positive action

Piece of the Action or Peace of Mind

/ Steve Lakey / 9 Comments

Sailboat

Photo: Safe Harbour by Tamara Ward

Zig Ziglar: ”If standard of living is your major objective, quality of life almost never improves, but if quality of life is your number one objective, your standard of living almost always improves.”

What is it that you focus on the most? If you’re not happy with your current circumstances, it makes sense to set goals to improve them. You have to start from where you are, but where should your emphasis go?

It’s tempting to focus on the money. Many of us have done it at one time or another. I know I have. “If only I had more money…” “When I get more money…” “If I had the money that they have…”

But really, is the money an end result, or just a means to an end? We need money to live in a material world, no question. But basically we want peace of mind. Happiness. Maybe having a big house and new car will give you lasting happiness, and maybe it won’t. But doesn’t it make sense to go directly for the end result?

If you want happiness, cut out the middleman and go for it. Focus on it now, plan for it and take some small action towards it. What really inspires you? What would you do if the money was already taken care of? If you can’t find the time and effort to practice being happy now, how will you do it when you’ve got all the “things”, and you’re still chasing happiness?

Don’t forget to appreciate the good things you already have. It’s sometimes easy to forget, when you get caught up thinking about the future. It may be a cliché, but there are so many things that happiness can’t buy. If your focus is happiness, you’re unlikely to have many of the hang-ups about money that stop you getting it in the first place.

Relax and enjoy the good things in your life now. Then get started on being really happy.

Have a Nice Trip?

/ Steve Lakey / 2 Comments

snow scene

Photo: Snow Storm by Peter Griffin

A few days ago, we had a heavy snowfall, during the afternoon. As I drove from work, I had a couple of near misses with cars skidding to a halt in front of me. My engine then started cutting out. Closer to home, my car lost traction climbing a steep hill, and I ended up blocking traffic on a narrow stretch of road. Nothing I tried could get me moving forwards. There was no let-up in the snow or high winds.

From nowhere, a man with a shovel started digging my wheels out. Others came to help, and soon three people were pushing my car up the hill until I got moving again.

Three more times on the way home, I got stuck in deep snow. Three more times, people came and gave me a push to get me started. What is normally a twenty-minute journey had taken me about two hours. I was completely stressed, and couldn’t wait to get home and close the front door. The thought of driving back to work in the morning didn’t exactly fill me with joy…

It was only later when I reflected on my experiences. Was it really the nightmare journey I’d thought?

I was safe, as was my car. Several groups of perfect strangers had come to my aid, unprompted and got me moving again. They expected no recognition or reward; they’d just seen someone in trouble and gone to help out. I never got the chance to speak to anyone and give them my thanks. Without their intervention, I would’ve had to abandon my car in a dangerous position, and walk home through the snowstorm.

As for the weather – heavy rain during the night cleared the roads, and the sun was shining on my drive to work in the morning.

All in all, I consider myself quite lucky.

Sorry, Positive Thinking Doesn’t Work

/ Steve Lakey / 37 Comments

depression

Photo: Depression by George Hodan

Study after study has shown that Positive Thinking doesn’t improve your results. In fact, in many cases it has a negative effect on your outcomes. You can visualize every day, think positively about your life and still be in a worse place than people who don’t.

Why is that? Because many of the people who visualize, and think positively believe that’s all they have to do!

Positive Thinking on its own doesn’t work – because you have to take action to get the right results. Ideally, the “right” sort of action, inspired action. But any action is better than none. Your thoughts are the starting point, but we live in a physical world. Thoughts alone won’t get you there. You have to move your feet. It’s no good buying a new Ferrari if you don’t fuel it up. You don’t have to change the world, but you can make changes to yourself.

Working with thoughts and actions in tandem is where you get the best results. Lot’s of people work hard every day, and have little to show for it. So you need to take time to focus and plan your outcomes and goals. If you don’t know what you really want, how will you know if you get there?

This is where positive thinking and visualizing kick in. You have to practice them regularly because their effects are short lived. But so is cleaning your teeth, and you probably do that twice a day. It’s still a useful activity!

A problem can be, the more time you spend visualizing, the more you notice the difference between your current reality and where you want to be. But if you mix in short term goals, you can see the progress you are making towards them. You can even add goals you have achieved on the list, to remind yourself of your successes.

So make Positive Thinking part of your lifestyle – but don’t forget to take Positive Action!

Virtual Reality?

/ Steve Lakey / 4 Comments

digital-binario

Photo: Binary Digital by Marcos Tulio

The penny dropped for me, while watching the BBC documentary “Wonders of Life”. The programme explained how different animals perceive the world in completely different ways. The Catfish, for example can “smell” the chemicals in the water to help orientate itself. Each species has its own way of making sense of its surroundings, and experiences life in its own way.

It occurred to me that we do a similar thing. Our brain interprets the signals it receives, to give us our individual picture of the world. But is it “reality”? Can there actually be an objective reality, when all our experiences are self-filtered?

If we don’t experience a “standard” reality, then our experiences should be open to change. In the same way that we can literally change the images we see by wearing sunglasses, we can consciously change our outlook by changing our thoughts.

How we view what happens in our life is really only our perception anyway. So if you don’t like what’s happening to you, “go within” and change your outer world.

“90” or “100”?

/ Steve Lakey / 7 Comments

Question MarkPhoto: Help by Kosta Kostov

 

Motivational author and speaker Dr Stephen Covey has developed the “90-10 Rule”. The ’10′ refers to the 10% of our life that happens to us – the circumstances beyond our control. The ’90′ represents the other 90% of life that is under our control – how we choose to react to those circumstances.

Imagine if your alarm clock fails to go off and you over-lay. You have to fill up with fuel and there are huge queues. You hit all the red lights possible, and you’re stuck in traffic, meaning you are going to be late for work. You can’t change that, but you can decide how to react to it. Do you let yourself get out of control, or do you accept that sometimes these things happen, and find a better way to deal with it?

The ‘90-10’ rule makes perfect sense. But for me, I prefer to think of us as 100% responsible for our actions. If something upsets or angers us, that’s how we have ‘chosen’ to respond.

It’s not that we should try and repress these emotions, but sometimes it’s good to step back and take a wider perspective. How we’ve initially reacted is not the only way to deal with the situation.

Also, I think that for something to happen to us, or for us to be aware of it, we must be on a similar “frequency”. Not in the sense that we are to blame, but on a subconscious level, we have attracted it with our thoughts, beliefs and actions.

The way to move forward is to think and act more positively. How many times do we stop ourselves from trying something new, because of our fear of failure? If you “knew” that you would succeed today with every action you took, what could you accomplish?

If there is something important coming up in your day, why not take a few minutes and focus on how you would like it to develop. Visualize the outcome you want, and imagine yourself succeeding. Even if things don’t go exactly to plan, know that you will be able to cope with whatever happens. You always have coped up until now, and with a little extra focus, you could see positive changes.