Selective Perception & ‘RAS’ [Great ‘Hack’ For Results]
What is selective perception? And what is RAS? We will discuss it in this article. You will find that you can use it to your advantage to achieve your goals! Read along…
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What is Selective Perception?
Selective perception means that you can consciously experience only part of reality. A very small portion. You can see, hear, smell, feel and taste thousands of things around you, but you only perceive a small part in a conscious way. That small portion is your map of the world. You see that as reality.
Let’s take an example:
- You only see positive people if you believe there are only positive people in the world.
- You only see negative people if you believe that there are only negative people in the world.
If you continue with this idea, you come to the thought: ‘ The world is your mirror: perception is projection ‘.
How can you use selective perception?
If I have a hat full of 50 euro bills and I tip the hat over on the beach, you probably don’t have an eye for other details on the beach. You don’t see them. Only the notes and the big things like sand, water and a crowd.
In the same way, you can program yourself so that your nervous system will find certain things more important than others, causing you to see some things only, and not see other things. You can do this, for example, by setting a goal. That way you will only see the opportunities to achieve your goal. Very handy!
You only see positive people when you believe that and you only see negative people when you believe that.
A complete step-by-step plan for applying this – so to set a goal, let go of the goal and trust that your selective perception will bring you to this goal, is the law of attraction. Click here to view all steps.
Selective perception gets help from a powerful tool… RAS!
Have you ever heard of your Reticular Activation System (RAS)? This is a strong function of your nervous system that you have. Do you recognize the following? You suddenly see the same model car that you just bought everywhere, and if you are currently taking driving lessons you will probably constantly see training cars that you didn’t see on the roads before.
Your RAS is your sight / antenna. As soon as you activate it, it will automatically focus on what it is set for, such as opportunities. Everything you pay attention to grows. Focus on it and give it attention to grow it.
Your RAS therefore also plays an important role in Self Fulfilling Prophecies. This means that things have a high chance of success if you predict and believe in them. The way we think affects the way we express ourselves. When we change the way we think, the way we express ourselves changes.
I only saw 2 balloons a year, until …
Normally I only saw two balloons a year until I went to a balloon event once. In the months that followed, I was almost snowed under, so much I seemed to see. And suddenly I also hear all kinds of programs on the radio where they talk about balloons!
A fisherman is more likely to look at a nature book in the shop and an investor will notice the financial newspaper. By the way, respect their perception of the world. How you see the world is how you are. This means that your RAS is also your map with which you see the area.
After you have bought a new blue scooter, you are almost continuously run over by blue scooters. You see that many. Purely and solely because of the mindset that you were looking for a blue scooter.
The power of selective perception
The good news: you can use selective observation to your advantage! You can use it for focus, so you can achieve your goals . Can you imagine that the moment you give so much attention to negative aspects in your life, that you are actually making them bigger because you pay a lot of attention to them? Understand that by directing your attention and focusing on desirable situations and positive relationships, these will grow and you will attract more like-minded people.
The other side of the story: perceptual blindness
Watch the video below and count how often people in white shirts pass the ball.
What happened in the video above is an example of perceptual blindness. Your RAS is also one of the causes of perceptual blindness: so much is going on around you, but you still miss it.
You now know the above ‘gorilla video’. It asks to count the number of passes of the ball, so that the viewers of the video do not notice that a gorilla runs right through the pinafores in between. You were paying attention to the passes and not other things, such as a possible gorilla, no matter how obvious that was.
In the case of the gorilla, that’s okay, but suppose the gorilla presented an opportunity that helped you achieve your goals. If your breed wasn’t geared up for the gorilla, you would indeed have missed that opportunity.
A lot of things happen right in front of us, while we don’t even see it. These are the hardest things to see: the everyday things. For example, check whether you still have your phone. You know where you put him. Just double check. Okay, let me ask you another question: can you remember the icon that is always in the bottom right corner of the screen? What kind of icon is it?
Okay, get out your phone and check. Okay, we’re ready to look at the cellphone so put it away again. Because all mobile phones have something in common: how you organize your icons. Most people always have a clock in the front. So, without looking at your phone, tell me what time it is. You just looked at your clock, right?
Okay, now let’s take it a step further. Do you trust me? Close your eyes. Okay, you’ve been able to watch me for a few minutes now. While you have your eyes closed, tell me what I’m wearing. Do your best eh? What color is my shirt, what color are my shoes …
– Apollo Robbins
Your frame of reference also plays a major role in this. To counter this ‘gorilla effect’, you can train the powers of observation, so that you not only see, but also be alert and observe everything. We do this with exercises for our sensory acumen . It is often very easy: stop counting the number of passes. Then you suddenly think: “What is that Gorilla doing there?”
Also, slow change also causes this kind of perceptual blindness, as opposed to unexpected big changes. So dare to take big steps and get ahead of a five-year plan. So you use the power of your RAS by setting goals and taking action on them.