Your childhood may hold the keys to everything you ever wanted in life. How so, keep reading. It has been said by Buckminster fuller that “everyone is born a genius, but the process of life de geniuses them.”
In fact children in their early years often test at the genius level, but try them again in their teen years and not so much.
I’m not a big fan of IQ tests as they are more or less useless at actually determining someone’s intelligence because your intelligence has nothing to do with your IQ as there are many different kinds of intelligence.
Our school system only recognizes specific qualities helpful if you are in the industrial revolution, but now are in some ways as crucial as which way the toilet paper roll goes on the thing.
Aside from being born geniuses, there are a number of qualities we possessed as children we should take a look at now if we want to succeed at life. Let’s talk about 5 ways you can profit from your childhood.
1. Unlimited thinking
My father lost his government job in his forties. I remember visiting him and he said he was “examining his career options … ‘will there be fries with that…’” This is typical of how many adults look at life.
When you were a child and someone asked you what you wanted to be when you grew up, how did you respond?
For many kids, one day they may say I’m going to be an astronaut, the next day it’s a policeman and maybe the next day they want to be a rock star or something (I once replied I wanted to be a steer, so clearly I had some work to do on my unlimited thinking, but I digress).
Then what happens when we “grow up.” Well, most of us get the message directly or indirectly that we are not being realistic and we have to be “practical and pick one thing we think we can do.
This is of course the opposite of what you need to do to manifest the abundance that is your birthright. You need unlimited thinking.
The only thing stopping you from having anything you want is the emotionalized story you tell yourself about why you can’t have it and the way “reality is.”
The universe is always saying to you “as you wish.” In the words of Henry Ford, if you think you can do a thing or you think you can’t do a thing, your right.”
2. Life is a playground
When you were a child what was the dominant goals of your life? Did you have strict written plans about how you were going to be a massive success? Actually most adults don’t now.
Most people drift through life just doing whatever they think they can do to get by and never try to serious design a life.
However, what did you do as a child? You played. You followed your bliss. Whether that was with dolls or GI Joes or whatever it was for you, you did the things that brought you joy as much as possible.
There are exceptions of course for those who have been traumatized as a child which would actually include everyone in the human race, because trauma in its basic form is unprocessed stress ( just going to school is a form of trauma) but even so, your primary focus for most children is to have fun, not accomplish a goal.
But who are the people around us that are the happiest and the most successful? They are the people who do what they love and love what they do. These people have never worked a day in their lives because it’s not “work” to them.
The best definition of work is from Kahlil Gibran who said “work is love made visible.” You may want to check out our blog post “11 disturbing reasons to neve get a job.”
How does that compare to the masses toiling in self impose d prisons? Want to find your dharma or purpose in life? Follow the things that bring you joy and ask yourself how you can charge money for this. Once you answer that question you will begin to live the life you were born to lead.
3. A New Reality Is A Thought Away
In the first 7 years of a child’s life their brains are rapidly developing. They are in what is known as a theta state, which is like a trance type state, and are very susceptible to ideas impressed upon them. It is in this early phase that they don’t yet have the cognitive ability to discern in some cases truth from opinion and when a parent teacher, peer etc tells them something it is typically accepted as a reality without much question.
Only as a rational adult can we objectively look at a statement and decide whether it’s BS or not, children can’t do this.
The bummer for us is that we develop many beliefs about life in childhood that structure our experience of reality that we are completely unaware of at a conscious level. See our bog post “how to change your subconscious money beliefs for good” for more eon this”
Aside from the task of unearthing what these beliefs are and deciding if they still make sense e.g. one man had a father that told him all his life “our family are laborers, that’s just how it is.”
It wasn’t until years later when he came upon some of these ideas that he realized, now being a laborer, that this idea was BS and didn’t make any sense, was he able to change.
The salient point here is that beliefs are a feeling of certainty.
They are an assumption about the nature of reality often resulting for the influences around us which trigger us to think emotionalized thought s on an endless loop until we’re sure they are a true description of the way reality is. But nothing has any meaning other than what we give it.
Take a lesson form your child self and pretend everything is possible. What would you prefer to believe? Start telling people you respect that this is what you actually believe and watch what happens.
The social pressure alone may force you to be a massive success and there may not be anything you can do to stop it.
Ask yourself, what would someone who lives the life I’m living have to believe? Take the lens of a simulation. From this perspective you are in fact an extension of the universe looking at itself.
If that is true then everyone around you is the same being in different disguises. You don’t need to believe that it is actually true at this point, but just pretend and it will open the door.
This is the most effective way to get back to the state you were in as a child where it was easy to believe something new. What if everything around you was just part of the game?
There are many serious scientists who are compiling evidence that this is precisely how our word works.
It is a holographic simulation of a sort. Pretend for a second that whatever you see, the successful business person the car, the house, the lottery ticket is all an extension of you and that in fact you are not separate from anything; so it is no more difficult to manifest than grabbing a coffee.
There are many who believe this is how it actually works. Check out our blog post “How to finally manifest the money you desire now” for a full explanation
Taking a lesson from your child self and being more open to new ideas you can pick beliefs that are easier to believe. E.G. instead of “I am a billionaire,“ use “it’s now so easy to take on 1 or 2 new clients a week.”
Pick a belief the reality of which were it true would deliver to you your heart’s desire. Make it feel like it’s no big deal to accomplish and watch it unfold in divine timing.
Brian Tracy talks about how the inhibitive and compulsive negative habit patters instilled in children are like emotional cancers from which many other emotional & behavioral patterns spring. He didn’t make this up it came from his research, but this is where I first heard about it – lets discuss…
4. Uninhibited – I Can Do Anything
When you were a child you were uninhibited. Babies laugh, scream shit their pant and don’t feel self-conscious about it.
This is the natural state of a child. The only inherent fear of a child are the fear of falling and loud noises. Everything else we had to learn. When you were a child you felt like you could do anything.
You hadn’t been programed by society that life is a dangerous place and you better fall in line or get hurt.
Of course our parents, understandably so, were a bit concerned when we started to try and touch hot stoves, play with knives or run out in traffic, so they’d say “stop that, get down from there” etc.
But as children we don’t have the mental capacity to understand what is going on or why the parent is upset and so we learn at an early age that I’m too little, I’m too small, I can’t.
This is where one of the first emotional blocks to success comes from. You know it as the fear of failure which is one of the number one killers of all success in adult life.
So, in case you haven’t noticed, you are not a child any more. You are not likely to go run out in traffic. But I can assure you of this: if you let fear have a seat ant the decision making table of your life you’re I in trouble.
You’re not likely to jump off a bridge, but you could go talk to that cute guy or girl you like. You could start that business, make mistakes as we all do, learn from them, and do better next time.
When we go to do these things our nervous system often reacts with a flight or fight response. Which begs the question are our brain’s stupid? When was the last time you had a saber tooth tiger in your kitchen?
Not often I would imagine, but it is the same feeling when we do something scary like that.
You are an adult now.
And you can handle the worst case scenario which is usually that you learned something, for there is no such thing as failure only feedback – whatever you really want to do just go do it because you can handle whatever comes up. We seldom regret the things we do – it is the things we don’t do that we wanted to that we regret to our dying day.
5. Spontaneous – I Don’t Have To Do Anything
“You’re not the boss of me. You can’t make me.” Sound familiar? Children only want to do the things that bring tem joy in the moment. They are spontaneous.
One minute they’ll be doing one thing and then they may be off to something else. Ask a kid and they’ll say “let’s get a swimming pool, let’s go to Disneyland!” What to do adults have to say about this? “You’ll be lucky to get a plastic dingy in the back yard…”
They want them to do boring things like clean up, eat something unappealing or whatever.
Out of frustration or not knowing how else to handle it many parent swill resort to what is termed “withdrawn love.” Where they tell the child “if you don’t, I will, followed by some consequence.
However, as noted the child’s brain is not developed enough to really understand what’s going on and so this is perceived as a withdrawal of love and children need love like roses need rain.
This creates another constellation of emotional cancer known as “The fear of rejection” which is the second big reason for failure in adult life.
Although we do have to take responsibility for the consequences of our actions, the truth is you don’t have to.
To take a lesson from your childhood, you don’t have to go to that job, put up with that relationship or live in that place.
You don’t have to. And the more you put up with things that do not bring joy to your soul the more you smother the breath of life within you.
The antidote to the fear of rejection is self-love. I often tell people to look in a mirror and say “I love you.”
Most people cannot do this. So, if you have to, start with wherever you are at (I might possibly be able t like myself one day for example). Start with a basic “I like myself. Something wonderful is going to happen for me today.
The feeling of liking yourself is one of the most powerful cure-alls to many of our disempowering patterns.
The only limits on what you can do are the ones you impose on yourself. Ask yourself in every situation what someone who loves themselves would do because you can change.
You get to be spontaneous and you don’t have to live your life by anyone else’s imaginary rules. As you follow these principles you inherently knew as a child you in effect take your power back as an adult.
Make it happen,
Liam