Positive Thinking

It occurred to me the other day how important it is for all of us to set goals for ourselves. We all do impulsive things from time to time, and we get variable results when we do. Sometimes impulsiveness leads to good things and sometimes it leads to bad things. The best way to get something done so that we get a desirable outcome is by setting a goal, putting a plan in place to accomplish it and then executing on the plan. If you want to change a situation in your life it is vitally important. In fact, I might venture to say that without a goal and a plan it is almost impossible to change something in your life because of the way so many of us live our live on “auto-pilot”. (I say nearly impossible because I believe that all things are possible. Could I be an effective coach if I didn’t?)

But there is good news for all of us. We are all pretty much experts at setting goals and accomplishing them. The fact of the matter is that we all set goals for ourselves every day. We set goals, put plans in place and execute flawlessly on our plans several times a day. We do it so easily and with so little effort that we don’t even realize that we are doing it.

Where do our goals come from? They come from the ideas that we get. Everything starts with an idea, a simple thought that turns into a vision for the future. It is from that vision that our goals come from. We then develop strategies for accomplishing the goals. The strategy defines the tactics we will use. The tactics we decide on determines the tasks that we will perform. Each task will take time to be accomplished and we put time estimates on those tasks. We then think about when we will begin each task. When you put those tasks in a sequence then you have formed a plan.

Think about how often you do this kind of thing every day. For instance, you might get an idea to have dinner. You might get an idea of what you would like to eat for dinner and you immediately form a picture in your mind about the food (vision of the future). You start to think about what you will need to be able to prepare the meal so that it will taste good and be served at a desirable time (set goals). You start to think about where you will have to go to buy all of the supplies you will need and how you might prepare the food (form strategies). You decide on where you will shop and what you will buy and how you will get there (devising tactics and determining tasks). You then think about when you will leave and what time you will be back and when you will start preparing the food so that you can have your dinner ready at the desired time (putting plans into place). You then start executing on that plan. The next thing you know, you are enjoying a delicious meal.

So now think about something that you want to change in your life. Maybe you want to lose some weight or increase your income. When we want to accomplish something like this, sometimes we may struggle with it. Sometimes we can’t even form a clear vision of the future because we have trouble believing that we can actually do it. Sometimes we can form the vision and set the goals and put a plan into place, and then we struggle mightily to stay on the plan.

If this sounds like something you have experienced, one of the ways to deal with those obstacles is to hire a coach to help you. A coach can help you immensely in every step of this process. In that case, all you need to have for you to move forward toward what you want is to have the desire to change. Just imagine what it would be like to be moving ever closer to what you want and to know it.

I would be flattered if you chose me to be your coach. I can’t wait to start helping you to change your life. Your first consultation with me is always free.

Someone actually said these words to me the other day. Strangely enough, this statement made sense to me.

The reason her statement made sense to me is because I knew the context. It reminded me that all of us may have trouble understanding the meaning of what someone says if we don’t fully understand the speaker’s context. And yet, we assign meaning to the words people say to us all the time without having the slightest idea of what the other person really means.

I’m reminded of a time when my boss told me, “You need to be on time for my staff meetings.” My boss held his staff meeting at 8:00 am on Wednesday mornings and I was having trouble getting to them on time. I was arriving 10 to 15 minutes late to at least one meeting a month. He was justified in saying this to me. I knew that he was telling me that he was very disappointed in my tardiness. After all, if I respected him and I thought that his meetings were important, then I’d make sure that I got to them on time. Wouldn’t I? In addition, if I didn’t start showing up for his meetings on time, then he was probably going to take disciplinary action and he would be justified in doing so, because I was clearly at fault. This was the meaning I put on his statement.

I felt ashamed and I looked down at the ground and said, “I’m sorry, I don’t mean to be late. I’m commuting a long way and the traffic in the mornings is very unpredictable. I’ll make an extra effort to get here on time. I want you to know that I think that your meeting is very important and I mean no disrespect when I’m late.”

He gave me a puzzled look and said, “Oh, it’s not that! I want you to be on time so that you can fully participate in our discussions. Your input is very valuable. You often have a point of view that is different from the rest of my staff and because of that I always want to hear your opinion. When you are late, I don’t always get your input on things that are going on. So, I would appreciate it if you could be on time. Thanks!” (big smile on his face)

Obviously, this experience stayed with me over the years because it represented a significant learning for me: I might not really understand what someone means unless I have sufficient information.

So, when someone says something “rude” to me, or someone says something “disrespectful”, I try to remember that I might want to gather more information before I respond.

By the way, this person was responding to a question I had asked her. I asked, “Do you want Half and Half or non-fat milk in your coffee?”

A few years ago, I was having a discussion with an acquaintance of mine and I mentioned that I had recently been laid off from my job. His response was, “You can blame Bush for that!” I didn’t mention anything at the time, but the fact is that it had never occurred to me to blame anyone for my situation. Not George W. Bush, not the CEO of my company, not the manager who laid me off. I always figured that I am responsible for what happens to me.

I can see how it can be tempting to blame someone else for your bad fortune. After all, there are people who have influence over us and our environment. I think this is the easy way out. I think it takes courage to take responsibility. However, once you take responsibility, then you have power.

I am uncomfortable blaming other people for what happens to me because in order for someone else to be able to affect my life, that other person would have to have power over me. Certainly, the manger who decided to terminate my employment had an effect on my life in the short run and there are people who can change my environment in the longer run. The President can support, or not support policies that might have an effect on my economic environment, but that’s about it. As far as I am concerned, this is my life and I am the master of my fate and I am the captain of my soul.

I look at the world and the universe as one gigantic, complex, system that is subject to certain laws. I see myself as a part of that system and as part of that system, I am subject to those same laws. Most of these laws are not under my control and so my job is to operate within the laws of the Universe. Because the system is complex, no one thing or one phenomenon can affect me directly. In order for something to affect me in this system, there would have to be a series of events that would have to take place in a certain order. I don’t believe that any person can control these things.

For example, the U.S. economy is a very complex system by itself and there are a lot of things that can have an effect on the employment rate. The idea that the President, one person, has the power to directly affect something as complex as the employment rate, which is one part of a vast, complex system, does not make sense to me. The system is too complex, there are too many variables in the equation, and future events are too unpredictable.

I think there is great power in taking responsibility for your life. Think about that for a moment. If you are in a bad relationship, you are responsible for that. If you aren’t making enough money, you are responsible for that. If you don’t get along with your boss, you are responsible for that. The power comes into play when you realize that in order for you to change your situation; you will have to take some action to change it and you control your actions.

If someone else is responsible for your situation, then you will have to wait for them to take action. If you are waiting for someone else to do something to improve your life, then you are at their mercy and you had better hope that they make good decisions because your future is in their hands.

Are you unhappy about something? Are you willing to claim your power? Are you ready to take responsibility?

Sometimes I find it hard to think about the things I have accomplished in my life. It is during these times that I find it very easy to think of the things that I should have done. I think we all do this to one extent or another. However, I think that this kind of thinking is flawed. Dontcha’ wanna’ know why?

Well, when we think of the past we think about what we did and we think about the results that we got from whatever decision we made, or didn’t make. (You see, when you don’t make a decision you’ve actually made a decision. But, that’s a topic for another blog.) At the time that we made the decision, we made it for whatever reason and we dealt with the results. However, upon further review, we now look back and think of how we could have gotten better results. We could have always gotten better results….right? We think about the alternatives that we had. Sometimes those alternatives were things that we considered at the time, and sometimes those alternatives are things that we did not consider because we didn’t think of it until after the fact. (I think that the ones we think of later are the most dangerous) Clearly, if we had made a different decision, then we, most likely would have gotten a different result. Here is where the flaw comes into play: We almost always assume that we would have gotten better results with a different decision. Guess what? That assumption is just wrong. The fact is that we don’t know what would have happened if we had made a different decision because we didn’t make that decision. There is at least a fifty-fifty chance that a different decision would have gotten worse results than the decision we actually made. It is impossible to know what would have happened, so what is the point of thinking about what would have happened? A much better use of your time is to think about what you are going to do now.

So, I think it is important to take whatever learning you can from your experience, but then let it go because it won’t serve you to dwell on what you could have done and what might have happened if you did.

When I am working with clients, there are certain phrases that they might say that will catch my attention. One of them is, “I can’t change the way I feel.” One thing that I strive for with all of my clients is to help them to realize that they can choose to feel the way that they want to feel.

I was recently working with a new client who told me that there is a “look” that her mother gives her that “makes her feel just awful”. I then asked, “What if you could change the way you feel when your mother looks at you that way? Would you change it?” Her answer was a resounding “YES!”

So, how do you go about changing something like that?

Let’s break down what my client was relating to me: Her mother looks at her. That is a fact. She has an emotional reaction to “the look”, that is also a fact. There is a step in between these other two (that happens so fast that we aren’t aware of it) where she determines the meaning of “the look”. It is the meaning that she assigns to “the look” that causes her emotional reaction. The meaning of “the look” is not a fact. There is a story behind “the look”. One that probably goes back to when my client was a little girl and she was disciplined by her mother and she then felt bad. It is the story that causes the emotional reaction.

So, when my client told me that she wanted to change the way she feels when her mother looks at her in that special way, I helped her to discover what the story was and change it. Once the story was changed, “the look” didn’t carry the same meaning as it did before. In fact, my client chose how she wanted to feel when her mother looked at her that way. Once we had done this, she immediately felt better.

I phoned my client a few days later and asked her how she was doing and she told me that her relationship with her mother was better than it had ever been before and she thanked me for my help. I could hear the emotion in her voice as she spoke.

That emotion that I heard in her voice is the reason why I love to coach.

So, the next time you react emotionally to something someone says or does and you feel bad, but you aren’t really sure why. Ask yourself: “Would I like to change that?”

Have you ever wondered why people fail to keep their New Year resolutions? Well, I can’t speak for all people, but it has been my experience that a common problem is that people aren’t really resolute about their resolution. They don’t really take it seriously. In fact, I saw a comedian over the Holidays joking about keeping his expectations low. How can you expect to make a change in your life, if you don’t take it seriously?

The fact is that there are four things that someone needs to have in place in order to make a change in their lives: First, they need to know that they have a problem. If you aren’t aware of any problems that you may have, ask someone who loves you. (Wives are experts at spotting problems that their husbands have) Isn’t it interesting that we can see another person’s problems much easier than we can see our own? Anyway, you need to realize that you have a problem.

Next, you have to have a strong desire to change the problem. When I hear people say that they know they have a problem but they don’t want to change it, I always wonder if they’re just saying that because they don’t believe they can change. The stronger your desire the better chance you have to make the change.

Next, you need to know how to change. I think this is the one that people trip up on the most. Lots of people need help to figure out how to change. Just check the self-help section of any bookstore and you’ll know this is true. Lots of people will try something that doesn’t work and then give up. If you try something that doesn’t work, that just means that you haven’t figured out how to change yet and you need to try something else.

The last thing you need is to give yourself a chance to change. Even when you figure out how to change, sometimes the change doesn’t happen overnight and you just need to stick with it long enough to allow the change to happen. You also need to give yourself a break if you “slip” on your new change. Diet and exercise are what I think about when I think about “giving it a chance to work”. For example, if you start an exercise program, it will take time to see results. If you quit before you see results, then you’ll never reach your goal. Another example is if you are on a diet and “slip” one day, that doesn’t mean that you should quit your diet. Stick with the diet and give yourself a chance to reach your goal.

If you have these four conditions firmly in place, I would bet that you will keep your resolution.

All habits reside the unconscious mind. That’s why the conscious mind doesn’t usually have much effect on a bad habit. You might say to yourself, “I’m not going to (smoke, drink, eat chocolate, etc) today.” Meanwhile, your unconscious mind is saying, “I don’t think so.” The unconscious mind will win that battle again and again. Why?

Think about it. Your unconscious mind is in charge of all of your vital functions. It takes care of breathing, heartbeat, digestive system, endocrine system, etc. Imagine if you had to think about breathing in order for it to happen. (I’d probably forget to breathe and wouldn’t last more than a day). What if you had to consciously think about making your heart beat? Thank God for the unconscious mind!

Now, imagine that your unconscious mind believes that your “bad habit” is an important function that needs to be done. It might even believe that is is as important as drinking water. If you think about it, compulsive urges are a lot like the urge to drink water. If you decided to stop drinking water, you would start to feel uncomfortable in a few hours. The key to quitting, really quitting, any bad habit is to get your unconscious mind to realize that the habit is not an essential function and that you can get along without it just fine.

However, using your conscious mind to communicate with your unconscious can be difficult because the unconscious mind doesn’t employ reason. In fact, the unconscious mind cannot reason at all. The unconscious mind often communicates its wants, desires, and fears, with pictures rather than words. You’ll get a picture in your mind and then you will feel an emotion. The emotion causes you to take action (light up a cigarette, or have a drink, etc). If the unconscious mind does use words, the phrases are often very child-like. But the phrase will generate a strong emotion.

The reason hypnosis and/or NLP can be so effective in changing habits is that they provide a way to communicate with the unconscious mind. A trance is simply an “altered state” of consciousness that provides a line of communication to your unconscious mind. NLP uses hypnotic language and visualization to bring about change in a very similar way to hypnosis. In fact, I think the line between hypnosis and NLP is very thin.

Habits can be changed very quickly, if you employ the right techniques.

I recently attended a smoking cessation group meeting.  It was “graduation night”.  I figured that, this being graduation night, I was going to hear stories about how they had taken control of their addiction and that they were done with cigarettes for good.  But that’s not what I heard.

I listened to one woman talk about how she is having trouble sleeping through the night because she misses her cigarettes.  Another man spoke of his “need for nicotine”.  Yet another woman spoke of how the desire to smoke came from “deep inside her”.   I sat there and thought, “Not one of these people has quit smoking yet.”

I think, for all too many people, this is what quitting is about.  It’s about fighting the urge to smoke.  It’s about white-knuckle willpower and the struggle with the addiction and feeling the discomfort that comes with it.  That’s not what it means to me.

The reason these people are feeling discomfort is because they aren’t congruent about quitting.  What that means is that some part of them, a part that may be “deep inside them”, doesn’t agree with the whole idea of quitting.   That part of them still wants to smoke and when that part doesn’t get what it wants then that part is probably going to cause some problems.  Problems like strong cravings or an inability to sleep.

You have only truly quit when all parts of you are in agreement.  When all parts of you have agreed to quit, then quitting becomes much, much easier.

So, how do you get this agreement?  How do you get congruence between all your parts, all aspects of your personality?  Well, the process is different for different people, but quite often, it is literally the result of a negotiation between the different parts of you.  It can be a little bit of work, but once you’ve gotten congruence, then you’ve quit.  You’ve really quit and you’ll know it when you are there.