Quantum Leap Thinking

• Those who are always learning are those who can ride the winds of change and who can see a changing world as full of opportunities rather than dangers.
• When we choose one opportunity, other possibilities move to the background. Thus we alter our reality all the time. The things we do not choose are a potential reality.
  
• Paradigm shifting is a matter of choosing to create a new reality out of what we believe to be true.
• The first step toward taking a quantum leap is to be willing to examine the filter of your own belief systems.

• Real learning begins with questions: What do I want to create? Who am I? What is my purpose? How does this work? How do I get what I want?
• Never, never rest contented with any circle of ideas, but always be certain that a wider (better) one is still possible.
• It takes courage to test your ideas because you must be willing to have them fail.
• Turning judgment into curiosity opens the channel for learning.
• Be humble, for the worst thing in the world is of the same stuff as you; be confident, for the stars are of the same stuff as you.
• Success, however, can often be the kiss of death because it breeds complacency. Comfort can lead to stagnation.
• The process of creative thinking is simply the ability to see something not seen before, bringing something new out of a rearrangement of the old. The destruction of the old gives birth to the new.
• Only by using your imagination can you shift paradigms and bring forth the invisible.
• Creative ideas come to the intuitive person who can face up to the insecurity of looking beyond the obvious.
• Being busy does not necessarily mean being creative or productive.
• Busy-ness is often an unconscious choice to avoid reflection.
• In inner creativity, the quantum jump allows us to break from established patterns of behavior (what we have become as a result of our years of conditioning and growing up.)
• By changing the way you look at things, you bring the background to the foreground; you bring forth unseen possibilities.
• Assumptions are the death of possibility.
• The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable man persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man.
• Very few people take the time to truly define the problems they’re trying to solve. Until they do, no solution will work.
• There is always more than one right answer.
• No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.
• We either create our circumstances or accept circumstances that have been imposed on us.
• With a shift in thinking, we are suddenly outside the box- and that is where the possibilities are.
• Change is the law of life and those who look only to the past or the present are certain to miss the future.
• Adapting to change is simple to talk about, difficult to execute, painful in the process, yet much less exhausting than fighting it.
• The truth about change is that, positive or negative, it creates loss. All change involves giving up something. We fear loss and resist change.
• Change can occur only after the pain of realizing that current behavior can no longer be tolerated.
• To attain what we want (the desired state), we must pass through the uncertain, uncomfortable phase of the transition state.
• Every change looks like a failure in the middle.
• You want long-term change, not a series of quick fixes.
• What doesn’t get measured doesn’t get done.
• Most people say, “I’ll believe it when I see it.” The truth is we see it when we believe it.
• You must challenge your assumptions. You must see the world through the eyes of others. You must honor others’ fears regardless of your own judgment.
• Make a contract with yourself. Write a contract stating exactly what change you intend to make and set a deadline for yourself. By entering into a written contract with yourself, you become your own coach.
• Failure doesn’t exist, only learning.
• Paraphrase what the other person says so they know you heard every word.
• No matter what life presents you, you have two choices about how you respond. Resist, deny, and blame, or experience the fear and look for all the possibilities that change inherently offers. 

• The skill of enlarging goals is the willingness to answer the question “Is this as big a game as I want to play?”
• A paradigm is a set of rules, mind-sets, regulations, or procedures that create boundaries or limitations and tell you how to conduct your behavior within those boundaries or limitations in order to meet with success. (A paradigm is a filter through which we perceive, interpret, and understand our reality and our options.)
• We see the world not as it is, but as we are.
• We interpret our experiences through our mental maps without ever questioning their accuracy.
• We have met the enemy and he is us.
• Goals are absolutely necessary and absolutely limiting.
• Unfortunately most of us limit ourselves without knowing it. The goals we set are easily achieved, short-term maintenance goals.
• Goals are baby steps to get you up the mountain.
• Goals are just dreams with deadlines.
• If there is tension, there must be resolution. A life of anxiety and worry is barely a life at all.
• People become discouraged and bitter because they operate from the belief that the problem lies somewhere “out there” and not within themselves.
• A quantum leap will take place only when you see things as they really are, not as you wish them to be.
• Vision is always something beyond ourselves; otherwise you’re far too near-sighted.
• Wealth, like happiness, is never attained when sought after directly. It always comes as a by-product of providing a useful service.
• Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition form mediocre minds.
• Start at the beginning with the end in mind.
• We are what we repeatedly do.
• You have unlimited choices and you may choose to do whatever you like to do, as long as you are willing to pay the price.
• Just because you do your job doesn’t mean you’re committed to the job you’re doing.
• The fault-finder will find faults even in paradise. Love your life.
• When there is correct thought, the right action follows.
• You create your reality twice: first in your imagination and then in the world (Change follows image).
• With every choice we make, we give up some other possibility.
• All fear grows out of the core fear of loss.
• Is this fear really energy in disguise? Fear is a signal that you are stretching (beyond your comfort zone).
• You need to separate the person from what is being criticized. Maintaining someone’s self-esteem is the number one priority for empowerment.
• Those with the courage to commit (to anything worthy) are the ones with passion, energy, and enthusiasm.
• You will commit only when the deepest part of you wants to. Commitment doesn’t suddenly, magically, appear, but the choice to commit can create seemingly magical outcomes.
• Take calculated risk. That is quite different from being rash.
• Risk taking is the spice of life. Risk taking means growth and innovation. Taking risks is stretching to meet your potential.
• Good risk takers are extremely cautious people. An extraordinary amount of intelligence goes into preparing for their activities. They have analyzed every factor that can operate against them.
• Not taking risks is far more dangerous than taking them. Not taking risks accelerates the aging process.
• The person who risks nothing does nothing, has nothing, and is nothing.
• There are two things to aim at in life: first to get what you want; and after that to enjoy it. Only the wisest people achieve the second.
• You never conquer the mountain; you only conquer yourself.
• The majority of people are neither for nor against you; they are merely thinking about themselves.
• Wealth is the product of a man’s capacity to think.
• A person cannot do right in one department of life while attempting to do wrong in another. Life is one indivisible whole.
• Most anxiety and stress is caused by living in a dead past or an unborn future. Guilt from the past. Fear of the future. Healing, however, is in the present.
• Let us not look back in anger or forward in fear but around us in awareness.
• Invisible opportunities surround us all the time. In order to see them, we have to pay attention. Everything comes alive when you focus on it.   

Source: Quantum Leap Thinking by James Mapes