exciting news is that we have the ability to make these changes ourselves, by conscious choice. With that ability, we can choose powerfully positive pictures and beliefs that automatically change our behaviors, and therefore our results. Read on to see how!

Whether you think you can or think you cant - you are right.
- Henry Ford

So we continue to create the world we have come to expect.

We choose what we filter for.

The question is: who is putting the words into the search engine? Well, we are, of course but most of the time we are not doing it consciously. In the first few years of our life, until about age seven, we are in what is known as the imprint period, during which we take in everything that comes our way, without filtering. Its why young children learn so quickly, and absorb so much. Then, around age seven, we begin the filtering process. We develop the critical faculty that separates our conscious and unconscious minds, and we begin to operate based on the model of the world that we developed up until that point. The critical faculty makes decisions about what it will allow to enter the mind choosing things it recognizes, and that match what it expects to see.

This does not mean that our model of the world is unchangeable. But unless we decide to change it, we will continue to operate under old rules and strictures. Until we make a different choice, we will continue to listen to the voices in our heads that were allowed in early, whether we like or agree with them or not. Those voices that may say things like Ill never be that good, I cant do that! or just plain, Im not enough. Often, we may not even be aware that those messages are playingthey run our lives without our even knowing it. The only way we recognize them is because we see the results we dont want, and get frustrated. Then we wonder, in deep frustration: Why cant I loose this weight? Why is it so darn hard to make myself get up and go running? Why do I keep sabotaging myself whenever I get close to being successful? 9

By choosing what we focus on or filter for, we create our own reality.

But wait, you say, isnt reality a fixed thing? There must be a permanent, REAL reality! Well, no. As it turns out, science is backing up the wisdom of the ages on this one. Your reality is subjective, and you can change it. Quantum physics has blown the simple ideas of how the world works into a big cloud of beautiful uncertainty. The world changes according to who is observing it. How the tiniest particles behave depends on how observers expect them to behave. If the world is made up of so many different possibilities, with two million bits of it coming at us every minute, can you see that as we filter, we create our own individual, highly unique version of reality? Some people are filtering for success and potential, creativity, and expansion, and are finding those things in abundance. Others are filtering for lack, despair, and limitation and creating a world with that foundation. Perhaps your filters are for just enough, no more. If thats the case, I feel quite sure that your world looks different than Bill Gates. From your vantage point, it looks like the real world. How could there be any other? But he is certainly living in a different world and through the Gates Foundation is able to make a tremendous difference to millions of people. Every single one of us is living in a different world from everyone else.

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Step Three

Make new choices

You can make a conscious decision to choose the reality you want to create.
Try this experiment. It is a fairly well accepted truism in our world that the news tends to be negative. Bad news sells, people like dramaetc. The next time you watch the TV news or pick up the paper, make the choice to filter for positive information. Ask yourself, How much good news can I find in here today? and see what you find in the paper that you did not find on other days. Or start your day with this thought: What in my life am I thankful for in this moment? And notice the difference in your experience. If you like how that feels, carry it out into the world. Look around you with new eyes, and see how brighter things can look. As you begin to notice the bright bits, feel the difference in your physiology. Are you standing up straighter, perhaps enjoying a bit of a spring in your step? Notice that you are smiling more, and watch the effect of that on the people you come into contact with. Hear the conversations change and become more positive, more hopeful. When we take responsibility for our own reality, or live at cause, our entire world becomes a whole new playground of possibility. You can do this at any level that is comfortable for you, in any moment. So when would now be a good moment to try this out? Where in your life can you see that you are choosing to believe that you have no control over what has just happened to you? Find just one incident where you are currently imagining yourself to be a victim, where you can change the thought to: Well, if I am creating my own experience here, then I can do something about it. What shall I do? In what small or large way can I change this for the better? Simply change your focus to one of finding a solution, rather than holding blame on some outside person or force. See how different it feels.

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Pay close attention to what you say.

Learn to pay attention to the language you are using, all the time. If you are blaming other people, and saying you cant do a certain thing because of someone else just know that as long as you hold that position, you will remain a powerless victim. You have given away your ability to change the situation, and your progress will be minor, if there is any at all. Even if you eliminate that person from your life, chances are the problem will re-surface with the next person that shows up to blame it on. When you are ready to actually solve the problem, take a different tack: point the finger at yourself, and decide how you can focus differently, to expand your possibilities. This may be difficult at first. But when you dig in and do it, now, youll feel the new power it gives you to move to a new place. Hear the difference between I cant pay my bills because the economy is in a bad downturn and I cant pay my bills because I have not yet gotten creative enough about new ways to make some money. Which one of those statements feels the most empowering, and which is more likely to move you into overcoming the solution? Heres a way to approach this: Try letting go of any opinion about whether or not it can be true that you are responsible for have created all the results in your life. Just for a few days, decide to pretend it is true, and see what effect that decision has on the quality of your thoughts, actions and results. I believe you will find that it just doesnt matter if its true or false our lives work better, we get better results and feel stronger and more capable, when we act as if it is true.

This is emphatically NOT about beating yourself up, or blaming yourself. I am talking about taking responsibility for the problem, so that you can also give yourself the power to design a solution. Put down any thought of blame altogether and go to work looking for a solution that is within your reach.

This is about looking at the reality of where you are, wherever that is, breathing deeply, and saying, OK. Here I am. If I choose to believe that I am responsible for what happens in my life, what can I do differently? What can I change here, starting with the way I am thinking about this situation? When we make the choice to live at cause, take responsibility for our reality and what shows up in our lives, and make deliberate choices, we begin to see better and better results in all areas better relationships, better health, better career and financial conditions.

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Step Four

Identify your limiting thoughts and beliefs

There are several ways to identify limiting beliefs to get in touch with what internal messages you are carrying around about what is or is not possible for you. Here are three different ways to begin. Use them all, or the one that feels right to you.

Imagine Your Future.

Another tool you can use is journaling, tied to a specific exercise. Picture yourself traveling out in time two years, and step into the picture you see of the future, including every sensory detail you can imagine. See it all through your own eyes, as if you are inside the picture. Hear the sounds around you, feel the air and the ground under your feet, listen to what you are saying to yourself, and to what others are saying to you. As you notice the world as you expect to see, make notes about it. Write down everything that is in that picture. Write about what is possible, and what is not possible. Note what you expect, what you dont expect - all of it. When you return to the here and now, look over your notes and ask yourself, what did I need to believe about myself and my abilities, in order to experience this picture? What do I believe is possible for me, and what do I believe is not possible? When you are honest with yourself, this will give you a very clear look at parts of your internal belief system.

Examine your current results.

Look at the results that are showing up in your life right now. Keep in mind that results are not what will happen when we change something they are what is happening around us all the time, right now. Are you completely happy with the results that you are getting in your life? Are you living your ideal life? If not, ask yourself, why not? And listen carefully to the answers that come to you. You will hear a whole collection of limiting beliefs. I cant do it because ______________. Fill in the blank and make a list.

Make a list.
Every time you identify a limiting belief, write it down. Because you have identified these beliefs, you now can start to weed them out, making space for all the new places you can start to believe in yourself. This will immediately expand what is possible for you.

Listen to the language you use.

Train yourself to hear yourself any time you say: I should, I must, I cant, its too hard, etc. These are all billboards along your road that indicate a limiting belief. When you hear your self say, Well I have to _____, ask, When did I decide that? Is that truly MY decision, or is it someone elses voice talking in my head? Do I want to continue to live by that decision, or shall I change it for one that works better for me?

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Step Five

Begin to release your limiting beliefs.

This is all very nice. But how do we change something that is an unconscious choice?
Actually, some of your view of reality will be shifting already, just from reading this. You will automatically begin to notice different things, and make different choices, and your reality will begin to shift. Some of your beliefs, once exposed to the light of day, will be so patently outdated that its truly just a matter of noticing them, for them to change or disintegrate. Awareness is truly the first step to making change. There are also many specific ways that you can change your unconscious thought patterns, easily and permanently. I will offer a few here.

Begin from an internal position of gratitude for your younger self.

It helps, as you imagine your unconscious mind, to think of it as a seven to ten year old child who loves you very much. This small person has working very, very hard on your behalf, all your life. Most often, (s)he is doing everything (s)he can to keep you safe, based on his or her early experience. And frankly, he or she can feel darn unappreciated. Imagine how uncooperative an unappreciated young child can be! If youre working with an unconscious mind that has its heels dug in the way a small child might, its a great idea to loosen things up a bit before you try to make any changes. So before you go through this process, it is hugely helpful to go inside and offer sincere appreciation to this young person, for all the hard work they have done for you over all these years. In my experience, if you really want to make change, that single act will do more to loosen your internal grip on old, outdated models of the world than any other single thing you can do.

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Starting from this position of gratitude, try these:

Reframe the belief.

Reframing is simply looking at the situation or event from a new viewpoint or perspective putting a different frame around the picture. If you believe a certain pattern is a weakness in yourself, find the places where it can be seen as a strength, and build up that piece. If you are dealing, for example, with a belief that you cannot achieve a certain position because you dont have a higher degree, reframe the belief to be something more like: Because I have gotten my education through my own path and abilities, I am much more flexible and confident, and those attributes are really the main ones that this new job requires. That makes me the perfect candidate!

Pull a visual disappearing act on the belief.

Imagine the belief as an object, which you can clearly see. Then imagine picking it up, walking down to the edge of a river, putting it on a raft and placing it in the stream so it floats away, around the corner, and is gone. Put it into a hot air balloon and send it into space, blow it up whatever works for you. As you do that, feel yourself releasing the belief, just letting it go, easily and completely. Hear your voice inside as you congratulate yourself on being able to completely let it go. Then stand in this moment and look into your future, imagining how different, and how much brighter it is, without that belief. Imagine yourself three months, then six months, then a full year out into the future, and see how many things have changed and amazing things have become without that belief. Come back to now and re-decide to let go of that old belief, and feel how strong and positive you feel.

Challenge the Belief.

If you want to really push a limiting belief through all its aspects, there are four questions you can ask yourself about the thought, which by the time you are done will have shifted your acceptance of the thought. State your limiting belief in a statement form such as: I cant _____. Or I shouldnt _____ and then run it through these four questions: What would happen if I did? What would happen if I didnt? What wouldnt happen if I did? What wouldnt happen if I didnt? You might want to ask a friend to ask you these questions, or you can journal them in my experience, I like the former because the verbal response can add another layer of understanding and opening. In either case, push yourself past a blank spot or two when you think youve come up with every outcomesome of the most interesting information we get, when we ask our unconscious, comes right after we think weve gotten it all out and we sit silently for a few minutes.

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Ask yourself new, positive questions opposite to the old ones you have been asking on some level.
In this process, begin by writing down your limiting belief as a statement. Then imagine the question that is probably circulating in your unconscious, to keep that belief in place. Finally, switch that question completely around, to create a positive question. You dont have to believe this positive question right now just write it down. Here are some examples: I am bad with money my finances will just always be a mess. In the past, if you carry this belief, you have almost surely been asking yourself Why cant I be better with money? Now, turn this question around, so you have a positive outcome: Why am I so good with money? Another example: I just dont have the will power to exercise like I really want to. The old question may have been some form of Why cant I exercise easily like my friend Dorothy does? Turn it completely around and ask Why do I find it so easy to exercise? Or: Im lonely but I am shy and I find it really hard to make friends. The old question: Why is it so hard to meet people? The new, empowering question: Why is it so easy for me to make new friends? Just ask the question, and let your inner mind do the rest. The reason this is so powerful is because our inner mind does NOT like to be in a state of confusion where it doesnt have an answer, so it will go find an answer to your question.

Way back when we were in the habit of asking negative, disparaging questions, (Can you remember that far back? Before you made all these great new decisions to thing differently?) our inner mind used to obligingly find answers to those. In our old way of relating to ourselves, we might have said things like: Why am I so lazy? Our inner mind would come back and say, Well! Here are some reasons, you couch potato! Why do I keep screwing things up? Well, our inner mind used to respond, Heres a bucket load of blame to shower on your self! And because we had been so well trained to treat ourselves disparagingly, we believed the negatives and reinforced the results we didnt want. That was in the past from this moment on, promise yourself to turn it around.

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Habits are safer than rules; you dont have to watch them. And you dont have to keep them either. They keep you. - Frank Crane

When you turn the questions around to be positive, your mind will work just as hard to find evidence for the positive answer. And with two million bits of information coming in every minute, you can bet that there ARE positive answers. You used to train yourself, because of your approach to the question, to find the negative ones. So your challenge now is to accept the positive ones gracefully when they are delivered to you. Give up any old idea that it was somehow noble to make yourself smallthats not a service to anyone. Let your light shine and pass it back to the world. We will all be SO thankful you did! Youll be modeling beautiful behavior in the world. Your mind wants to bolster the argument for whatever outcome it believes you desire so celebrate it, as it now finds evidence that will make your easy statement true, and bring new results into your life. Keep these questions handy, and refer to them a few times a day for 10 days, and see what happens. I believe youll be amazed.

A note about why vs. how questions. The previous example is one of the few times that I would recommend using why questions because the responses they bring are reasons and excuses. In general, when we ask why questions, they bring excuses which keep us firmly planted where we are. In the example above, they work because we actively WANT reasons and excuses for positive outcomes, and they help us find those. In other areas of your life, any time you find yourself asking why questions with a negative slant, try changing them for how questions instead. Instead of Why is this happening again? ask How can I make this better? How can I solve this? How questions generally lead to solutions and action.

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Consider using the power of Neurological Repatterning(TM).

Sometimes, you may find beliefs that resist all the work you can do yourself, and you will want to find a guide to help you ferret them out and change them. There are powerful NLP and Neurological Repatterning (TM) techniques that can permanently and completely remove old beliefs and exchange them for positive, empowering beliefs for you and your future. I encourage you to contact me if you would like help with these processes. These powerful tools are based on the fact, as science has proven, that we carry our memories not in our brains, but holographically in every cell of our body. I use proven processes to identifying early limiting beliefs or decisions, and exchange them, physiologically at the cellular level, for the deeper, powerful, positive truths you remember about yourself as you go through the process. This work has the power to change your life forever, as you develop and install powerful, positive beliefs inside you, as your new operating system.

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Finally, allow releasing your limiting beliefs to become a lifelong habit.

Its important to continue to pay attention. Listen to yourself as you talk, listen to the language you use, and let yourself begin to notice limiting beliefs as they crop up. Like the layers of an onion, removing the biggest, most obvious beliefs will expose others. Its an ongoing exploration, one which makes life ever more fascinating and rewarding. When you start this work, you may feel like there are so many limiting beliefs that its too big a project you may wonder where to start.

You dont need to overthink it - just start wherever you are, and choose one. Then when that feels good, choose another. You will find that some others just drop off as you begin to clear out the collection. Doing this work will open up incredible reservoirs of energy that were locked up before, opening up whole new worlds of possibility. From this point forward, commit to letting it become an easy, pleasant habit to listen for limiting beliefs, so that you can clear them out and make spacious, delicious room for the internal programs that will really serve you in your life, the ones which will cause your ship to turn readily, smoothly and powerfully in the direction you most want it to go. 19

A personal note
This work is simple, its profound, and it will shape every area of your life. I know because I have used this exact process to shape mine. If I had a way to take an interior photo of my well being before and after experiencing this work for myself, I would qualify as a poster child for the I lost 150 pounds person youve seen in weight loss ads. I also know, because of the amazing stories I have heard and the results I have seen in the people I have worked with. I fully believe that you can experience the same shift as soon as you deeply choose to. Marcus Aurelius, the great Roman emperor and philosopher, said: If a thing is humanly possible, consider it to be within your reach. That thought may feel completely beyond anything you can believe right now but if you explore your reactions to it, find the places where you have decided not to believe in yourself, and clear those thoughts out, you can draw closer and closer to that being true for you. Let it become a fun adventure Your Grandest Adventure!

Thank you for taking this trip with me. - Scout Wilkins Master Results Coach Master NLP Practitioner & Trainer www.scoutwilkins.com

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Index
A
acceptance 15 aligned 5 attention 12

H
habit 19 health 12 Henry Ford 9 hidden programs 6

Q
Quantum physics 10

R
reality 10, 11 Reframe 15 relationships 12 releasing 15 responsibility 11, 12 results 8, 12, 13, 16

B
beliefs 8, 13 Bill Gates 10 billboards 13 blame 16

I
Imagine 13 imprint period 9 Information 7 inner mind 5, 16 innermost beliefs 6 inspiration 4 intentions 4 internal programs 19

C
candidate 15 captain and the crew 5 career 12 cause 11, 12 Challenge 15 change 4, 14 conscious 5, 8, 11 creativity 10 critical faculty 9

S
search engine 8, 9 stuck 4

L
language 12, 19 limitation 10 limiting beliefs 19 limiting thoughts 13

T
thankful 11

U
unconscious 5, 6, 8, 14, 16

D
despair 10 disappearing act 15

M
Marcus Aurelius 20 mechanics 7 model of the world 9 mutiny 5

V
victim 11, 12

E
empowering 12 empowering beliefs 18 energy 19 evidence 17 excuses 17 expansion 10 expect 13 exploration 4

N
Neurological Repatterning 18 NLP 18

O
onion 19 operating system 18 outcome 17 outcomes 17

F
filter 9, 10 filtering 7 focus 11 Future 13

P
perspective 15 physiology 11 pictures 8 positive 17 possibility 11 potential 10 pretend 12

G
Gates Foundation 10 gratitude 14, 15

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