RAM Thinking
What is RAM Thinking
Thoughts are fleeting.
Recurring thoughts are sticky.
Sticky (repetitive) thoughts become beliefs.
And, what we believe (repeatedly think) is what we determine to be possible for our lives, and then we act (behave / make choices) in ways that align with that perspective.
THIS is how we expand our opportunities for success – or not.
It IS how thoughts become things.
It IS how we create our own reality.
Your mindset IS the map to your success.
The life you live is the product of the results you’ve achieved based on the actions you’ve taken as a direct result of the influence of your working mindset.
That’s a mouthful that I boil down to two words: RAM Thinking.
R(esults) = A(ction) + M(indset)
Breaking down reality
Life – and our reality – can be broken down into three sets of ‘things’:
- Those over which we have no control
- Those we can influence
- Those we can control
No control
These are largely circumstantial, such as the parents we are born to and families we’re born into, natural disasters (hurricanes, earthquakes, pandemics, volcanic eruptions, etc.), wars, shark attacks, etc.
Influence
Both circumstantial and situational – we influence through action. Encouraging someone to participate in a project is benign example of this type of action. The person will decide independently whether to participate. We do not control their decision.
Control
Both subjective and perceptive, the things we have control over are where creation of our living reality takes shape because this control is exercised through the lens through which we assess/perceive/process events. That lens is a ‘feelings filter’ that influences the actions we take and decisions we make – and those are ours alone.
Creating reality
When you hear ‘you create your own reality’ it’s because ‘thoughts become things’.
Cliché – but not cliché.
Thoughts are fleeting.
Recurring thoughts are sticky.
What we believe (repeatedly think) is what we determine to be possible, and we act (behave / make choices) in ways that align with that perspective.
Wiring and firing
Every thought produces a chemical reaction in the brain which triggers an emotion. Engaging the thought/emotion creates a new circuit that sends a signal that produces a physical reaction. The more we repeat this pattern (think the thought), the more it takes root in the mind and becomes a habit.
Thinking the same thoughts elicits the same emotions and physical reactions that produce the same experiences.
This repetitive cognitive pattern is the foundation of our beliefs, and belief creates the filter through which we perceive and interpret the world around us.
This filtering mechanism is known as priming.
Priming works on a permission/suppression model where the brain is primed by a certain belief (repetitive thought) to look for something specific. In doing so, it shuts down any competing neural networks, which makes it hard to impossible to find evidence to the contrary of an already existing belief.
A person who believes they are lucky is subconsciously wired to look for opportunities that reinforce their fortune (convenient parking spaces, getting an unexpected discount, finding money in an old coat, etc.)
In the same vein, a person who believes the world is a scary place will find evidence to support their belief (crime, war, death, etc.)
These people live in the same town.
But they would give you every reason why that cannot be so or why the other person is wrong to feel the way they do.
*Are you doing this as you read it?
This is the Reticular Activating System (RAS) at work.
Neuroscientists have shown that most of our decisions, actions, emotions and behavior depend on the 95% of brain activity that is beyond our conscious awareness, which means that 95% of our life comes from the programming in our subconscious mind.
There is so much information coming at us all the time that we would never be able to function at all without the filtering capabilities of the RAS.
It constantly sorts through the subconscious flood of mental data coming at us to identify what seems important and relevant -to us- and bring that into our conscious awareness.
Remember the lens we talked about in the things we can control section? That is the RAS.
The lens through which we train our brains to see and interpret the world around us.
This is how the lucky person and the scared person can have different experiences in the same place.