So Much Happier Blog
When What You Believe Doesn't Help
“Once you replace negative thoughts with positive ones, you’ll start having positive results.”
If you're someone who reads my blog regularly, chances are you're aware enough to know that you have a belief or two (or 20!) that are holding you back from being the happiest, most successful possible version of yourself. It's completely normal to pick up less-than-optimal habits and patterns from others, particularly when you're a child and don't even notice it's happening, though this can happen at any time of life. Those habits then stick around until you do specific work to change them. It's all well and good to know this, but what do you do about it? How can you permanently change a belief that might be based on years of conditioning, including examples you've observed and powerful formative experiences you've had personally?
I won't pretend that we can just wave a magic wand and presto, a limiting belief is gone! On the other hand, sometimes it seems like changing these deeply ingrained beliefs must take a Herculean effort, and that need not be true either if you're willing to use the best tools for the job. Here are my suggestions for taking an inclusive approach that will get all of the parts of you on board. An action in one area will help you to progress, but when you work in all areas, everything happens faster and is more likely to solidify into permanent change.
First, get clear on what you'd like to change and why. There might be numerous beliefs you'd like to rewrite, but pick one! You can get to them each in turn, but without focus, you won't get much done. Let's say, for instance, that the belief you've chosen is, "I'm too old to get in shape." Now, spend some time with your mind. Write down all the reasons this is true for you. Are all your family members who are older obese? Do you feel like you have too many aches and pains to move your body? You can probably come up with a ton of reasons, so keep writing until you feel like you've gotten them out, however bad they sound. It might seem overly negative to really reach for more reasons past the most obvious ones, but trust me, this stuff is gold when it comes to making change possible for yourself. You need to know what's in your mind on autopilot when you're not looking if you want to have a chance at working with it.
When you've dug deep and you feel like you have a good picture of what you believe and why, it's time to think through these reasons (Part I). When you think about them consciously, do you truly believe each one? It can be helpful to ask, "Whose voice is this, and when did I learn it?" Also, "Would I give a close friend this advice?" Sometimes you'll find that you don't fully believe these tapes that play in your head. The process of changing any part you still do believe will need to include purposely challenging the old messages when you find yourself thinking disempowering thoughts. When you find yourself (using our example) thinking that there's no exercise you can do that won't cause you to injure yourself, you'll need to interrupt that with something like, "Wait a minute. That's the old belief talking. Surely there's something I can do to move my body a little that is gentle enough to start building strength and balance without injury. I can start with some searching online for gentle exercise and see what I find. Other people get into shape all the time, and I can too." But even the items you don't consciously believe may still continue to influence you because they're ingrained and habitual.
One excellent tool for fostering change is the use of affirmations. These are positive statements of the new beliefs you'd like to have that you repeat daily until they become new habits. In order to find these, you can look at the negative beliefs and reasons you wrote down in the first step and write out the most opposite inspiring statement you can for each one. Then you simply say them out loud at least once per day. Affirmations have gotten a bad rap lately, but I find them to be a useful support in the midst of change. It's a sort of self-coaching that reminds you where you're going and helps you to try on the feeling of a new belief until it seems more natural. I'll warn you that if you really need an affirmation, you won't even want to say it out loud--the new statement will sound ridiculous and embarrassing! But give it a few days and you'll stop needing to squirm uncomfortably when you say it and consider actually holding that more positive belief. This step alone will not get the job fully done. The mind is a fantastic tool, but it can't solve all our problems alone because it's not the only part of us. This is why some people have taken to claiming that affirmations don't work, but they can be, in my experience, a powerful element in your strategy. More on how to work with other parts of you in later blogs.
Another great way to support the changes you're looking to make with your mind include feeding it new information, like reading or listening to books that will expand your knowledge about the subject at hand. You could read about how to start slowly and get into shape at a healthy pace while avoiding injuries. There are many guides out there on workouts for almost every person and situation. You also might want to read biographies or articles about other people who have done what you want to do. Most of the time, there are many people with experience who can help you along with inspiration and the fruits of their own labor. Knowing that others have been through the same thing, and learning about how they triumphed, is a supportive way to teach your mind that more is possible for you.
It can also be hugely helpful to find at least one other person who is working on the same kind of challenge with whom you can share the journey, the highs and lows, and make the effort more fun. When you can enjoy your efforts, you'll be much more able to stick with the program than if you're trying to muscle through on willpower alone. Joining with others can also help you harness the positive powers of both cooperation and friendly competition. Just make sure that person is also willing to put in effort on the mental side of things and making an effort to stay positive. Partnering with someone who is not doing the inner work to make change last can be more of a downer than an inspiration. You want to put yourself in proximity to people who will cheer you on and have your back when you're having trouble staying the course.
This week has been about supporting change with the mind because this is what our culture tends to offer first, and sometimes only, as the way to make change happen. Much of this probably sounded familiar and fairly logical. In the coming weeks, we'll look at how to bring the rest of you to bear in supporting change so that you're allowing the process to ripple across all parts of you. If you do the work to isolate a belief and the reasons you hold onto it this week, you'll get more out of the weeks to come, so make you sure you take the time to do that now. I also encourage you to experiment with affirmations, and even if it seems goofy, try to have fun with them as a way to start practicing the new. You're on your way to a new, more empowering belief already!
Jumping Off the Hamster Wheel
“To know yourself as the Being underneath the thinker, the stillness underneath the mental noise, the love and joy underneath the pain, is freedom, salvation, enlightenment.”
If you've been reading my blogs for a while, you know that I'm all about helping you find ways to dial down stress. This week, we'll look at the importance of making choices that are right for you despite the lure of endless possibilities. Living in a world with 24/7 access to electric lights and incessant information means that we know there's always something we could be doing. That can be overwhelming, and some people feel this as a constant. Combine that feeling with the Puritanical ideals of our country's European settlers, which became a part of the fabric of our collective philosophy, and you have a culture-wide tendency to believe that if we can be doing something, then we must. Anything else makes us lazy, selfish, and useless. This is a recipe for anxiety; it will erode your happiness and physical health more insidiously than almost anything else you can experience. No one wants that, but how do you halt this cycle when so many options and imperatives are always staring you in the face?
First, let me acknowledge that this is difficult. Options, information, and entertainment are fun to play with, and therefore hard to put down at the best of times. Also, if you believe that opportunity is obligation, then your self-image will suffer when you take time away from attending to the constant requests of people and advertisers that will assail you throughout your waking hours, never mind the things you'd like to be doing to address your own priorities. Then there are any frantic mental habits you inherited from family and others before you were old enough to notice. This constant stimulation gets your mind into the habit of racing, and then it takes serious effort to retrain it to allow some empty space and relaxation to permeate.
When there's an abundance of anything, whether information or food or opportunity, maintaining health and balance requires that we learn to set boundaries. We need some hard stops that will carve out appropriate time for sleep, exercise, healthy eating, and leisure. Those can be planned and tinkered with until they seem optimal in the grand scheme of your life, your needs and your desires. The trickier boundaries to set and police are those that will keep you functioning well when unexpected circumstances arise. These you need to brainstorm on the fly. Learning to do this well is a constantly evolving effort, since we change throughout life, and in small ways each day. It's more art than science, and only you can really know how well it's working for you at any given time. If you're constantly exhausted, resentful, or frustrated, it's not! So where does one start when it's clear that better boundaries are necessary?
There's a concept in Qi Gong, a Chinese healing art, that one should never do anything to more than 70 percent of one's capacity. Reserving 30 percent at all times means that there's leftover energy at the end of the day. You're not collapsing into sleep desperate for regeneration without which you cannot function; instead, you just need small adjustments to keep you in balance, and your sleep can regenerate you more deeply on all levels as well as build yin—energy reserves and power. Then, when you go through any periods of high activity, you can get through them in better shape. You'll have to rebuild your yin later to replace the overage you've used, but you are not a mess if you have to overextend yourself somewhat. If you encounter a health challenge when you're in the habit of reserving your 30 percent, you'll be able to bounce back from it more easily, and that's obviously very important to your quality of life.
Some other keys for learning to set appropriate boundaries:
- Write out and read daily two lists: Your goals and your highest values. Both help you to work out your long-term plans, and to make those on-the-fly decisions about when to say yes and when to pass. These decisions are subjective. If you don't have a strong commitment to your plans and values, you'll flounder more than is necessary when faced with a choice.
- Remember that no one can do everything that sounds interesting in any given lifetime. Focus on doing the things that seem most right for your interests and abilities (while remaining creative about workarounds and breakthroughs where you identify limits). Revel in how these things are yours, and make you unique and wonderful!
- Just because someone wants something from you doesn't mean you need to say yes to the request. If you're afraid of what will happen if you say no, you may need to work on your communication skills, your list of priorities, or your self-esteem. This last one is a long-term project in most cases, but every day is a good day to start. In order to set appropriate boundaries, you have to see your own life as valuable, just as much as everyone else's. If you're not sure what to do here, get help from a book, class, or specialist.
- Start to watch for beliefs that keep you stuck and challenge them. This takes some doing, but once you decide to notice your thoughts, you'll begin to become aware of them--whenever you feel frustrated or irritable, that's a great time to ask yourself what you were just thinking. Very often those thoughts will comprise some destructive beliefs that are sabotaging you. The stories we tell ourselves, when they're fatalistic (suggesting we are powerless to change our conditions) or negative in ways that trigger and prolong old, outdated patterns, have a huge effect on what's possible for us. Once you know your patterns, you can work on untying those old knots and freeing up powerful stores of energy for whatever you choose. I'll write more about what to do to change old beliefs in the future (and you can bet it will include using some EFT!) but the first step is noticing what's happening and being aware of what you'd like to change.
You will be most successful, and most able to help others, when you know how to live in balance. It's no good to anyone if you're chronically exhausted or overwhelmed and cranky. When you prioritize your own health, you are a living example of principles that can help everyone around you. No one else can do this for you, because no one else has first-hand knowledge of what you need. A willingness to set appropriate boundaries is an essential step in fostering your balance, happiness, and ability to be the best of yourself every day.
Free Your Mind
“The historic ascent of humanity, taken as a whole, may be summarized as a succession of victories of consciousness over blind forces - in nature, in society, in man himself.”
When dealing with a long-term challenge, even if you find that you're well on the way to a solution, it's often true that nothing happens as quickly as you want it to. Problems that you acquired over time will usually take time to solve. The thorniest part of addressing them is often dealing with the daily disappointment, or even heartbreak, of still having the problem despite all your efforts. One of the most powerful things you can ever do is condition yourself to celebrate even your smallest wins rather than bemoaning your losses and worrying about how you will confront tomorrow. This may also be one of the hardest things you'll ever learn to do. It sounds very simple, but is, for most people, astonishingly difficult. It also changes everything about how you experience your life and what is possible for you, once you understand and become practiced at it.
When you think about what a downer it is to harp on what's not working, it makes a lot of sense that consciously focusing on the progress you're making instead would be more helpful. (I'm sure you've spent time around someone who complains all the time. I bet you can't wait to get away from that person when it's someone else.) Unfortunately, your mind is most likely in the habit of worrying about what might go wrong, including everything that ever has for you before. This may be due both to Nature and to Nurture—it's a rare family situation that teaches children only to be aware of risk for practical reasons, but otherwise steeps them in confidence and zest for challenge. Usually there's a lot of "you can't" and "don't you dare" and "what if" mixed in in frenzied tones. It might all be protective and well meaning, but sometimes it's also other things like power plays and unconscious panic. As far as Nature, the mind is designed in part to protect us from risk, and in addition to running the the stressful thinking patterns we learned from others, it tends toward obsession over possible risk as a survival mechanism. If you want to counter these powerful formative and ingrained forces, expect it to take some doing. And here's the kicker: The work you do, if you really want to succeed, can't all be done in and with the mind. Uh oh! Wait, doesn't that make this all of a sudden a lot more complicated? Yes, my friend, it sure does. And that's why it ends up being difficult!
Focusing on progress rather than fueling your every moment on fearful thinking requires work that goes to the very nature of being alive, to all your notions about how safe you are, and what human nature is all about. These reside not only in your conscious mind, where it becomes apparent what your basic beliefs are if you just choose to start becoming more aware of them, but also in the subconscious parts of your mind, where your body and spirit are much more involved. You may be starting to wonder what the use is of my opening up these complexities, since rarely does anyone teach us what it's like to deal in the coin of these realms of us. Because of the personal journey I've been on, I know from experience that a deep well of experience and belief that you're probably unacquainted with is running your life far more than you would believe if I tried to tell you at this moment.
It might sound like I'm trying to scare you or manipulate you, but I'm not. I want you to understand that, from what I've found, a better quality of life, less stress and more confidence, result from clearing out chaff that is weighing you down in ways you can't even see. While there are many wonderful ideas, systems, and people out there in the world doing good work, nothing I have found has ever done for me what EFT/Tapping does in facilitating this clearing out. Because it's a self-help tool, you are in the driver's seat as far as how you use it and on what. You also often become aware of profound understanding and shifts in how you think and feel as you use it. This process is empowering in ways I can't describe. You really have to experience it in order to fully understand what I'm saying. Once you start to get on a roll with this clearing out process, it's amazing how much easier it becomes to think in more constructive ways so that you can enjoy a more happy, vibrant life. I've said it before, but I'll say it again—there's little else I can recommend that would be more helpful to creating more of what you want than learning the basics and making a practice of using EFT. As you do, you will encounter and clear out impediments that will help you greatly. I'm betting that some of what you find there will also surprise you as it did me, and that the process of removing its charge will thrill you as well.
When you can spend more time using your mind in positive ways, you make fewer decisions out of fear and more out of inspiration, and the healthy desire to create better conditions for yourself and others. As long as you're trying to accomplish everything with your mind, you're missing out on the power that can be yours when you get other important parts of you on board. As you use Tapping, you will also tend to naturally build compassion for others that will make you even more effective in understanding and communicating with them. So much can be gained from this practice, so don't put it off! Learn it, love it, and live it!
Leading the Charge
“Leadership is the capacity to translate vision into reality.
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Being the one in charge is demanding, and if you are working toward any personal goals at all, this is you! While you get to do things your own way, you also have to be the one driving every aspect of your projects. Unless you're amazing at finding and convincing others to help you out at every turn, you're going to end up doing a bunch of tasks you're not good at and not comfortable doing. You're likely to find some of this painful; working way out past your comfort zone can challenge you at the deepest levels. Even if you have the ability to hire people to help you, you're still going to be the one responsible for your project's results. You'll still be the one who cares most about the outcome. You might not have to do all the tasks required, but you'll have to oversee the work of others, and that opens up a whole new realm of challenges.
If you're someone who is not used to being in charge (i.e., you're not the boss at work and you don't have kids or a successful history with running your own business), moving your goals forward will require you to learn some new operational skills. These may include time management; self-motivation; project planning and management; discipline and persistance (which require a host of mental and emotional management skills); problem solving; and communication skills, among others. Each of these skill areas has the potential to hold you back if you don't have at least a basic level of competency in it. Many people never move forward with important personal goals because they get hung up on these skill sets and don't do what's necessary to learn them. Sometimes this is because of an issue of identity, and unfortunate belief like, "I'm an artist, not a business person," or "I'm just not good at that." In this case, you'll need to do some work on the limiting belief itself, otherwise things will always be hard for you in this area. Sometimes it's just because not enough time and attention has been applied to the area in question. One doesn't learn new things by osmosis unless they're easy.
It's important to realize that while reaching your goal may be a lot of fun, some of the learning process that will make this possible will not be. Just as working out when you're out of shape feels terrible at first, stumbling through your early efforts in other skill building can as well. You might as well know this at the outset, and have coping strategies in place for when you have to attack tasks that make you feel like a hopelessly clumsy oaf. This is tough on the ego, and can be exhausting. You may need recovery time from such efforts, so it's a good idea to schedule short stints working on them in between easier tasks that are more fun for you. Remember that asking for help when you're really stuck is a key discipline. This does not make you weak, it makes you smart. You do not have to know everything. In this information age, that would be impossible, and everyone gets stymied sometimes. It's best not to waste too much time bumping into walls if advice from someone more experienced is available—and as long as you have access to a public library or the Internet, it is!
When you experience resistance or other discomfort as you learn new things, remember that absolutely everyone who has succeeded at anything has gone through something similar. Find friends you can talk to, look for mentors to advise you, and use EFT (Tapping) while you rant and rave and cry if you need to. Admitting to and expressing emotion as you go makes a huge difference. Carrying all of that around under the surface saps your energy, creativity, and confidence.
I wish I could say that once you change a limiting belief, it's just magically smooth sailing after that. It helps a lot to clear out the mental and emotional clutter, but most often, getting where you want to go requires focused effort over time. You'll need to map out a route and take steps often to keep up your gains and your enthusiasm. You'll have to practice more than you'd like to and sweat sometimes as you break new ground. Learning new skills is taxing, but as you practice, momentum builds, and using your fledgling skills gets easier. None of this work is glamorous, but it's necessary if you want to move forward. Pursuing personal goals will help you to feel more alive every day, so continually feeding that charge of excitement is worth it. When you feel like you're struggling, grant yourself appreciation for being willing to work at this, take good care of yourself, and keep moving! Enjoy the process when you can, and when you can't, just keep your mind on your destination.
Can I start Now?
“I learned that we can do anything, but we can’t do everything... at least not at the same time. So think of your priorities not in terms of what activities you do, but when you do them. Timing is everything.”
It feels great when life works out such that you get to follow your own best and most natural timing in working toward your goals. That seems to happen roughly never in the real world, though, doesn't it? Most of us have messy lives with lots of competing demands, and people we love, to fit into a limited schedule every day. Timing isn't just about our whims, but also balancing all of these important demands while hopefully staying healthy at the same time. Given the difficulty of juggling everything you have going on, even your most important goals can end up on the back burner. Working toward personal goals can feel like a selfish thing to do in the moment, even if the results of your work will benefit everyone you know. Additionally, it can be particularly hard to carve out the necessary time for your pursuits if you're not confident that you really can create the results you want—and since experience builds confidence, this can be a vicious cycle.
In addition to scheduling difficulties, we also have to deal with the internal results of not following the best personal timing. If your natural timing is constantly interrupted, that can be frustrating. Your enthusiasm can take a lot of hits if, in contrast, you just never quite get yourself on a roll. Some tasks legitimately need uninterrupted, concentrated effort to be completed well. No project ever seems to proceed in a perfectly orderly, gloriously serene manner! There will be unexpected developments and distractions—these may even prove to be beneficial in hindsight. But when they arise, it may seem like you just can't seem to get anything done, and it's not even your fault! In this blog, we'll look at how to deal with timing that feels less than ideal.
In the ideal scenario, if you had all the time in the world, you could organize your day in the way that you most enjoy. You would go to sleep and wake up at the times that feel most natural for you. You would decide each day what you'd like to work on and in what order, and when to take breaks for meals. You would spend just the amount of time you prefer working versus spending time with friends and family. Maybe you're laughing right now and thinking, "As if!" But this is what I'm talking about when I mention ideal timing. Whether we admit it or not, most of us have a fantasy of living life this way, and we long for more of this quality in our lives. I'm not going to pretend that it's easy to move in this direction, but I will say that if you don't know what your ideal day would look like, it's helpful to consider it. Even if you can't rework every day to look more like your ideal, you could add some of your ideal elements some days. Even small steps in the direction of what you long for as far as scheduling choices can help you to feel empowered, energized, and more like yourself. It's not self-indulgent to find what works best for you and try to do it. In fact, doing this will tend to make you happier, more productive, and more pleasant for everyone else to be around.
Since it's not always possible to set up everything the way you'd most like it, a big part of sustaining your momentum is constantly dealing with the stops and starts, and the emotions that come up for you throughout this process. A few simple go-to strategies are in order here. The top idea I recommend, which can really boost your clarity and save the day when you're stuck, is to write out both your goals and your current life priorities, and make sure they stay current over time. I've written before about why it's helpful to be able to refer to your goals on a daily basis, but since your progress toward them must be balanced against your present obligations, you actually need both. Perhaps you have young children or pets; no matter what you're building toward, they still need your care. Maybe you have adult friends and family members who depend on you, or responsibilities in your community that can't just be dropped because they're an important demonstration of your core values, and they feel like part of who you are. If you have a clear statement of these that you can refer to when you're frazzled, you will most likely find it easier to figure out how to proceed.
Prioritizing something over something else that's also important doesn't mean you're abandoning anything, just that you're making a choice to change the order of tasks to make sure the thing you chose gets done first today. Sometimes you'll need to ask for help, or accept that another task will be pushed back a day. Often we have more latitude than we think; the deadlines we assign to things may be arbitrary on further examination, or we may be assuming that someone else won't be on board if we need to move things around. It's worth asking directly. It's also worth learning that it's o.k. to say no to others sometimes and working on increasing your comfort with doing that. You are here to live your life, and contribute what you have to offer that's unique, just as others are. It's easy to get drawn into a bunch of scheduled items that don't have much to do with your life and your priorities. If remembering and acting on this is hard for you, I recommend finding someone who shares some of your important values who will enjoy hearing about your adventures and sharing their own. You can support and learn from each other as you get better at focusing your efforts.
Take just a few minutes to write out your highest values. (Really. Like now, people.) These are qualities you wish to define you. You can clarify some of them by thinking about what behaviors from others drive you nuts! If you can't stand when others are rude and oblivious, then maybe the opposites, consideration for others and generosity, are among your core values. Put your core values in positive terms that can remind you, whenever you need it, what is most important to you and who you want to be. Reading over these should engender enthusiasm and help you refocus each day. When you really hit the mark with these, you will find that thinking about them brings you renewed energy and gets you excited about at least some aspect of your life. Put these somewhere you can easily see them. You can make a note on your bathroom or in your phone, or multiple places. Consult it if you're having trouble figuring out how to prioritize your day.
Keep an eye out for what helps you to want to get tasks done and try to incorporate it. Maybe you're energized by loud music. Maybe silence is what you crave. Maybe you like to take breaks every 20 minutes. Maybe you need to build in social interaction to keep your mood up. The more you learn about how to keep yourself happily engaged, the more you can accomplish while feeling like you're flowing with excellent timing. This is highly personal, so no one can just give you perfect instructions. You need to stay observant and be willing to try thing for yourself. If you keep doing this, you'll end up with a decent instruction manual on how to make progress to your goals with the least friction and the most ease and enjoyment.
It's normal to run up against conflicts between all of the things that are important to you. Caring about more than one thing just proves that you're human. It's a good idea to take stock at least once a week and make sure that your time is really going toward the things you most care about, and I recommend this too, but the small decisions about what to prioritize above what is the work of being alive. It's all a learning process. If you don't like how things went today, then work on changing your choices tomorrow. If you keep taking action toward your goals, you'll make progress, even if you keep getting interrupted, if you keep reminding yourself what's important and let that inspire you today.
Your "Get Up and Go"
“Procrastination is the art of keeping up with yesterday.”
We all have chores and tasks we avoid until they’re absolutely necessary. These are usually either the ones we’re not good at, or the ones that for whatever reason are just the least fun to tackle. It can be agonizing to try to scrape together the motivation to confront them head on, and I was staring down the barrel of one of these recently, so I thought I’d share a few ideas for handling such things. Here are my suggestions:
· Remind yourself of why you’re going to do this task. How will you and others benefit from the results of it?
· Remember where it fits into the big picture of your larger goals. Will it make other tasks easier, or even make new things possible?
· Imagine having the results now. How will that feel? Will you be relieved? Excited about what comes next? Grateful to yourself for getting it done? Proud of yourself for your achievement and contribution? Euphoric that you don’t have to dread it anymore?
· Here’s a little secret for you: One of the most effective ways to motivate yourself is to learn to enjoy results before you’ve actually created them. This may seem impractical, but it’s actually just the opposite; indulging in this creates happy, enthusiastic feelings that you can use to go about your daily tasks with a better attitude, more enjoyment, and less resistance. It’s an invaluable skill that you will understand better the more you practice it
· Take note of which result, of the ones you imagined, most motivates you. Is it that your task will make things better for someone else? Is it your own future relief that makes you feel the best? Is it having others see and acknowledge your success that excites you? Knowing what tends to motivate you most reliably is truly empowering, because once you know, you can automatically prime yourself for action by imagining how great it will be to have that result whenever it's time to take action
· When you know you’ll be taking on something you resist, promise yourself a reward of some sort, if that helps you. It can be something as simple as allowing yourself some guilt-free time to enjoy what might normally be a guilty pleasure, like an embarrassingly terrible T.V. show. How about a nice long catch-up with a friend who you haven’t found time for lately? Whatever you can look forward to so that you keep your task moving ahead will fit the bill
Re-engaging your sense of purpose regarding your task is a powerful beginning. You deserve to have those happy results, so take a few minutes to connect with what’s important about getting this done. It’s so much more helpful to motivate yourself through anticipation than through attempting to guilt or bully yourself into action. Give it a try and see how it goes. You may have to repeat this a few times in order to really get yourself on board for something really difficult, but making this a daily habit is a good thing. I think you’ll find that the minutes you spend here will buoy your willingness to take on those more dreaded tasks in surprising and enjoyable ways.
When You Assume...
“One of the most sincere forms of respect is actually listening to what another has to say.”
Ok folks, here we go with more on communication skills. This is an area in which improvement gains you greater power in all areas of your life, so time devoted to it is never wasted. Unless you're a hermit on a mountaintop, you need these skills every day, so we're going to stick with the subject until we've covered what I think are the most helpful general ground rules to remember when talking with other people, whether they're your closest loved ones or perfect strangers.
This next one can prevent combustion when your discussion is approaching a flash point, so don't disregard it because it seems too simple. Here it is: Make no assumptions. Now, you might be thinking, "Right, sure, I get it." But this is much harder to do than it seems at first glance. To really hear what someone else is saying, you often have to continue listening past when you might think you've gotten the message. No matter how close you are to another person, they remain distinct from you, always changing, and ever surprising; it pays to remember that. No one likes for you to assume you know everything about them, because today something may have changed. Sometimes people change so slowly that we don't see it happening, but conversation will reveal new viewpoints.
In order to be part of an authentic exchange, we need the courage to be willing to hear about others' changes, even if they affect us. It's natural and good for all of us to continue to learn, change and grow throughout life. We are supposed to progress, with the accumulation of experience, toward wisdom. Each person with the necessary health and capacities is on their own adventure toward this end. It is ungenerous to try to hold someone in a stagnant place because that's more comfortable for you. If you fear the ways in which others' changes will affect you, that means you have work to do. If you don't do your personal work around that, you'll be unable to truly hear and understand another person.
The prospect of change can be frightening, no doubt about it, so you will be best served by finding ways to handle your fears. Feeling fear is part of the human experience, but like all emotions, it's a signal with a message for you. If you can hear and acknowledge the message, you will usually feel better immediately to some extent. Then what remains is the work of deciding which actions you will take to remedy the cause of the emotion. I cannot emphasize enough how much EFT/Tapping can help you with this kind of work—finding both clarity and the willingness to respond to your emotions appropriately. EFT is an amazing, free tool that is gentle and easy to use. I suggest that you and become comfortable with using it. Even just using the basics can give you significant support in dealing with your emotions.
It's great to acknowledge when someone else's communications strike fear into your heart once the other person has had a chance to say their piece. That helps you not to expend energy hiding how you feel, and it gives the other person the opportunity to consider your place in their process so that you can work out a plan that works for both. However, generally I suggest that you start by checking what you've heard to make sure that you understand. Put what you think they've said into your own words and see whether they agree that you're on the same page. If you are, then you can explain your immediate reaction, as well as your willingness to compromise or work together—or your need for something else entirely. If you immediately spin out when you think you may have heard something you didn't like, you'll tend to get lost in your own thoughts, and any hope of really understanding and finding common ground with the other person goes out the window. It's all too easy for unfortunate misunderstandings to ensue. If you think they're being a jerk, and you repeat back what you think they've said calmly to make sure you understand, they'll appreciate the opportunity to rephrase if they did not communicate clearly. It also gives them an opportunity to hear how what they said sounds, and sometimes people will rethink their position when they realize that it sounds mean or inappropriate.
Reminding yourself that it's your job to allow others to be who they are, and that it's right for them to have the opportunity to follow their own path, may be necessary. So may be the willingness to keep revisiting a subject if understanding can't be reached immediately. Sometimes the greatest leaps in our facility with communication skills come about because relationships with those we care most about challenge us to step up. This process may not always be fun, but it is rewarding if you refuse to give up. The ability to listen calmly and remain open to communications from others is a valuable life skill that will enable you to understand others on a deeper level, make better choices, and relate to them in ways that ultimately work for you.
Communication Tips for Introverts
“Often confused with shyness, introversion does not imply social reticence or discomfort. Rather than being averse to social engagement, introverts become overwhelmed by too much of it, which explains why the introvert is ready to leave a party after an hour and the extravert gains steam as the night goes on.”
After last week's blog about communication skills, one reader asked about tips for introverts, so here are some ideas for those of you who find it somewhat draining to interact with others. The skill sets required for effective communication still apply to you, and you may be excellent at them. You just might need to do some additional thinking about modifications that will take your particular style and needs into account.
Because introverts need more time alone or with only those they feel closest to in order to recharge, they have a tendency to avoid in-person communication more than extroverts. As a result, over time, they may gain less practice in using important communication skills than others, and end up less confident in this area, because there is no substitute for experience. With some concentrated effort, it is possible to bump up your skills by challenging yourself to add interactions here and there, but without overwhelming yourself.
One of an introvert's strengths is that time alone allows an opportunity for learning new information and thinking deeply about it. Introverts may have more patience for inquiry than others, and this can help you to be better prepared for interactions when they do occur. My first suggestion is to embrace this power and do your homework! A great deal can be learned from books, audios and videos about the skills you need to successfully navigate communications with others. One can never predict how someone else will choose to communicate in return once you're in an interaction, but you can plan out what you have to say, and even rehearse how you can best react to a number of different responses. That doesn't mean that your in-person attempts will be without surprises—that will never be the case, even if you're highly intuitive—but putting time and effort into preparation really will help you to feel more confident about using your skills both in specific situations and in general, as in whenever they're called upon unexpectedly. It will also help to make your interactions a bit less stressful, and therefore, less draining.
The next suggestion I have for introverts is that you work on owning, loving, and being willing to explain your introverted characteristics to extroverts. Many introverts feel that the world favors extroverts in that it's set up for people with spontaneous, in-person people skills, and stamina forlonger social interactions, to win. Introverts may have heard many times that they are anti-social, selfish because they don't want to join in, or weak because they are sensitive in ways that others aren't. None of these assessments is fair; introverted people just naturally have a different makeup than extroverted people. Neither is better or worse, but each culture will have opinions about these basic characteristics. Depending on where you were born and what your family was like, you may have had vastly different experiences than someone else with the same characteristics. No matter what you were told, you can learn to celebrate who you are.
At first, it might seem odd to be completely forthright about yourself, but once you start to see that it helps, it will probably become easier. You might begin a conversation with something like, "Because I'm naturally introverted, talking with other people tends to wear me out, and I sometimes prefer extra time to think things through. I want to have this conversation with you, but it might be most productive if we could have it over time. I also like e-mail, so we could do some of it that way. Would that work for you?" Being open will keep others from guessing incorrectly about what's best for you. It helps them to help you, which people will often be willing to do if you give them a chance. Your willingness to explain what you have to offer that is positive because of your introverted nature will also help others who are wired differently to stop and take note of your value. If you're not sure how you would represent this, spend some time thinking about it, and do some research on the topic. Every characteristic brings gifts if you learn to understand and leverage its positive side. You will feel more confident in interactions if you don't feel the need to apologize for who you are.
If you find yourself struggling in the midst of a conversation, for instance when someone misunderstands what you're saying and you don't know what to do, stay calm, breathe, and try again. I promise you that building communication skills through practice with other humans is challenging, frustrating, and tries the patience, at times, of all who attempt it. It's not just you! This is a human thing. But the effort is worth it. This is a skill set you will use on almost every day of your life. The better you are at wielding it, the easier and less stressful so many areas of your life become.
While you will always need plenty of time to yourself, your interactions with other people can become a much greater source of satisfaction as you represent yourself and your needs more clearly. When you can represent your needs and your value calmly but firmly in your communications, you make it much more likely that you will achieve a result that works well for you; you can also help to focus others in on the brilliance they may otherwise have missed, in you and in others they know. And that's a win for everyone!
Timeless Communication
“To effectively communicate, we must realize that we are all different in the way we perceive the world and use this understanding as a guide to our communication with others.”
Last week we looked at some of the ways ways to become more comfortable with uncertainty and vulnerability. I suggested that one helpful exercise toward this end is practicing your communication skills, which can involve you in feelings of vulnerability more quickly that most things I know—not just for the sake of just feeling vulnerable, but in order to demonstrate that it’s possible to feel vulnerability and to live through it just fine. You may even come out of the experience with valuable knowledge that will help you in the future, plus greater confidence that feeling uncertain doesn’t mean anything very bad is happening. This week we’ll look at some basic ground rules for engaging in communication in a constructive way so that your practice can be more rewarding.
Do you ever feel like no matter what you say, you're not being understood? When this happens, it may be that the framework, the assumptions, the methods you're using are getting in the way of what you're trying to get across. Think about how differently you react when someone approaches you calmly and respectfully versus when someone ambushes, pressures or screams at you. It may be that there's valuable content that the person is attempting to relay in the second scenario, but you are unlikely to hear it because of the unpleasantness inherent in their attack. Numerous skills may be lacking in such a case, and while we'll only cover a small number today, here are some thoughts on methods that will affect your communication styles for the better with consideration and practice.
- One of the most helpful guiding principles for skillful communication is the ability to acknowledge and represent that your feelings are no one else's fault. This may seem like a radical idea, because it often seems that our feelings are a direct result of how others behave, i.e., if he would just listen, or if she would just stop nagging me, I wouldn’t have to be so angry…etc. But this line of thinking puts you in the position of the victim, and predicates your happiness on the choices of others. This suggests that you are powerless to change the situations in your life for the better, which is rarely the case.
- You have choices in your thoughts, which do much to give rise to your feelings; you also have choices in your actions. You have the option to do the internal work necessary to understand and handle your own emotions on a daily basis, then take any appropriate actions so that they don't spiral out of control. It takes two to tango, and (unless you've been kidnapped) you always have a part in the creation of interactions with another person, if only by choosing to be there and interact at all. In your communications, it is often important to share how you feel, but this is best done without blame. You might say, "When you slam the door when you come in and out of the room, I jump every time, which isn't pleasant for me. I end up feeling irritated, and then I end up resenting you." You are explaining the situation from your point of view in a somewhat mechanical, logical way that is less likely to put the listener on the defensive. It represents how one thing leads to another in your personal experience. This makes it more likely that the listener will actually see the problem you describe as understandable and, hopefully, be willing to participate in finding a solution. (Timing is key here. Ideally, you will find a time to attempt a communication like this when you’re calm and can remain solution oriented.)
- This may be pretty difficult to do depending on the situation. When we haven't practiced this skill, we have a tendency to get lost in thinking things like, "You're stupid. You're selfish. If you cared about anyone but yourself, you would pay attention to what you're doing and think!" Yet it's possible for someone else to have a viewpoint sufficiently different from yours that it has very sound logic, based on their unique experience and goals, that you would not have been able to figure out without their explanation. If you allow yourself to presume that the other's viewpoint is valid and seek to understand it, you may be surprised how much there is to learn, and how much cooperation then becomes possible.
- It's essential to allow others the space to have their own reactions. This is often one of the hardest skills to learn for numerous reasons. We have a tendency to react to others’ emotions, whether out of a desire to help the other to feel better, or out of fear of certain outcomes, which can include fear of aggression or abandonment. These fears can be based on ingrained past experiences, including in childhood, such that primal survival instincts kick in. This may seem automatic, inevitable, and activate your physical fight/flight/freeze response even if you're just discussing who is going to walk the dog. You may not even know consciously why you're getting so stressed out, and it's not easy to work with an issue you can't even see. Psychological work like traditional talk therapy is designed to help you understand why you behave in certain ways so that you can spot these seemingly automatic reactions and practice responding differently when you choose to. It may take some doing to recognize that flash point when old patterns start to smolder, but it can be done. Somatic modalities like EFT can also work to release stress regarding both old situations and recent ones from the body, which helps you to stay calmer when facing something that triggers a disproportionate reaction.
- Allowing someone else to express difficult emotions without immediately trying to “fix” them or defend yourself from direct or implied (or imagined!) blame absolutely takes practice. Depending on your upbringing, your values, and the roles you tend to play in social groups, it can feel downright painful. Yet everyone else’s emotions are created from a complicated mix of elements just as yours are, and no matter what someone else claims, they are not your fault, nor yours to fix. Obviously if you love someone, you don’t want them to be in unnecessary pain, and you certainly may be able to help them to feel better in some ways, including by taking responsibility for your motives and actions. But they have a right to feel their emotions and work through them. If you try to be too involved in that process or take too much responsibility for how they feel, you are depriving them of important experiences. Meditation and other calming practices help you to solidify states of mind that you can learn to recapture when you’re in challenging situations, which is part of why such practices are so valuable. When you have a well-practiced state of calm that you can call upon when you’re being tempted to get drawn into emotions that are not your own, you have a lot more power to communicate in helpful ways.
These are just a couple of skills you can practice to improve your ability to communicate effectively and respectfully with others in your life, and they are definitely among the most challenging. I didn't start with the easy ones, but with the ones that may take the longest to master! I hope you'll dive into some area of these and see if you can make some progress. When you can be more skilled with your communication and remain calmer while doing it, it's incredibly empowering.
A White-Knuckle Ride
“The future is no more uncertain than the present.”
If you want to live a life that feels exciting and fulfilling, it's extremely important to define your goals. I hope you've taken the time to do that so that you have a basic roadmap for the path you want to tread. Once you've done that, you have many decisions to make regarding your preferred pace and methods in working toward them. One of the most difficult things about working on long-term projects often turns out to be the discomfort of becoming someone new, someone who has and can confidently use the skills necessary to achieve your stated goals. It can be equally difficult to communicate the changes in progress to the important people in your life, and to unveil your plans and results to people who may display mixed reactions to them for any number of reasons.
Sometimes the best course of action will be to fly under the radar as you begin to make your initial steps toward your goals. Change can be messy, and you don't necessarily need others poking at you with their opinions about what you're doing in the early stages. Your choice here should have a lot to do with your personality—how much do you like to talk over your daily experience with others? How much support would you like from others as you work? Would you rather not have to deal with the endless advice of others who may have your best interests at heart, but tend to be fearful or don't know much about your subject area?
But eventually, you'll need to come out into the light of day with your projects and be willing to unveil your changes and be seen in order to fully succeed. This process can be scary when you don't yet have it all together, and don't relish the idea of being judged. Knowing that others are watching as you stumble through things you're not yet expert in can leave you feeling pretty vulnerable. And yet, no one ever achieves new things without navigating this situation. You don't have to love it, but the more comfortable you grow with being seen to be imperfect, the more free you'll be to keep moving through all the uncertain moments in your projects—and there will be many!
You can practice gaining comfort with vulnerability by working on your projects and learning new things. (Continually stretching beyond your current abilities and knowledge also keeps you from getting stuck in any ruts and becoming bored. It also keeps your brain working, which is great for its long-term health.) Every time you research your next steps, attempt to move forward through trial and error, or experience an inspiration leading to new possibilities, you acknowledge what you don't know, while at the same time reaffirming that it's ok not to know everything, and you can and will get where you want to go anyway.
Another one of the ways that you can practice being ok with uncertainty is by choosing to be more communicative with others, and this requires no special situation. All of our interactions with others offer fertile ground here, and most of us encounter numerous other people every day. It's rare that anyone can say that they never encounter discomfort in communicating with others; unfortunately, most of us were taught in some way or other that honest communication is dangerous. This may have been through experience, by noticing that our parents vastly preferred it when we were "good little children" who expressed no opinions or desires (they were busy, and raising kids is hard, so it's not hard to understand why our parents sent the message sometimes that silence is golden). Maybe you asked innocent questions of teachers and didn't understand their disapproving reactions. Maybe as a child you communicated without a filter, as kids do, and sometimes hurt friends' feelings without meaning to. Or maybe you learned to avoid communication because you got one too many bombshells dropped on you at some point, and decided that it was better for everyone to keep things to themselves and refrain from rocking the boat. Whatever may have happened to slow down your interest in owning your truth and communicating openly and confidently, when you're an adult, it's incredibly empowering to work on taking back your ability to share what needs to be said in timing that is appropriate for you.
There are many wonderful sources of information about helpful communication techniques that you can learn from, but in order to become competent in using them, you must practice. Because this practice will offer you plenty of awkward and uncomfortable moments no matter how smart you are (because every person and situation is different) it will serve to help you acclimate to that feeling of stumbling through the use of new skills, and finding that the world will not end because your performance wasn't flawless. As you find out what works well for you, you'll also be gaining confidence in your ability to learn and keep going through uncertainty and discomfort—important skills for any kind of success!
Honest communication can be more frightening than skydiving, and working at it can bring up similar amounts of fear and adrenaline depending on your skill level. If the thought of just calmly and openly stating how you feel and what you want makes you feel like you're about to keel over, then start small. You might ask clarifying questions next time you're buying something in a store or ordering food in a restaurant, explaining what you're trying to accomplish or what you prefer. You could try asking people for the time or directions just for the sake of interacting on topics with little importance. Or try asking someone you care about to do something minor that they normally do with you in a slightly different way, because it seems like fun. When you become willing to express opinions about small things, you start becoming more aware of what you want and what you have to say. You also get used to others responding reasonably to minor requests, as most people will, which will build your confidence in considering tackling larger issues.
Next week's blog will continue where we've left off here, and suggest the most helpful principles I've found for communicating well with others. This week, I hope you'll remind yourself that change is often uncomfortable, but it can become less so as you become familiar with the process. So much can be gained when you're willing to keep going even though you don't know everything about how to climb your mountain.
Graceful as a Feline
“Learn to... be what you are, and learn to resign with a good grace all that you are not.”
What does it take to move through life gracefully? And is that something that's even worth putting time and energy into? Ready examples of people who can both be productive and handle life's ups and downs with serenity seem to be in short supply. Many of us were taught by our relatives and others that life is hard, we have to work hard and never let up, and getting anything done means pushing and shoving all obstacles out of the way with brute force. The concept of grace exists in a whole other realm than this kind of thinking. Isn't it selfish, or frivolous, or self-indulgent, or even downright stupid to want something else when this is just how life is?
I submit that it is not any of those things to want to experience more ease and less drag in the course of your daily activities. The masculine-energy-dominant paradigm of the last couple thousand years has glorified battle and conflict as fighting the good fight, in other words, the best and most glorious way to get things done and to live. But taken to an extreme, this thinking causes us to want to fight everything that moves. It keeps our stress hormone levels high, reinforces the self-sabotaging idea that everything worth doing must nearly kill us, and blinds us to solutions that could be implemented calmly, cooperatively, and expediently so that we can move on to other exploits with a minimum of unnecessary drama and injury.
Note that I'm not saying that feminine energy encourages no extremes! If feminine energy and thinking dominated planet Earth for millennia and dismissed the wisdom inherent in masculine energy, we'd just be likely to have a whole host of different problems. But that is not the scenario we've been exploring. In order to concoct a better balance between masculine and feminine, one that acknowledges all the wisdom we have access to, regardless of our gender, it helps to make a habit of focusing on where bringing in qualities associated with the feminine can smooth out our experience.
The truth is that it is possible to accomplish many of our daily tasks with less tension than we're probably used to holding. It is possible to be more focused in the current moment, and to worry less about the future. We can, in fact, give up animating the voices of our detractors in our own minds and choose to celebrate our goodness and our accomplishments while avoiding arrogance and continuing to learn and grow. In making these choices, we open the way to greater expression of what we truly have to offer.
- Someone who is graceful exhibits fluid movement that can also be precise; grace implies a high degree of awareness and conscious intent. How can you bring more focused awareness to your activities?
- Grace requires control that is based on practice, but not over-muscled inflexibility. How can you let go of tension even as you continue to accomplish your tasks?
- Its maintenance requires the ability to adjust while in motion. How can you become more comfortable with shifting course based on feedback you receive from all of your senses?
- There are internal qualities without which these abilities are not enabled. How can you build these within yourself?
- enough coping ability to register emotions without being immediately disabled by them;
- enough optimism (and determination) to remain open to creative solutions before they are visible;
- the willingness to keep flowing in some direction even when the way forward is blocked.
Before swinging into action, try taking a moment to ask yourself:
- How can I complete this task without struggle? Maybe this could be easier if I allowed it to be
- Is now the best time for it, or have I decided to try to put my head down and try to ram it because I've let stress and habit cloud my vision? Is there anything I could take care of right now that would allow me to return to this with greater enthusiasm and a grounded sense of readiness?
- Could it be done more cooperatively, more calmly, more enjoyably somehow?
If you want insight, you have to make space by allowing a few moments to elapse in which ideas might emerge from your own wisdom. If you want help from anyone, including yourself, you usually need to ask. Cultivating the ability to hold still and wait for a better idea will serve you over time in ways that might surprise you. A meditation practice of some kind will help support your ability to do this as well.
The more you focus on adding grace to your movements on all levels, the more you will learn about how to surf through your days with less wear and tear and more grateful satisfaction. There will always be surprises and challenges, but this makes everything in life feel easier and more fun. You can learn from others, but only by trying things out for yourself will you find the methods that are most supportive to you. Maybe this is worth the time and effort after all!
Who Do You Need to Become?
“There are plenty of difficult obstacles in your path. Don’t allow yourself to become one of them.”
We all want opportunities. If you haven't defined goals for yourself, you might not be entirely clear on what the opportunities you'd most enjoy would look like, but I'm sure that there are certain kinds of offers that would delight you if they just showed up at your door. Once you have addressed clarification of the goals that most appeal to you, it makes sense to start cultivating a state of readiness for those perfect opportunities. After all, you can have all the opportunity in the world, but if you don't have the confidence and the skills to accept gracefully and follow through with competence, you're not likely to enjoy the kind of experience you crave.
Let's take a look at one of your goals. If someone offered you a chance at exactly what you want today, you would no doubt be excited. If you close your eyes and imagine this scenario with vividness, though, chances are you'll also come up with some misgivings as well. Those might be something like, "I'm not ready," or "People will find out I'm a fraud," or "What if everyone says I'm terrible at this?" This is a quick way of finding out what holds you back from taking appropriate action to prepare yourself for success, as well as of showing you reasons why you might be likely to sabotage yourself if and when the goal looks like it's getting too close.
Once you've spent a little quality time digging into this exercise, you can now make some choices about how to proceed. For instance, if you thought, "I'm not ready," now it's time to write out all the reasons why you're not. Really indulge here. We want to get all parts of you on board with moving forward toward that goal, so we really want to know all of the objections you're holding into. Who would you need to become physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually in order to rock those opportunities you want when they show up? Make this as clear a picture as you can, listing all the positive qualities you need to build in yourself in order to be ready—the opposite of what you currently worry that you are.
Once you have that list of positive qualities, it's time to work on one or two so that you're building your readiness for your ideal future. Sometimes you'll need to find yourself some appropriate education and a way to start building experience in a certain area. Sometimes you'll need help healing the effects of past experiences in some way. In any case, it usually helps to find some other people who can support you as you build your competence and confidence. Maybe you could really use a work partner, who will be working on their own goals and with whom you meet to share process and mutual encouragement. Maybe you just need a few people who can listen to your latest developments and cheer you on. Maybe you need professional consultation in some area. Whatever you decide, make sure that the people you choose to join your support system are positive and genuinely want you to succeed. Even a professional should help you to feel positive about yourself and the progress you're making; if they don't, perhaps they're not the right fit for you. There are also plenty of groups you can join if you're not sure you can find any of these in your current life.
As you work on growing into new, positive qualities, you'll also want to consider this: What are all the reasons why you haven't become that person you want to be, and why you may not be able to? The answer to this is also golden as far as its ability to help you address factors that can trip you up. If you don't address the things that surface in this category, your progress will be much more difficult than it needs to be. The best way I know of to handle these worries and objections is through the use of EFT, which is incredibly effective at addressing mental and emotional resistance to progress. I highly recommend that you learn the basics at least and get comfortable with them. If any of this stuff is really dogging you, consider making a larger investment of time and energy in this work. The payoff can be disproportionately huge.
It may also help you to take inventory of whether you tend to overprepare or underprepare. If you're not sure, ask your friends and coworkers, who will probably have some perspective to offer on this. Either way, you may need to circumvent your tendency when it comes to how to choose when to move on to a new aspect of work. Some people tend to admit their own progress very slowly and cautiously. Others habitually underestimate the preparation they'll need to perform with excellence when the chips are down. Either way, it's a good idea to check in periodically with someone who has expertise in your subject area to help you gauge realistically how you're doing in preparing for your specific goals. This will keep you moving forward at a reasonable rate without rushing past important milestones or getting stuck in endless contemplation of detail.
Because you will always be able to think of new goals as soon as you reach your current ones, this is a process that never ceases unless you want to become stale. Therefore, it's important to find ways to enjoy this constant learning process as well as the euphoria of reaching your goals. You can be both peaceful and content with the blessings you currently have, and fired up about the exciting future you're working toward. I encourage you to keep yourself tuned into the balance of these that you're creating for the most satisfying possible life. What can you appreciate, and what can you learn this week? If you keep doing both, you'll keep making progress, and fueling your enthusiasm and energy so you can keep going, always improving your life and your enjoyment of it.
Ready...Set...
“Observe due measure, for right timing is in all things the most important factor.”
Have you ever had a good idea, rushed to implement it, and found that somehow it fell flat for reasons you didn’t understand? This can happen for many reasons, of course, including unforeseen issues arising at the last minute. However, this week we’ll focus on a factor I don’t often hear discussed that can be hugely important—timing. There are several different components to timing I want to touch on that I think are helpful considerations when planning toward a goal. If you at least think through these before taking action, in my experience, you have better chances of success in your final product, whether you’re planning the launch of a book or other product, taking a vacation, or planning a party.
· Time needed to complete your proposed task list. Every task should be given as realistic a time frame for completion as it’s possible to estimate. If you’ve never done something like this before, it’s crucial that you consult someone who has. Otherwise, your guess could be drastically off and endanger the completion of your project if there are dependencies involved—in other words, things that need to be done before, during, or after that task that depend on it. It’s always surprising to me how many people don’t bother to even attempt to think through how much work is involved in any project or step in one, and so much can go wrong when you don’t.
· Preparation. What needs to happen before you can begin? Do you need to find other team members or brush up on some skills of your own before you set the wheels in motion? Are there fears or other resistance you’re feeling that it would be better to deal with before you get started so they don’t wreak havoc on your project once it’s in motion?
· Context. This is a tough one because the factors you could consider may be practically infinite depending on your project, but you should do the very best you can with what you have. What is going on in your life and in the lives of others who will participate in or be the consumers of your project? Is someone on your team getting married this year? What holidays, religious and secular, will fall within important periods of your project? (There are some excellent calendars online that include a wide variety of religious holidays.) What time of year will the project end—in January, when many are trying to turn over a new leaf with New Year’s resolutions, or during the height of summer vacation season? What are people generally interested in or concerned about at that time? Is there a political cycle you need to consider or other projects you need to work around? What’s trendy and cool right now, and how does your project relate to that—for instance is there a popular festival in your vacation destination that you’d like to participate in or avoid? This is a broad area that deserves research and brainstorming with others so you can turn up as many factors for consideration as possible and wisely choose your end date.
· Contingencies. What would you do if you had some bad luck, causing delays, at any point in the project? If the end date got delayed, what would happen, and is there a time when you’d be better able to deal with this? Is there a step in the process that absolutely can’t move?
· Preference. When would you rather be working on the project and when would you prefer that it be finished? If it works to do that, go ahead so as to best preserve your enthusiasm and enjoyment of the experience.
· Cost. Is there a time when doing what’s necessary will cost you less, or when the end product can earn you greater benefits?
· Intuition. This is a wild card category, but considering it can bring important factors to your attention. Putting aside what’s logical, is there any timing that just feels particularly right or wrong to you? You can choose to think of this as your subconscious mind indicating knowledge you have that your conscious mind doesn’t remember. If you have an established relationship with your intuition, you may also know this as a place of intersection with the spiritual part of yourself. Consult your own and ask others to consult theirs and just see what you come up with.
· Summation. When you put all of these together, does any particular timing become the clear winner? If not, don’t be afraid to talk it out with someone you trust to be supportive and to have good ideas when they hear about your choices. Maybe several people. If nothing stands out, sometimes you have to just pick a choice and go. That’s fine, and you probably learned some helpful things in going through this process. Who knows when they’ll come in handy along the way.
If you take the time to look at all of these factors before taking on your next project, you’ll be able to feel more confident that you’ve avoided some pitfalls and chosen the best timing for your efforts. Nothing ever goes perfectly as planned, but when you do your best to strategize intelligently in your initial choices, you’ll have removed every roadblock you could, and that’s better than the alternative! You’ll learn through experience what you might have missed, but at least you won’t be kicking yourself for not trying.
Never Enough Time!
“Time abides long enough for those who make use of it.”
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.
Do This and Thrive
“Set your goals high, and don’t stop till you get there.”
I rarely do this, but in this week’s blog I’m going to emphasize and reiterate what I said last week, because there is nothing that is potentially more powerful in your life than unleashing your own innate motivation through joy. If you have not yet made time to think through and write out your most cherished hopes in the form of goal statements that are positive, in present tense, and as specific as you can make them, now’s the time! If the thought of doing this still makes you want to break out in hives, then please reread my blog from two weeks ago for ways to relax about this and make it fun.
These are not static statements of what will happen to the letter, because life throws curve balls, and requires flexibility. You are not going to spiral down into shame if you need to modify anything you write, you’re just going to keep reminding yourself what you want and why, and work on enjoying every step that moves you closer to one of your goals, however small the step. Both the process and the result are important, but the better you get at process, the more results you can achieve.
To recap: People who have written out their goals and review them every day get more of what they want. This is not very difficult or time consuming to do. Take some deep breaths, grab a pen, and go for it. Do it now! We’re all rooting for you!