Anything is possible and that's the problem. Or is it?: Khara Plicanic at TEDxLincoln

when I was in elementary school we had a collection at motivational posters that hung around the walls in the classroom and one of a favorite ones said "anything is possible if only you believe" and the word belive was written in italic so you knew it was a really serious, right. And I was a believer. I believed in wonder and curriousity I believed imagination and being pleasantly surprised and I believed in fat chances and long shots and underdogs and I very much to believed in myself and the idea that if I worked hard enough I could make anything possible. So to me those words were more than just inspirational it was a license to move mountains. And I never forgot that and to this day I still take those words very much to heart and when people would see only a slim chance I was focused on possibility So it was kind of like the scene from the movie dumb and dumber where Jim Carrey's character is in love with Lauren Holly's character but she tells him that his chances of a relationship with her are like one-in-a-million but instead of being devastated he says so you're seeing there's a chance right and my belief in my personal life my belief ten had literally taken me all around the world and that led to all kind of really exciting adventures like owning my own business and becoming a published author and more recently atlantic completing a thirty two hundred milem bicycle ride across the country all the way from california to florida believing in possibility give us straight petrol pump grow it is not competent to be able to take rexx and like alike at the end of our respective tunnel it gave us a strength to keep going when we have every excuse to quit our belief powerful they're still powerful that they can literally be calm our realities it turned out that it can doesn't really matter of our beliefs are accurate or even anywhere near realistic really matters is that we believe their possible resolving the by it on the back because i believe how does so much power if we're not careful but what we believe any and where their beliefs arlene s do more harm been good mind belief in possibility gave me a lot of competent it also led me to worried a lot about anything in everything and how it can all possibly go rotten and one game range i was eleven years old i suddenly started worrying my hands were dirty and i needed to watch them aboard a narrower after using the bathroom all the time and if i even tried to think about not washington they would feel silicon thirty have to watch them again and again and again and again and again hand-written at times today and selby became rock and they were ready it mean actually look like i had blood on there with the line at my rest and beware cracking and bleeding but i couldn't stop because i would just think about all the things that you could possibly catch from touching a doorknob or door handle ur what about the chair and someone who's been in that chair probably punch the door handle and who knows what else oh my god what's the big tax and he just went on and i'm like that and then i'd have to watch us might relented only ten possibility have become start west and but i would absolutely convinced that if i didn't watch often enough for well enough for and precisely the right way any number of horrible things would happen and that the window like and uninvited guests they just can't get rid of obsessive-compulsive disorder jess setup on my doorstep and bars right into my life quite without permission i will say can rely on that landed experiencing having name but i didn't know back it was awful it was so exhausting and it with really humiliating and completely degrading but i think they are bad eleven right i knew something was wrong i knew that whatever i was feeling and thinking it would not normal and i know that it would completely irrational that didn't matter because guess what there was not post are on the wall we really need that taking with possible and so i scrapped and of my belief that surender everything alf dot works now research senate that the more strongly believe in something the more we tend to overlooked anything that live out fine about believer anything that contradicts that the week not wearing i will become more focused on whatever it is that we're looking for are looking act the more we tend to fade only backed fell its feel like when you buy new priya for something and a new year out driving around in family seemed like everybody's driving and nutria third whenever right you've been there here at the end of actually mean for that's it's called confirmation by and it's effects can literally be blinding so in my case might buckhead pet becomes so in the realm that cartoon feet literally what'd danger and catastrophe and absolute horror just lurking around every single part of everywhere we depart with made me horribly anxious cd vastly and anxiety disorders so correlating says and the more society came the more miro men folk if the cake and the more narrow my focus became the more real everything all those fears that the more real they felt is just a portable cycle financially and started skipping out on all kinds of things giving out on life and i waited i'm out of school but i would fit certain classes i actually skipped respect one of the kid who skipped respect anime loves field trip but i would stay home sick on fieldtrip dave all in an effort to just keep myself safe so i thought and it's really too avoid anything that might trigger yet another anxiety attack we got to the point where leaving my house or my bedroom became a real talent but if he had turned my belief in possibility against me and confirmation bias with that accomplice and in the twenty two years pants it have been a constant weekend means l_c_d_ with medication and therapy but there is no sheer so some days i have the upper hand in sunday's ally doubt began event that most of you don't have a cd gave it turned out not everyone can be felt lucky only about one percent of the population can speak that claim but you are not union it to be a factor confirmation bias and the way that can distort your thinking in turn your belief against the o so whether that means that you don't perceive that give this idea that you have had for years because all you can see art weed that you would certainly fail or maybe you're avoiding the trip of a lifetime because everywhere you look you find a reason not to go whenever you let your belief whether just any belief art especially fear based police whenever you'd like to drive your focus to sit in a row corner you are literally holding yourself back in cutting yourself off from a world of possibilities in a very real way what do you do fair question you challenge yourself and uribl week and instead only focusing on things that confirm them you have to train yourself court even force yourself to widen your perspective and actively seek out other possibilities but you couldn't see before acquired that you simply refused she would not explore them and spend time and then let benefit when around your head and do well and then with as much passing and energy as you previously spent dwelling on your fears that's what they teach you in though cd therapy it's com balancing your thinking felt could that trip that you want to take turn out to be a disaster absolutely aidid but what if it's not a disaster what it's actually fun when you learn something new about yourself for the world blacked out welcome other traits that you've taken before i mean from in some of them turned out pretty great internet entirely possible that this trip could be great to know nearly one in the bathroom note though within your thinking ten something the even your said than done especially if you're having to battle against cd in your own mural chemistry and fighting against him so it really takes commitment ongoing lifelong commitment and in my case speedy flared up now and then and recently it flared up pretty bad make it actually really bad and i couldn't handle it on my own that's about it dot i went to get some help i found myself in eight fare cuts off it where i was quickly told that might have actually still has to be here that green into dirac everything leave thirty-hour leave town we defeat and tech myself into a long-term care clinic and i was barely able to leave the house at that time enemy near constant state of panic that was devastating a new things had gone from bad to mary much worse but now i don't care about finland giving up on me and my minded started racing and immediately started focusing in on a fantastic writing all the horrible way but my wife was about to fall apart and break into a million tiny pieces it took a deep breath and we did that level both cd patient i y into my focus to get some perspective in rebalance me thinking and that's what i realized therapist who had given up on me did so after only weeks i met that i was indeed a really really bad or maybe it with possible so what i have all e completely irrational things that i had spent the last one did you hear that my lifetime so certainly not to believe and suddenly found resolve wondering why is it really hurt and that clean things changed and suddenly i had option oxen's i could it be before that included finding in different market right and that's what i began to climb out of this whole that i had been in for more than six months for the better part of the year really and i'd begin to put my life back together again not no one really knows for sarah ware our beliefs come from or how our brains decide what the reality let's not but i believe if we can find a way to consciously arlene the belief that we have to over her belief rather than letting our belief phone than anything for really a m