So Much Happier Blog
Sniff, Cough, Blech
“‘Tis healthy to be sick sometimes.”
No matter how well you take care of yourself, there will be times when you get sick and need to take some time to recover. Modern life is a complex, high-speed high-wire balancing act with a lot of moving parts. Think about it—if you're moving around at all during the day and eating food you haven't produced yourself, then you're constantly coming into contact with various microbes from far-flung locations and all manner of influences that are potentially challenging to your system. Everyone is trying to get our attention for one reason or another, not to mention influence our behavior. We are asked to be more and do more than ever before. We're completely out of touch with natural rhythms because of the 24/7 opportunities technology has produced. We live in a world of high demands and we don't get enough high-quality rest, nutrition, and exercise unless we're really prioritizing our own high functioning. For many reasons, most of us aren't. But even if we are, being human means that sometimes plans go awry.
Which leads me to my main point. Getting sick is not a failing. Sure, it may point out to you some of the ways in which you need to up your game in the arena of your own care and feeding, but it doesn't necessarily mean that everything is out of balance, or that you should have been able to avert this. Our bodies have natural defense systems that respond when they come into contact with invaders, building up immunity to those microbes in the future, but this takes time, and sometimes we experience symptoms until this work is complete. In this case, your body is doing exactly what it's supposed to do.
Sometimes, as our bodies balance with the cacophony of daily influences, a clearing out becomes necessary. Perhaps some substance has accrued to unsustainable levels in the body, and needs to be expelled. This is sort of like spring cleaning, and though I'm not a health specialist of any formal kind, from my own observation, I think this happens to all of us sometimes. Our bodies do their very best to maintain health no matter what we put them through, and they use various tools and options to do that.
When you feel under the weather, it's a fine time to consider what you might do better in supporting your health and balance from the outside, as well as how your own stress levels and mental and emotional discord may have gotten out of control. Stress is now widely understood to be a major risk factor in not just immunity to day-to-day threats like the common cold, but also in more serious health conditions across the board. Look first to the classic trifecta of sleep, exercise, and good nutrition. During times of high demand, you might also want to think about supplementing with herbs such as adaptogens, which help your body to keep returning to balance no matter in which direction you tend to get off track, whether too yin or too yang, "too much" or "too little." It's always best to consult with a professional before trying this, as herbs are powerful, and not generally a one-size-fits-all solution. I'm fortunate to have a close friend who is an accomplished herbalist, but you can probably find someone good locally by checking online reviews for your own and nearby communities. You should also talk to your main health practitioner so that everyone advising you knows what's going on.
To me, it's excellent common sense, now that we know the pervasive corosiveness of stress to our long-term health, to get serious about dealing with it—not just when sick, but on a daily basis. That's why I suggest having a daily practice that addresses this area of your life. Everyone knows that you can't just exercise one time and feel great forever. I'm telling you that you also need to think about what an "emotional gym membership" would look like. Some people get a lot of mileage out of pure expression—talking things out with friends, writing in a journal, creating artwork in any number of media. While I agree that all of those are wonderful outlets, for me, the practice of regularly using EFT has added an exponentially more powerful dimension to the mix. It allows for faster, more complete processing of thoughts and emotions, and facilitates amazing new understanding of self and others in a way that's easier, more enjoyable, and more natural than anything else I've found. Whatever you find appealing, choose to use it more often and you'll most likely find your ability to relax, renew, and heal improving over time. The goal is not a perfect body (impossible) but one that can bounce back from times of higher demand with some measure of grace. When you support it with what it needs, you make that more possible, more probable, with every helpful action. So what will you do this week to build a better set of resources for your body and your long-term health?
Sustainable Motivation
“The secret of genius is to carry the spirit of the child into old age, which means never losing your enthusiasm.”
There are two basic options you have every time you seek to motivate yourself toward a task or a goal. One acts like Superman's Kryptonite, draining your energy, creativity and sometimes even your will to live, and the other acts like a vast array of brand-new solar panels, powering your progress with no further investment through the inevitable daily dose of the sun's rays. You may now find yourself wondering, if this is true, why in the name all that is good would anyone choose the first option? That's an excellent question! In this blog, we'll look at why we do this, and what the two options are in the first place.
The first option, which most people vastly overuse in the quest for motivation, is shame. I've heard it said that while guilt is the feeling that you've done something wrong, shame is the feeling that you are wrong. Did you get the difference? Give a moment to sink in, because this is important. Shame is, frankly, guilt gone too far. If you believe that you just are bad, that doesn't leave you anywhere to go, and if that doesn't drain your will to live, I don't know what would! The purpose of feeling guilt at all is to let you know that you've veered off course, and you have some work to do to get back on track so that you're living within the parameters of your own values. And here's where we get down to the reason why we then flip into shame: We were taught to.
The application of shame is a very popular tactic for attempting to keep children (and later, adults) in line. If a caretaker implies that a child's behavior is bad and love may be withdrawn because of it, she is likely to be scared into submission. She is also likely, with limited understanding, to take away the message that she is bad—sometimes that's even the intended message. The point of all this from the adult perspective is to maintain some control, and to teach the child safe and desirable behavior. Parenting is hard, children are energetic and unruly, and sometimes anything that works without obvious harm is the goal.
Adults will use shame tactics on adults for control as well, because they know that subconsciously, many will be intimidated and manipulated by them without even noticing what's happening. Also, these are the tactics they were taught themselves—and these things get passed on generation after generation. You can see this playing out in arenas like politics, advertising, and religion, not to mention family dynamics. We learn, from the way others try to motivate us, how we should try to motivate ourselves. And while I'm no child development or parenting expert, I can tell you that for adults, this approach is a disaster.
I want to move on to a better way, while first acknowledging that though you can do a lot through the power of choice and intention, you may need more than that in order to turn away from the habit of overindulgence in guilt and shame. Many of you know what I'm going to say next! EFT, y'all. Otherwise know as Tapping. It's simple to learn, free to use, and once you're comfortable with it, you can use it to rewrite how you experience old memories and how you process new experiences. Depending on your situation, this may take some work. It may even be appropriate to seek guidance from a mental health professional as you do this work, depending on your situation. But I have not found anything else to be as helpful and empowering across such a range of complaints. That said, now let's move on to greener pastures!
The second way to motivate ourselves is through joy. Does that sound good to you? If not, you may find that you have a lot of programming around this concept that causes you to immediately assume that this is dumb, wouldn't be effective, is the territory of the self-indulgent, etc. If so, that right there will prevent you from fairly considering just how efficient it actually can be, and making some amazing progress. What I find to be true over and over is that when we find ways to amp up our inspiration around who we are and the path we're on, everything becomes easier and more fun. That, in turn, builds confidence and optimism, not to mention enthusiasm and physical energy, that will carry us through challenges and setbacks when necessary.
So how do we go about connecting to the infinite power source that is joy? You'll find your own tricks and refinements, but the essential part of the endeavor is in acknowledging that you have a unique part to play in life that has to do with many factors, including where you came from, your family, your friends, your natural talents and the skills you've built, as well as your desires and passions. You are valuable. Knowing that you have something special to offer, you then get to decide how you will assemble all of your pieces into a work of art. This should be fun!
- If it's not fun yet, consciously ask yourself all throughout the day how you could make your tasks more fun. You're alive today! Act like it! Celebrate it!
- It's also important to celebrate what you want (your vision for your future) as well as what you have right now, and love both as best you can. If you're really loving and appreciating something, anything, you're building reserves of joy
- Lastly, celebrate yourself. You will always make mistakes and do some things badly, especially if you're learning, growing, and trying new things. That never means that you are bad. It means that you're human, and there will always be more to learn
- If others are sending you the message that you're bad, that's about them, not you. You decide what you will improve about yourself. It's great to take feedback into account, and others can teach us a great deal, but you are the final arbiter of what's right for you and your timing
- Every day, you need to be spending some time purposely enjoying and honing your vision, and considering your best next steps for getting there. You need to "keep it real," in other words, allow yourself to think of that future you want as a real thing that's being built right now
- It's also important to train yourself to be awake, alive, and aware in the present moment, because that is where all opportunity will show up. Have you ever noticed that an opportunity is never offered to you in the past or the future? If you're spending too much mental time in either, you're missing out on what's happening and what's possible right now!
Powering your life with joy and inspiration is like hooking up to a renewable energy source that draws you forward. It's the most efficient and sustainable way to boost yourself into the future you want, so think about adding more of it if you want to generate perpetual motivation.
People Are Annoying
“I know that there are people who do not love their fellow man, and I hate people like that!”
You know how some days you have a run-in with someone (not homeless or obviously mentally ill) who displays just jaw-dropping rudeness, selfishness, or malice? This can be a shock to the system, and it happens to us all. Even microagressions can pile up in the course of a day so that you go home feeling like you just hate people. I don't think any of us is proud of this, but it's a common enough experience that I suspect you recognize it! This week, I've been thinking about how important it is to actually work at acknowledging that the world we live in is like this, and letting go of the tendency to let our sense of outrage ratchet up and push against it all. Being in a state of outraged resistance is an exhausting distraction that will erode the ability to achieve your own goals.I'm not saying that it's easy to avoid, but you can learn ways to navigate the world that will minimize its negative impact on you.
This gets to the heart of a truth espoused by many ancient schools of thought that seems counterintuitive, which is that in order to be happy and at peace, we need to first accept what is. The very human response to this idea tends to be immediate rebellion, because we think that must mean we have to also accept that "what is" will never change, or we have to somehow approve of something that is downright wrong (or at least drastically not to our liking). Yet neither is true. All it means to accept the present conditions is to step aside from the cyclone of emotion and the physical, chemical responses that stem from falling down the rabbit hole of rage and resistance. The more you can avoid that slide, the more you can stay on solid ground, maintain your equilibrium, and keep access to your greatest skills at your fingertips. If you manage to do that, you can be a part of the solution you seek; if you don't, you miss opportunities left and right to live a life that really fulfills you.
For most of us, the right answer is to learn to acknowledge the chaos that is this planet, vent about it when absolutely needed, and then get back to focusing on what is uniquely ours to do. Now, there could be a few people out there who feel that their purpose is to educate others on how to move through the world with broader understanding and better manners—latent Mother Teresas of the chronically rude (and if you're one of them, that's fantastic. Please let me know and I'll help you get the word out!) But making change happen in this arena would, I fear, require a commitment at about her level of total dedication. Most of us have other purposes. Spending unnecessary time in outrage is draining and will distract us insidiously from projects in which our brilliance would be best harnessed for good.
As you deal with people you don't know, see if you can make it a game to acknowledge that many people WILL be annoying to you—and it's not the end of the world—while you keep ahold of your calm, and even cultivate a sense of amusement at the crazy. You still get to choose how to react, in other words, you get to choose who you will be in the world even in the face of annoyance. I'm sure there are some aspects of the incredible diversity that greets you every day that you appreciate. It makes sense that in order to enjoy that, you might have to put up with a bunch of things you'd rather not have as possibilities. Endeavor to spend less time and energy worrying about the second group, and practice continually enjoying and refocusing on the first. If something feels like your mission to fix, then go for it, and try to enjoy the process. Do it because it's an expression of you and what you have to give, but not because you're desperately seeking perfection that will last for all time. Such a thing doesn't exist, and that's ok. Life is always change, whether we acknowledge that or not. Trying to create an unassailable legacy that will last through the ages is about fear of death and an out-of-control ego rather than joy and authentic purpose.
Being annoyed won't hurt you (though being chronically stressed out may, so learning to stay calm is a great investment in your health). Remind yourself that annoyance is part of life, and practice avoiding unnecessary, reactionary drama. This is one of those lessons we all have to keep learning, so just stick with it and do the best you can!
Consumption vs. Creation
“I’m always thinking about creating. My future starts when I wake up every morning... Every day I find something creative to do with my life.”
Here's something I've found helpful in my work in supporting productivity: Understanding the difference between consumption mode and creation mode. If you're reading this, the world you were born into has encouraged you to default to consumption mode through your education (memorize what we give you and repeat), the ubiquity of advertising (trust us, you need to buy this), politics (here's the party line), organized religion (this is what you should believe and do), family (here's who you are), and on and on. There's great reward for accepting and conforming to what is handed to us, and that's not necessarily a bad thing! Humans are social animals, so being part of groups is essential to our health and well being. Societal structures help us to create and maintain the stability needed to foster decent standards of living and opportunities to pursue our own personal flavor of happiness, while still feeling like we're part of something larger than ourselves. But it's all too easy to become entranced by all the expectations we encounter, and caught up in endless contemplation of what's expected. Not to mention anxiety about whether we're measuring up, and what will happen if we don't.
If that's where we're living, we're not going to spend much time in creation mode. Creativity thrives outside the strictures of imposed expectations. It requires that you free your mind from established patterns and allow your own unique internal spark to lead the way to something fresh and new. For children, this is easy. For the first several years of life, they don't understand or care much about what anyone else thinks unless behaving a certain way leads to a catastrophic withdrawal of love by family members, but even then they're likely to try to get around the rules. As they get older, they will often realize that it's a lot safer and easier to conform to expectations, lose the imaginary friend, and at the very least perfect an extremely convincing impression of a compliant member of all applicable groups. The desire to be accepted and belong is very compelling during the teen years in particular; if we're not careful, we can get stuck in the patterns of fear-driven compliance, which tends to keep our lives small and confining.
If you want to have access to your creative engine, or work up to being a creative genius, priming the pump with inspiration is important, but it's also essential to turn off the barrage of information and expectation from outside. You must learn to think of yourself as a creator, prioritize making time and space for creative urges to bubble up, and be ready to take action to bring your creations into reality. How you share them with others is up to you, but you'll never get started if you don't find ways to carve out an oasis of self. You may find that this is hard to do because it's so easy to be pulled every which way by so many other things that seem important, especially when you have no guarantee of what you'll produce during this time. You may feel pressure to come out of it with concrete results, and frustration if you don't. It takes courage to stand for something you want that takes solitary effort, especially when it takes time to find one's stride—and it always does when starting something new. How can you know how music you can write in a given amount of time until you try? Obviously you can't! Especially if you've never written a song before in your life.
Even if the steps toward a goal seem very methodical and concrete, you will find that you need to bring your creativity to bear on how to accomplish each task, since you are a unique human being with many needs and desires to balance throughout your project. Sticking with the program requires focus and discipline, and the decision to put aside distractions to bring about the result you want.
No matter what you're working toward, you'll be more successful if you acknowledge that you are choosing to be in creation mode when it's time to work. Acknowledge yourself for having the strength of spirit to go out on a limb alone over the dark chasm of the unknown. Appreciate your desire and your ability to bring new ideas and constructs into being. Focus on bringing forth rather than bringing in. And make sure you still allow yourself some consumption time in order to relax, renew, and stimulate new thoughts and sensations that will feed into your work. You may have noticed that ideas tend to crop up at unexpected moments when you're relaxing and doing undemanding tasks like taking a walk or a shower. This time is important too, because your mind isn't engaged in anything demanding, but you're also not trying too hard either. The right mix of time spent in various states of mind will be something for you to experiment with as you pursue your most productive and satisfying life.
This distinction between consumption and creative mode has really helped me to remember what's important to me as I forego other interesting activities that might otherwise distract me from producing the stuff of my goals. I hope this concept helps you to find a balance between the two that suits your forward movement in the context of your unique life.
The Moment of Truth
“In order to carry a positive action we must develop here a positive vision.”
The last installment in this series about changing a negative belief has arrived! This week, we'll look at the role of taking new actions in order to solidify your new beliefs. Notice that this is the last step in the process I'm recommending, and that is purposeful; you may also note that it bucks the trend of the most commonly spouted advice about feeling fear and resistance and just "powering through it," "walking it off," and acting anyway. While that can be helpful advice when you've already done your internal preparations and are beginning your foray into the realm of the new, taking it on to the exclusion of doing your internal work can be downright dangerous. If you take such a harsh, dismissive view toward the parts of yourself that are not yet on board with your choices, you are likely to treat others with similar harshness and arrogance. In case you haven't noticed, our world doesn't need a whole lot more of these right now. How about a more responsible approach?
Once you've made progress on your old belief through your mental, emotional, and spiritual attachments to the old, and you're feeling pretty good about what seems possible to you now, it's time to decide on some small actions you can take to affirm all the good work you've done and take steps toward your goals. These should be items you know you can do, even if they challenge you a little. Then, you're going to choose one to do first. Now that you've decided, are you totally comfortable starting it now? Take a moment to imagine that you're about to begin, or even go ahead and pick up the phone or otherwise act like you're going to do it immediately. At this point, you may start to notice resistance, fear, anxiety, or negative thoughts arising. This is actually a good thing, because it clarifies what is likely to trip you up as you work. You can be happier and more productive if you Tap for each of the emotions, sensations, and thought patterns that you've noticed before you really hit those tasks.
If one of your thoughts was, "I can't do it...I'm just not good at this," that probably brings up a bunch of emotions about times when you think you failed in the past as well as fear in the present. First, you might Tap for the fear you feel about taking action. Then, when that's calmer, you might work on past memory that means failure to you, and how you felt about it at the time, as well as how you still feel about it now. Keep doing this until the idea of taking action now is the first step in a learning process. When it feels like everything you think of yourself is riding on the outcome of every little task, you won't keep going if something goes wrong. If, however, you can get to an understanding that even something that seems like a disaster need not stop you indefinitely because it's just another opportunity for learning, then you will be very hard to keep down. That's what I want for you, and Tapping can help you to get there naturally so that your new belief seems logical and stable.
When you take the time to work with your reactions rather than trying to stuff them down and discount their value, you build a calmer life for yourself while continuing to learn about what motivates and what stops you from being your best self every day. You may not be able to completely remove all of your discomfort, but you can gain a lot of relief with Tapping, even if the same things continue to come up as you take action toward your goals and you need daily maintenance for a while. Some new patterns take time and practice to stabilize. While change usually takes longer than we want it to, knowing that you have the power to feel better in just a few minutes of Tapping is empowering. The rest is just rinse and repeat! You have all the basics of how to change outmoded beliefs at your disposal. So now that you're unstoppable, what will you do to wield your powers for good?
The Willingness to Leap
“All growth is a leap in the dark, a spontaneous unpremeditated act without benefit of experience.”
So far we've addressed the mental and emotional areas of changing a negative belief. The next step in the process of changing a belief that I'd like to share is in the spiritual category. Sometimes when you've followed the steps I've outlined in the previous two weeks on addressing the mental and emotional realities underlying your belief, despite all your best efforts, there's a level at which you'll still plateau and feel stuck. I've found through my own experiences with myself and with clients that bringing whatever spiritual beliefs resonate with you into the process can significantly help in dissolving blocks. Specifically, I often find that asking something that feels larger than your own awareness for help can really pave the way for more rapid progress.
It seems to me that what's happening when we allow ourselves to ask for help on a spiritual level is that we are allowing the possibility of benign change that we don't need to control or immediately understand. Being in a state of openness can create a new kind of space in which synergistic progress becomes more likely. If you have a concept of God or other helpful unseen forces that works for you, Tapping while calling upon it can really get things moving. If you're an agnostic or atheist, try asking all the best, smartest parts of you to work together and help you to find new ways forward. Once you express this willingness to be assisted, you may find that whatever blocks have remained start to diminish without your having to do much of anything, and inspiration may strike. Sometimes all you'll feel is increased relaxation, but later, new, helpful ideas will come to you that will show you your next steps.
If you want to try this approach, remember that it's not mental or emotional. It requires only that you relax, breathe, and ask for help in whatever way seems natural for you as you Tap. If nothing seems to be happening as you try this, just calmly reiterate your request as you tap every point and focus on staying in that place of openness. If you do a few rounds this way and don't notice any change, feel free to keep going. You might also find that it feels great to then do a round or two of Tapping while affirming the most positive thing you can say about yourself, such as, "I'm continuing to do good work here, trying new things and sticking with this. I honor myself for my willingness to do what I can to progress." Even if you don't notice much of a difference, keep in mind that sometimes the effects of EFT are delayed—don't worry, and try to just stay in that state of willingness to receive help as you go about your daily routines. Sometimes people note that they thought Tapping didn't work, but then noticed, days later, that all of a sudden everything had changed. Frankly, staying in a relaxed, neutral state is a great thing to practice no matter what you're trying to accomplish; it helps to keep your mind and body in the most resourceful state possible, and it helps you to avoid gratuitous drama that would drain your energy and distract you from what's most important to you.
While asking for help may not seem like a sure winner, it can be quite powerful. At some of the times when I have felt the most stuck, this approach has helped me to get to a new place, even if it took a few days for a new pattern to settle in. It's a great way to start or end an EFT session, so don't forget to give it a try the next time you Tap. You may find that it opens up new perspectives for you in surprising ways.
Below the Surface
“Honestly, sometimes I get really fed up of my subconscious—it’s like it’s got a mind of its own.”
Now that you're clear about the beliefs you'd like to change, and have done some mental work (see last week's blog if you don't know what I'm talking about), what's the next step...? Now, I recommend working on the emotional side of things. Modern culture heavily emphasizes the mind in problem solving, so that's what many of us think is the alpha and the omega of making progress in anything, but your belief work won't hold if you don't address your emotional realities. These are deeply seated in your psyche and your body, and they will block your progress past a certain point. The great thing is that with effective tools like hypnosis or EFT, you can reach and work with the subconscious realm of old, ingrained emotions and patterns, which is where these blocks, and the power to create lasting change, reside.
You can do this work alongside the mental work (affirmations, for example). Ideally, all of your efforts will coordinate with and support each other. Assuming that you wrote out all the reasons you have the undesirable belief you're working on, the next step is to address each reason. There are other ways to do this, but since my favorite method is EFT, we'll be using that as the framework here. Using the same example as last week, if you believe you're too old to get in shape, one of your reasons might be that you think you have bad genes. In that case, you can do some Tapping for "I have bad genes"; this is a good start, but it's general, and the best results in EFT come from getting as specific as you can. Ask yourself: Why is this reason true, and what makes you sure? Look for your proof in specific events that have happened to you, like someone in your family having a traumatic experience that illustrates this, or someone important to you telling you this with a lot of conviction and emotion at a key moment for you. When you use EFT on these specific experiences, you are dismantling the support for your limiting belief one reason at a time. If you don't take on this work, all the mental work in the world won't usually get you permanent results, because you have these powerful emotional realities hanging on in the world of the subconscious. You may have to work on multiple supporting events in turn in order to start feeling different about each reason, but you may not have to work on everything similar that's ever happened because of the Generalization Effect, in EFT terms. Translation: To some extent, working on one event in a series tends to bring down the intensity of all of them.
As always, if anything feels too big or too confusing for you to handle alone, get help. There are numerous ways to do this, and so many great resources available to you. If you really want to make progress toward your goals, you will need to break the cycle of avoidance that tempts us all and do at least some of this work. You might as well figure out whether you're more likely to tackle it on your own or with others, and get started. Doing something new will always engender some feelings of awkwardness and discomfort, but in this case, the payoff can make the discomfort you endure worth every second in the long term.
I do want to be realistic and tell you that the process of working through all the reasons that support your belief can take some time. Depending on how much time and energy you devote to this, you will move forward if you use EFT faithfully, but you may not see instant results. Try not to quit before you see any. Sometimes you just need to keep at it. How much work will be needed varies widely from person to person and from subject to subject for each person. I also want to mention that sometimes, we hold onto a limiting belief because we get overwhelmed when we consider moving forward without it, and we use the belief as a shield against change. You may be frustrated by your difficulty with making progress in the past, but keep in mind that this behavior is designed to protect us. Humans evolved to be highly risk averse out of self-preservation, one of the strongest drives there is. Sure, you can try to fight this if you want, but you'll make yourself miserable and waste a lot of energy if you go that route. You can't discipline or shame yourself into confidence—I find that partnering up with the side of you that's afraid and trying to keep you alive (even if that's an overreaction) is the smarter and simpler way to go. Often you'll learn something new about what's been motivating you underneath the surface of things when you allow yourself to be open to it. Try asking yourself, "What's the worst thing that could happen if I no longer had this belief?" Once you have an answer, or several, treat each one as its own separate reason using the process outlined above.
This is the basics of working on the emotional glue that keeps old, outdated beliefs in place. If you don't have a good grasp on how to do the Tapping, review that before you attempt it, and always use common sense, pay attention to the signs your body is giving you, and don't overdo it. Otherwise, give it a try and see how including emotional work can help your beliefs to quickly evolve in the most positive way!
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!
You Are What You Eat, So Know What You're Eating!
“Looking good and feeling good go hand in hand. If you have a healthy lifestyle, your diet and nutrition are set, and you’re working out, you’re going to feel good.”
I've just finished reading what I think is an extraordinarily helpful book about food, so I'm interrupting our ordinarily scheduled programming to tell you about it. Before you decide you don't have time for one more "diet" theory, let me just assure you that it's not a strict, one-size-fits-all set of claims. It's The PlantPlus Diet Solution by Dr. Joan Borysenko, and unlike most fad-ish diet books out there, this one examines each of the most familiar concepts currently in vogue about what humans should eat, and provides a summary of the scientific research available regarding them. It explains why each may work well for certain people but not others. It also examines biases and the psychology of different food choices in a way that I found illuminating.
While I have no connection with the book financially or otherwise, I want to highly recommend that you read it. Because of my own personal experiences, I came to the conclusion years ago that each of us is unique, and would do well to observe our own results carefully and personalize our diets accordingly. That is also the conclusion of this book. If that sounds like a daunting task, don't worry! The author lays out the basics of what we currently know about healthy eating, and gives us guidelines on how to figure out what's really best for us. My first introduction to this personalized eating concept was Eat Right for Your Type by Peter J. D'Adamo, which suggests which foods are best for the particular chemistry of each blood type. When I tried the suggestions for mine for two weeks, I found that I felt much better than I had previously, and that convinced me that even within a healthy diet one can enhance it based on trial and error and observation of one's unique body.
There are no doubt many excellent books about sensible eating plans, but this one is also unique in that it lists medical tests you can ask your doctor for that will reveal some of the best guidelines for your personal eating plan. How does your body handle carbohydrates versus fats versus proteins? You're about to find out! There are also recommended tests that will reveal over time how any changes you've made are affecting unhealthy markers like inflammation. Most doctors get almost no training on diet and nutrition in medical school, so they most likely won't do these unless you ask, but these tests can help you avoid eating a "healthy" diet that's all wrong for optimizing your ability to thrive throughout your life. You can gain a lot of insight through observation, but medical testing can really shorten the learning curve and reveal things that most of us just aren't going to be able to tune into.
Even if you're already eating a fresh, organic whole foods diet, the name of the game is now personalization. The difference between illness and brilliant health can be about small but powerful refinements. It might not seem all that exciting to do this detective work, but I'll tell you what is exciting—living a pain-free, high-energy life in a physically fit body. No matter where you're starting, I'd be willing to bet you can make strides toward this vision by focusing some attention on providing your body with its most appropriate fuel. Even if you don't get those medical tests done right away, you'll finish the book having acquired an excellent basis for making food choices with increased understanding. Science will keep evolving, but why not utilize the best of what's currently available? This book covers some technical information, but remains pretty fun to read, and I think you'll find it useful as you make your daily food choices.
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.
The Constructive Rant
“Death is not the biggest fear we have; our biggest fear is taking the risk to be alive - the risk to be alive and express what we really are.”
Since last week I mentioned the usefulness of EFT/Tapping in maintaining positive momentum, this week I wanted to share a tip from my own experience about getting started with it. While working on something specific is where all the long-term benefits are really at, in the beginning, for me personally, the best thing ever was the "tap and rant" approach. To do this, all you need is the points for EFT's Basic Recipe, the Shortcut version. Your setup statement can be something simple, like "Even though I'm stressed out, I deeply and completely accept myself." As you move around the points, you just talk about everything that's bothering you in no particular order. I recommend really enjoying the drama of it all, as you would with a sympathetic best friend; also, I find that it's best to actually speak out loud, even if you're not in the habit of talking to yourself! It's easier to stay focused on how you feel when you do that, and being in touch with your emotions while you tap, rather than off in your head, will tend to give you the best results. It's best to do this alone where you will not be heard, because then you'll be free to admit exactly how you feel without worrying that anyone else will take what you say personally. This is not about being reasonable or logical. It's about not sweeping your thoughts, opinions, and emotions under the rug as you've probably been taught to do when they're not so cute, and instead getting them off your chest in a timely manner.
While it's often helpful to express yourself in words either in writing or verbally to another person, this is not only about that. Studies have shown that using EFT significantly reduces cortisol, a stress hormone, and generally de-escalates the body's fight-flight-freeze response. In practical terms, that means that when you use it as you express what's weighing you down, you may soon find yourself much more relaxed physically, and able to regain helpful perspective. This often translates into better sleep, the ability to stay more calm and productive over time, and an increased ability to be restored by rest and recreation.
Allowing yourself the time to do this has the added benefit of helping you to get better at identifying how you feel and why. When your emotions are experienced only as a background haze and a confused jumble, bailing out your moods seems like a lost cause, effective methods for doing so an unsolvable mystery. When you start to gain clarity about what's going on in there, only then can you address issues in ways that actually solve problems. When you can access clarity quickly and easily, which is a skill you gain over time with Tapping, you waste a lot less time. You can make better decisions and take appropriate action without delay. Everything in your life becomes more efficient. You start to feel more empowered to change your life for the better, whether anyone else changes around you or not. What may once have seemed a somewhat self-indulgent leap of faith proves itself to be a powerful tool for supporting happiness and productivity.
After getting relief through the Tap-and-rant process, eventually the specific things that are bothering you will tend to stand out more starkly. That's when working on each one in turn will tend to produce better progress for you. A wider range of techniques may be required if you really want to make lasting change in specific areas. You can learn these online or in books, or you may prefer to take classes or work with a practitioner who can guide you. This can be a very comforting option, and is also a more appropriate option when what you want to change seems too big, too confusing, or too scary to confront on your own.
However you choose to do it, I hope you'll get started with Tapping and start to leverage its many benefits for yourself. If you're someone who is already perfectly happy with your life as it is, well, good for you! If not, Tapping is a simple, free way to start improving it. As with meditation, you can get noticeable benefits from spending just minutes per day on it; unlike with most meditation, though, you're doing something active rather than struggling to quiet your mind in stillness, so it's easier for many stressed-out modern people to begin. Plus, the benefits are often easy to notice immediately, which helps you want to keep it up. Once you understand what it can do, you'll probably only wish you'd had access to it sooner!
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.
Escaping Mental Quicksand
“The ultimate value of life depends upon awareness and the power of contemplation rather than upon mere survival.”
Have you ever gotten stuck in a negative loop of thoughts and/or actions? Something happens that takes the wind out of your sails, and suddenly you don't want to do anything. You start thinking that it's futile to try, and that thought builds momentum until you feel like you weigh a thousand pounds. Maybe you act out in sabotaging ways. That just makes you feel worse. Etcetera. If you're being honest with yourself, you're aware that we all take detours like this sometimes, and you're no different! The trick is to minimize this kind of distraction so that you can spend more time feeling inspired, and happily chewing through whatever tasks will get you to your goals—including goals for plentiful social and leisure time in which to enjoy your life.
There are two things I want to mention in connection with getting yourself on track when you find yourself in a negative thought loop. First, awareness. In twelve-step programs, we're taught that the first step is admitting we have a problem, but before that's even possible, we have to become aware of the signs and symptoms suggesting that this is true. Generally as you go about your life, the more observant and aware you can become, the better off you are. First, the faster you notice that your thoughts are spiraling downward, the faster you can arrest them and decide what kinds of thoughts and actions would actually help you. Second, the information you gain access to by actively looking for it can help you massively in formulating plans for moving forward. Developing finely tuned awareness may take some practice, because it's a skill many of us aren't taught. Also because we live in a fast-paced world in which we're often trying to tune out the extraneous and focus on what is necessary or preferred, and becoming more aware can be distracting and confusing. It's fine to start slowly and work up to more awareness in ways that feel balanced.
The second thing is education. If you want to move quickly toward your ideal life, become an education junkie. Learn to love it, crave it, and make it a normal part of your daily routine. See a problem that's holding you back? Consult someone who might know about it, or books, podcasts, or the Internet. If you don't immediately find ideas you like, keep looking, and be open to inspiration about a unique solution that might bubble up from the depths of your own subconscious unexpectedly. Once you start on the path to a solution, your mind will work below the surface, sparking your own creativity. You never know what insights may result. This will also tend to help you feel more hopeful, because you're doing something useful that could change your future. Education primes the pump, making new combinations of thoughts possible. It also saves you precious time and energy as you benefit from the triumphs and mistakes of others who have gone before.
To combine the two, let's imagine, for example, that your car is making a strange noise. You might ask a friend who is mechanically inclined what might be causing it (ask someone for help). You might then bring it to a mechanic for a professional diagnosis (hire someone). Once the shop makes a recommendation for service, and offers a price, you might check an online search engine for information about how much any recommended repairs usually run so you can tell whether the price you were given is fair (surf the Internet). Once the repair is completed, you might get a book from the library about how to maintain your car so you have fewer problems in the future (find helpful media). You'll then know what to look for in the future in order to notice what needs to be done to maintain your car (practicing awareness).
All of this contributes to your life experience in ways that will serve you indefinitely, even if it doesn't seem all that fun at the time. As your experience and knowledge grow, so does your confidence, not just with this subject matter, but with the process of learning and solving problems. The ability to notice issues and calmly follow the steps needed to unwind them, when honed, makes you nearly unstoppable. You also become more of a resource for others who may be in need of helpful information in the future, and that can be satisfying in its own way. As you head into this week, think about issues you have that would be helped by turning on your awareness or doing a little research. It can be pretty enjoyable to make progress on an issue that's been irritating you, and you may find that's it's not as hard to do as you thought.
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.