References:
Marslow’s hierarchy of human needs. Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maslow's_hierarchy_of_needs
Copyright to Being Yourself: A DIY Guide:
Copyright © 2012 Owen Wood. Published by Owen Wood at Smashwords.
Preface
How to read this book
Taking time & energy to read this book is the first step toward person change & personal empowerment. I certainly hope the message of this book will give you another perspective on your life & give you a better idea of how to let your true colours show.
Here’s an important point: have the discipline to read the book the whole way through. I am just as guilty as the next person of getting halfway through a book & then losing concentration. Set time aside a few times a week to invest in yourself.
Additionally, having a clear idea of which path to take will mean nothing if you don’t walk down it. Reading this book is not the end goal, it is the first step. It is the first step you are taking to living a live more empowered & more fulfilling than ever before. Exciting, eh?
The 3 pillars of personal change
What we are going to be discussing later on in this book is things such as organisation, motivation & the underlying principles of simply filling your life with everything that you want. I have identified 3 equally important principles of personal change & fulfilment, which all must be addressed to create a new you & tread the path that you choose;
Research
Develop
Create
Research
Research is all about seeking to understand other’s perspectives on life. As a human, you are bestowed with the fantastic gift of self-awareness & self- examination, the ability to step outside of yourself & evaluate your actions & create new ones in your mind.
By seeking to understand other’s perspectives, it allows you to see your actions from someone else’s shoes. You gain new ways of seeing things & new techniques for overcoming issues. Remember, knowledge is power.
There are many fantastic ways in which you can research;
Self-help (books, seminars, videos, etc.)
Spiritual enlightenment (religious centres, yoga, tai chi)
Specific sub-categories of self- help (pick up, dating, anxiety & weight loss publications are all good)
Sitting down with a friend or family member & listening to their points of view about life.
The last one is a fantastic one, as it not only allows you the pleasure of being able to question & clarify their point of view; it also creates a fantastic connection with your loved one. If there is one thing that I have found that all humans appreciate, it is being understood. Well go more into the importance of connecting with people later.
The importance of seeing other’s points of view is that you can now consider these new lights & see how they fit against your own values. I will repeat this about 1,000,000 times during the course of this book: It is important to remember that it is only you that has the final say in what you do, think, believe & feel.
If you like a point of view, you can take it on board if you want. If you disagree with it, then there is no obligation to internalise their ideas within yourself. Regardless of the result, the connection & bond has been created with a friend that both you & they will really appreciate.
The best way to research is to do a mixture of all of the different ways that I listed above. They all see fulfilment from a different perspective & have different priorities or focuses. Strike that balance in your life by using all of them. For example, taking up a yoga class, reading some books on chakras or dating & spending time every week to connect with friends & family will do wonders for your personal life.
Research is the break in the clouds that allows you to see the path you tread more clearly. It allows you to distinguish between which fork in the road you would like to go down. It also gives you a clear sense of direction just in case, for a reason, the path became dulled. Life has a funny way of throwing ever complicated situations at you. Whatever it does manage to throw your way, take it with a smile in your heart & continue on the direction you want.
The power that comes with this ideology is that it gives you the inner strength to listen & appreciate other people & their ideas. This will improve your relationships with friends, family, partners & work colleagues. You may find that more people will want to be around you because you're showing that you appreciate them.
So take joy in appreciating others & allowing others to appreciate everything you have to offer as a person.
Develop
Development is the application of what you are learning about yourself. By reading this book, I think it is likely that you have had some previous exposure to self- help or personal development. If not, that's okay, I only mentioned this to bring up the point that most self- help literature are simply ways & ideals to allow you to do whatever it is that you want, whilst overcoming any personal barriers.
My book is no different. The idea behind this is to help you get everything that you want out of life. Spending time & energy on developing yourself is incredibly important.
Development can also be described as personal development. This builds the character & internal strength that enables to you take the steps down your chosen path. There are too many people that I know that will happily read all the self help that they want, but not apply it into their own life. The result: no change. What a waste of time, right?
It is almost as though their sense of fulfilment for the day comes from simply reading all of the theory about how they can better their life. What they don't realise is that all self-help is a tool to help you live better. They're missing out on all the great things that they could do if only if they'd let themselves apply all that they learnt. Seriously, don't be one of them; take all the steps you need to fulfil your life.
Put simply, if you want to meet the girl or guy of your dreams, then give yourself permission go out 3 times a week & start meeting them. Whether that's in a bookshop, a cafe, a night club or through a group of friends, make sure you introduce yourself to them. If you want people to see you as an attractive person, then be attractive. Get yourself on the market!
Much like dating, if you want to be confident, then become confident, give yourself permission to be talkative, charming & voice your opinion. If you have that extra couple of kilos that you want to lose, get a personal trainer & go to the gym, learn how to cook great tasting healthy food.
Whatever you do, make sure you enjoy it. There is nothing worse than seeing going to the gym as a chore. If you're not in love with your exercise ‘regime’, make it so that you do love it. If it's something that you want, why make it harder for yourself by making it boring? Bring some friends along, start boxing, join a Zumba class or take a healthy cooking class to help you learn how to cook great tasting food that will shed the kilos off of you.
Development is all about facing & overcoming obstacles. Development gives you the momentum & the confidence to do number 3: create.
Create
To create: create opportunities; create a social circle that helps you; to create the life that you want.
This is the scariest & most exciting part for me. This is the chance to be everything I have always wanted to be. Create is actually taking the steps down your path & making your dreams come true.
However, this is more than simply going sky diving once or swimming with dolphins then going back to a job that you hate. This applies to every minute of your life in every situation that you find yourself in. This is about surrounding yourself with good friends, good family with the career & lifestyle that you want. Stage 3: Create allows you to wake up every day & know that everything you want is out there; & you're going to get it.
Well get into the first step of creating this in the next chapter, but I would like to just give you the idea now. It's a simple ideology, which is this:
Figure out what kind of person you want to be, what kind of friends & life you want & then go after it
‘Yeah, but Owen, it's sometimes not as easy as that’ You may think something like that. Well, I invite you to think about it this way: does it really not work like that? Why can't it work that way? There's nothing stopping you. Why can't you have everything that you ever wanted?
Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying you should simply ditch all your responsibilities, run away to Vegas, only to return when you have run out of money.
What I am saying though is one huge part of fulfilment is acting through your intentions. Going for that dream house, the girl of your dreams, a great set of friends or deciding to become an artist, you get the idea.
The message of this book is that you are 100% responsible for the direction your life takes. You can absolutely do everything you dream of. The only difference between a dream & a goal is adequate planning & organisation to achieve it.
I believe the best way to achieve all of this success is by attracting the success to you.
To give you an example, if one of your goals is to have a great group of quality friends who all help each other towards their dreams & goals, then you must first become a quality friend. Allow yourself to become someone that people value & want to be around.
This is the outline of this book, to give you systems & ways of thinking that have certainly helped me into attracting everything I want into my life. Later on in life I have no doubt that my priorities will change and so will what I decide to attract into my life.
You have 100% choice over how you live
All of the above are equally important in my opinion. I believe the consistent application of time & energy on all 3 of these areas produces a fulfilling, productive & happy life for not just you, but one that benefits all the lives that you touch.
The biggest hurdle that a lot of people face is number 3, getting out there & living how you choose. I know it was certainly a biggie for me to have the guts to do everything that I wanted.
It is important though. Do you remember doing vectors in maths class? A vector has both direction AND magnitude. I believe that both direction & magnitude are vitally important in success in any area, be it sports, business, media, relationships, etc.
In my life, how do I like to do this? I make all of the above 3 parts of the triangle an integral part of my weekly plan. Every week I make sure that I am constantly moving towards my goals, through learning from others, developing myself & most importantly, having a laugh!
In my opinion, there is nothing more exciting than the liberating feeling that comes with the idea that I can live however I choose & do whatever I want. I hope that this book transforms your life in the same way that everything that I learnt transformed mine. Enjoy.
Chapter One
External forces
Before we go any further, I'd just quickly like to tell you a bit about what lead me to writing this book. For all of my life I have had ADHD. Even at 21, it still hasn’t gone away. I am not applying to be year’s winner of the coveted ‘sob story of the year,’ but it has had a very big effect on what I have done and my reasons behind it.
When I was in primary school, there were countless meetings between me, my parents and my teachers all along the lines of ‘Owen, you’ve got to calm down.’ The funny thing was that I wouldn’t even know I was being too energetic because it seemed pretty normal to me. It was everybody else that wasn’t energetic enough.
I had a strange way of thinking about things which got me in a lot of trouble. In year 2, we were all in a music lesson. They had brought in a special music teacher lady to accompany our class teacher for the lesson. The music teacher said ‘okay children, before you sing, you always take a deep breath. So, I want everyone to take a deep breath in.’
Everyone took a breath in. A thought of curiosity passed through my head ‘I think it will be fun to find out how deep a breath I can take.’ With that, I opened my mouth as wide as I could & took in a huge breath in, at the same time making that huge gasping noise that your throat makes when you breathe in deeply.
The entire class turned around to face me, all faces scowling me at the huge noise & huge disturbance that I had created. My class teacher’s face flushed red with anger & shame, turned to the music teacher & said ‘don't worry about him; he’s only doing it for attention. I can send him outside if you want?’ The music teacher declined, ‘don't worry; I’ve handled disruptive children like him before.’
What did I do? I had no idea why people reacted like this, because, to me, this was being ‘normal’. I never meant to be so noisy, now everyone thinks I'm a trouble maker. Incidents like this lead to all of the ‘you need to learn how to calm down’ meetings. Which, to an extent, was true, but it just made me feel rotten.
The additional problem was the fascination that I had, and still have, with attention. I like attention. Actually, scratch that, I love it. I think attention is one of the most fun things ever. Do you know why? Because everyone’s looking at me! I'm pretty sure I'm half Springer Spaniel.
So, in primary school, my actions were seen as somewhat disruptive, but relatively harmless. It wasn’t until I got to secondary school that I started to attract some unwanted attention from adolescents who needed to prove their manliness.
I'm sure you can agree that someone who can't sit still, loves attention but doesn’t deal well with confrontation is likely to get bullied. And how I was bullied! I have vivid memories of Secondary School being such a terrifying place, even to the point that I would pray in the toilets at lunchtime that I wouldn’t get beaten up that day.
When I spoke up, I got beaten up. So I spent the next few years being as quiet and un-me as possible, for fear of being ridiculed. This hindered me developing a lot of important social skills that are vital for any teenager’s life, like standing up for yourself & attracting girls.
This continued into college and my rugby team, as they were the same people who bullied me in school. In hindsight, it would have made more sense to not hang around them. It took me a while to figure that one out.
I’m purposely not going into much detail on how I was bullied as I’m going to save that for when my bestselling autobiography and movie about my life come out. Just in case sarcasm doesn’t communicate through text, I'm kidding. The effect of all of this was that by age 19, I was a very quiet, unconfident, defensive, angry individual who lacked any level of social skills and was primarily motivated out of fear.
What do I mean by fear based? I would simply go with the crowd & I dare not speak up or go the way I choose for fear of teasing, bullying or worse. A lot of my motivation was fear based.
And that is exactly my point, I wasn’t living to live, I was living to avoid pain. Notice the difference it would have been if I was coming from a point of strength; but my motivation was to minimise the abuse I had to endure to suitably earn a living, get a qualification, etc.
The funny thing was that I can only see this now as I look back. At the time, this was such a deep rooted principle in my mind that I saw the world as this horrible place & everyone is out to get me, which it affected everything that I did.
I really did believe everyone was a threat to me. Even to the point where I would stare down strangers on the street to try & ‘assert’ myself because literally everyone was a threat.
To me, pain & suffering was intertwined with the idea of a good hard day’s work. Moreover, I believed that any success in a company should be earned by working from the bottom up. At one point in my life I considered joining the Army. Given my qualifications that I obtained in college, I would be able to enter as an officer.
However, I didn't want to enter in as an officer, because of the fear that people of lower rank would not respect me as I didn't work my way up like they may have to. This idea of going for the lowest quality opportunity even transpired to the girls I dated. Equally angry, emotionally dependent girls allowed for a co-dependency that was in one sense sad but another necessary.
Why was I doing this? It didn't really make sense. It's not like I wasn’t encouraged to do my best from my parents. This rather cheesy saying sums up nicely the message my parents gave me;
‘shoot for the moon, because if you miss, you’ll at least be among the stars.’
This saying doesn’t really make sense because stars are billions of light years away, but it certainly sounds nice. Anyway, if you think about it, picking the worst possible situation for yourself on purpose makes no sense whatsoever. It really does take retrospect to uncover things that you never knew. Retrospect is a brilliant thing, isn’t it? I’ll explain my actions with an analogy I made called the Value Spectrum.
Blog post from Unlimitednlp.com - How to be yourself
Hey guys,
Whilst writing my book, a point that is raised a lot of times in it is the idea of being yourself. Just ask yourself that question, how does one be themselves?
Its a bit of a silly question, really; and one that could have a trillion bagillion responses. But we don't care about other people's responses here, because this is my website, my rules. :)
I see being yourself as much like balancing on one leg. As you read this, try balancing on one leg. Go on. Do it. It'll be a laugh & you'll learn something too.
When you balance, you can use physical force to move yourself into a position of balance, can't you? The problem is with this method is that you'll most likely use too much power and end up having to put your other foot down.
Just accept that the balance point is there
The balance point is there. You know it's there, even if you haven't found it yet, its there. Instead of using force to 'try' to balance, simply accept that the balance point is there and move into it.
By fighting to find the balance point, you will never find it. By accepting that it has been there all along, you can then finally move into a strong balancing position. The chances are you're balancing quite easily now.
Surrender to your personality
As you just surrendered to the balance point just now, accept that a happy, confident you is there, inside of you. It's always been there, now its time to stop 'trying' to be yourself. Stop trying & just BE yourself.
Simple, yeah?
Your handsome friend
Owen Wood
Unlimitednlp.com
Posted on Monday, 7th November 2011
Value Spectrum
The value spectrum is all about the importance that you place on certain things, objects, beliefs, situations; everything in your life is prioritised on your value spectrum. It's the system which controls what thoughts, emotions or actions that you prioritise at any given moment in your life.
I like to imagine the value spectrum much like a billiards score board, where you have the numbers printed on the board to decide importance & the sliders represent many priorities that are constantly shifting positions depending on the situation; everything from needing to go to the bathroom, thirst, career aspirations, the desire to please or how much you want to socialise.
The spectrum runs from incredibly important on one end to not important at all. Examples of things that may be incredibly important to you could be things such as manners, a good diet or having an outdoor hobby. Conversely, these could be things that may be not very important to you at all, it's all on a unique scale that can shift positions with time & with your experiences.
How do I know what is important?
Whilst you are growing up, you learn about how the world works & effective ways of getting results, like how to make a good first impression, a good work ethic, etc.
What you value as important really does depend your perception of the experiences that happen to you. For example, whilst you are growing up, your parents may have emphasised a lot on the importance of etiquette in making a good first impression. Providing that this was engrained within you that this was important, you would place etiquette towards the higher end of your sliding scale.
Conversely, if your parents focused more on charm & being talkative as a way of making a good first impression, you wouldn’t necessarily value etiquette as highly. There are no right or wrong answers; it is what you believe as important.
Someone who placed a lot of importance in etiquette may say; ‘good table manners have always been important to me, it's just how I was brought up.’ Both ways are great ways of making a good first impression, the only difference between them is the importance that you place on them.
The value of something will also shift with time. On a shorter term basis, sensations like hunger or feeling tired can change on an hourly or minute by minute basis. I recently had an experience on a flight from Australia to Korea that highlighted the importance of this sliding scale. I have trouble sleeping on long- haul flights & as such I used it as a fantastic opportunity for writing.
After take-off & our 1st in flight meal, I set about researching for my book & a new idea of explaining a part of my book entered my head, so I started typing. I'm sure anyone who regularly pursues a creative hobby, such as writing, painting, photography or whatever it may be, when you are inspired, or on a roll, it’s much like an addictive urge to express oneself. The urge is very powerful & once you start you don't want to stop until you're satisfied.
When I was about an hour into typing, I started to get really thirsty so I called & asked one of the air hostesses if she could get me a bottle of water. After about 10 minutes, she still hadn’t come back with my water & I was getting thirstier & thirstier. So much so, my mind decided to focus heavily on satisfying my primal, basic urge to quench my thirst before even considering continuing with my desire to write my book. The importance of thirst suddenly shot up from not very important to incredibly important! I was so thirsty, I just couldn’t think of anything else.
I asked another air hostess for a bottle of water. Within a minute she had found me one & so I drank it. As is always the way, 5 minutes later the original air hostess came with a bottle of water. She apologised for taking so long & insisted I took the 2nd bottle of water anyway.
I did take the 2nd bottle, but now I had lost interest in water as my thirst was already quenched. And besides, was on a creative roll with my book. Their positions had shifted once again, drinking was no longer important & writing my book suddenly was.
Certain things can shift over a longer period of time too. The longer something takes to change, the more deep rooted it is within who you are. A lot of the things which we are discussing in this book will take a while to truly set in, this isn’t an instant change. What I can do for you though is to give you the systems & the mindset of how to change it, allowing you to undertake the journey that you want.
So what do you value?
It's a tough question to ask, I definitely know that for me identifying my values was difficult the first time. I always think it is best to start with the end goal in mind, where you want to be, what you want to do. Because without direction in your life, you run the risk of being unable to see the wood for the trees.
As we have discussed, the value spectrum gives priority to everything in your life, from breathing to keeping your house tidy to studying to being a good parent. They also frequently change, depending on the situation you find yourself in or your needs at the time.
But if all of these impulses & needs are constantly shifting, what is it that guides you? Who is steering this ship? Are our lives simply a reaction to impulses & ideas on a short term basis? Without a sense of purpose or a sense of direction then yes it is.
Introversion & Extroversion
Where do we get this sense of direction from? There are two places where you will get this from:
The world around us (External)
Ourselves (Internal)
Many people commonly use the terms introvert & extrovert as a way of describing someone’s social ability & confidence. There are many times I have heard someone describing someone else; ‘yeah, he’s really an extrovert, he’s so confident.’ This is a common mistake which I would like to put to rest. The terms introvert & extrovert doesn’t refer to your social prowess, it actually refers to how you gather information to make decisions.
Additionally, it is not as black & white as labelling someone as an introvert or an extrovert. It is a sliding scale as everybody will use both ways of gathering information to some degree or another. Having said that, people will tend to lean more towards one than another & so will have one that they use more regularly than the other.
A more Extroverted person is someone that will obtain a lot of their information from the outside world, what is happening around them. A good indicator of an extrovert is to ask them this question;
‘How do you know when you have done a good job?’
Someone who tends to be more extroverted will know that they have done a good job if others agree that they have.
I recently had a client that was looking to lose weight. After my initial assessment, I identified that he was quite strongly extroverted, so to motivate him I said things like ‘imagine, 6 months from now, all of your friends & family will notice what a huge change to your body that you have made. Everyone will be proud of you & the fantastic success you have made.’
Extroversion is a fantastic way to learn about what behaviours are best in a particular situation. People who are actively tuned into what is going on around them will find it easy to change their behaviours to fit in, simply by observing what other people are doing & making a decision from there.
A more introverted person is someone that will tend to obtain their information from within, they will decide based on what they think & their opinion on the matter. An answer a more introverted person may give to the above question would be;
‘I know I’ve done a good job because I feel as though I have.’
If, for example, my client was strongly introverted, then telling him about how everyone is going to congratulate him when he loses all of this weight won’t necessarily motivate him, as his idea of whether he has succeeded or not comes from within.
In this case, I would have said something to him more along the lines of ‘imagine, 6 months from now, the change you will have experienced. It will be clear to see & certainly you will notice a huge difference within, won’t you?’
Both introversion & extroversion have their merits & their downfalls. Being extroverted means that you can easily adapt to change, but may find it difficult sometimes to go with your gut feeling. Introversion gives you a good, strong base to make decisions from, but may make you stubborn or ignorant of other’s opinions.
The best thing to do is to become aware of how you typically gather information. If you're more extroverted, try going with your gut feeling more. If you're more introverted, try listening to others and taking their opinions on board to help with your decision.
How all of this fits into my life
So, like I said earlier, I would aim my sights low on purpose. Remember, I spent years gathering my information externally. I wasn’t choosing to be hyperactive, it was a part of me. Consequently, I had no idea what I was ‘doing wrong’ when people would complain. When it came to looking out for myself in social situations, other’s opinions really meant a lot to me.
I was very much an extrovert, to the point that the voices & opinions of others drowned out the squeak of my inner voice. It really, really mattered what people thought of me. My emotional state was constantly in jeopardy, one remark & my whole sense of security came crashing down.
The world to me was a cruel place where others exercised a lot of power over what I did, therefore it was important to defend my corner at all costs. To me, success was a threat to my sense of security.
If I was out with an attractive girl, my concern was that if someone was to confront me by saying ‘she’s way out of your league mate, you don't deserve her.’ I was afraid that I would believe them, or at least take it to heart.
Obviously, believing such a horrible thing would be detrimental to my self-esteem & my feeling of self worth. So not just with girls, but in my career & personal life as well, I decided to go for the lowest of the low. This way, nobody could take anything from me, simply because they wouldn’t want to!
It makes a weird kind of sense right? I know it doesn’t really & it's easy to say ‘but Owen, their opinions don't matter.’ It did to me at the time, that's the problem. The world I saw was this horrible place, where things I wanted was dictated by others.
Tell me, if I was to say to myself back then ‘you can do anything you want mate, you can live how you choose, it doesn’t matter what others think,’ do you think that would have made sense to me?
No because that world, to me, didn't exist. Whilst I may agree on some level that it was true, the deep rooted meaning behind it would not take, because all of my limiting beliefs would strangle the roots.
How do you see the world?
Imagine the implications for me, seeing the world this way, as a cruel, nasty place. Do you think that I would find it easy to decide on the spur of the moment to take a wild trip to Amsterdam by myself? Or would that option even have entered into my head? Would I even think that was possible to do?
I would have come up with 1,000 irrational reasons not to. In early 2011, I received a respectable tax rebate from the government, to which I decided to take a holiday after all my hard work on this book.
All of my friends had other holidays booked, in none of the destinations I wanted to go. So, I booked a plane ticket to Amsterdam & went there for a week, by myself. I have to say, I had an incredible time! I met some great people (girls) & have some fantastic memories to go with it, which I'm not going to share with you so there.
This is an example of the change that I have experienced. The intention of this book is to help you make the change you want to. The person I was two years previous would never have dreamed of going somewhere by himself, he would much preferred a place where others were going, even if it was a place that he didn't want to go to.
The real change starts with how you choose to see the world. If the world to you is filled with a limited number of possibilities, then that's the world you will live in. If you see the world as a place where you are 100% free to be the person that you choose, then that's the world you will live in.
Let's do a fun exercise to demonstrate the importance of perception. I want you to picture, in your mind, a single flower in a pot. Now once you have this image in your mind, I want you to manipulate it in the following ways;
First, I want you to take the image & make it black & white. Then, I want you to make the image really blurry & as small as possible, just so you can barely see it. Good, now I also want you to imagine your reaction to this image, as though it smells terrible.
So, what’s your opinion of this flower? Is it nice? Would you want it? I imagine you probably don't.
Now, let's try something else. Return to your original picture and make it colourful. I mean, really colourful, with really bright, beautiful vivid colours.
Now let's make the image big, bigger than that! Make it 20m tall! Now I want to imagine your reaction to this image as though you are happy & laughing, it's a great flower!
So, what’s your opinion of the flower now? It's a pretty cool flower isn’t it? Would you like it?
It's a fun little exercise I came up with one day to help my little brother realise the choice he had in how he wants to see the world. Just think, what if instead of a flower, that was your life? What if that was the life you want to lead, the kind of person you want to be, the type of job you want to have?
If that were the case, then wouldn’t making it black & white & smelly make it less appealing? Why make it hard for yourself? What exactly is the point in filling your life with worry, doubt, or unnecessary priorities? An unnecessary priority for me is others opinions of me or what I’m doing. I've spent way to long worry about what others think of me.
Whilst I always make a point of taking other’s opinions on board, I always have the final say in what I do. I'm my own boss & you should be too. Wouldn’t it be much better if you could make all of your goals in life bright & colourful, possible & realistic? I'm sure you would agree that one simple change can make all of the difference.
Ask yourself, do you sometimes see the world as black & white & smelly? Does the way you see the world help you? I used to be defensive when it came to meeting others, but that didn't help me meet new friends.
I also used to resist the fluidity of a situation. You know some nights when you don't know where you're headed, but you like it? I used to be really uncomfortable with not being able to control a situation.
This came out to others as a cynicism. I know some people who get so trapped in their own cynicism, that their life loses all momentum & becomes stagnant. I always think it's important to be open to change, especially the change that you want.
Live like you mean it
This book is all about how to facilitate the change that you want, how to become the person that you want to be. I believe that in life, nothing ever happens without intent or a meaning behind it. What do I mean by intent? To me the word intent has momentum, purpose, direction. Success does not happen half-hearted.
We have all experienced this in our lives when we have really wanted something so bad, that we make the time needed & do anything to get it. This could be anything from dropping 10kg to passing your driving test to being a good parent, the idea & the mental power behind it is the same.
Chapter Two
All of our actions are motivated by deeper intents. Whatever those intents are, what people see is the manifestation of those intents, through what we say and what we do. In addition to this, people can also see our deeper intents.
All humans have this mutual empathy where we can see other’s reasons and motives behind something, good or bad.
Because everything we do is motivated by intents, it is important to act on the intentions that are best for us, like getting healthy or educating yourself or simply having more time for others. I once heard this fantastic description of what I would call intent;
Intent = Focus + Willpower
It can be described as much like a desk lamp. The focus was where you shine the light, what you are focusing on. It is important, especially when you're putting so much time & energy into a project, that you are headed in the right direction.
The willpower is the brightness of the bulb. The intensity of the light is how badly you want it & what you are willing to do to get it. If it meant staying late at work every night for 3 months to be offered the promotion you wanted, would you do it? How important is it to you to succeed? How high is something on your Value Spectrum, your list of priorities?
Another way of seeing Intent is as much like a vector. As I'm sure you will remember from Maths class:
A vector is a quantity having direction as well as magnitude.
Much like a vector, an effective life has both direction & magnitude. Direction is a good idea of what you prioritise & the momentum to hold to those ideals to achieve what you want.
Emotional leverage is your magnitude
Magnitude is important. Without it, you would have no motivation to do anything. Without magnitude, you would not have enough emotional leverage to get down the gym & stick to a diet. So, what do I mean by emotional leverage?
For someone to make a change in their life, most people like to wait for an event to happen. It is usually a bad one that really emphasises the importance of making a change. This much like waiting for a heart attack before changing your diet. Another example would be enduring a string of disastrous relationships before doing something about their love life.
I'm sure we have all had experiences like this in our lives & we all know the huge power that this emotional leverage has over our actions. But, if this emotional leverage is within us anyway, why should we have to wait to make the change?
I believe true power comes from creating this emotional leverage from within, to create this emotional leverage by deciding that good health & good relationships are important. Making a decision to move something up on your Value Spectrum & move other, less effective behaviours down.
Priority power
I think we can all agree that when it comes to stuff that we enjoy doing, like spending time with friends, we don't need to find time to do it, we make the time! We re-schedule other matters & we will hold off on other deadlines to make the time to see our best friends.
It's not something we consider doing, we just do it! Another example of the magic of priority power would be any time that you have really needed to go to the bathroom when you're driving. Obviously, because you are in your car there isn’t an available bathroom for a good while. What a frustrating situation to be in isn’t it?
Suddenly, the need to go to the bathroom shoots right up to the top of your priority list. Once you finally get home, the first thing you do is rush off to the bathroom before you even think about doing everything else. Chores, dinner & even taking off your shoes can wait for a minute.
The power of priority is a fantastic one. Once something goes up in your list of priorities, it takes precedence over everything else. This is how your fantastic mind works; it is based on priorities. It is important to realise this fact and learn how to control it.
When you were born, you were given a pink and squidgy super car that you call your brain. It’s a powerful machine that you have always had & used. What we are doing now is taking a crash course in professional driving. This is the instruction manual of your own mental Ferrari.
If you don't know what you're doing, it's easy to lose control, even crash. It is common to struggle with demons that you mind has created or skeletons in your closet. As owner of your pink and squidgy Ferrari, you have 100% control over how it acts.
For the last X amount of years, you have mastered a lot of skills and have effective command of your brain. What we are going to do in this book is to learn the fine tuned skills that allow you to take your brain for a power slide or jump 100 buses. Never in my life did I think that I would ever write a sentence involving the phrase ‘take your brain for a power slide.’
Here’s a great technique I made up to build the importance of something in my mind. Have a try, it’s fun & especially in steps 4 & 5. It's great to actually act them out & make the sounds, but if you're not in a place where it would be appropriate to fling your arms around then that's fine.
The Carnival Pattern
Think what it would be like if your value spectrum was like one of those strength tester attractions at a carnival, with a hammer for you to hit down onto the lever to send the ball right to the top and hit the bell, ding! Along the side are your values, the higher something is, the more you value it. The lower something is, the less you value it.
Experience the machine, what does the machine look like? What colour is it? Imagine you can hear all of the noises & the sounds of the carnival too in the background.
I want you to look up the strong man attraction & notice how instead of numbers, it has everything that you value (or don't value) on the side. It's easy to notice how gravity will naturally make unhelpful behaviours, such as being lazy & unhappy fall to the ground. Watch laziness sink to the bottom of your priorities under it's own weight.
Good, now I'd like you open your eyes and look around the room & think about something else for a second just to give your mind a little break.
Now think of something that you would like to spend more time doing. It could be anything, but for this example, let's use exercising. Picture yourself at the gym, having a great workout. Make the image really big & vivid. Make it colourful & listen for all of the sounds of the gym. Notice how alive you feel when you are working out.
If this image and feeling were to have a colour, what would it be? What if this colour was to become a ball, with a strong image of you in the gym on it?
To get acquainted with this strong ball of exercise, you may want to pick it up & throw it up & down. How does it feel in your hand? Can you sense the great feeling of being alive that it radiates?
Back to the strong man machine. Because exercising & feeling good is such an important part of our lives, it deserves to be right at the top. I want you to get up & place the ball on the lever of the machine & pick up the hammer.
For maximum effect, it's good to take the time to notice how heavy the hammer feels. A good hit from this will send it right to the top with a ding!
Take a good hard swing and hit the other side of the lever, watch your ball fly right up to the top with a loud ding! You moved it so high in your priorities that it's going to stay up there!
Open your eyes & look around the room.
How does that feel? I find it is a great way to get your priorities straight, because they won’t disobey you as you’ll hit them with a hammer!
Direction
There is a second component to a vector, direction. Without direction, a lot of energy can be wasted by focusing on the wrong thing. Some of my clients come to me lacking direction. Direction is something that can only be decided by the individual, everyone must choose their own path.
In some cases, people get caught up trying to fulfil expectations of others & wind up moving in a different direction to where they would like. I certainly know that I spent my early years doing exactly this, taking me down avenues that I didn't want to go. I'm not just talking about big things like educational or career choices, but even how I treated other people & how I felt about myself.
The most empowering thought is the realisation that others can never force you to move in other directions, it is your choice to go with them. In my situation, I still associated myself with the people that bullied me because I was afraid to go out & find other people. There was a shame associated with leaving the group. It would almost be like I was giving up, so I chose to stay.
It wasn’t until years later that I actually came to the conclusion; ‘wait, I'm pretty sure friends don't do things like this to each other.’ As you can see, I'm a sharp cookie. The idea that I am responsible for my choices ties in pretty well with how my life has gone; good and bad bits. This idea of choice that allows you, at any time, to change direction & move on the path you would like.
Good or bad, it's still your choice
The only way I know how to say this is to say it bluntly, so I apologise in advance. A vital aspect of living your life on your terms is to realise that you are 100% responsible for all the choices you have made in your life, good & bad. The point you are at in your life now is the consequence of the choices that you have made.
Everything that is going right in your life is a product of the choices that you have made, as is all that isn’t quite right. If there is a problem, then you should take positive action to solve it or at least make the best of it. There is no need to suffer problems.
How can you afford not to be responsible for all of your choices? Giving yourself 100% responsibility for your life means you have 100% control on how your life goes. It is only when you fully assume your place in the pilot seat of your life that you can begin to steer your life in your desired direction.
This means that instead of waiting for the ‘correct opportunity’ to start your own business or to ask out that girl that you like, you will make the opportunity yourself. Make it happen, remember the only thing stopping you is your choice not to.
Take a look at me now
This seems all well and good, but with great responsibility comes great power. It is important to put this power to good use; to use it with good intentions & not to use it in malice or spite. When I started developing myself & making more of my life, it was so easy to do this to spite my old social circle.
I used to dream of the day that I could meet them in a bar or social setting & not only be comfortable & confident in my own skin, but to make them feel bad about what they did to me & say ‘take a look at me now, you're still the same horrible person, I'm better than you now.’
But what kind of motivation is that? If my desire to be a better person was to only see other’s pain, then I would not have developed at all. I would have remained the same hurt self that I once was, just a more tactile, potent version of it. A much better reason to succeed would be to become the best person I can be, irrespective of other’s actions & opinions, right?
I believe that doing something out of spite is not taking 100% responsibility for your life, in fact, it is quite the opposite. It is allowing your actions & intent to be dictated by others who have wronged you. Remember, our motivation is not that we are trying to move away from pain & hurt, but to move towards what we want: a fulfilled life, good times & good friends. This is truly taking control of your life.
Self-pity
Another issue I struggled with was with pity; pity for my situation & my condition (if you want to call it that). Self- pity is such a seductive drug & I'm sure you probably have noticed this too. I'm not sure what hormones or chemicals course through your veins when you're feeling sorry for yourself, but it can be so easy to tag along for the ride & wallow, can't it?
People can sometimes make excuses for why they don't want to face a fear or a situation. Self- pity is one giant excuse, no two ways about it. It can be debilitating, disempowering & yet so alluring at the same time.
Why is it so alluring? Because it allows you to take the easy road and say ‘I can't do anything about it.’ This means that you don't have to do anything about it. Hurray, right?
Wrong. Your 100% choice over your actions and your future isn’t an opt-in scheme. We already have that choice, so by saying ‘We can't do anything about it’ we are actually saying ‘We are choosing not to do anything about it.’
I ask you, do you think these are the actions of someone who has 100% control of their life? No it's not is it? Self- pity is a scapegoat, an excuse to not do something. I had this recurring sentence in my head when it came to meeting women; ‘she won’t like you, you shouldn’t bother, it's easier just to sit here & be quiet isn’t it? Yeah, let's do that.’
What a fantastic way to get out of actually doing something! It was great! I never met any girls, but it was okay, because I didn't try, I couldn’t fail. I just sat there quietly knowing I could do better.
There is one thing which I have realised; the mind is an incredibly powerful tool. It can either be your best friend or your worst enemy. At your request, it can come up with 100’s of reasons, interpretations & rationalisations why you did or didn't do something.
I was great at making reasons why I wouldn’t go out; ‘I'm too tired. It's Saturday, that means all the idiots are out tonight. All girls are bitches anyway, so it doesn’t matter.’
I was also great at making reasons not to study; ‘why study? I picked it all up in class anyway, I'm pretty sure I can get a pass mark anyway, that's good enough.’
Like I said, the mind is a fantastically powerful tool & likes to find reasons & information to support what you are doing. Whether you do something or you don't, it will come up with a reason to support it. This is the issue at hand here, your mind will actually come up with a reason why you didn't go to the gym or go on holiday or go for that job you have always wanted;
‘I'm tired & I usually like to go to the gym for 3 hours so I don't think I should go, I’ll go next week.’
‘Well, work is always busy, so I can't take a long weekend and let my hair down.’
‘I wouldn’t have gotten it anyway; there are more ‘career’ people out there. They should have it.’
Regardless of whether any of the above reasons were valid in this person’s particular situation, only one thing is clear, they didn't do any of the things that they wanted to do: lose weight, enjoy time with friends & get a decent job.
An important thing I realised when you have a clearly defined direction that you want your life to go in is that other things will come up. Life has a way of throwing in things like your car service or a whopping tax bill when you need it least.
A person who lives a strong life with direction & intent will not allow this to stop them from moving towards their goals, they will not make rationalisations why they didn't go to their new salsa class. They are aware of the difference between a reason & a rationalisation.
Reasons vs. Rationalisations
I believe this is an important principle of effective self management, the ability to shift priorities as needed & still make time for everything. I will go into further detail on this later, but certainly I believe it is important to raise this issue that I had.
Excuses, excuses
Friday night, 2009, I'm a little nervous about going out. I didn't want to see any of my old friends & at that time the huge amount of stimulation you get when you walk into a club was rather over intimidating. However, I know some friends are out so I do have my choice of venues that I'd like to go to. I'm sat at home on my computer pondering about whether I should go out or not.
I look at the clock, the time is 8pm. I suppose if I go out, I'd have to have a shower, get dressed, eat something and then get on the bus, blah, blah, blah. That seems like a lot of stuff to do, I won’t even be in town until gone 10pm! (I was exaggerating to myself, finding an excuse not to go.)
My goodness, 10pm?! That's pretty late isn’t it? I’ll be home by 4. That will only give me 6 hours of partying to do. Only 6 hours? Is that enough? I’ll be sober when I turn up, so everybody will notice that, won’t they?
As you can see, it wasn’t that I really was tired or there were things stopping me, I was piling excuse after excuse on top of each other to build up to the conclusion; ‘I don't want to go out because I feel nervous.’
Who was I kidding? Me. I was trying to pull the wool over my own eyes. But as they say in alcoholics anonymous, the first step to solving a problem is recognising it. Be 100% honest with yourself when you feel uncomfortable or find yourself coming up with excuses not to do something;
‘Is my gym session really going to take 3 hours, or am I just saying that because I am tired?’
If there is a genuine reason, an issue stopping you from something that you want to do, then fine. What we want to eradicate here is the common problem of excuses & rationalisations. Because, simply, if you're not honest with yourself about your motives & drives, then how can you expect to steer your life in your desired direction? A pilot can't fly to a destination with false coordinates, it's not right to expect you to do the same.
It's down to you to make things happen
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