“The greatest discovery of my generation is that man can alter his life simply by altering his attitudes of mind.”
– William James
“I can.” “I can’t.” “I’m not good enough.” “Good stuff just happens to me.” “I always get sick every winter.”
Explanatory styles. We all have them—the filters through which we run all of life’s events.
And scientists now know that every thought creates a sudden shift in your body. Just reading the ideas above emotionally triggered your pancreas and your adrenal glands to get busy secreting hormones. Different areas of your brain surged with increased electrical currents, causing neurochemicals to be released. Your liver, not to be left out, began processing enzymes that were not present the moment before. Your thymus gland and spleen sent out not-to-be-ignored messages to the body to shift your immune system. There’s more … but you get the idea.
Thoughts change your body.
Your mind has a tremendous capacity to change your body and your life.
To maximize your experience of life, it’s critical to understand that you change your mind by changing your chosen understanding of things.
A friend of mine said that her professor in college explained it this way, “Communication is impossible. If you are explaining to a room of people about a cat, each person in the room will have a totally different interpretation of what “cat” means. Unless you pull a cat out of a bag and show the specific cat, you have not communicated.”
It’s clear we all have filters that we run things through. Even more fascinating is that every person has the ability to reprogram the filters through which they hear things—but first they need to have a clue that what they’re hearing is never exactly what is said.
Every thought and image and experience that comes to you is instantly filtered. A college professor writes the same note on the top of the paper of three different students, “There is so much more here.”
One student thinks, “Oh my goodness. I’m going to flunk this course. He thinks I missed the point entirely! I always seem to miss what’s important. I’d better start packing my bags because I’m never going to make it in college.
I’ll probably end up working at Uncle Pete’s factory, marrying a mean wife and raising ugly, delinquent kids.”
Another thinks, “He’d like me to explore other parts of this. I’m going to see him after class on Wednesday and tell him I’d like to write another paper on those areas. Maybe he’s thinking he wants to make sure I get an A in the course by going deeper.”
Yet another reads into it, “I have really challenged my professor’s thinking with my paper. I can see how I opened his eyes to there being so much more that he hadn’t even thought of before.”
The list of interpretations is endless!
It is through those filters, though, that great things or complete disasters can happen.
It plays out in every family and in every organization.
A supervisor challenges one of his employees to be more thorough on a project. The employee’s brain, based upon his explanatory style, can come up with a whole range of possible interpretations: “He never likes what I do. Isn’t it ever good enough?” “He’s just picky. I’ll ignore this, and he’ll just let it slide.” “He really wants me to win on this project. I sure appreciate his insights. I’m going to ask him more questions. I think he sees that I’m management material.”
What’s so fascinating about filters is that each individual tends to have a certain “filter twist” through which they run all things—and it’s completely different from every other person’s filter twist. That twist is largely dependent on how they feel about themselves based on the key messages they have received about how lovable or unlovable they are.
They can take one element and twist the message so that it doesn’t even resemble the intention of the presenter. Once, when giving a speech, I covered something I’ve presented more than a thousand times. I talked about how a vision of greatness is so powerful when it comes to enrolling the hearts, minds, and souls of a team. I described how most companies miss the mark when it comes to creating and articulating their vision.
When I finished my speech, a gentleman came up, slapped me on the back and said, “We have something in common. I used to be an ophthalmologist, too!” Holy smokes! I think this guy took a mental vacation! He definitely was listening through a filter that heard one word, “vision” and defined it through his occupation—missing the entire point!
Here’s what we know about filters. If an individual grew up with a parent, a teacher, whomever, telling them they were not OK, then when you give them input on something, they will most likely hear it as an attack and blame you for being the person who is wrong in making the request. “How could you be so insensitive!” is what goes on in their mind.
Our brains, addicted to drama as they are, will hear the most innocent of remarks as accusing, complaining, or blaming. We distort it to the point that it feeds the unhappiness that we’re addicted to.
When a comment happens, some people run it through filters. Here are some common ones:
“Nobody appreciates me.”
“I’m not good enough.”
“You can’t trust anyone.”
“I’ll never have money.”
“I’m not lovable.
“Life is hard.”
“I can’t do anything right.”
Don’t collapse distinctions. Ask yourself what actually occurred. Your interpretation of what occurred is what causes angst and sleepless nights.
Keep your filters clean of untrue interpretations and your relationships and outcomes will be demonstrably better.