Friday, March 27, 2009

James Bond is scared of Vacuum Cleaners

That’s right. He’s white. He thinks himself god’s gift. He does what he wants. He obeys no one except, sometimes, M (which, by the way, stands for Max). He’s good with the ladies. His Bite is worse than his bark. He’s scared of the vacuum cleaner and he, daily, goes for a walk around 7pm to the local park to take a dump and chase away the neighbour’s cats.

I’m talking about my dog, James Bond, aka Bondie, in case you haven’t figured it out yet.

Today, he finally got tired of the vacuum cleaner and decided to attack it. Being more passive than aggressive, it decided not to fight back. He learned that it’s not going to hurt him, left it alone and chewed on some kibble.

Why am I telling you about my dog’s fears? Well because they’re no different than yours.

“what if I can’t do it”, “what if I get rejected”, “what if I lose my job”, “what if she cheats on me” and so on. You get the idea. And I can tell you that they’re no different than Bondie’s feelings about the electric sucking machine, but you’re gonna think it’s asinine to compare the two.

So consider this. Fear is native of your instincts. Our mind feeds us with recurrent doses of fear to control our behaviour. At an unconscious level, everything we do is either motivated by our desire for positive feelings, or our need for survival by avoiding negative feelings. Fear is an example of the latter.

Our mind wants to preserve our own definitions of our selves. So if it believes the job, the Mrs or the ego are more important to our existence than the potential inducement of any action, the mind will inject our nervous system with adrenalin, increase the heart rate, and send subliminal messages to our conscious mind making it think that it’s afraid, that it probably won’t even enjoy whatever we are about to do, and provide all kinds of excuses for why we don’t want, don’t need or don’t care enough about whatever the potential reward is. And like Bondie after a lost fight with that one nasty kitty, we retreat with our tails tucked in.

Sometimes the fear is justified. Afterall, our unconscious mind knows how to safeguard us. But if we always listen to our fears, we never cultivate our own potential, never experience phenomenon outside our comfort zone and never learn the pleasures enjoyed by adrenalin junkies. So how do we know which fears are ok to have and which aren’t? And how do we conquer them?

Well, I don’t know what works for you, but personally, when faced with the test of what I should & shouldn’t do, I always visualise the scenario with someone else going through my impending predicament. I imagine them being undecided and asking me for advice, and I advise them as a third party bystander, thus making rational decision uncluttered by emotions and fear.

Then more importantly, I get over the inner voice of ill-reason by “thanking it”. This might sound peculiar to some, but you should do this anyway, at least once.

Next time you are faced with an unwelcomed, debilitating fear, take a moment, close your eyes and say the following...
“Thank you for looking-out for me, thank you for ensuring I don’t hurt/embarrass/.....[fill in your unwanted feeling] myself. Thank you for ensuring my survival. And just as I know you want the best for me, you will now take back the fear, and provide me instead, with the confidence I need to ..... [fill in action] with success. I rely on you to give me all the tools I need to move forward in this and all future ventures, because without you, and your support, I will never be ...... [fill in your personal goal/outcome]”

Sunday, March 22, 2009

this is a mistake

I wish people were wrong more often.
I wish I could make more mistakes. (don’t laugh. It would be hard considering how many i’ve made, but I still wish it)

Society at large has a thing against mistakes.

People are caused endless suffering and stress by fearing mistakes, or by guilt of having made a mistake. This is a shame, it’s a lid on a jar that isn’t really there, but we’ve been taught to believe it is true. Well there’s no lid, people. It is not true.

Think about it this way. The world of science, medicine and technology are based on the principle of making mistakes, making lots of mistakes. A scientist can only achieve his goal by failing a number of times at first. Doctors save lives by experimenting and making mistakes (usually on mice first to reduce the cost of human life, but that’s not say humans don’t die in the process). Without the cost of mistakes we wouldn’t progress as a species, we wouldn’t evolve, we wouldn’t innovate, we wouldn’t learn, we wouldn’t develop. So why on earth, despite this knowledge, do we still live in a world where mistakes are punishable by fear, guilt and maybe even by whip.

Mistakes should be celebrated. Every mistake is a learning lesson. So live free, and err as much as possible. Get it wrong. Slip up. Go astray. You’ll be better for it.

Saturday, March 7, 2009

We need goals. Or do we?

Our perceptual position has a huge impact on our lives, and in any discussion, two people looking at the same topic from different sides could totally disagree about reality simply because they have different perspectives. And sometimes, looking at things from someone else’s perspective can provide us with new insights. Most people who know me, are aware of my ongoing quest to understand religion and its effect on people’s inner peace/joy. And in a recent discussion about this, a religious friend introduced me to a new insight which, ironically, has nothing to do with religion.

To make his point about blind “belief”, the friend asked, “why do you accept that setting goals is important? And why is ambition paraded as a virtue when it seems to, on the most part, fuel people into crossing ethical boundaries?”. The rest of that encounter is left for your curiosity to ponder. But...

That night, I spent some time giving serious consideration to the question of “why?”. Why do we take for granted the largely unchallenged dogma of setting goals? Particularly when most goals are dissatisfied widows living in the neglected retirement home of our own subconscious.

Goal setter would argue that statistically speaking, setting a SMART goal largely increases the chances of achieving a positive outcome in one’s life. This is as convincing as the argument that “you’ve got to be in to win” when talking about Lotto, but since we’re on the topic of statistics, why do we chose to ignore the statistic that suggests most goals fail to achieve fruition (the numbers vary from 60% to 90% depending on who you ask)

In fact, many argue that failure to achieve a goal is the most effective mode of transport from Motivation Road to Depression Land. And I would bet that everyone reading this has had at least one encounter with such a failure.

So why do we insist on insanity? Honestly, I don’t know. I simply “feel” that it works. I don’t care what statistics say. I guess there might be some sense in religion after-all.

From my own experience though, I believe that setting goals in the future (which is what most people do) isn’t the best. I believe goals need be set in a way to have a positive impact on our life NOW.

Also, those who achieve their goals regularly agree that rephrasing goals as affirmations has increased the chances of success by all accounts. (example: You could set a goal to make a million dollars in 10 years, or you could say “I live a rich life, and I act in a way that drives me a step closer, every day, to my million dollar destination”, or maybe you could do both!)

Another important factor in goal setting, is to ensure that achieving the goal is congruent with your identity, your values and your personal beliefs. There’s no point aiming to be rich when you also believe that wealth corrupts the soul, just as it’s crazy to set a goal of becoming the next Donald Trump when you are at your core a socialist.

So pull out your written goals and make sure you adjust them with these tips in mind. Who knows, you might actually achieve more of them.

Maybe next blog, I’ll share my thoughts on the whole thing about “why ambition is a virtue”

Got any other good goal setting tips?

Ps. I’m assuming you all know the difference between “goals” and “SMART goals”