Finding What You’re Looking For

Tony Robbins performs an interesting exercise with someone in this short video. He tells the person to look around the room and find all the brown objects. After allowing him time to look around, Tony instructs the man to close his eyes and this surprising request follows: “Tell me everything that you just saw that was red.” The man who scanned the room cannot name a single red object. Why? Because he was looking for things that were brown. After this, Tony lets the man look around for red objects. Now that the man is looking for red objects, he is able to see those as well. 

Tony uses this to illustrate how our beliefs operate. He says, “Once you develop a belief, you find what supports it…You will find stuff that’s not even there to feel successful.” Tony says to the man, “I bet you found some beige stuff and called it brown just to feel successful.” The man points to a beige object that he was calling brown. The same was true for burgundy objects that he deemed red to succeed at the challenge.   

Tony says, “If you think you're screwed up, you're messed up—you're gonna find and color yourself that way…You reinforce what you believe.” I’ve seen this again and again in my own life and in the lives of my clients. We find what we are looking for. 

This week, I invite you to ask yourself: 

What is one thing that I believe about myself that is not helping me to live the life I want to live? What is my evidence for this belief? What if it is also true that I’ve played a role in reinforcing this belief? What evidence might I be ignoring because it doesn’t support my belief?

God bless,
Dan