Perhaps you think there are just two: A solid white one on top of an inverted black outlined one.

You might argue that there are actually five: those two big ones plus three smaller ones caused by the intersecting of the white one over the black one.

Alternatively, you might conclude that there are actually eight: those five plus three small triangles (with slightly curved base lines), where the circles are intersected.

We might also ask how many circles there are in the diagram too.

Now, the sharper eyed among you, along with those who’ve seen the optical illusion before, will be yelling back at me that there are, in fact, no triangles or circles in this diagram.

Technically, that’s true. Mathematically that is absolutely correct.

Those people will proclaim that they are seeing things “as they really are” whilst the rest of us are being fooled. (And perhaps foolish).

Now, I already knew that there were no triangles or circles before I began writing this piece, but it doesn’t stop me from seeing them.

For me, I very distinctly see the big, solid white triangle and I know without doubt that there’s a black outlined inverted one beneath it.

I know all of that despite the fact that I can equally and simultaneously see that there are no triangles!

For me, both conditions are true.

There are no triangles (or circles) that have been drawn in the diagram. But I still see them as if they were there.

Maybe you see it differently, but I know a lot of people get that “Aha!” moment once they’re told that there are no completely drawn triangles or circles and yet still see them there.

Well, suppose that all of our experience works the same way.

When I have a thought that I can’t achieve a goal, I can take that as a truth. I can decide that there is some impediment that prevents me from having something I want in life.

Perhaps I don’t have enough money. Or maybe I’m not qualified in some way. Maybe I’ve been observing a role model, a hero or heroine of mine, and I’ve concluded that their success is down to their immense fan club. Or their astonishing good looks.

I can look at those thoughts and I can believe them.

If I do that, I’ve just killed a dream, haven’t I?

But suppose I don’t believe those thoughts. I mean, there are plenty of people who’ve succeeded at similar or even bigger things against far greater odds, so they can’t have listened to any such thoughts, can they?

And it can’t be that the dream is actually unattainable, clearly.

Suppose, then, that I choose to see my limiting thoughts like the “non-existent” triangles? It seems as though they’re there, but a part of me knows they have no existence in “reality” so I can ignore them – no matter how “real” they may seem or how insistent they become.

Let me give you another metaphor. 

Imagine that there’s a TV soap opera you love. When the next episode is on, you park yourself loyally in front of your television, perhaps with a coffee or a glass of wine, and prepare yourself to become engrossed in the complex lives of the characters for the next half hour.

Perhaps a beloved character is in some mortal danger. Maybe they’re going to have a dangerous operation and there’s only a slim chance they’ll survive.

You hold your breath as the surgeon appears to talk to the anxiously waiting relatives. You can hardly swallow your wine…

Then, of course, the episode ends and you still don’t know for sure. You’ll have to wait for yet another episode to find out if your character will live or die…

As the credits roll, you finish up your wine and go to feed the cat. Your life goes on as if nothing had happened because a part of you knew all along that it’s only fiction.

No one you care about was in any danger at all. And you knew the character on the operating table was only an actor.

Again, at one and the same time, you are able to hold two versions of reality in your mind.

There’s nothing wrong with that. In fact, it’s very enjoyable when it’s a TV soap, a good book or a movie we’re doing it with.

But we’ve overlooked it when it comes to our own thoughts.

The “reality” is that we all make up reality in our heads, moment to moment.

One minute your spouse is irritating as hell. The next, you can’t believe how gorgeous they are and how miserable life was before you met them.

Same spouse, same behaviour.

One day your job is giving you headaches that would make a saint spit. Another day, it’s a breeze.

Same job, same deadlines, same colleagues.

It’s not the environment or the circumstances that have changed. It’s your thoughts!

And here’s the kicker:

You are NOT your thoughts.

After all, you can observe your thoughts. You can notice your thoughts with as much detachment as you’d idly watch passers-by from a coffee shop window. They’re there, but they have nothing to do with you.

Unless one catches your attention.

Then you watch it, see where it leads, notice how it feels, extrapolate from it, hypothesise and analyse it to death and then …

Well, then you think you’ve found something real.

We change our minds all the time and think nothing of it because it feels as though that just happens to us.

And we all know of people who’ve had complete “conversions.” Maybe they now vote left when they’d voted right all their life, confirmed bachelors and spinsters who get married, carnivores who become devout vegetarians, not to mention the more conspicuous religious conversions.

You don’t need to undergo anything so extreme to be successful in every way imaginable. You just need to follow a different thought if your current results aren’t coming up to expectations.

We’re always having thoughts. That isn’t going to stop – it’s what minds do, in just the same way as oceans wave.

What matters is which ones you choose to believe.

Because the rest you can ignore, no matter how convincing they seem. Even if it really, really looks as though there are triangles there.