You See What You Believe

In all our trainings we teach you a fundamental principle that “perception is projection”. This simple statement has a number of layers of meaning, which when you grasp and utilise the theory, will enhance your life immensely.

So on one level, Perception is Projection means that your perception of your reality is based on the beliefs that you hold consciously and also unconsciously. You see that you believe to be true, that is, you see what you expect to see because of how you interpret the information from your senses based on your values, attitudes and personality etc.

This raises an interesting question of “why don’t we see objectively?” The answer is straight forward, it’s because we simply get far too much information coming through our senses to be able to process all of it. That’s according to the book Flow by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, who says that we are surrounded by about 2 million bits of information per second at any given time. Wow!!! That’s a lot of bits! And our nervous systems can only process about 134 bits per second.

So out of the 2 million our brain grabs onto 134 bits per second. What does the brain do to reduce the data down? It filters it by ignoring, distorting and/or generalising the input. So it makes sense that our brain would choose the 134 bits that seem familiar, true and congruent with what it’s already processing.

With so much data to handle, why would the brain choose bits of data that are strange to it or at odds with what it believes to be true?

With so much data being left out, we perceive far less than what is actually happening!

Think about this - So what if a person’s brain is hard wired with the belief that “money doesn’t grow on trees”, that brain will pick up the 134 bits per second that support the idea that it’s hard to earn a living and ignore the rest of the data!! Now if another person is thoroughly convinced that cash is easy to come by and truly believes this - not just hopes it – then he/she will see and experience only input that supports abundance and ease.

The two people and their brains live in the same world, maybe with very similar circumstances. But the reality they perceive is totally different. That’s interesting!

Now that same 2 million bits per second of information that are presented to me, are presented to you, are presented to the successful people and the unsuccessful people, the happy people and the grumpy people.

This is why in any given economic climate, you will always find some people who are thriving and others who are barely surviving. Guess who’s in charge of deciding which bits to grab?

We are....you and I are both consciously and unconsciously choosing which 134 bits we grab onto. There is only so much you see and experience and it’s totally up to you to choose your 134 bits. Switching from un-empowered to empowered is thus a process of finding the most life enhancing 134 bits per second.

And as you choose and grab your 134 bits, you must remember that everything in the universe, including you, is so much more than what you have chosen.  At any given moment, you can be so much more than who you think you are. It’s all out there, and yet it’s all projected from inside yourself.

Discover more at our NLP Practitioner Training or our weekend Seminar Your Future By Design