Ask the Dr. Insight from William Brashers, PHD

FMA Guest Blogger

In my prior article, “Vision and its Role in ‘Noticing,’” we introduced the topic of the reticular activating system (RAS) and its effect on what we notice around us. Since that article came out, I’ve learned the name of this “noticing” effect. It’s called the Baader-Meinhof (pronounced BAHder-MYNhoff) phenomenon. It occurs when you become aware of something and afterward spot examples of it everywhere you look. This is not our topic this month, but I thought you might like knowing it has a formal name.

We’ve been looking at vision from a variety of perspectives. We’ve looked at visioning for self-development, shooting futures, etc. This will be our final application of visioning, and it’s one of the most practical uses.

Remember that visions create self-fulfilling prophecies. Previously we focused on the long-term application. This holds true in the very short term also—or rather, the immediate term. If you would like to gain an unfair (or “super-fair”) advantage in an interaction, envision the outcome ahead of time.

We often do this, but in the wrong way. We often envision all the ways the interaction could fail with a thought to preparing for that potential failure. The problem here is that this inclines our thinking to follow that expectation. Many people have tainted the interaction with a pessimistic expectation. If you picture how the interaction could fail, it will fail.
The alternative is to note the potential threats, then move beyond them to picture a wonderfully winning outcome. This leads an entire train of thinking processes to be applied to actualizing this new positive expectation. This is a poor time to be realistic. At this phase, realism will just produce more of the same reality. Visioning involves apprehending an endpoint better than the one for which we were headed.
Motorcycle riders know that to stay safe they have to be careful where they put their eyes, because the bike will naturally track toward their visual point of focus. If you want to miss the pothole in the road, you have to look at the part of the road that isn’t the pothole. You go where you’re looking. Interpersonal interactions act the same way. You go where you’re looking. Look consistently at a wonderful outcome. Try this and enjoy the results.