Are you fully awake? Are you sure? If I told you that something was keeping you partially sedated for all of your waking life, you'd be skeptical, but it's true.

Actually, two negative forces are at work:

• The first prevents you from seeing much of what is in front of your eyes - perhaps more than half of it
• The second distorts the half you see, feeding you lies and half-truths

The more clients I work with, the more powerfully this is confirmed in my mind. It is undeniably true. Those two forces are at work inside us - moment-by-moment, day-in, day-out.

How can that be? How did these negative forces get there, and what purpose do they serve?

Your Auto-Pilot Well, the first force - the one which prevents us from seeing - is our auto-pilot. We need our autopilot - it's part of the machinery in our minds. Without it, our brains would be bombarded with thousands of sensations, thoughts and decisions, every second. Input from our senses - touches, sounds - memories of events, worries, puzzles - all of it endlessly changing. Our autopilot allows us to be freed of much of the mental crud which might otherwise overwhelm us.

Tying your shoe laces is another example - so is walking. Less obvious examples are watching TV (because .. it's on and that's what you do, right?), or eating until all the food is gone, or delivering one of your diatribes. You are less conscious in these activities; less of your brain participates. As a result, quality suffers badly. You eat all of the food on the plate because your eating program was running. If you'd been more conscious, you'd have stopped the program and eaten less.

So again, the auto-pilot did a useful job (imagine having to think about every chew, every tongue movement, every swallow, every fork movement), but it also did a less good thing - it automated gluttony without our conscious approval.

Beliefs This second factor is one I talk about a lot. If you believe a thing, then your experience of the world will be distorted to support that belief. Low self-confidence is a good example from my case files. Self-confidence is all about believing a negative thing (or things) about yourself. Let's say you believe you're "no good" (whatever that means). So - you approach life with that mind set. Events out there in the real world are seen in light of the "fact" that you are no good. So - if something goes wrong - it's not because it was an impossible task, or you were set up to fail, or you haven't had the training, or it's a one-off - no - it's because you are no good. Someone who believes they are the bees-knees is more likely to see a failure as something other than a personally triggered disaster. They may not even see a FAILURE at all.

I've illustrated these two forces at work often, so I won't do it again here, but this article is to give you a new technique to combat both forces - to show you the world more accurately, and specifically, to show you where the "doors" are - the opportunities for you to make positive changes in life.

Your New Key to Opportunity

This technique is simple but not easy.

It's simple because I can explain it to you in five short words - and I will. It's not easy, because it requires that you say these five short words very often indeed when you wouldn't normally be thinking of them.

If you can acquire the habit of doing that, then you'll be increasing your consciousness levels in a specific area - you'll be turning down the dampening effects of your beliefs and your auto-pilot. I've found it wonderfully helpful in my own life, and so have my clients.

Dammit, I should take money off you for this stuff!

If you can respond in this way to many situations - including the apparently irritating and trivial - then you will grow and change your life for the better - despite any other forces trying to stop you.

The magic is twofold - firstly, it's tiny. No big system to learn. No sitting on the floor daubing candle wax hither and thither. No jogging. No 5-module course. Secondly it's driven solidly by self-interest. I find most of us are comfy in that mode

OK - You Have the Key - so Where are these Doors?

They are really everywhere. I'm finding them in new places all the time, and in new kinds of places - and so are my clients. It can become a game, but it delivers results which aren't just funny - they're marvelous. So, here are some from my personal experience.

• I'm driving on the M1 and yet again, the traffic is crawling. The Archers has just started so of course, I must crush that into silence before the "country folk" get to doing what they apparently call "acting" (I guess I just lost a few of you??), and I get down to the business of focusing on being angry. But Wait! [theatrical index-finger-pop-up gesture to audience] - What's in this for me?
  
  Oooh, Well, this is more restful than driving, actually, and I feel a collapse of tension. And - I now have the time I didn't have for a laid-back chat with Steve on my mobile (hands free). With no roaring road noise, and the relaxation that comes with not hurtling through space at 70mph, it was a simply delightful 20 minutes I had not found time for in more than a month. That mantra "What's in it for me" came to me as a reflex. I have learned to associate it with the onset of negative emotions. In that way, it snaps me out of auto-pilot (I have a get-angry-then-rant program which I would normally run when any one of very many aspects of our Great British Nation touch my life), and puts me into a resourceful state. I actually enjoyed my M1 delay and my self-image stepped up a notch. Life is a little bit better.
• I'm hard at work in the office. My in box pings. Well, more of a gentle ding really. Anyway, I scurry over, in a mousy kind of way, hoping for a lewd lady-missive, but no. Some Stupid Spamming Moron sent me email about something that is nothing to do with me. But Wait! [that same ridiculous hand gesture is, I'm thinking, probably optional] What's in This for me?
  
  OK - now I'm snapped out of auto-pilot mode. I have another program called There-are-so-many-selfish-idiots-out-there which I would normally have run (should I be telling you all this??), but my new mantra just kicked it in the crutch, and it's now bent double contemplating its nausea. Hah! Yeah suck it up, program, if that's really your name..
  
  So now, instead, I'm thinking in an entirely different way. I'm not angry, I'm interested. I'm not focusing on a problem, I'm looking for opportunities. And whadyaknow? Ping! Turns out the sender thinks I might be interested in her online book. Well, I'm really not - rodent taxidermy was never my thing, but I AM interested in how she made the book, as I've been thinking about writing an E-Book for some time, but had some un-resolved issues. So we corresponded, and I now know exactly how to do it (and, depressingly, how to mount a ferret..). Life is a little bit better.
• My windows XP computer was getting old and slow, and I was increasingly irritated by having to wait for it to come on, go off, transfer a file, refresh a view or whatever, I'd minimize the annoyance by making tea whilst it was busy or turning my back on it to show it I wasn't concerned. (Pssst... you can't let them know). Then the old index finger did its thing and I wondered ... What's In This For Me?
  
  So again, the autopilot - in this case, running my "cope-with-a-slow-PC-and-try-not-to-hate-it" program was disengaged, and I became more conscious for a while. Well, there's not a lot in a slow PC for me, in the strict sense of the question, but my improved level of consciousness decided enough was enough.
  
  As I type this I'm sitting next to a 2.4 GHz quad-core processor PC, and gazing at a 24 inch wide-screen, flat-screen, scrumptious-screen, monitor. My office experience is now more than a little better, every single day.
• I'm holding a stunning young lady around her waist (bear with me, please). She's looking uncomfortable. Is this an imprisonable offence? Not in a salsa dance class it ain't, but I'm feeling grim anyway, because - though I hate to inflict my aging presence on one so young and comely, it's sort of required for the lesson. Not to hold her is not an option. Ting! Doctor Digit does his Ditty. What's In This For Me?
  
  Hah! Improved consciousness appears, and I recognise that my whole experience of this uncomfortable moment is founded on a belief that the reason she is uncomfortable is because I am an embarrassment to her. Seems pretty solid, but I test, by smiling and saying "You're not looking too happy, I'm sorry - but at least it'll all be over in a minute". She looks at me."Ho no, it's not you - I'm useless at this, and I just trod on that man's foot and he was really fed up with me". I could have said nothing, and just toughed it through, but then I'd have been left with a hurtful belief which was totally untrue. And I think she felt better too. Life got a little bit better.
• I'm standing in line in M&S waiting to pay for my lunch Bento Box, running my "Oh-how-I-hate-queueing-why-don't-they-staff-these-tills-properly-at-lunchtime" program, when - you've guessed it. Mr. Index Finger made his presence felt (no, not there). What was in this for me?
  
  Turns out, it was the lovely little old lady behind me. Humbly patient. Quietly good-natured. Over-ly-coated, as tradition demands. I can't say we shared more than a grin and a couple of grunts but her peaceful countenance showed me how a different mind might experience our queue differently, and by extension - other tedious experiences. That glimpse resonates still, and each time it does, my life is a little better.

So, whenever anger, irritation, sadness or any negative emotion bubbles to the surface, you can try this technique. I'd love to hear about your experiences.