#2 | 3 Stages of Belief - Stage 2: Possibility

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In stage two of the Three Stages of Belief we start believing we can systemize self- reliance with our autistic young adults. This stage is all about possibility.

But before we get started I want to tell you about my family in northern Ontario, Canada. Carol and Lawrence have a 15 year old son, who aspires to go to college right after he graduates from high school, just like his older sister.

He tracks his actions in each life domain, daily. Carol and Lawrence's listen to him and record his thoughts together at the end of each day.

They say that this Art of Adulting system is simple, thorough, consistent and effective.

Their son's self reliance skills level up little by little every day. And it's adding up to a lot.

They are impressed with his progress, and finally believe that he will be well prepared for independence in due time. With at least three more years practicing these skills with him at home, they know they are doing their very best to help him create a self-reliant future.

Now let's talk about possibility. We talked about impossibility in the last video, not believing we can help our young adult systemize self reliance and all the signs that were in the first stage of belief impossibilities, not believing.

It's important to think about disbelief is being a stage of belief. Let me say that again, it's important to think about disbelief as a stage of belief, because that's what it is.

The first time something enters our awareness, our brains go to not believing. We bring our goal into awareness and our brains bring up all the things that keep us from believing. And that's the beginning of belief.

Sometimes we use that stage of belief, of disbelief impossibility, not believing, as something to freak out about.

But what if we didn't?

What if we recognize is as a part of belief. It can change everything about the way that we deal with and I'm sure it's going to change everything about transitioning into possibility, and toward belief. Because if we don't notice impossibility, we never have the opportunity to try and believe and achieve.

In the early days raising our differently-wired children. I couldn't find resources to help me understand how to support them. Maybe your young adults are the same age as mine. Autistic kids were just beginning to attend school in the 90s. Our kids didn't even have ASD diagnoses. Instead we had other labels: nonverbal learning disorder, generalized anxiety, ADHD, dyslexia, dyscalculia, dysgraphia.

I didn't understand why we struggled to systemize self-reliance with our children. So I experienced none of the things we talked about in the last video. I didn't justify not going after it, or avoiding it, or discrediting. Nothing, because I didn't even have the opportunity to not believe it was possible for our family. Are you with me?

So disbelief in possibility is great, it's where we start. And I love to tell all my families that this is just the beginning.

Okay, so let's dive into possibility, because if you can take on this concept that maybe disbelief is an amazing thing because it brings into your consciousness, and now you're recognizing all the stages of disbelief. See like, "Oh, here we go, I'm in the first stage of belief."

And then you're in that stage where you want to move into possibility, you're not in resistance, you're starting to open up.

And so you're like, "Okay, let's try on some possibility today," with this thing that I don't yet fully believe.

I want to give you some markers for how to get into that state of possibility.

So rather than confusion when we're in the stage of impossibility, it looks like we're in the stage of impossibility. Now we experience curiosity. It's the biggest difference between impossibility, and possibility because impossibility is a lot of justification and a lot of excuses and objections and confusion and defensiveness, whereas possibility is fueled by curiosity.

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So in this stage your thoughts shift from, "I don't know," to, "Maybe I could help my young adult systemize adulting." This is where you think about the possibility of making progress, just like it's possible.

I'm sure that out of the 50,000 families with autistic young adults graduating from high school in 2021 that one of them is systemizing self-reliance together. Wonder what they're doing? What's working for them?

I ask my families to ask themselves if it were possible, if it were possible to systemize self-reliance. If it were possible that you could actually help your young adult make predictable progress, creating a life that they love, that works, what would that be like? What would you be like? What would change about the way that you're living your day?

I like to get super curious about that. I think about that for all the things I don't think are possible. I think what if it were possible? Interesting.

Let's just go there and imagine what it would be like.

I watched my son go through all these stages when he decided to take the dreaded math classes at our local community college.

It took nearly a decade. But he finally realized that he didn't believe. He was in disbelief. But after talking to him for hours on our walks. Finally, the door opened up and he was willing to entertain that it could be possible that he could take math.

And I told him that I'd be with him every step of the way, in any way that I could to help but he had to get it done.

And he took that class and he got an A+. That gave him the confidence then to really believe it was possible for him to take the next math class.

Now that one was harder he ended up with a, I don't know, a low B or a high C, but he did it, he passed it.

And then he took psychology, and that was tough because it had all these online, you know exercises that you had to do, and those just didn't fit well with him. But we figured out how to make that work for him, and he got it done.

He moved from impossibility to possibility. And then, even when he wanted to quit, we decided to stick with it, and it became inevitable, and he passed those three classes. No problem.

Again, if you're not taking action, if you're not doing something about this possibility, and not getting results from doing something about it. You're in impossibility.

But if it were possible, that's when your brain says, Oh, I could probably do something. I could probably do this little thing, this incremental tiny baby step inchworming thing to make it more possible.

That's when we practice possibility. Okay, so how do we get to that stage, how do we go from our brain saying that's never going to happen to, it's totally possible it could happen.

You know it's not trying to figure out the impossible as if it were a Rubik's Cube, I mean it's not going into frantic, Oh my god, how do I get them to decide what they want, how do I get them to take action. How do I get everyone on board with this process. Should we apply from SSI should we apply for SSDI or is it better to get them a job, them thinking about college courses, and are they ever going to, you know, clean their room, and their bodies on a regular basis.

That just creates pressure, and that doesn't get us to possibility that keeps us stuck in impossibility. The only way to shift massive thinking at a deep level, that actually changes our results. The only way to do this is we have to go all in.

We can't just be interested in playing with the idea. We can't just dabble in the idea of whether our thoughts create our results or not. We can't just tip toe in the water. We invest to really see that believing and thinking it is possible, is what will create it.

So believing systemizing self-reliance is impossible. Just having that disbelief is what's making it not possible for us.

Instead if we believed that it were possible, we would be taking way more action on it. We'd show up in a way that's different, because we believed it was possible. We have to really notice that.

Sometimes we forget that our thoughts create our results. And we think something else is creating that result. For example, we think that we haven't made progress because of COVID. But COVID isn't creating you, isn't making you not systemized self reliance.

When people ask, How do I help my autistic young adults create results, I asked them to think about what if they were making predictable progress. How would we think, how would we feel, what would we do? Imagine what it would be like.

And listen, I know we're all loving parents and grandparents, but it's not the human condition to immediately ask ourselves, what we are and aren't believing that is creating the result. It's not the human condition to say, why don't we see any progress these past few months. What was I thinking that created that?

But noticing that that's what's happening, will help us help them make more progress than anything else, ever.

And the faster we can help them understand that their thought is what's creating or causing them to have that result, the better.

Maybe you had the thought that there's no way you're going to see progress this week, because you don't even know how to coach yourself, let alone. Coach, your autistic young adult.

That's a thought I used to have it you know it's just there's no way I could make progress coaching my younger autistic young adult, I don't have the skills. I've never practiced these skills on anyone, even on me.

So it felt impossible. But, the faster we noticed that thought, just that thought, "There's no way I can coach myself or them," the faster, we're going to empower ourselves to change what we're thinking, and then create what we want, and become the best adulting coach, we could ever be.

And know this: coaching is parenting. So the better coach, you become the better parent, you'll become.

In the beginning it takes time. And over time, we will get good at it, as we're going to practice this for the rest of our lives. Being a parent of adult children, is going to be a responsibility we have for the rest of our lives. So let's get curious about it.

When we allow ourselves to go to the good kind of fantasy land where whatever we think is possible. It does in fact become possible. And we just start thinking about it from that place, over and over again, we just think if it's possible to systemize self-reliance with our autistic adults. It is possible we can help them create a life, they love that works.

What if it really is possible. We just have to keep bringing that up. Let's think about how possibility feels, it feels open, it feels curious, it feels hopeful. It feels, imaginative, it feels energizing. It feels amazing.

This year, one of the thoughts I've been practicing is, "It's possible to help 100 autistic young adults systemize adulting with their families, working 30 hours a week in the next year."

It's just a thought that gets me going. I love the possibility of it. And I think it's a huge area of growth for me because I tend to overwork. So to be able to just step out of impossibility, and into possibility. The more peaceful place of it. What if it were possible, that I could totally help 100 families systemize self reliance in the next 12 months. I get excited just thinking about that.

To help 100 families, I need to think about believing that I could, that I'm smart enough that I have the right experience to create a process that people could follow, and get results. I dedicate actual time and energy to this every day.

Now, that doesn't mean I scheduled it on my list and turn it into a task that's going to turn it into an energy drain. I keep it fun. It's something I look forward to. It's my possibility time. That's how I think about mine.

And I hope my young adults learn how to think and possibility, too.

Okay so now I want to teach you another way to get into possibility. Do you know that the same way you talked yourself into a cookie or one more episode of your favorite show, or sleeping, instead of getting up when you want to get up.

The way you could talk to yourself into splurging on a pair of shoes that you really want. That's how you talk yourself into possibility. And here's how.

Talk yourself through it. Why is it possible? Answer yourself. Don't take, I don't know for an answer every day. Tell yourself why position it to yourself, sell it to yourself. If you want to get good at selling self-reliance to your young adult, you've got to sell yourself.

First, start recording your thoughts, every day, ask yourself, why is it possible that I can help my young adult systemize self-reliance? How is it possible that they could learn how to create a life. They love that works. How is that possible? Make yourself answer, and start creating lists every day, here are the reasons why I'm going to get what I want.

Ask yourself and come up with new answers every day. It's actually amazing, energizing, invigorating.

If it did happen, how would I feel?

What would I do carry that vibration throughout your day. How would you carry yourself. It's a harm, it just gets me going. And if you can't answer something, and if you're thinking about it and you get stuck in your brain just move on. It's important that you spend the time in the feeling of possibility.

I think figuring out the details is more, where it goes wrong for me and my families. They start asking, we start asking ourselves how. And then we take our brain back from believing to not believing because the how just isn't clear yet, because if they knew how to make progress predictable, they would have already done it. we have to figure this out and everything is figure-out-able.

We don't know how until after we've done it. This video is not about figuring out exactly how. It's the why. It's how we get our brain into the place where we can figure it out.

When we look for that detailed step by step, we really move out of possibility and back into possibility. That's what keeps us from taking action, thinking that we need to know every single step before we take action.

This is about staying there. In that feeling of possibility, and the more often and longer we stay in it, the more possible, it becomes. The more real, it starts to become the clear, it will start to get in our minds. Eventually, maybe the first time but more likely the 10th time, we'll be inspired to take one step toward it.

We'll take that step, just one, again we never let ourselves get stuck, and then we find our possibilities again. As soon as we take that step, we just keep going.

Okay so here's how it looks so far, when we're in a possibility we spend time just imagining if it were possible. Every day. No pressure, just talk, taking yourself to the impossible, being done being totally possible for you. The more you think of possibility, the more it starts to seem possible. The more we notice it, the more it grows into our awareness, the more possible it becomes.

And we work that all day, until we get it, get ourselves believing this so possible that we start and keep taking action. And those actions we've taken, mixed with our belief that is possible, add up. They start producing results here and there just little ones, it will start seeming more possible. Once we start getting those little results.

All right my friend, I will talk to you in the next video. We're going to dive into inevitability. We're going to break it down and talk about how to get there, incrementally.

And now, remember if you do want to dive deeper into these three stages of belief, and use these to propel you through the adulting process that I teach, to help your young adult create a life, they create that life, that they love that works, you want to join the art of adulting.

It's a really incredible way to get the support that helps. The deep dive to understand not just how to coach yourself but also how to help your artistic young adult create that mindset that holds everything together. Even more gone.

We will do every part of the process to notice our thoughts, and that our thoughts create our results and how our mindset works and how to self coach and coach others.

So if you want to be a part of the Art of Adulting just click on one of the links on the page where you found this video and get started.

I'll see you in the next video. Bye for now.