Archive for Personal Development
Self Confidence – Do Self Affirmations Work?
Posted by: | CommentsDo positive self affirmations really work? The short answer is ‘No’ – unless you have a few years to spare and a heavy-duty supply of perseverance. The problem is that positive-affirmations are directed at your conscious mind and, unfortunately, the conscious mind has absolutely nothing to do with how you behave, how you react to people and situations, how you view life in general or, most importantly, the way in which you view yourself. However, as I said, if you throw enough muck at your conscious mind, sooner or later – actually, definitely later – some of that muck will eventually stick and make some sort of reasonable impression on your subconscious mind. However, you’d have to stick with it incessantly and, even then, you’d be faced with an uphill battle because your subconscious mind simply won’t believe what you’re trying to tell it if its view of reality is the opposite. How come? Your subconscious mind dictates your beliefs, behaviours and reactions and actually creates your very own version of reality. Self-affirmation is like trying to throw snowballs at hell’s fiery furnace!!
On the other hand, if you’re really determined to change your life, some part of your life, or change yourself, your own self image or some unpalatable behaviour or bad habit, it’s your subconscious mind that you’re going to have to impress. It’s holding all the keys, has its hand on all the levers and its feet on all the pedals that either get your life moving forward or, more often than not, grind to an absolute and juddering halt.
In order to impress your subconscious mind, you will have to become just like a little child again – but childlike as distinct from childish. When you were a child you paid full attention to the reality of the moment, using each of your five senses – that is how you took onboard your current set of beliefs about the world and who you believe yourself to be. As an adult, you now pay precious little attention to reality today – your subconscious mind kinda makes it up for you on the fly! – with all the usual results. You’ve got to get real, to relearn how to pay full attention to what’s actually happening around you, instead of paying attention to the subconscious baggage that’s dragging you down.
The normal subconscious mind is wallowing in the past. The key to your future is to be found in the present. After all, the present moment is the only time and place where life is truly lived. As such, you have to re-learn how to pay attention to what is actually going on, not what your subconscious mind, looking through its dirty lens of past events, thinks is going on. This re-learning process involves training yourself how to pay attention to what you see, feel, hear, smell and taste. This training has to be done in peace and quiet so that, when the going gets tough in the so-called real world, you’re fully trained and ready to do your thing in a manner that will lead you onwards and upwards towards the life that you really want.
Self Help – The Oneness Of Spirit, Body And Mind
Posted by: | CommentsVery often I find it hard to explore some of the central ideas in what I might call personal development or self improvement given that everyday language and words are far from adequate. For example, do the words ‘universal energy’ properly explain the reality that you and I are energy, living in a world and universe made of vibrating energy and that energy responds to our input? Does the sobriquet ‘Law of Attraction’ have the same meaning for different people? And where are the boundaries between mind, body and spirit?
Of course, in fact, there are no borders between mind, body and spirit just as there are no limits between us individually and the universe of which we each comprise an integral and indispensable part. We are not just part of a whole, when it comes to us individually, there is just one – mind, body and spirit are simply different aspects of the one. This is important because, when we look at the facts in this way, it becomes clear that our thoughts have an immediate impact on how we feel spiritually and physically. For example, when one dissects the apparent reality of stress and its very real physical effects, we find that our thoughts directly result in changes in body temperature and heart rate, changes in the creation and distribution of a all manner of chemicals all of which, if unchecked, lead to serious illnesses – such as heart attack and stroke – and, if seriously out of control, lead to premature death.
What is my point? . Our state of mind has a direct impact on the mental state of those around us – this has been proven time and again by research in the field of psychology. How much more does our state of mind affect us, ourselves? Your health, fitness and wellbeing are all direct consequences of your state of mind. Even your weight – your propensity to put on too much of it or a whole range of eating disorders from bulimia to anorexia – is a direct consequence of what is going on in your head.
And what is going on in your head is entirely within your own control – or will be if you could be bothered to make the simplest and, ultimately, most powerful decision that any one of us can make as responsible adults – choosing your own thoughts. The ordinary mind is tortured by inappropriate thoughts, most of which emerge from the subconscious. Research concludes that the ordinary subconscious focuses on the events of our formative years and is predisposed to focus on negative thoughts. This is our default state of mind. That is not to say that we cannot decide what we’ll pay attention to, however.
You are your own boss. Your life, in all its aspects, is created by what you’re paying attention to – whether you’re aware of it or not. The ultimate and powerful choice that I just mentioned can be taken, each day, each moment, by choosing to pay attention to the actual sensory experience of the present moment. That’s the only cast-iron way of preventing your own subconscious dwelling on self-destructive thoughts. No other mechanism is more effective, no other way has the power to completely transform your fitness, your health, your wellness, your personal effectiveness and, ultimately, your ability to live a life of peace, happiness and unbelievable success.
The Importance Of Relaxation
Posted by: | CommentsIt realy is bizarre. I know lots of people who have told me that they do not know how to how to relax. One guy explained that he feels guilty sitting relaxing on a Saturday – he feels compelled to wander around the house or garden hell bent on finding something to occupy him. Another guy recently revealed that, whilst Saturday morning is golf time, and whilst he actually goes out for his round, he doesn’t really play! He can’t – his mind is reliving what happened during the previous week or what’s happening the following week. He’s out on the course but, not only is he not relaxed, he’s not even all there! Even worse, a guy who doesn’t have a care in the world – great job that he’s really on top of, great family life, great everything, tells me that when he’s playing golf he actually feels guilty – feeling that he should be in the office or at home.
Modern life pretty much demands that we should be constantly on the go. But there’s a big difference between cramming your day with activity and getting the really important things done. And one of the important things that you must have as an integral part of your life is time to chill. A New York Times piece a some years back revealed that native tribes in the Amazon basin live the life that every New Yorker wants – seven hours work each week, the rest spent at leisure. However, New Yorkers simply wouldn’t know what to do with all that leisure. OK, there’d be plenty of activity squeezed into it – but what about totally chilling (like the Amazonians)?
Get yourself an easy chair, sit yourself down and do nothing for half an hour – see where your mind takes you. Or find a shade tree, spread out a blanket and just sit down. This is the quality space that is required in our lives – not to rest, but to clear our minds, become inspired and discover the important things that we need to take action on to truly live our lives. Sir Isaac Newton was relaxing under just such a tree when the apple fell for him – find your tree and you’ll find that pennies will drop for you. A little relaxation will change your life.
Practical Personal Growth Tips: Taking A Breather
Posted by: | CommentsOnce the day gets going it’s very easy to get swept away by the routine, the urgent (as distinct from the important), the latest minor crisis or, most common of all, unproductive thought. Even if you have started your day properly, it is all too easy to become submerged and revert to our default state of unfocused mindlessness.
So, for a start, what does starting your day properly mean? Well, we make certain that we don’t leave the house physically unprepared for the day ahead. We shower and dress ourselves – shaving or applying the odd dab of make-up as appropriate! On the other hand, we automatically leave the house each morning mentally unprepared for the day ahead. Starting the day properly means making sure that, before you leave the house, you’ve taken the appropriate step or steps to clear your mind and focus your energy. I recommend five to ten minutes mental preparation first thing. Find somewhere quiet to sit and focus on what your senses are telling you – one sense at a time. This ensures that you’re focused on what is really happening rather than on the subconscious programs that otherwise run your life – the latter being your default state of mind.
Right, let’s say that you’ve got your day off to the perfect start, you’re switched on, focused, mentally wide awake and ready for action. Small things like a delayed train, like heavy traffic, like somebody asking you to do something unexpectedly – so many little things can disturb us. And we haven’t even mentioned the big things! It is so easy to slip and slide mindlessly into mental oblivion as the day progresses. What we’ve got to do is ensure that, throughout our day, we pause to catch our breath – literally.
Age-old wisdom places great store on the opportunity that our breathing affords us to clear the mind of useless nonsense and distraction and, in doing so, focus the energy. So, here’s an easy, quick and very practical tip – because, after all, you’ve got to breathe anyway! Take a couple of moments – moments is all that’s required – at various points during the day to pay attention to the reality of your existence as you inhale and exhale. Focus your attention on what it feels like to breathe, how your body reacts with each breath in and out, how the air passes through your right, left or both nostrils. Give thanks for the reality that you are alive and breathing. Focus on nothing else for these few moments. If the worries or useless thoughts of the moment start crowding your mind, take three deeper breaths to refocus your attention. With each breath, realize that whatever might be doing your head in right now will be completely forgotten in months, weeks, days or even hours. Appreciate that, with an alert, focused and ready mind, anything is possible.
Turning Yourself On On Those Days When You Simply Feel Flat
Posted by: | CommentsThere are days when we just feel flat – perhaps not dejected, disillusioned or depressed, just lifeless, energy-less and disinterested. And although I’ve been teaching my many personal development clients how to start each day by focusing their minds – and I do it myself – sometimes, within just a few minutes, one ends up feeling, like, ‘I wish I was somewhere else!’ or ‘I just don’t feel like doing this!’ I’m not talking about things going wrong during the day, I’m simply talking about what one client described like this: ‘I get into my office, full of energy, I sit down at my desk, start going through my emails and, suddenly, it’s like I’m in a kind of daze.’
What is it that takes the wind out of our sails so easily? How can we be so fired up one minute and then suddenly so flat? Well, the answer is all too simple – flat is your default state of mind. Yeah, believe it or not, research explains that few of us is tuned in sufficiently to actually be adequately focused and attentive to get through the normal day effectively. As if that wasn’t enough, research also asserts that, left to its own devices, our minds slip towards negativity. It’s the way we’re hard-wired – and all the personal development or self improvement in the world won’t personal development or self improvement isn’t going to change the hardware.
But a committed approach to self improvement will change the programs that we run. Again, left to itself, our subconscious mind is happy to watch reruns – to keep running the same old dysfunctional programs that make our daily lives mundane, uninteresting, repetitive and uninspiring. You need to grab a hold of that remote control! Personal development will teach you how to change channels and stop watching the old programs. It will enable you tune in to reality TV – the real reality of the now.
Sadly, the feeling of mindless-couldn’t-care-less simply invades our minds by default. And that will always, for the rest of our lives, be our default way of thinking unless you cultivate a mindful, focused, tuned in state of mind – and not only have you got to do this each and every day, you’ve got to find some mechanism to ensure that you can recapture that state of mindfulness when you feel that you’re slithering down the inevitable slippery slope towards mindlessness – because, as sure as night follows day, you’ll start slipping the moment you take your eye of the ball.
Sure, I’m mixing my metaphors, between PCs, TV and slippery slopes – but you understand? Our mind is ever-ready to mug us – we’ve got to be on alert as much as is humanly possible.
Self Improvement The Need To Look A Different Way
Posted by: | CommentsIt’s a fact of life that most people view life through dark glasses and, as a result, everything appears gloomier than it should. This is normal because the normal mind is hard-wired to look at reality through our conditioning and it is more likely than not that our mind will dwell on negative rather than positive conditioning. This mental tendency is what’s keeping your life on hold.
You must alter the way you look at your world – this is the very essence of personal development. However, I’m not suggesting that you look at the world through rose-tinted glasses – that would disable you from seeing potential pitfalls or warning signs. Such an attitude prevents people from knowing when to give up on something that isn’t working for them – such as a dead relationship or a floundering business. In other words, what is widely known as positive thinking or a positive mental attitude is seriously dangerous and often leads to the biggest cop-out: “I’ll do nothing because I just know that things will improve!”
Something different, even innovative, is required. I am suggesting that you see life for what it is – the reality of the present moment. It is only in the present moment that you can see the potential upside of an opportunity that you might otherwise altogether miss with those dark glasses on. Again, you’ll be acutely aware of the potential downside of what you’re doing or thinking about doing – something that you could completely miss if you’re looking through your rose-tinted spectacles.
However, the reality and potential of the here and now can only be experienced, appreciated and capitalized upon if you get around your hard-wiring – something that doesn’t come naturally to the normal adult. But it was second nature to all of us when we were children. In fact, it was that clarity of mind that enabled us to be conditioned in the first place. Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to relearn how to fully be in the here and now without putting your own personal spin or preconceived notions into the mix. You must stop making a nonsense of the present moment by your reliance on your conditioning.
You can do this by coming to your senses – I mean that quite literally. You’ve got five senses – you need to start paying attention to what they’re actually telling you. Psychology confirms that, as normal adults, we don’t pay a blind bit of attention to what our senses are actually telling us. Instead, our conditioning has lulled us into a false sense of security that we know best. We don’t – how could we, we’ve no perspective on the bigger picture of what life might be like if we let it.
Coming to your senses requires that you spend some time every day, preferably early in the morning, training your mind to notice what you actually see, feel, hear, smell and taste, without interpreting, without analysing, without jumping to your normal conclusions. Start working one sense each day and see where it takes you.
Personal Development And The True Power Of Now
Posted by: | CommentsIf you’re into personal development or self improvement, you’ll have some feel for the importance placed by many experts on being focused in the present moment. Ekhart Tolle’s ‘The Power of Now’ emphasizes the virtues of what might be described as presence of mind. However, Tolle, together with other personal development ‘gurus’, does not either adequately explain why ‘Now’ is so important or, indeed, give practical advice on being more present.
First off, now is the only place and time that actually exists – the past is something you learn from (although psychology proves that most people don’t learn but subconsciously live there) and the future is something that will only happen the way you’d like if you’re ready to be effective and focused in the present. Also, quantum physics suggests that the universe only exists now – and it confirms that universal energy responds to our energy – now. In simple terms, it is crucial to be present. Being present creates ‘presence’ – the true sign of all successful people.
The big problem is that normal people are not present. Our subconscious is focused in our so-called formative years, whilst our conscious mind is distracted by useless thought – thoughts tending towards negative worry and self-doubt. In fact, research suggests that the normal person is just one percent present. If that is so you’re extremely unlikely to elicit much response from an otherwise responsive universe.
Basically, it is imperative that you become more present. But what does that mean? Presence means being focused on where you are and what you’re doing now. The majority of, according to lots of surveys, are not focused on what they’re doing, they prefer to do what they’re doing whilst thinking that they don’t like what they’re doing! Also, most of us haven’t grasped the simplicity of what focus actually is. Focus means paying attention – nothing else. It means tuning into the reality of the moment, using the only mechanism that’s available to you to do this – your five senses. Your five senses are your only interface with the world. Yet we pay little attention to what our senses are telling us, preferring to let our subconscious put its own spin on reality. We use our preconceived ideas to make sense of now and, in the process, make utter nonsense of it.
You’ve got to relearn how to pay attention. We were all experts at it when we were young children. The effortless way to re-learn is to set a little time aside to re-focus one sense at a time. I’d like to suggest that you find somewhere quiet to sit tomorrow morning. Close your eyes and notice how all the sounds around you become more pronounced. They’re not, of course, it’s just that you’re paying more attention. Notice your body’s sensations – feelings that you would not notice when you’re normally all over the place. Another time you sit down for five minutes you might spend a few minutes noticing how your body reacts when you breathe. A few minutes each morning will vastly affect your ability to pay attention for the rest of the day – you’ll be more focused, more present, more in tune with what’s going on and the opportunities the moment offers.
Then you can start measuring your improved focus by reference to your results. You’ll be more responsive to people and siutations that they might otherwise fail to notice or avoid completely, you’ll be more open to doing things that you wouldn’t otherwise do. And, on the basis that the one thing that has your life stuck in a rut is the fact that you rarely do anything different, bold or brave, this can only be a good thing. As a result of your presence you will not just be open to new opportunity – you will actually create your own opportunities. The net result is that, at least, your life will move forward – in the right direction. At most, your life will never be the same – you will achieve effortless and measurable, happiness and success.
Self Improvement: You Are Not Your Personality
Posted by: | CommentsThe behaviour of normal people is rarely appropriate. How could it be! Because normal behaviour is generated automatically – you don’t have to give it any thought, you just react – by your subconscious mind. Your subconscious mind is an expert at creating your reactions – it is this ability that has got the human race to the pinnacle of success! But, as I said, normal behaviour is rarely appropriate – because the subconscious mind is constantly focused in the past – your childhood years – and it uses this out-of-date ‘stored knowledge’ to dictate your current automatic behaviour. With information that is so far out of date being used to dictate your behaviour, how could today’s behaviour be appropriate to what is actually taking place today?
How could it be right and proper when you consider that the normal person is permanently on automatic pilot? It’s simply the way we’re built. If you’re having a good day, your behaviour can actually be mildly effective – that’s in comparison to how effective you could really and truly be had you taken the trouble to focus on what’s actually happening and act, rather than react. But even at that, normal people only have good days now and again. It’s the normal or bad days that have consigned your life to that repetitive, mundane, not-so-bad life – you know, the one where really great things rarely happen, the one where you don’t like your job or the one where your relationship has gone flat – the ordinary stuff of the normal life. And on those everyday not-so-bad days, normal behaviour varies from midldly in-effective through inappropriate to dangerously outrageous. People losing the head with the morning rush hour, people bullying their subordinates at work or who play with their workers’ lives. Husbands who beat wives, wives who beat husbands – or just the everyday not-so-bad feeling of ‘I wish I was somewhere else’ and all the ineffective behaviour that that brings with it.
The problem is, however, that we tend to confuse our behaviour with who we are – a criminal mistake that can lead us into recrimination, guilt, frustration, anxiety and even more inappropriate behaviour. You are not your behaviour. How could you be? Your behaviour is automatically created by your personality – all the crap of ‘stored knowledge’ in your subconscious mind. Your personality has absolutely nothing to do with you – there’s enough psychological evidence amassed over the last seven decades to prove this conclusively.
Which leads me to a most important point. You’re only able to take really appropriate action (rather than normal reaction) by deliberately side-stepping your ego or personality – this is the essence of personal development (as distinct from personality development). You will not be able to do that until you come to terms with the absolute fact that all inappropriate action comes from that source. What’s done is done – if damage was done, go and undo it. But if the only damage was to your own self-image, then, get over yourself and get on with your life – starting right here, right now.
Changing Your Life: Practicing The Law Of Attraction
Posted by: | CommentsMuch has been said and written concerning the so-called ‘Law of Attraction’. It has become well known through DVDs and bestselling books, like ‘The Secret’ and by mainstream TV personalities such as Larry King. However, few people comprehend what the aforementioned ‘attraction’ actually means. Could it be that you can attract into your life what you want out of life? And, if that’s what it means, how can you actually put the ‘Law of Attraction’ into action for your own benefit?
First of all, you must understand that the ‘Law of Attraction’ is working in your everyday life as you read these words. This may be a big surprise for you but what you’ve got to understand is that the life you lead is a perfect mirror image of what’s going on in your head. Unfortunately, much of what is rattling around in the normal person’s mind is doing them damage rather than good because, left to itself, the subconscious mind is both negative and focused in the past, constantly ‘enabling’ you – and that’s obviously not the correct word – to repeat all the learned reactive behaviours that are, right now, creating your life. In other words, as a result of the normal mind being in turmoil, it follows that the normal life is also in turmoil.
It doesn’t matter if you’re aware of or not, the ‘Law of Attraction’ is a given fact of life. I’m not convinced, from reading some of the mountain of stuff – often misleading stuff – on the subject, that many will have fully grasped the gravity of this situation. But let’s say that you appreciate the situation. Let’s say that you already have a firm grasp of the fact that, to quote ‘The Secret’, your thoughts become things – what’s going on in your mind manifests in reality. Great, you’ve grasped this fundamental concept intellectually – but intellectualizing these facts and being able to put this ‘manifesting’ into practice is a whole new ballgame.
If you do not deliberately take action every day to make certain that you’re in the appropriate mental state, then it’s of no consequence how much you understand the way life works, you’re simply deluding yourself into the wonderfully cosy notion that this ‘Law of Attraction’ can change your life for the better.
To effectively practice the so-called “Law of Attraction” you’re going to have to clear your mind. There is little or no point in filling your mind with all the things that you want – people don’t know what they truly want. Better still to fill your mind with the only place and time you are – the here and now. In doing so, you will drag your subconscious away from its obsession with both the past and the negative. You will become extraordinarily focused – efficient, effective, inspired and inspiring. In a clear and focused state of mind you will attract the very best in life, enabling you rise to places that normal people couldn’t even dream of.
The Dangers Of Self Help
Posted by: | CommentsI don’t know exactly how many personal development or popular self help books sold over the last year – but I do know that self help is the fastest area of growth in the publishing world with millions of books being sold every year. In addition, I know that, if you turn on your TV, look at any newspaper or take a quick glance at the web’s discussion groups and forums, these self help books make little or no difference.
Many recent surveys testify to people being more fearful, stressed and bewildered than at any other time in modern history – even a world war didn’t give rise to such abject fear as we are witnessing in a century where we all led ourselves to belief that humankind was finally making major strides. In fact, the wartime spirit that galvanized nations throughout World War II, is conspicuous by its absence from a brave new world where obsession with money – whether it’s wanting more of it or fearing that you don’t have enough of it – is the order of the day – it’s a case of every man for himself. So what the hell is going on – and I use the world ‘hell’ deliberately because it strikes me that everyday life for many is much nearer to hell than heaven.
Bestsellers like ‘The Secret’ and ‘The Power of Positive Thinking’ point towards a brighter, better life if you use your mind in the appropriate manner. Alternatively, Barbara Ehrenreich in her book, ‘Smile or Die’, claims that positive thinking has destroyed the US and ruined the world.
Having worked in the personal development ‘business’ for over fourteen years – long before it was fashionable to admit to your friends or colleagues that you were ‘into it’ – I firmly believe that people who read these self help books are not just fooling themselves but are a danger to themselves and those around them. They read a little, experience the ‘feel-good’ after-glow, perhaps even put a little of what they’ve read into practice for a bit and then con themselves into believing that things are either better or, even more dangerous, about to get better – the all-too-common general excuse for doing absolutely nothing whilst ‘waiting for something to happen’.
Reading books doesn’t change your life. Action is what changes your life – real action on a daily basis – action that you have to take yourself. And I’ve seen precious little evidence of action. Sure, I see plenty of reaction – but everybody reacts, does it regularly and makes the world we live in worse instead of better.
So, close up your self help books and ask yourself this searching question? What action could you take right now that will improve your lot if life? Not knowing your life, I’ve no idea whether major change is called for or, maybe it’s just something little. But I do know this – I am constantly questioning myself, challenging myself and ensuring that I keep auctioning those things that need to be done to push – yes, you’ve got to push yourself – my life in the right direction. And I regularly see the results.
