Perception, Expectation, Reality – How Your Thoughts Create Your Reality

You might find it difficult to believe when I tell you that your thoughts create your reality. How could that even be possible? But think about it for a moment: Every idea, invention, blueprint, or story ever conceived first originated from a thought in the mind. Your mind processes hundreds of thoughts every second. You are constantly thinking, even though many of those thoughts never reach the conscious level.

Unfortunately, many people don’t think their thoughts have anything to do with reality. When the truth is, your thoughts, perceptions, and expectations have much more power than you know. Your thoughts not only affect your reality, your thoughts create your reality.

The following article explores how your thoughts create your reality, how to regain your power by discerning between what’s real and what’s true, and how not to get caught in self-fulfilling prophecies.

Thoughts and reality – A matter of cause and effect

Here’s a question for you:

How often have you walked into a situation or met someone with a certain expectation of how that was going to be? And how often did the situation or person turn out exactly like that?

Now the real question here is actually whether you were simply right in predicting what would happen or whether the situation or person turned out to be exactly like you expected because of your expectation.

How your thoughts create your reality

Let me give you an example of what I mean by this:

A couple of years ago I was dating a guy. We had an instant connection, got along great, and never ran out of things to talk about. But halfway through our fourth date, I felt the energy between us shift and turn distant. When I talked to one of my girlfriends afterward I remember telling her “That’s it. I am not going to hear from him again.”

Turns out I was right.

I always had a gift for sensing energies and emotions so I wasn’t surprised that this happened. But I couldn’t help but wonder if the situation would have turned out like this nonetheless, or if my perception of the energy changing and my expectation of him not calling again influenced the end result. Did my thoughts create this reality?

Now I will never get a definitive answer to that question but what I do know is that our perceptions and expectations constantly influence our reality.

This is not only one of the basic assumptions behind manifestation and the Law of Attraction but has been scientifically observed, too.

Known as the Rosenthal effect, this phenomenon describes how beliefs tend to actualize themselves in our reality. The Rosenthal effect refers to situations where high expectations of one individual lead to improved performance of a test subject and vice versa with low expectations. The observations made in several experiments clearly show the power of one’s belief. What we think not only impacts what we do but also how those expectations tend to act upon other people.

Discerning between real thoughts and true thoughts

What you perceive to be happening at any given moment is highly subjective. When you have a number of people observe one and the same situation, you will end up with almost as many interpretations of the situation as there were observers. Possibly with none of those observations matching the situation that objectively occurred.

Your beliefs get reinforced through reality

Your thoughts are a catalyst for self-perpetuating cycles. As such, your thoughts create your reality based on your beliefs. What you think directly influences how you feel and how you behave. Once you draw a conclusion about yourself, someone else, or a situation, you’re likely to do two things: look for evidence that reinforces your belief and discount anything that runs contrary to that belief.

Consider for a minute that it might not be your perceived lack of something that is holding you back. Instead, it might simply be your beliefs that keep you from creating the reality you desire.

So constantly worrying about those ‘what if’s’ and worst-case scenarios is like a self-fulfilling prophecy. Next time you catch yourself doing just that I invite you to flip the script and start thinking about best-case scenarios and positive what if’s instead.

Creating a more positive outlook can lead to better outcomes. That’s not to say positive thoughts have magical powers. But optimistic thoughts lead to productive behavior, which increases your chances of a desired outcome. I promise you, it’s a total game-changer!

It’s time to think about what you think

Given the amount of time we spend living inside our minds, it’s shocking how little of that time is actually spent observing and challenging what we think instead of blindly accepting every thought. Just because thoughts aren’t tangible, they are still very much real. And they are beyond powerful, too.

Your thoughts create your reality. Whether that’s the reality you’ve been dreaming of is up to you. So wouldn’t you rather have your thoughts work with you instead of against you?

If you’d like some support identifying and reframing limiting beliefs, my 1:1 coaching program THRIVE is the perfect space for that. Using a variety of tools and techniques over the course of 3 or 6 months, together we create radical self-discovery and lasting transformation.

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