Five strategies for living in infinite possibility

Jeff Loehr
Aug 23, 2017 · 4 min read

Life is full of possibility.

There is more possibility available to us than we can comprehend.

Think of possibility as something you haven’t done. It is something that could be. It exists in what we don’t do or aren’t doing.

Therefore it exists more in what we don’t know or aren’t aware of than what we do know or understand.

Think of it this way: if we fully understand a possibility it passes into reality and becomes a part of what we have done or a part of the past. It is no longer a possibility; it is history.

So since what you know, or what any of us knows, is merely a small drop in an ocean of potential knowledge, the potential for possibility is essentially limitless.

Everything we know comes from everything we have done and seen. All of our experiences combine to delineate what we know and what we don’t know. If we stick to this experience, we severely limit our possibilities.

  • If Gates had only stuck to what he knew, he wouldn’t have written DOS.
  • Jobs wouldn’t have invented the iPod.
  • Humans would never have ventured into space.

The extraordinary lives in the possibilities we create, in the exploration of what we don’t know. Through looking around a corner, exploring a new place or new idea or having a conversation with new people we can start to find, define and refine possibilities that take us to a whole new place.

But most of us insist on living in the realm of what we already understand and what we have already done. We constrain ourselves by having the same conversations with the same people, by sticking doggedly to our beliefs and by insisting that our experience is the best insight we have on what is possible.

RATHER THAN EXPLORE POSSIBILITIES WE USE OUR EXPERIENCE TO INVENT CONSTRAINTS.

Children don’t have this limitation. When you ask them what they want to be when they grow up, they live unconstrained in possibility. None of them says: well I don’t have much experience with anything so when I grow up, I guess I won’t be able to do anything.

They live in what is possible, in their imagination and what they can create.

We can do this too. Here are five ways I have found to help explore possibilities:

1. Be bored and let your mind wander.

We spend so much time connected that we never let our brains slow down and think differently. We are always responding to pings and alarms that eat up our mental capacity. But if we take a few minutes to shut it all off and just be “in the moment” our minds will start to wander in interesting, mysterious ways. Such wandering helps us get out of what we know and into the realm of possibility.

2. Look for new interpersonal experiences.

If you tell your best friend that you want to take up underwater basket weaving, they will immediately list 25 reasons why you definitely shouldn’t do that. That is because our social systems are set up around our experiences, and what we know, our friends are an extension of our body of experience. So, seek out new people. Have new conversations and learn from their experience.

3. Pursue your interests and passions.

Maybe you are not the best underwater basket weaver yet, but if you are passionate about it, you will have the drive to learn.

4. Allow for fun.

Fun helps us see things in a different light. We let our guard down when we are having fun, and that brings us touch with our true selves. Fun can ignite new interests, passions, and curiosities that lead us to new possibilities.

5. Find ways to act.

As soon as we have an idea, the immune system built from our experience will move to shut that idea down. Taking action is the antidote; it creates a new universe of experience and rewires our understanding of what is possible. Rewiring doesn’t happen by thinking about or planning something, only by acting. So find ways to take action immediately.

If we want a life of limitless possibility, we need to reach out and grab it. The limitations we face are in our mind:

“The only limits to the possibilities in your life tomorrow are the buts you use today.”
- Lee Brown

So in a world of limitless possibilities, what will you create?

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Jeff Loehr

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