INVERSE WISDOM

By David Krueger MD
I came home from college after my freshman year and announced to my Mom that I’d decided to major in psychology. We talked; she was excited for me. Then she mentioned that she made an A in her college psychology course.
I said, “You must have really enjoyed it and studied a lot.” She said, “No, I just answered everything on the test the opposite of what I thought was right.”
Here is a list of six things that are the inverse of conventional wisdom in writing a new life or business story. In honor of my Mom, who thought it was all opposite anyway.
1. Burn your bridges.
Make it impossible to go back to an old habit or way of being. If you decide to quit smoking, make it impossible in some way to restart. Create an uncomfortable scenario if you do return. Focus on the present without the bad habit. Reward yourself for not going back.
To change, you have to develop a life or business story that contains the storylines you want. To stop doing something is not complete change--a new story incorporates new behavior and beliefs. You have to have a new story to be in before you can give up an old story. But you can’t just remove all the old software—because it’s who you are. And much of it has worked—and works—very well.
And you can’t just suddenly start appending some success principles to an existing story and assume that there won’t be resistance—reversion to the familiar—and noise—from the old story.
2. Do the opposite of what you’d normally do when you are afraid, worried, anxious, or uncomfortable.
If you’re uncomfortable with public speaking, avoidance will increase the fear, so do more of it. Jump in the water; you can’t learn to swim on paper.
You are always free to change your mind, always free to change your beliefs and core assumptions about who and what you are. Prediction and expectation based on the past creates repetition, but based on the present and future creates possibilities. A belief system constructs an obstacle or an opportunity. Trying to change your past is not change, as your past will always be the way it was.
3. Obstacles reveal desires.
Show me an obstacle, and I’ll show you a desire. An obstacle conceals but simultaneously reveals the underlying desire. Proceed despite the obstacle:
When you’re ready to recognize the obstacle, you’re ready to consider the possibility of not creating it.
The more you run away from something, the more you engage it. So the more apparent it becomes. And sometimes you can recognize something the first time only by denying it

4...Discomfort can be a sign of progress.
Moving beyond a comfort zone is necessary for progress. Comfortable is not a place you begin, but a place you can arrive at. Moving from a comfort zone is necessary in order to proceed.
Change Generates Discomfort. At a physiological level, change produces pain. One reason has to do with how and where the brain processes new ideas. Routine activity without the introduction of anything new requires little attention or energy.
When something new confronts these habits, you feel discomfort, and have to use more energy. It’s work to change. The natural inclination is to resist the stress of change, and to preserve the default habit.
5. Lean into the unknown.
If you think you’re too old to do something, you will be right. Studies show that even highly accomplished people close themselves to novelty as they get older. The major factor is not their age, but how long they have been doing a particular thing, such as been in a particular business. People who stay in one place and one position get most entrenched. Those who have changed positions or careers often adapt to change more readily. They reset their clocks. This means that the imminence and prestige of someone highly accomplished in one area tends to add to the resistance of change.
You can tiptoe through life very carefully and arrive safely at death.
Put energy into what you want. Focus on wealth instead of debt. Possibilities instead of problems. Desires instead of obstacles. To fight something is to engage it—to add energy to it. This creates resistance. When you focus on what you want, what you don’t want falls away. Like your lap when you get up to walk.
6. You do not attract what you want; you create what you focus on.
Everyone wants more money, so wanting is not the key to having it. Focusing on scarcity attracts scarcity; focusing on prosperity aligns your energy to pursue prosperity.
You keep coming back to what you run away from. You attract what you resist because you engage it with focused emotion.
The most important principle is to focus on what you do want rather than on what you don’t want. Most focus is outside awareness. The challenge is to target the specific outcomes you want. Discover all the things that you focus on that you don’t want—make a list as you notice thinking about them. This list will cue your radar for early recognition. Then, each time you notice thinking about them, stop and think what you do want.
Be specific about what you do want—not just what you don’t want in disguise (“I want to lose weight.” The focus is on overweight.)
Thinking this way is not magical. It requires discipline. This is why most people don’t have a spectacular result. Spectacular results require mind and brain consistency for 25-30 days without resistance to change and without reverting back to the old pattern.

Copyright David Krueger MD and MentorPath Publications

David Krueger, M.D. is an Executive Mentor Coach. He is CEO of MentorPath, an executive coaching firm. Dr. Krueger is author of 15 books on success, money, wellness, and self-development.. www.MentorPath.com
Wellness Teleseminar information: www.NewLifeStoryCoaching.com


INVERSE WISDOM - To learn more about this author, visit David Krueger's Website.

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