GETTING AN UNLEASHING POTENTIALS ATTITUDE

As I get ready to do the Self-Actualization Psychology trainings for the diploma, I have been reviewing Maslow’s works and some of what I’ve written. In look at the chapter titles in Unleashed! (2007) I noticed that the third chapter is titled, The Attitude. The following is what is in the book, a story about an attitude.

“Several years ago I wrote a book to apply the framing process to eating and exercising. Games Fit and Slim People Play (2001) was designed to look at what we think and do with food and exercise in terms of a “game.” If how I eat and relate to food is a game, what are the rules? What is the name of the game? When do I play it? Who do I play it with? What do I win if I win the game?

After I wrote the basic manuscript, I decided to test it. So I wrote to our primary Neuro- Semantic egroup and asked for five volunteers. I wanted five people who were obese, who really wanted to lose weight and get to a healthy body weight and fitness, and who had tried everything without success. I proposed to provide the manuscript if those who volunteered agreed to read and apply the process. They were also to take before and after pictures of themselves and let me know how the process worked for them after three months.

What I didn’t expect was the immediate response to that post on that group. The response was overwhelming. Within one day I had forty lengthy emails (each one three to ten pages) from people explaining why I should consider them. And it didn’t end there, more poured in throughout the following week.

So instead of five, I chose fifteen people from ten different countries and sent out the manuscripts. I read the letters to identify people who really needed it and who seemed to have all the motivation to follow-through. I looked for people who were proactive in trying to take action to manage their weight.

But then I got a surprise. Out of the 15 who had begged me to be a part of the experiment and who really, really, really wanted to be included, only eight of them read the manuscript and began using the process. Of them, they all lost weight and gained more fitness and six of them maintained it after three years. But seven of them, seven of them did not read past the first chapter!

I was shocked. I thought I had picked well. I thought I had offered enough motivation and given enough personal attention, and yet almost half could not get themselves to even read the materials. And three of them sent me critiques of the writing of that first chapter— typos and ungrammatical structures, which didn’t have a thing to do with weight management.

“What frame of mind were they in when they were reading?” It certainly wasn’t a commitment to their own success in managing their weight or becoming fit! Their task had nothing to do with examining the writing, it had to do with taking and using an approach that could help them unleash the health and fitness that they said they wanted. But they didn’t.

So what went wrong? What had I not anticipated in the group? What prevented half of them from getting the results they wanted and experiencing the health and fitness that would make life so much better for them?

In a word, attitude. They didn’t have a robust enough attitude or the right attitude to unleash their potentials. Attitude always plays a critical role difference between success and failure; between achieving our highest dreams or selling them short. So with that in mind, what attitude or frame of mind is necessary to become a self-actualizer and unleash your potentials?”

At that point I inquired, “What is the attitude for someone who wants to actualize his or her potentials?” Then from the studies and modeling, I identified and described 16 attitudes that are highly correlated to the self-actualizing process. I have not mentioned some of these in this series on attitudes—another indicator that there are so many attitudes and you are completely free to select and build them into your way of thinking and perceiving.

___ Openness to experience ___ Willingness to Become ___ Self-Authorization / Self-Responsibility ___ Transcending Passion ___ Playful Curiosity ___ Restlessness ___ A Beginner’s Mind ___ Self-Challenging ___ Mental Agility ___ Embracing Change ___ Resilience ___ Follow-Through Discipline ___ Decision ___ Audacious Dreaming ___ Willingness to Become Completely Engaged ___ Willingness to Risk

Isn’t it amazing? Attitudes are free for the taking, or should I say, free for the developing. And when you develop an especially powerful one, that attitude can wonderfully transform your life and relationships. It is a psychic gift ... yours for the developing. Here’s to choosing some great ones for yourself.