Have you ever noticed yourself telling a story about why someone else can do something, but you can’t? I have. Many, many a time.
I see someone succeeding at something I harbor a desire to do, and all I can see is the ways they are different from me. Maybe they’ve been doing agility longer than I have. Or they teach agility full time. Maybe they’re actively competing with three dogs, or they live on the East Coast or even in Europe. There are an infinite number of ways any given person could be different than me, and that’s what my brain will look for by default.
Then, left to its own devices, the brain files these things away as the reasons I can’t, or the reasons I shouldn’t bother. My goodness brains are tricky. It never ceases to impress me the lengths our human brains will go in defense of our status quo.
At the same time the brain looks for the ways that person is different from me and the reasons why I can’t, it also actively filters OUT the ways that person is similar to me and the reasons why I could. It filters out all the counterexamples that would weaken its argument.
If you drill into this you’ll see the logic isn’t there. For every example, there’s a counterexample. For every reason you can’t, there’s a reason you can. So… which will you choose to focus on?
There are some things I’ve been chasing that are very important to me. In the realm of those things, I refuse to allow my brain to quietly convince me they’re not possible.
So now when I see that person doing the things I wish to do, I ask myself how they’re like me. I ask myself how their success is evidence that I can, too. How are we similar? What can I learn? What can I admire about the way they’ve created these results?
Those are very different questions, and they’re already changing my life. I hope you’ll give them a try, too.
