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What We Are Calling Impossible, Is It Truly The Opposite Of Possible?

We consider we know how things are, but in reality, all we know is what we think.

What if what we are labeling as “impossible” is simply our current way of thinking about that?

I don’t propose that everything that looks impossible to us is actually possible, as the Adidas slogan: “Impossible is nothing”. What I’m saying is: watch out, you may be labeling as impossible conditions you dont know how to imagine or think as possible.

• What if impossible is the way we call everything we don’t know?
• What if whenever we say “impossible” it is just a statement about our own current ability to imagine it?

Rather a projector than a camera

Our brains work less as a filming camera and more like a projector. The British professor of cognitive neuroscience, Anil Seth, put it this way: “Less of what you see is what you get, and more of what you get is what you see.” This might sound a bit complicated, but the fact is: our perception while working with signals coming into the brain from the outside world, depends as much, if not more, on perceptual predictions from the brain to the outer world. We don’t just passively perceive the world; we actively generate it.

The world we experience comes as much, if not more, from the inside out as from the outside in.

For that reason is vital to differentiate: things that are Uncontrollable from things that are Indeterminate

There is a BIG difference between what we can not control (or have influence over) vs. what we don’t know.

Because of that (with some restrictions) science can not demonstrate you can’t. All it can say is that the way you tried didn’t work. For a great example of this, take a look at the counter clock study.

The reason we don’t accomplish something.

Knowing why we do not get the things we say we want, could be an excellent way to discover how we can make them happen. We may have failed in thinking about how they could happen. Why ‘people’ fail to run the project of “their dreams?….wait… it is actually their psychology that ‘fails’.

In his book “creating the impossible,” Michael Neil, in a scanty-scientific manner but based on 21 years of working with high performers creating impossible projects, proposed a list of the 3 reasons why a project is Not achieved:

1. It is never started. The person thinks it is too late, too expensive, too complicated. Or something along the lines of I am not prepared enough, or ready, or have the experience, the education, the time …. enough.”
2. People stop before making it happen: mostly because of 3 reasons: they were not having fun, thought would not happen, or thought it was too difficult.
3. People run out of time. Actually, the timeframe was too short for what really was needed, meaning the timeframe was usually a self-imposed expectation at the beginning of the process.

From the above years of experience, seems those failures come from the way people thought things would have unfolded vs. the experienced reality: the misalignment of our thought vs. reality. It does not mean “Doesn’t work”; it is rather: “In the initial way I thought, is not working.”

Do not believe everything you think and choose the thoughts that serve you.

One of the things I feel happy about today is to have launched a startup primary school project in Uganda (an entire ‘real’ school for kids). What did I do that make that happen?… It was only thinking: I can do that!. Nothing more, nothing less. But until I didn’t think I could, it was (truly) impossible (for me).

Great, but HOW!?

1. When in doubt, Start. “Just” that. If you are still, start to move. Start. Just do it.
2. “Do the best you can until you know better. Then when you know better, do better.” — Maya Angelou. Start with the best you know. Type something, start to draw, cut, or speak… you’ll know more, and then apply the new information to make it better.
3. Do not stop until you have Created something: You did not create something until it stands on its own two feet (or whatever number of feet your creature has :-)). Someone should be able to ‘see’ it and experience it. Do not stop until then.
4. Retreat. Take perspective. Return. There are a series of circuitry on our brain that forms a network called the default mode network. This region is where your intuitive, nonlinear problem-solving abilities live. That area works when you are doing active routine tasks (as driving a car or cleaning your kitchen). Take distance by doing something else; the next time you sit at it, you will have a different taste, or you’ll come up with a great solution (maybe even before you get to sit with it again).

Impossible comes from our thinking and Creating comes from nothing. When I started this morning typing these words, I had no idea where I was going to land. I let myself go and now there is something that was not here before, standing in two feet for someone to see, read, or experience: By being more of an Explorer and less of a Researcher, we change our “impossibles”.

Good Luck :-))