When you write down your perspective of a particular situation, you naturally begin to build a story around that scenario. A story with a history, a desire and a feeling. You are able to create a reference point in your brain that holds onto a good reason to manifest the desire that means something to you.

It’s one thing to think you want to do something, it’s another to actually do the thing- regardless of knowing deep down it is in your best interest.

When your mind receives new information, you could be missing an important link to the reason you want to succeed in life and that new found info. You don’t need to have attention deficit for new information to distract you from what you set out to do in the first place.

Luckily, using AI gives your brain a large enough seed to grow your desire out of your mind and into reality. Because the new information you take in will be related to your seed, therefore growing it. Weather it be that you get a ‘feeling’ you need to get ‘back to work’ or you find natural connections to achieving your goal- the brain will take over and MAKE you choose things to develop the desire because that is what you have put your intention/ attention to.

How to Use Appreciative Inquiry to Achieve Your Desired Results

The body is an interconnected neuromechanical system. As you practice a task, your cerebellum soon overrides conscious thought to perform the task, such as learning to write your name. If you had to think about the steps necessary to write your name, one might assume you are suffering from amnesia or other brain disorders that make simple tasks difficult to carry out. However, for most of us- writing our name becomes second nature after doing it thousands of times. You might have even developed your own signature, a specialized symbol of your name unique to your identity, like a fingerprint. 

Your cerebellum is a compact cauliflower looking structure in the back lower part of your head, inside your skull just below the layer of hair, skin, fascia, muscle, bone, some cushiony matter and CS fluid and there it is- the hindbrain, lizard brain, unknown mass of wonder, the least understood part in our brains and the most useful. 

AI aka 4D Cycle or 5D Cycle- there is variation, but I like the 5D version the best.

What is AI? No, not of the artificial intelligence nature. I assure you, this AI is representative of 100% pure natural human intelligence. Appreciative Inquiry is a method of business management decision making I learned about in my second year of undergrad as I was earning my business admin degree, it is a corporate management tool coined in the late 1980’s. However, I believe AI can be used as a system of decision making beyond business.

 My professor was a long time Executive VP, Chief Operating Officer at The YMCA of Greater New York City Area and had a wealth of knowledge to share from his experience. So I listened. When AI was presented as an option for us to apply to an assignment on management techniques for decision making, the process resonated with me deeply. There were other options given, such as a pro and con list, a method to weigh out what was tried and failed to avoid in the future, and a few others that I didn’t look at because AI was set apart enough for me to know that was the method I was going to use. The main reason was because the other methods had focused on negatives that came with the decisions made by the companies. I like AI because the objective is to look at what IS working, what is doing well and building on those qualities.

It reminds me of manifesting, the Abraham Hicks kind, the Napoleon Hill kind. The kind of manifesting that requires a desire to be acquired in reality from focus and action. AI gives a nice rule to follow in that it always starts with: 

A clear definition to what is the focus of your attention

Appreciating what is- what do you like about what is already happening in your reality of the situation in which you are seeing improvement. 

Now is a wonderful time to reflect and develop gratitude towards where you stand in the present moment on the subject you are inquiring about. The tool of AI is used when you like to create something in your life that you want and do not currently see in your material world. If you do have everything you could ever want in life and are perfectly content with your reality being grateful for that in which you have could still be useful! But, you may not need this tool. This is for gains, results, and accessing the part of your brain that writes your name without thinking too much about it. After using AI in your decision making processes, you will find the things in which you desire come easier to you and do in fact manifest into your reality by following the steps and cycle of AI. After going through the process a few times, you will find your brain automatically follows the steps that you have laid out for it to fulfill the desires you put your attention to. 

HOW you get these desires is not your business. From what I understand, there are forces in the Universe that are acting outside of our control. What we can control is WHERE we put our attention and focus (See Inhibition of Focus and the Power of Belief in subsequent blog posts). 

How we come to be is nothing more than stories we tell ourselves to make sense of the infinite realm of creation. No scientists, doctors, religious leaders or your mom can explain. We rely on statistics, mathematical equations, theories, wives tales and tradition to shape our perception of how things happen. I am suggesting by the support of polarity that it can all be true or none of it be true and that what makes being alive on planet earth so exciting. If you knew exactly how things were going to happen, you would be very bored with life. There would be little surprise and it doesn’t explain why our brains feed for the rewards that come with the unknown. Take Pavlov’s Dog experiment for example, the dog hears a bell- no reaction. The dog hears the bell and gets a treat- oo yay yummy treat. Pair the bell with the treat given to the dog a couple more times and when that dog hears that bell the literal neurons in the dogs brain will fire as if it already received the treat regardless if the treat is given to him again. If you are familiar with the US version of The Office, you might remember when Jim trains Dwight to take the mint everyday by offering the mint and sounding an associative bell. One day Jim sounds the bell and Dwight automatically sticks his hand out to receive the mint, Jim does not have a mint for him. Now Dwight looks ridiculous sitting there with his hand out for seemingly no reason, the audience gets a laugh and I get an example for this point I’m going to make soon.  

You see, the brain across species lives in repetition, associations and rewards. Humans are special because we tell ourselves stories of how something happened because it is a story we believe to be the truth. That truth has provided us with the rewards in our life. Those rewards have made us who we are and they shape our identity. I’m not suggesting your life is a lie and is boiled down to basic conditioning psychology. I’m simply proposing that how your life comes to be is not entirely in your control but, what is in your control is the attention you put towards these stories, what narrative you believe to be true and developing with a clear vision what you would like them to look, feel, taste, and sound like. 

What is your dream? What do you want? Why would having the thing improve your current situation? Again, AI is useful in the betterment of flow, function, and freedom from what hasn’t been working because you don’t pay attention to those details with this system. Bonus: The byproduct of using the AI system is developing a positive mindset which has numerous health benefits backed by science, here is an article by Johns Hopkins. 

Actionable items: 

Get out a blank piece of paper and pen, write down one thing in your life you’d like to see improvement with, this is called your inquiry. Key: Be specific. 

Next, write down what about your inquiry you appreciate. Sure, you want to improve your situation but, surprise, the key here is to be specific also. What do you like about your inquiry? In other words, what is something about it that you’d like to keep in the future. Remember, the point of this is to change your situation for the better so naming what you appreciate will lay down the foundation for the steps ahead. This is a crucial step in the process of AI and the more specific appreciation you have about your inquiry the more you will have to work with to improve it. It is called Appreciation Inquiry, afterall.