new-age-yoga-hippe hocus-pocus

It is 1:30am, but I just HAD to share some really cool stuff with you!

I have blogged about visualization and goal setting in the past, but this post kind of elaborates on WHY goal setting and visualization is useful, and not merely a fad or a bunch of new-age-yoga-hippie hocus-pocus.

Have you ever been in a situation where you’re pal is raving to you about this awesome new novel he or she is reading, and then you find yourself spotting that book everywhere you go; the chick beside you the bus is reading it, your professor is carrying it to class all of  sudden, there is a massive ad about it on the side of a bus?
This has happened to me SO MANY times! And it always blows my mind and I always think it is the miraculous power of the universe and it’s energy. Ha! Sound like a total yoga hippie hocus-pocus gal eh?!

Well, the reason this happens is because of this super cool part of your brain called the RETICULAR ACTIVATING SYSTEM (RAS). It is kind of like the secretary you are so afraid to lose to your office colleague, or simply a filtering system of all information that comes to you from the external world.

The RAS is such an incredible body of cells; I say this because it has to deal with A WHOLE LOT OF information, all at once.
I mean, imagine HOW MUCH info is constantly coming at you: sights, sounds, feeling, taste, and it is the RAS that deals with ALL of it.
It prioritizes things and shifts our attention to what is important.

Imagine if we didn’t have the RAS? We would be in a total state of confusion and chaos.

Have you ever been at a noisy dinner party conversing with your old classmate, when all of a sudden you hear someone standing eight feet away from you mention your name, and all of a sudden your attention shifts from your conversation to their conversation? That’s your RAS baby!

Your RAS is linked to both your subconscious thought and conscious thought. So even when you are not consciously thinking about that novel your pal was talking about, or paying attention to anything other than the conversation you are engaged in, your subconscious mind is picking out the target information and noticing it everywhere you go, or drawing your attention it at all times.

So, why do I think the RAS is so freaking cool? Other than it finally making it clear to me that, perhaps, it isn’t the universe which is doing all these crazy things, but actually my own freaking brain!
Well, it is so freaking cool because we can use this knowledge of how the RAS functions, and use it our advantage!

We can use it in goal setting and achieving our DREAMS!

So, we know that the RAS deals with external information, and we know that once it gets the appropriate information it will subconsciously be on the look out for it. So, instead of the RAS receiving arbitrary information and choosing what is a priority based on our subconscious thought; we can actually provide it with this information by a) verbally repeating our goals b) writing them down, and c) visualizing them.
The RAS doesn’t know the difference between what is real and what is imagined.

A perfect example is, remember last month when watching a show on Amazonian insects on the discovery channel and all of a sudden you felt like those creepy crawlies were all over you?!
Or when you stayed the night at your cousins house, and when all the lights were off you looked towards the silhouette of the chair by the window, but for a good ten seconds you were CONVINCED it was a man with top hat on.

So, it is this same way that the RAS is so gullible and will believe whatever thoughts or ideas you give it.

So, use your imagination to your advantage, and visualize your goals and ALWAYSmake sure they are positive ones.
And really truly BELIEVE that you can achieve them. You have to believe it in order for the RAS to believe it; only this way will the RAS make it happen by paving a path for you, allowing things to magically fall into the right place.

Cool right? The brain is SO AWESOME! I could read about it all day! I want to know EVERYTHING about it!

We have so much more control over our brains than we think. We can rewire it, shape it, and alter it to whatever we want. It isn’t easy… I know this first hand, but it is DEFINITELy doable!

Your minds eye can take you to places you never thought you could get to. Just decide where and LETS GO!

It has been a while friends! I have missed you; in fact, I have missed myself.  This semester has been quiet the time! It’s the price you pay for setting surpassingly high expectations and goals for yourself. A topic I actually want to touch today. I expect so much out of myself academically that I find myself spending all my time studying, and not enough time on myself, and more importantly my delightful friends. I feel so bad for neglecting the lovely supportive friends I have, but I think they understand, and many of them are in the same boat as I am. Worse part of this all, is that I finish finals on friday, and by that time my three best friends Katie, Julie and Shahriar will all be gone for the holidays! Poop! I haven’t seem them in AGES are they’re leaving me during the one time I will have COPIOUS amounts of free time.
I just finished writing my physiology exam and I have my last final exam tomorrow, in Human Motor Behavior. The physiology exam went exceptionally well, this sounds extremely nerdy, but I thoroughly enjoyed writing it! You know the feeling where you are so OVERWHELMED with certain concepts, they make absolutely no sense to you, it’s like some freaking foreign language, and you teach those baffling concepts to yourself, and it’s almost like a light goes off in your brain and EVERYTHING FINALLY makes sense – you FINALLY can grasp those despicable concepts. Well that is what all of yesterday was for me, so while writing this exam, which by the way was multiple choice (my arch nemesis), I was just cruising through. I love when you know the answers! Such a rewarding feeling! Anyway, tomorrow’s exam is not going to be like that. NO! I should not say that! Manifesting such ill promoting thoughts cannot be good, definitely might convince the universe to put me in an awful test situation. I will ace tomorrow’s exam! It’ll be easier than understanding the Krebs Cycle! Easier than baked pumpkin pi! Okay, so this past semester I was enrolled in a Sports Psychology class. Not going to lie, was not my favorite class. Seemed almost impossible to get anything above 78% even though I was doing everything right – reading the text, making killer notes in lecture and from the text, making index cards, studying ahead of time – but for some reason I did poorly. Anyway, that is something else I can go on a rant about! Let’s stay on topic here!!! So this class opened my eyes to a few things I already knew, and some sort of new to me. For one, we spent a chunk of our time discussing goal setting and another chunk of visualization.

Now, goal setting is something we should all be aware of, and all be actively participating in. Setting goals is SO IMPORTANT! Make sure you write them down and tell the world about them; this way your sort of held accountable for it, and that’s incentive enough to try and achieve them. Apparently, statistics show that 50% of our goals will not be achieved, and this is fine! In fact, it is GOOD, it just proves that we are setting goals that are challenging and hard to achieve. If we achieved all the goals we set, we obviously aren’t setting a high enough standard for ourselves. We need to be challenged! I just recently got hired as a seasonal at Luluemon, and an important philosophy the company lives by is goal setting. Half our training consisted of a discussion on goal setting, which I find absolutely admirable about the company! As a new team member I am encouraged to write down three goals each (personal, career, & health) for 10 years, 5 years and 1 year. These goals should be written as if they have already been achieved and should have an achievement date tailed on to it. All your goals MUST be measurable – there must be a deadline so you can actually strive to achieve them! Remember goals can change! Just because you wrote it down does not mean you can change it as you evolve as a human being. I found myself having a little trouble because I felt vulnerable sharing some of my goals and I also felt that I might jinx the probability of some of these goals occurring. I was then enlightened by one of the girls, that instead of viewing it as being jinxed, I should view it as a manifestation! Ah now that is looking at the glass half full eh?!

Anyway, at the end of this post, I will share my goals with you and I encourage you to do that same for yourself. Write them down. Tell someone about them. And most importantly create an achievement plan! Anyone can write something down, it is whether you actually strive to accomplish them! With the new year just around the corner, this is a fitting time to start soul searching and figuring out what you want to achieve or where you want to be in 10, 5 or 1 year! The second topic, or tool is visualization, something that I was not fully aware of until the Sports Psych class enlightened me. I mean I daydream ALL THE TIME, but I do so without conscious control or awareness of it. My professor lectured us on how many elite athletes use visualization to enhance their performance. “HA! What a JOKE!” is what I was thinking. “Imagination allowing you to perform better?! My foot!” But, holy COW was I wrong! I cannot believe the POWER of our minds! It really is incredible! When you imagine yourself in a situation, whether it is in sport, work, or everyday life, you LIVE that experience, so when you come around to actually having to be in that situation, it’s smooth sailing – been there done that. I use this tool for exams, and it has a brilliant tendency to ease my stress, boost my confidence, and actually allow me to perform betteron exams. I usually imagine myself walking into the exam hall, totally calm and comfortable, I can hear the hustle bustle of chairs moving and feet shuffling, the air is chill with a sort of nervous tension; however I am calm. I sit down, open the booklet, and I imagine myself grinning and whizzing through all the answers. I imagine questions and their subsequent answers I have been studying. The keys to visualization are your senses! Use all your senses: smell, taste, touch, sight, sound. Create a scenario that feels real to you. You can use this tool in such a vast variety of ways. It’s really great for boosting confidence!! I hope it is as effective on you as it is on me!In fact, the two tools I shared with you today can be used together! Imagine and visualize yourself achieving the goals you write down! Or if you don’t think you have any goals, visualize your life in 10 years, 5 years, or 1 year, and that should be a guide as to what goals you must set to achieve that vision!

My 10-year goals:
Personal: I live on Point Grey Road, in a beautiful waterfront house with a stellar view of the North Shore Mountains by December 2022.
Health: I have participated in 2 full marathons by December 2022.
Career: I am a successful medical doctor and mother by December 2022.

My 5-year goals:
Personal: I have $6,000 in my TFSA by December 2017
Health: I successfully balance my exercise life with my school life by getting at least three workouts in, in a week.
Career: I am a student at Harvard Medical School by September 2016.

My 1-year goals:
Personal: I spend more time with Nana, visiting her four times a week for all of 2012.
Health: My 6 pack makes its very first debut by July 2012.
Career: I am a UBC Kinesiology student by September 2012.

And my goals for Christmas break are:
– practice yoga once a week.
– finish reading Shantaram.
– sleep before 1am and wake up by 10am everyday.
– eat clean by cooking meals everyday (and perhaps sharing them on the blog).
– post a blog three times a week.
– start searching for your soul again (lately I feel like I am losing myself, I feel like I do not know myself like I did a few months ago)

These goals of mine may change as I evolve, and I will make sure my goals evolve with me, and when they do, I will notify you, so that you can hold me accountable to them and hopefully encourage me and support me through this journey. And please, share your goals with me so that I can do what I can to help you get there! I promise to not judge you and I promise to support you!

Best of luck!