[This post is part of a series on The Model — my model for the human emotional system designed for use in leadership, self-awareness, and general purpose professional and personal development — which I find the most effective and valuable foundation for understanding yourself and others and improving your life. If you don’t see a Table of Contents to the left, click here to view the series, where you’ll get more value than reading just this post.]

Let’s look at the next element in the cycle after the environment — perception and belief.

Perception means how you look at or become aware of your world. I include belief in the same cycle element as perception because belief and perception influence each other so closely, whether you realize it or not. Belief means what models you have for it. I often refer to beliefs as models or mental models. Your beliefs create expectations that filter your perceptions.

Perceptions consists mainly of the senses of touch, taste, smell, hearing, and sight. It turns out we have more than the five senses I learned about in school, so perception  also includes more subtle senses of the environment.

No less important, perception includes sensing your thoughts and emotions. You can sense the emotions you feel, even if you can’t put them into words, as well as your self talk, which you often can put into words.

People tend to have varying levels of conscious awareness of their thoughts and emotions. A main goal of this blog (as well as for me in my life) is to raise the level of awareness of your mental activity.

Next time we’ll look at emotions in more depth.

• ← The Model: environment in more depth
• The Model: emotions in more depth →