THIS INTRODUCTION TO THE SETTINGS GAME CONTAINS 3 PARTS:
- The Objective: Achieve a Real Quality of Life
- Blockers who can prevent it
- The way to achieve it: Adjustment Method
(***) 1.-OBJECTIVE: QUALITY OF LIFE
Our Project pursues a SINGLE OBJECTIVE: Help people to improve their Quality of Life.
We have investigated various possibilities, experimented with them … and it turns out that we have found a Tool that works. We know that it is not easy to believe, so we are not going to ask you to believe it: carefully analyze what we are going to expose, without haste and see if it seems reasonable.
We will call QUALITY OF LIFE to Feeling good in a stable way and Functioning better and better in our day to day (less complications, worries, problems and conflicts). Does that sound like an adequate definition? We suppose so; let’s see:
What they have sold us as “quality of life” is nothing more than a constant creation of needs that, it is evident, is taking us in the opposite direction. Having too many needs (material and / or affective) is incompatible with a real quality of life.
We have become accustomed to calling ENJOY what circumstantially alleviates discomfort, dissatisfaction and boredom. This “false enjoyment”, with a bit of luck, allows us to forget for a while our tiresome way of life.
As for LEARNING; They have told us that learning is memorizing, intellectualizing, accumulating quantity of superficial data that they call “knowledge” or “culture” and that they are of no use other than, in the best of cases, for others (just as “wise” as we ) to us. Academically, it’s about passing exams and ending up with a “degree.” A role that the only thing that accredits is that we are capable of “swallowing” whatever it is (regardless of its real usefulness) as long as they give us a “job” that generally does not satisfy us; but it allows us to finance the aforementioned false enjoyment.
It is essential that we realize this: our quality of life decreases as we create / create new needs. Especially if, to cover them, we depend too much on others (this happens especially with affective needs); that is why it is practically impossible to be really satisfied and when we do it…lasts so little. Even when we “get” something, we do not tend to value / enjoy it too much, because we tend to be more aware of other things that are theoretically missing or may be missing if … Come on, it is not easy to imagine a more stupid way to function.
Finally, we call SHARING to “having” friends, partner, family, colleagues … but, as soon as we observe, we are all aware that these relationships are more based on the aforementioned dependencies, protocols and routines. Honest and constructive communication is scarce. Consequently, conflict, resignation, and boredom are more likely to appear than collaboration and the actual sum.
Definitely; if you believe that your satisfaction depends on the circumstances, they will be the ones that control your life. Our “ideas” about the quality of life are too naughty, emotional and speculative: happiness, fulfillment, fulfill dreams … Those are the strings that handle our disoriented puppet. A person who idealizes is very easy to manipulate.
The only way to achieve a real / stable well-being is to forget all that nonsense and learn to better manage our experiences on a day-to-day basis:
(***) HOW DO OUR EXPERIENCES WORK?
An Experience occurs when a circumstance is presented to us, we interpret it and respond in one way or another.
And here we have OUR MAIN PROBLEM: WE DO NOT REALIZES THAT WE ARE INTERPRETING WHAT IS HAPPENING; this leads us to work automatically:
OUR INTERPRETATIONS DRIVE OUR LIFE and do not allow us to see that our experiences admit many more options and possibilities. Let’s see what happens:
1st. – Our Mind INTERPRETS the Reality (what is really happening), and turns that real scenario into a mental scenario (OUR REALITY).
2nd. – Based on this Interpretation we make a JUDGMENT (more or less consciously) and REACT based on our Learning. So, to the extent that our interpretation is wrong and / or our little adaptive reaction, the problems accumulate. Then 2 things can happen:
1- We managed, with enough effort, to cope with a mediocre life (with little hope and some relief that they sell us).
2- Everything falls apart and, after a great upset, we have to start over. Of course, bearing the weight of failure in our confidence and our spirit.
IT IS ESSENTIAL THAT YOU UNDERSTAND THIS: You will not be able to improve your Quality of Life if you are not aware that you are interpreting situations and reacting automatically based on those interpretations.
Our LEARNED Mental Programs are managing our lives; they are the ones who decide what we have to feel and do; thus determining the quality of our experiences. Take a good look at it and ask yourself why it is so difficult for you to change the way you feel and act; in fact, you don’t even think about it even if the results are not satisfactory.
(***) Each experience is an exchange of Information and Possibilities between WHAT I CALL “I” and WHAT I CALL “world or reality”. The problem is that we are not aware that this exchange occurs through an Intermediary: our Mind.
OUR MIND DRIVES OUR LIFE. It uses 3 movements (but it does it so well and so fast that we don’t even notice):
1º. – MENTAL MANIPULATION / SPECULATION: OUR MIND INTERPRETS Reality (what is really happening) and transforms it into “my reality” or Point of View.
We will call MISADJUSTMENT to the difference / distance between Reality and our reality (point of view or interpretation). Our level of Adjustment to Reality will determine the quality of our results. On a physical level we have no doubts, if there is discomfort or we cannot function well, we know that there is something wrong with our body and we go to a specialist. At the mental-emotional level, the same thing happens: the more misaligned our interpretation, the worse results we will have and the worse we will feel. We will see that OUR MISADJUSTMENT DEPENDS ON OUR BELIEFS, SCHEMES AND PRE-JUDGMENTS (adjusting that, the rest goes alone).
2º. – SENSATION OF TRUTH: OUR MIND CONVINCES US that this interpretation is true. The Mismatched interpretation appears in my consciousness in the form of thoughts, concerns and judgments (noise). This is the key: the mind does not pose me speculations; offers me conclusions and I BELIEVE THEM.
And how does he do it? Using the drugs from his biochemical arsenal (neurotransmitters, hormones …) to provoke an EMOTION (I no longer just think it is true, NOW I FEEL THAT IT IS TRUE). It’s that simple, now you just have to finish the job:
3º. – AUTOMATIC ANSWER: MY MIND PUSHES ME to act in a certain way. I am already in your hands; so he looks in his Catalog of Learned Responses for the one that corresponds to the emotion I feel… and it prompts me to act that way. To make matters worse, it turns out that these automatic mechanisms tend to be stronger and more misadjusted; when the mind considers that we are facing circumstances that are of greater importance (family, work and social environment). In other words … the most misadjusted / emotional / reactive attitudes tend to occur in areas where we would be most interested in acting with a broader and more controlled vision. We are embroidering it.
Who thinks, decides and acts? “You”? Please calmly review these last lines.
What this Method proposes is to adjust some very specific errors to check if they improve, in a clear and measurable way, our level of well-being and our results. But before exposing the Bases of the Adjustment Process, it is very convenient that you understand some mental movements that usually prevent us from any opportunity for improvement that life presents us:
(***) 2.-ACCESS BLOCKERS TO OUR IMPROVEMENTS PROCESS
We have already seen that our mind filters everything it receives. Too many times it prevents us from accessing knowledge that can be very useful to us with arguments such as: “That is not worth anything”, “it is very difficult”, it is not worth it … “; Mental movements that lead us to helplessness, insecurity, resignation, reluctance and the atrophy of our natural resources (the state in which most people find themselves). For this reason, it is so important that you analyze calmly and take into account the importance of eliminating the main blockers that can prevent you from accessing your Adjustments Process:
MENTAL TRAPS THAT PREVENT US FROM RECOVERING CONTROL OVER OUR LIVES:
1.- The Conviction (Unconsciousness of Maladjustment):
THE BIGGEST PROBLEM TO ACCESS A PROCESS OF IMPROVEMENTS, IS HOW CONVINCED THAT WE ARE TO “BE RIGHT” ¿How would you define this situation?: I do not consider that a bad result is indicating that I have something to learn or adjust. Also, I don’t even realize that my “beliefs” change over time; In other words, I have one idea today and the opposite tomorrow. Unfortunately, this is the situation in which most of us find ourselves, and it is that we place more importance on pretending that we know than to really understand and better manage the circumstances that are presented to us.
2.- Pre-Trials:
Prejudices are BELIEFS that are installed in our mind, which tend to reject new ideas and do not allow us to correctly analyze the situations that life presents us. BELIEFS, in addition to blocking our Learning, control our way of living: the direction, meaning and quality of our life (that is, almost nothing).
We are not aware that our mind works from a few limited and ambiguous data that it interprets in a biased way and with very little rigor. What results can be expected in this way of working? Our decisions tend to be ineffective; even troublesome; because they come from erroneous conclusions (our information is scarce and filtered by our prejudices) and we respond influenced by our fears, expectations and personal interests. We have too much facility to make immediate and less rigorous conjectures, to elaborate sentences regarding the world and ourselves. We will see that most of our ideas have very little basis and do not resist more than 2 or 3 intelligent questions; that is why we have stopped asking ourselves questions: because they question those “ideas” with which we get confused. Our automatic and relative prejudices determine “our way” of seeing and being.
What we propose is that you do not let your prejudices make you believe or deny things without further ado; don’t let them prevent you from reasonably analyzing them. We recommend this approach both to analyze our proposal and in the rest of your daily decisions.
(***) 3.- Labeling:
Of all the Beliefs, the most dangerous are the Labels that our mind assigns to the world, to circumstances, to ourselves, to others and to everything that moves. “I am like this” “Life is like this” … Those egocentric and banal judgments run our lives; they close the doors to learning and positive change; they are one of the main causes of our conflicts (internal and / or external). Do not identify with what you think, feel or do, they are simple states that you can learn to manage more adequately. Life is change, the only question that fits in this regard is, if you are in control of your life or are your learned beliefs that drive you at will.
4.- Causal attribution:
Blaming the world for everything that goes wrong and how bad we feel. It is a quick and “comfortable” way that your mind has found so that you do not take responsibility for your incompetence. Do not be fooled, as long as you do not assume responsibility for your way of thinking, feeling and acting, you will not have the slightest control over your Quality of Life; it will be your created / believed needs, your expectations and fears that will direct your resources / capabilities. The prognosis for this scenario is: feeling of routine, instability of mind, insecurity, excessive dependence on others and circumstances … variables that lead to conflict (internal / external) and complications. We are so convinced that we are right that we have it very easy: since there are only 2 parties here (me and the world) and I am correct. Who is to blame? Well the world of course! They are the others, who are selfish and do not want to adjust to my way of thinking. This clever conclusion is what leads us to the following misunderstanding:
(***) 5.- Learned Helplessness:
That is the name that Psychology has given to our most disabling beliefs; those that give us a feeling of difficulty and impossibility; they lead us to helplessness, reluctance and atrophy / blockage of our natural resources. As I try a lot but the world does not quite adjust to my expectations; as my level of satisfaction and my results have not just come out of mediocrity, the conflict zone, inefficiency and with a certain discomfort (although I already make sure that I do not notice much) … well I come to the conclusion of that CANNOT OR IS VERY DIFFICULT to improve. That feeling is what prevents most people from accessing a real improvement process. It doesn’t let them even try.
We have tried so many times to improve our well-being and our results without success; that we think / believe that the thing does not give for more or that we have bad luck. Get this into your head: if you have bad or mediocre results, you have something to learn / adjust (in our town it is called DARK. The good news is that it can be fixed).
We end up resigning ourselves because we “guessed” sacrifices and difficulties that lead us to think dichotomously: “nothing can be done”, “life is like that“; “Those who have to learn are the others” … those are the mechanisms, more or less conscious, that we use to reject or postpone the changes that life poses to us to improve things. Life is not like that or like that, we have learned to live it like this or that, but make no mistake about it that you can learn to live in a simpler and more effective way that will give you a more stable well-being and a better functioning.
Not knowing our mental-emotional mechanisms makes us very vulnerable. Life does not stop being a mechanism that has its operating patterns; your results are telling you if you are handling them correctly or not. Don’t confuse awkwardness with difficulty.
6.- The Fear of Change:
The egocentric position is very dependent and insecure; in it our mind resists changes, raises doubts and fears using its mental and emotional programs. It is an infinite source of denials and excuses. No matter how obvious some area for improvement is, he is capable of denying it (“I don’t usually do that” “that can’t be avoided” “better known bad” …) and, as important as it is to make changes, they are arrange to postpone them with whatever reasoning. We all have a wide margin for improvement, but forget about improving anything without making changes, the key is to do them in a calm, prudent and orderly way; that is: adequately.
Habits and inertia are the forces our mind uses to handle us like puppets. Our mental programs hijack our Attention and enclose it in half a dozen tired routines; blocking our Potentials for experimentation and improvement. One of the main objectives of the Adjustment Method is to progressively regain control over our decisions.
Change is inevitable, it is part of life. We are afraid of change because we do not normally control it ourselves. It is our dependencies and attachments that try to handle it. Expectations-pressures on the one hand and fears-insecurities on the other, are the mental movements that do not allow us to manage properly and lead us, time and again, to discomfort and conflict. We will see how to adjust them.
(***) 7.- Accustoming Zone:
The 6 previous traps make us fall like flies into A NEGATIVE RESIGNATION OR ADAPTATION (which, with two noses, they call “Comfort Zone”). In reality it IS A ZONE OF ACCUSTOMING in which we normalize (and hide) dissatisfaction, lack of motivation and mediocre functioning; we do not look for solutions because everything that comes out of that “routine normality” we see as uncertainty.
We fall into resignation and inertia because we have lost confidence in ourselves. We are using our intelligence, our creativity and our learning potentials to cope with and further complicate the problems that (by not stopping for a moment to analyze our way of functioning) we are creating ourselves. The idea is to go pulling, self-convince that it could be worse (TV and the news help us already) and relieve from time to time with one of the many alternatives that the market offers us (more complications). With a bit of luck you do not crack and you continue all your life in that plan. Anyone moderately serious does not need more explanations; we all know perfectly well what we are talking about. So:
RECOMMENDATION: These are the main mental blockers that filter the information we receive, condition our decisions and can prevent you from accessing a real improvement in your quality of life. See if you can take another quiet look at these 7 misunderstandings (ONE AT A TIME). Understand the importance they have and do not allow your mind; with its schemes, prejudices and excuses, it prevents you from taking the opportunity to learn to use your resources more effectively once and for all.
EYE TO THE DATA: The character that we have created / believed (with whom we get confused) wants more to entertain ourselves with television, social networks, the press, “culture”, fiction novels … He is more interested in any idiocy that seriously analyze the real causes of our pathetic / apparent quality of life. It has all the power over our attention and our resources. See if you can really be interested in changing that pitiful servitude.
(***) 3.-TOOL: ADJUSTMENT METHOD
¿WHY DOES OUR MIND MANAGE OUR WAY OF THINKING, FEELING AND ACTING?
¡BECAUSE WE ARE CONFUSED WITH IT!
We believe that we think and act like that because we are like that; we forget that we have learned to be like this and to function like this. We do not realize that our mind is directing our lives. What prevents us from recognizing such evidence?
You will not be able to improve your quality of life if you do not admit this: Yours Learned Mental Programs (way of thinking, feeling and acting) are what determine Your Real Quality of Life.
You have to stop fooling yourself / pretending and start adjusting those ineffective manipulative programs.
RESULTS IMPROVE ON THEIR OWN AS WE CORRECT A SERIES OF VERY SPECIFIC ERRORS. THIS IS THE WAY TO DO IT:
1- LEARN to control our learned emotions and automatic reactions; to have access to a more rational and practical way of functioning.
2- REVIEW our beliefs, schemes and mental biases; to establish more adjusted criteria that provide us with greater satisfaction and better results.
3- MARK small strategic objectives; that allow us to give more meaning to our life and really improve the quality of our experiences in the different areas that we handle (personal, work, family, social …).
(***) THE PROCEDURE PROVIDED BY THE METHOD / SET OF ADJUSTMENTS TO PERFORM THESE THREE STEPS IS THE FOLLOWING:
1.- CONTROLLING THE SENSATION OF TRUTH: Our emotions and automatic reactions are physical-chemical reflexes that give circumstances the power to control our lives. We will learn to manage this mechanism to function in a more calm, controlled and adaptive way.
Almost all of our problems come from not controlling our Feeling of Truth (Conviction); because it does not allow us to rethink things, it opens the doors of Conflict and closes those of Learning. The Feeling of Truth also explains something really amazing: that we are using the mind for everything and we have no interest in knowing how it works (nor do we realize that we are using it).
Learning to control our Feeling of Truth will allow us to perform the other 2 Adjustment movements:
2.- REVIEW OUR INTERPRETATIONS: We will see the way to become aware of real being handling a mental scenario (our reality). This will allow us to replace our beliefs with more adjusted / rational criteria and see how our results actually improve. We will eliminate the Mental Errors that are behind our clumsiness and inefficiency. We will eliminate from our subconscious those Programs that lead us to try so hard to obtain such poor rewards, that lead us to frustration, to think that it is not possible, to judge ourselves negatively, to accuse the world and others, to demotivate ourselves, to lose security in ourselves, to act with fear and distrust … in short, all that emotional arsenal that we all know and that affects to a greater or lesser extent our state of mind, our physical health, our relationships and even our economy (keep Keep in mind that the market sells us a lot of activities and products to cope with such a sorry state). Only by adjusting these Programs will we be able to be more comfortable with less expense; we have checked it.
Your quality of real life depends fundamentally on the quality of your mental interpretations; that is, your Level of Adjustment to Reality. Reviewing our way of seeing things is the only way to confront our third and definitive adjustment movement with guarantees; which is what really determines our Quality of Life:
3.- TO ADJUST, LITTLE BY LITTLE, OUR AUTOMATIONS AND ROUTINES:
Our way of working is very simple: Interpretation, Emotion and Reaction.
THE TWO FACTORS THAT DETERMINE OUR QUALITY OF LIFE ARE: our interpretation of the circumstances and our response to that interpretation. It is your Feeling of Truth / Conviction that turns your “way of thinking” into your “way of being”.
RE-BEEP: If the results (internal and / or external) are not good, you simply have to review / adjust your mental-emotional-behavioral programs; you already know the other alternative: get used to a life without meaning, try to cope with problems and draw on learned distractions and / or reliefs: complain, criticize others, watch TV, internet, go on vacation, let off steam by shopping, eating, drinking … In short, what you have learned to do to cope with that “mental ego-reality” in which, without realizing it, you have cloistered yourself.
(***) THIS IS THE BASIC HYPOTHESIS OF THE METHOD:
Reality (possibilities and options that life presents us) and “our reality” (what we live, point of view or interpretation of that reality) are two different things. The greater the difference between them (mismatch), the worse results we will have and the worse we will feel. To the extent that we misinterpret any matter, we will handle it worse, we will make more mistakes and our experiences will be more unsatisfactory, clumsy and ineffective.
So there is only one way to increase your quality of life in a real and stable way: Improve the quality of your Mental Interpretations and your Responses in the different areas of your life experience.
The Adjustment Method focuses on improving your level of satisfaction and your results, helping you define more realistic and effective criteria, increasing your ability to achieve more reasonable objectives and your ability to interact with others appropriately.
The Adjustment to Reality is an ADAPTIVE SKILL (that of finding the answers that give the best results at a symptomatic and functional level). The only way to work better is to increase our Level of Adjustment to Reality. Can you think of another way to do it? It is very important that you try to answer this question.
SAID THAT, YOU HAVE TO CHOOSE BETWEEN ONE OF THESE THREE OPTIONS:
1.- Continue controlled by your beliefs, automatisms and inertias. As usual.
2.- Pre-occupy yourself a little more with this “interesting matter” of the mind and emotions (if you are reading this, surely, you were already doing it), read from time to time a self-help book, watch a channel YouTube, go to a chat, philosophize a little from time to time …
3.- Really take care of improving things. Seriously analyze how we work, look for a concrete, intelligent and practical strategy to achieve real and consistent improvements in your quality of life.
We hope that, at the very least, you recognize that the best decision would be the third. So see what prevents you from taking it (“something strange” happens so that you cannot dedicate a minimum of Attention to improving your mental-emotional functioning). If you are still there, we recommend that you do not put any goal ahead of it; it is impossible to find a more profitable investment to really improve your Quality of Life.
If the approach seems reasonable to you and you decide to delve into it, you can go to the “Adjustment Set” tab to find out the PHASES AND KEYS of our Method.
FINAL NOTE:
The success that our proposal is having is based, to a large extent, on its Support System, designed to advise in their first steps to anyone who considers working seriously in their improvement process by applying this technology in their day to day.
Logically, in any learning process and especially at the beginning, the advice of people who have been working with the Method for a long time and can contribute their knowledge and experience is usually of great help. Either to solve application doubts or to improve the performance of your improvement process, contact us.