“Perception and reality are two different things.”

– Tom Cruise, Actor, and film producer

If you continually focus on what you can’t control, you will find your life will start to become out of control. Try it and for sure you will find yourself if you haven’t already at some point in life facing the abyss. Some people will say that they are able to focus on what they can control and what they can’t, but Liam Festinger theory of cognitive dissonance says the mind cannot hold two contradictory ideas at the same time.

If you have seen the picture of the old/young lady normally you will normally see one over the other, which do you see? Which first if you have seen it before?

It’s the same with the famous black and blue dress v gold and white dress which do you see?

 Some people see the dress black and blue and others white and gold but who is right?

 
And what you see becomes your perception and therefore your reality especially if you can only see one and not the other.

When you do see the opposite to what you have seen your perception changes about what is possible.

You have a paradigm shift.

However, if you can only ever see one in your mind your perception is set. And that is always what you will see because you are fixed in your mind. A mind closed to other possibilities and only facts you think you know.

“A man with a conviction is a hard man to change.”

– Leon Festinger, American Psychologist

Enter the rabbit hole…

Every day, our five senses are subjected to millions of pieces of information that if we were consciously aware of, we would not be able to function properly. To prevent this, our brain uses a filter called the Reticular Activating System, which only lets information through to our conscious mind that is important or could pose a threat to us. Who is it that programs the Reticular Activating System (RAS)?

Well, we do for some of the time. For example, if we decide to buy a new car, our inbuilt RAS goes to work subconsciously to provide us with the necessary information to make decisions and to support our objective. And the car we want to buy i.e., a white BMW we will start to notice white BMWs on the roads so much more because our RAS focuses in on what you are thinking about.

The RAS serves us well and explains the things that we are most passionate (know most) about. So, for example, I had no passion for chemistry in school and flunked it, but I knew every sticker in the English League Panini football sticker album off by heart as a young child. When you have a passion and clear objective, your RAS will open and support you with information, resources, and possibilities. We become a sponge for the things we like, because the RAS is continually working to support and search for the things, we like the most.

From a negative perspective, it can lead to blind spots. Once we have made our minds up, our RAS will look for evidence to support our assumptions, generalisations, and impressions, which can lead to missing the full picture in certain situations, or to only see one side of the story. If we have a fixed mindset, then the RAS will find evidence to support our beliefs - but it will also do the same if we are passionate and have a growth mindset. It is about understanding how to control our thoughts, and how to use our built-in RAS to our advantage.

So going back to having control of our life, if we focus on the things, we can’t control guess what you will get more of the same and that is why your life will start to become out of control or feel like it because of your perception.

What we believe is then what we project out into the world...it’s an old lady, it’s a black and blue dress, I’m not good enough and so on. You get the picture.

We can then react without thinking and develop negative habit patterns because of what we are thinking about the most if it is negative.

Perception proceeds Reality.

When you think about your mind you have your own construct and default settings

You can program your mind to be who you want, when you want, at any given time, you can take back control.

You can live based on negative thinking and focus on what you can’t control and if you do you are in the perception prison.

Edward De Bono said perception is real even when it is not reality…and so many become a victim of the perception prison.

“Perception is real even when it is not reality.”

– Edward De Bono, Psychologist, author and consultant

Every experience in life leaves a mark. It is easy to become a victim of our experiences because those marks lead to a conditioning that creates automatic reactions to new experiences.

We react without thinking and if threatened, this may cause us to act aggressively for example. In essence, we become a victim of the perception prison, a prison for our mind.

Have you ever driven your car but ended up at a different location? You were going to your parents who live around the corner, but you go home first. When this happens, our subconscious has completely taken over on autopilot, to give us such an obvious clue that we are driving without thinking. Our subconscious was driving for us. We are on autopilot when driving for most of the time, and the same can be true for our life. Autopilot can serve us well at times, so we can get things done without thinking. However, there are lots of situations where we need to stop and think before choosing our response, as opposed to reacting.

Another example of when we can tell we are on autopilot is when it comes to listening to music in the car. We may sing along, but we don’t need to concentrate on the music, or on our driving. Whereas when we listen to a book in the car, we quickly notice if we have drifted off because we miss what is going on in the book. Your conscious mind will bring you back, because the book will not make sense and therefore, we stay in a switched-on state to pay attention to the book. In both cases though, we will still be on autopilot when driving for most of the time.

Another example is how quickly we switch on if a car doesn’t indicate or cuts you up. We switch on to how we are driving because of the other person’s driving, but then we react to let the driver know how we are feeling. Once again, reactive behaviour to the situation; a lot of people become angry when driving their car if other people don’t meet their standards.

The perception prison means we are already programmed to react in most situations without thinking. We are living without thinking about what we are doing most of the time. This then becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy, as we also stay in our comfort zones, because that is what makes life easy for us.

So how do we ensure we do not become a victim of the perception prison?

In his book Maximum Achievement, Brian Tracy refers to Homeostasis, which is another term for our comfort zone. Homeostasis is a natural mechanism that regulates the body as part of our standard equipment and, for example, keeps the body at 98.6° Fahrenheit. He explains that it is the unconscious tendency to be drawn to what we have always done before, because of this impulse. When we are doing something, we have not done before, our mind will make us feel uncomfortable. Because the homeostatic impulse brings us back to our comfort zone, where we can feel safe, it’s comfortable for to take the easy option and stay in our comfort zone.

To learn and grow it is essential to look for new experiences and challenges. Otherwise, our mind can become a victim of our conditioning, keeping us within our perception prison and influencing us to choose the easier and more comfortable option that will keep us safe. Thus, at times, preventing us from experiencing personal growth.

To add to our obstacles of the mind, Psychosclerosis is the hardening of the attitudes. As Tracy also goes on to say, we tend to fall in love with our own ideas and then vigorously defend them against anything new. The reason people then tend not to change is that they become too rigid and inflexible about their ideas, especially about themselves. This means developing their mindset and perception is difficult because it is fixed. So, if we have a growth mindset, we will look to continually learn new things, keeping ourselves up to date and able to adapt to the future.

And last but not least if we focus on what we can control instead of what we can’t it enables us to have a proactive and positive outlook and take back control of our life.

If you see your mind as an opportunity that you can shape each and every day you will build psychological intelligence to be best and remember your perception will create your reality.

“Perception precedes reality.”

– Andy Warhol

American Artist