Just received a follow-up email from one of my readers, Ming, who had tried out my recommendation of writing down goals. He shared an account of an interesting incident that just happened to him.Ming had written down a goal which, let's just say, requires technical expertise that Ming does not have. Anyway, a day after writing down his goal, Ming was at a HDB void deck when a complete stranger walked up to him, introduced himself and started helping Ming with his technical challenge. For free.
It turned out that the stranger is a professional (ie earns his living) out of this kind of technical challenge. The stranger then passed Ming his name card and told Ming to contact him if he needed to tackle more technical challenges of this sort.
I'm deliberately being vague here, because there is no point going into full details. The skeptics would just say that it was a strange and unusual coincidence. As I had previously mentioned, it is quite easy and tempting to dismiss such occurrences as mere coincidence. And that is precisely why I said that you must record your coincidences in writing, so that eventually you will see a distinct, consistent, regular and unmistakeable pattern emerging, between your "coincidences" and your written goals:
"If you really want to thoroughly investigate whether thoughts affect reality, then quite apart from doing the writing exercises every day, you should also keep a diary to record significant daily events or occurrences in your life. Pay attention especially to synchronicities that crop up in response to your written goals.
The term synchronicity was coined by Carl Jung, one of the founding fathers of modern psychology. It refers to the experience of two or more events which occur in a meaningful manner, but which are causally inexplicable to the person or persons experiencing them. Jung's own definition was the "temporally coincident occurrences of acausal events.
"For example, suppose you write these goals - "I have very good friends" and "I find a new job that I really love, in interior design." Two days later, you bump into an good old friend whom you had lost touch with and hadn't seen for 10 years. While you're happily chatting with him, he suddenly says, "Hey, I'm now working in an interior design firm. We are looking to hire a new person. Do you happen to know anyone who might be interested?"
This would be an example of how reality reacts synchronistically to your thoughts. You will, of course, be inclined to dismiss it as a strange but random coincidence ... until you see it happening again, and again, and again, and again, and again. Record all these down, so that you can review them later and analyse the probability that in fact it was all random.
If you do your recording faithfully, I believe that you will soon realise that reality is constantly shifting and bending to make your thoughts to come true. If your thoughts are focused on your goals, then reality will constantly shift and bend to make your goals come true.
I have asked Ming to consider the following:
(a) How many times in your life has any stranger walked up to you in a void deck, introduced himself and struck up a conversation?
(b) What are the chances that this stranger would turn out to be an expert in the exact kind of technical problem you were wanting to solve? And that the stranger would help you for free?
(c) is it not a rather REMARKABLE coincidence that all this happened just one day after you wrote down yoyr goal of tackling this technical challenge?
Of course, Ming may still not be convinced. Which is why I told him - in that case, just go create another coincidence with your thoughts. And another, and another, and another. Each helping you to get closer to your goals. Make as many coincidences as you need. And if you're still not convinced, well, never mind, because by then you will have achieved all your goals anyway.
Anyway, there's another trick I want to elaborate on. It relates to Point 9 of my previous post, where I had written:
"Frame your goal in positive terms. Do not say: "I learn not to be so shy." Say: "I am a confident, sociable person, comfortable around other people."There are two things which your unconscious mind is not very good at. Firstly, it does not understand time very well. It cannot really tell the difference between past, present and future. It tends to take every statement as being a description of the present, not the past nor the future (I'll elaborate on this next time).
The second thing is that your unconscious mind cannot understand negatives. It cannot understand words like "not", "cannot" or "never". If you try to plant a message like ""I learn not to be so shy" into your unconscious mind, it's likely to get the message "I learn to be shy" - that is, the direct opposite. That is why hypnotherapists are always very careful about how they choose their words.
To give you a somewhat bizarre example, late last night I composed my preceding post about Sudoku etc. (The time-stamp says 7:33 pm but that is the time I started writing - I actually finished writing it and posted it later than that). Soon after posting it, I went to bed. Now notice Point 1 of my goal-writing post:
""1. The best times to do this exercise are early in the morning, soon after you've woken up, or late at night, shortly before you go to bed."I had not been writing about my goals, but I had been writing my Sudoku post, and in that post, I had said:
Now, as I said, the unconscious mind is very bad at understanding negatives. Given a sentence like "Singapore is never top news", the unconscious mind will likely interpret it as "Singapore is top news". That's because the unconscious mind just doesn't comprehend words like "never"."...... ever since I started on my new job, I've been reading less and less of the Straits Times, and more and more of the news from Bloomberg. Nowadays, several days can go by without my reading the Straits Times at all.
My previous job was already quite regional in its scope. My new job is even more international.I find it more important to focus on international news than local news. And by default, the news that shows up on my Bloomberg is "top news" from around the world. Singapore is never "top news" ..."
What happens next is that my unconscious mind will start bending reality to make my reality a reality where "Singapore is top news".
This morning, in the office, I logged on to my Bloomberg and checked the news. For once, Singapore was right there among the Bloomberg top news articles. Not only that - Singapore was the top article among all the top news articles worldwide.
Singapore Economy Grows at Fastest Pace in Two Years (Update2)Heheh. Of course the skeptics will laugh. As I said, don't be shy. What's the harm in trying it out? Write down your goals, keep your diary, and watch the coincidences pile up. One after another, and another, and another, and another, and another ......
By Shamim Adam
Construction at the Marina Bay Sands in Singapore
July 10 (Bloomberg) -- Singapore's economy grew at the fastest pace in two years as soaring demand for apartments and offices spurred construction. Stocks surged to a record.
Gross domestic product expanded an annualized 12.8 percent in the three months ended June, up from a revised 8.5 percent in the first quarter, the trade ministry said today. Growth exceeded all forecasts by economists surveyed by Bloomberg News.
Construction increased the most in a decade, reflecting success in attracting companies including Citigroup Inc. and Daiwa Securities Group Inc. to expand operations or set up new ones. Singapore's prime office rents have gained more than three times as fast as in rival hubs Hong Kong and Tokyo, while investors are paying record prices for luxury apartments ....
To make your experiment more interesting, try thinking bizarrely positive thoughts, or just plain bizarre thoughts. What you will experience shortly thereafter are bizarrely positive coincidences, or just plain bizarre coincidences.