Practice Makes Progress

“Pessimism leads to weakness, optimism to power.”

— William James

This week, I came across an interesting article that speaks to our growing understanding of neural plasticity, or the brain’s ability to change and grow all throughout the course of a human life. So much for the difficulties of teaching old “dogs” new tricks! If you’re using the old standard line, “This is just how I am,” to justify a lack of effort to become who you wish to be, take heart—with some attention and effort, you can actually change habits and outcomes. In fact, there are a lot of interesting nuggets in this article, each one of which is worthy of note, but I wanted to call your attention specifically to the greater efficacy of happy people, and to your ability to move in the direction of greater happiness through simple practice.

Take a romp through this resource when you have a moment, and feel free to leave a comment about what you find most interesting, or what you’re going to do to start changing negative mental habits that drag down your efficacy. You don’t have to be perfect right away, just pick something to work on and start!

Never Enough Time!

“Time abides long enough for those who make use of it.”

— Leonardo da Vinci

Since I know I’m not the only one who often feels that there just aren’t enough hours in the day, I thought I’d write this week about how to cope with that feeling of “never enough time.”  Because we live in a fast-paced and complex world, I don’t think this issue is going anywhere anytime soon, so we might as well find ways to cope with the constant pull toward busy-ness and the limitations of our daily 24 hours.  For much of human history, things were different; before the advent of electric lights, the period of daylight marked the limits of productive time, but now that we can work around the clock, finding balance in our use of time has taken on a whole new dimension of complexity.   

I’ve heard it said that the only truly limited resource is time; yet our experience of time can be so different from moment to moment—even our relationship to something so inevitable is not an intractable, hopeless case in which nothing can improve.  Here are some ideas for adding more space into your dance partnership with time.

·      Tap!  Using EFT really is the most effective way I know to introduce more of a sense of calm about what is on your plate.  If you’re someone who tends to live on the edge of overwhelm a lot, you might need to make a regular practice of this for a while to really see the results you want.  Use it throughout the day whenever tension starts to rise, and eventually you’ll find that your responses to life events and task lists will be less intense.  You’ll build an ability to stay out of crisis mode when the situation doesn’t warrant it.  Our perception is shaped by our emotions, thoughts, and beliefs; when you can sustain more positive internal states, everything can feel less dire and positive change can seem much more possible.

·      Breathe.  Remembering to breathe deeply as often as you can, really expanding the belly as you do so, is a quick way to calm your body and mind and refresh every cell with more oxygen than you’d otherwise be getting.  If you’re not breathing well, you’re not going to have nearly as much energy as you could with just a little extra effort in this area.  It’s fast!  It’s free!  There’s no downside.

·      Know that living with a certain tension in your relationship with time is a normal part of living the human experience.  Everyone who has ever lived has had to contend with this.  Much remains mysterious as far as why sometimes a vacation day can seem long and lazy, or sometimes it can seem to fly by in two blinks of an eye when you’re doing essentially all the same things.  Some days you accomplish far more than you thought you would.  Other days, it’s a struggle to do anything at all.  All of this is normal, so don’t beat yourself up about it. 

·      But also know that as with any area of life, with attention and experimentation, you can find ways of handling it that will be more helpful for your unique personality and needs.  You can also learn a great deal from others by reading, listening to podcasts, taking workshops, etc.  You might want to go reread my previous blog on time management here for some immediate ideas on that subject.  As you become comfortable with some best practices for organizing and focusing your efforts, you will find that getting more done for yourself is a less mysterious process.  It might take some doing, but you’ll be able to set yourself up to really leverage the time you have when you need to.  Still, accept that you’ll experience an ebb and flow in your experience of time, allow yourself to reschedule when you need to, and just keep moving.

·      Learn how to say no if you’re bad at it.  There is only a certain amount that you will be able to accomplish in a day, and if you’re never leaving enough time to take care of your own needs and goals, you will always feel frustrated to some extent.  Saying no is a skill like any other, and it can be learned and mastered.  It may not only require making a new decision and practicing, though.  Often the reason we say yes to more than is healthy or realistic is that we’ve been taught, through direct teaching or through experience, that this is what it takes to be a good person, to get love, and to be safe.  Again, EFT can be incredibly helpful in making change more comfortable by helping you to more easily transform and let go of fears that are keeping you stuck in place.

·      Build some time into your schedule for physical activity.  Yes, this requires an investment of time, but eventually it will create more energy, enthusiasm, and well-being than it uses up.  Similarly, you need nutritious food, clean water, and a reasonable amount of sleep each night to function effectively.  If you’re not getting these basics, you’re always going to feel like you’re behind the ball.

·      Ask for help when you need it.  You may not always get exactly what you wanted, but if you don’t ask, you’re definitely going to be stuck doing much of your task list on your own.  If you don’t have anyone to ask for help in your immediate vicinity, there are lots of people you can connect with online who might be willing to barter services if you can’t pay for help.

·      Learn to cultivate gratitude for what’s going well in your life.  Spending more time appreciating the good has a calming influence.  This can help you to be less frantic about making progress, and thus more discerning about what’s really necessary or important for you to do.  Maybe there are a bunch of things on your mental to-do list that you could get rid of completely, or put off because they’re not essential at the moment.  Panic ensues from an inability to prioritize, and then it perpetuates a vicious cycle, because when you’re panicked, you can’t think clearly.  Keep breathing and coming back to appreciation for what’s good already.

·      Make sure you’re reminding yourself somehow about your goals every day.  That also will help you to stay on track and resist the temptation to scatter your attention on things that don’t advance what’s most important to you.

·      Celebrate what you have accomplished.  It’s helpful to write down positive actions you took every day before bed, as that helps you to give yourself proper credit for all the good work you did.  It’s also fun to look back at this later and see what you’ve been able to achieve, and this is a great way to build your confidence in your own abilities.  Even if it’s only one thing per day, you’ll see that you’re making progress little by little, and everything counts—did you manage to make better food choices?  Did you handle a recurring situation better than you have in the past?  Did you realize something new that will help you in the future?  Celebrate it all.

I hope these ideas help you to find more peace in your relationship to time.  This is a huge subject, and one in which we continue to learn and grow for a lifetime, so we’re just focusing on some basics here.  Time will always be, in important ways, a limiting factor, but it is possible to grow in your contentment with natural rhythms; you can learn to enjoy getting done what you can and then reverting to rest and renewal before doing it all again. 

The Enigmatic Turbo Boost

“You can’t depend on your eyes when your imagination is out of focus.”

— Mark Twain

Last week we considered a systematic, structured approach to planning out strategies for change in your life.  Using a template like that one can be extremely helpful to keep you on track.  Doing so also helps to remind you that it’s normal for change to be a process that requires a continuing loop of thought, work, and experience­­­­­­—most of us don’t have a functioning magic wand to make change instant and effortless, unfortunately!  However, there’s also another side to this coin…a more feminine-energy aspect of the change process as I see it, and that’s intent. 

Just deciding that you’re going to do something and holding the intent as you go about the business of the structured approach opens you to unpredictable leaps of insight that might not favor you otherwise.  Inventors and artists often say that the idea just appears, or the story tells itself.  In order to benefit from this kind of serendipity, it’s important to pose a request to the unconscious parts of yourself (in which you could also include your connection to a higher power if that makes sense to you) to send you answers your conscious mind might not find.  I call that request intent.  It really does have a power that’s hard to describe because the experiences it creates are not structured or linear, but more like the capricious comings and goings of a bird in the night.

Here’s the process I recommend:

·      Once you’ve gained some clarity using the more structured approach, define the problem you wish to solve as specifically as you can.  Use positive language, as in, “I intend to come up with an idea/find information that will help me to become well easily and in an enjoyable way” rather than “I don’t want to be in pain.” 

·      Even if you have absolutely no idea how this could happen or doubt that it could, be open to finding a solution.  Invoking an open state allows help to arrive in ways that can be surprising.

·      Be willing to be a little stupid while you wait.  In other words, refuse to worry about how inspiration might strike, and ignore anyone who tries to tell you that a solution is impossible.  I personally know some people who have done “the impossible,” and there are plenty of people you can read about who have too.  Sometimes finding what you need just takes some time.

·      Know that the subconscious deals in the language of symbol.  Some people find it useful to keep a pad of paper by the bed at night in case they have a dream that seems meaningful, or some interesting idea that might be helpful.  You might think you’ll remember it in the morning, but often you won’t if you don’t write it down.

·      Be on the lookout, in a relaxed way, for anything you come into contact with in daily life that might apply to your problem.  Keeping your intent in mind can do wonders to help you notice things you otherwise wouldn’t—an overheard conversation, an advertisement, a passage from a book that sparks an insight you can use to move forward.

·      Holding your intent in mind also helps you to focus on what you want to move toward rather than the thing you don’t want.  For most people, this feels a lot better and helps in maintaining openness to possibility.  That’s more productive than dogged pessimism that can result when you harp mentally on the problem.  That tends to drain people’s energy and creativity in a hurry.

·      When you think about reaching a solution, enjoy the vision of how that will be, how it will feel, and what it will enable you to do.  This helps to make the end result seem more real and keep you excited about the prospect as you wait.

·       It’s also a good idea to share your intent with others you can rely on to be supportive.  Those others can then keep an eye out with you, and may become the source of new information and ideas you wouldn’t have come across yourself.

·      Avoid sharing your intent with anyone who might not be supportive.

·      Take moments throughout the day to be grateful for what is good in your life already, and for solutions you’ve already found that were a big help in reaching a goal or a milestone.

While you don’t have to become a single-minded, obsessed weirdo about this, I do recommend that you bring your intent back to mind several times per day.  Otherwise it’s easy to become busy and forget all about it for days or weeks at a time, and then you’re losing all the benefits you might have enjoyed with a bit more focus.  And don’t worry if all of this seems a little awkward at first.  It may take you some time to become comfortable with the idea of focusing on an intent that might seem unlikely; your mind may tell you that there’s no point, but the mind is not in control of all things.  Working with your intent is not a substitute for structure and strategic action, but it can be a real boost to a process you’ve begun to move your life forward. Try it out and see what happens.  You just might find that interesting experiences are set in motion in ways you couldn’t have predicted.  Structure and intent together form a synergistic whole that you might find to be a new adventure in the pursuit of your ideal.