Opinions

Most people have opinions on almost every subject we can think of and are prepared to tell anyone who asks what they are. Nothing wrong with this unless someone is looking for help on making an important decision or change in their life. What that person is really looking for is an informed opinion otherwise known as experience.
So how can we discover whether or not we are getting an informed opinion?
By using the skill of asking better questions. Instead of asking a person what they think about something we would ask do they have any experience with whatever we are interested in. In essence; does their resume have the skills to answer our need.
Your thoughts?

Traps

Our habits of thinking can easily lead some of us into a trap that we sometimes don't recognize. When we are satisfied with our viewpoint on a topic we have effectively established a filter on our senses and our thinking that stops from reexamining that viewpoint even in the face of new information. We literally cannot even see that new information because of our filters. Unfortunately this can occur at a very early age or be affected by work and personal interactions.
Our filters in essence create a box within which we look for our answers. This leads us into the trap of continuing to ask the same question over and over again and frustrating ourselves by always getting answers from our box that don't work.
Perhaps the way to break the trap is to start searching for questions rather than continuing to look for more answers within our filtered box. New questions can come from reading, movies, conversations, controversy and so on. When we start looking for questions we will often find that we have a answer to that question that resonates with us and changes the filters we use.
Your thoughts?

Patience

There are undervalued skills in this time of instant communication, instant social groups, instant news and needing instant results.
Most of us when we are making a change or achieving a goal tend to go overboard. Jumping into anything or everything that can stack the odds in our favor to complete the change/goal instantly without any consideration for our current habits and skills.
We often attempt most times to change too much and do it too quickly when it requires overturning the habits and thinking patterns we had for years and require new skills we don't currently have.
Perhaps the skills we need to develop and master before trying radical change are timing, appropriate choice of goals and above all patience.
Your thoughts?

Biggest Block to Change

Why are we able to easily change some things and not others has intrigued us to the point of creating a whole self-help industry to answer that question. We have all made decisions or reacted to changes beyond our control with absolutely no problem. We just did it. So what is the stumbling block to the changes we want to make but can't seem to do?

Perhaps it is two simple words that create the block. Those two words are "I am". I am fat, I am stupid, I am no good at ....., I am ....? Whatever we say to ourselves and others is what we are because it is a belief we have created for ourselves and no one knows us like we do so, it has to be true and  thus we build our beliefs on who we are and how we function in this world of ours. It really is about our reality and only has to make sense to ourselves.

Perhaps the solution to change is simply deciding that "We are" something different and train ourselves to live that way just the way we taught ourselves to live the way we no longer want

Your thoughts?

Gateways

We can tend to believe that the choices we make could be temporarily made and undone by making another choice later on. Another perspective could change how we think about choice. Borrowing from the magical realm of fantasy we could call choices more appropriately as gateways that magically appear to us whenever necessary.
This would occur whenever we stop to ask ourselves a question:
Is there a better way?
Do we like the results we see in our life?
Why are others treating us this way?
Do we want to accept that offer, relationship, deal, etc.?
In short anything that makes question what we are doing.

Gateways seems more appropriate as once we have passed through the gateway of our choice then life can never return to what it was. Gateways could lead to paths that are harmful to us or good for us or appear to make no difference but in all cases it is a change in direction in our lives and should not be made blindly, in fits of anger, to punish others or ourselves.

We have the freedom to step through the gateway of our choice and by calling it a gateway rather than choice recognizes the importance of taking the right actions in our lives.

Your thoughts?

Life Perspective

For a number of people winning at life appears to be an ever increasing list of things to have or to be accomplished. They are never satisfied with what they have and therefore are always living in the future. Others seem to live with the chains of the past. Every failure to achieve something adds yet another chain preventing them from taking chances at all and therefore end up doing nothing.
In both cases the present escapes them and they are never happy with any aspect of their life. Why do we make it so hard to just enjoy our lives?
Is there a better perspective?
Instead of making life a perpetual contest we could perhaps change our perspective by asking instead what is the legacy that we will leave behind us when we die. If we have made a positive difference in even just other person then we have won. Our life has meaning. If we were to use the analogy that life is like a poker game then each moment is like having a fresh hand dealt. What has gone on before has no bearing on the current hand dealt other than the experience of getting to know the other players. It is the accumulation of well played hands that produce a winner not dissimilar to life.
The change from winning to legacy and the focus on how we play the current hand dealt by circumstances and our interactions with others could lead us to living a more fulfilling life.
Your thoughts?

Cause or Effect

We often see people spinning their wheels when tackling changes they want in their life. Are they weak willed, have no stamina to persevere, or can't bite the bullet and get on with it? I don't think that is the primary reason for not making the change. The main reason is that people confuse cause and effect and usually spend a lot of time dealing with effects.
We need to get more practice in designing our life rather just accepting it. We need better questions to ask ourselves to get at the cause and create effective change. Questions like:

1. What are the values that are controlling me?
2. How do I know when my values are being met?
3. What are my rules foe winning and losing?

What questions would you add to this incomplete list?

Control

If we look closely we would find that there is a relationship between fear of change and being controlling where ever possible in our lives. We tend to be controlling when we try to freeze life into a particular mould and in that way fix our future.

However we can all appreciate that life tends to ignore controls and moulds despite our best efforts. the bottom line is that we could spend our entire life being frustrated by our attempts to control the winds of life. They blow hot or cold, fast or slow, from a gentle breeze to a cyclone regardless of our desires.

like sailors we need to learn how to adapt to the winds and use whatever comes up to push us in the direction we want to go and so eventually arrive at our desired destination. There will be times we are becalmed and times we need to batten down the hatches and seek sheltered moorings while the gale blows.

Sailors work with the winds and accept whatever comes which is a great attitude for sailing through life.

Your thoughts?

Technorati tags: managing change, adapting, flexibility, control

Lessons and Mistakes

We spend a lot of time and effort constantly reinventing our future. As changes happen we look for and find ways to use that change to go towards our goal or to avoid potential problems. Everyone does it in one form or another.

There is a way to use this talent for reinvention that potentially could have a greater impact on improving our lives. If we can reinvent our future why not also reinvent out past.

If we were to take everything that we consider to be a mistake or those decisions we regret and reframed them as steps towards our goals would it make difference.

I believe it would. We would no longer have a negative connotation on the lessons we needed to learn so as to arrive at our goal. We would lose the fear of making the same mistakes that can end up holding us back.

We would learn to take change and lessons as a natural part of life rather than learning how to avoid making mistakes which quite frankly is impossible to start with.

Your thoughts?

Technorati tags: lessons, mistakes, life, managing change

Self-help Project

If we were to look in the self-help section of the bookstore we would find all kinds of formula for accomplishing a desired goal. Life seems to have been successfully reduced to a series of precise steps which will bring about a specific result.

Many of us at one time or another may have tried to follow these self-help steps. Sometimes they lead us towards our goal and sometimes they lead us astray. We might say that some formula work only for the author which is why they wrote it in the first place. It worked for them.

The problem is that no one else is like them and therefore get varying results for their efforts. There are no magical formulas as life is entirely a self-help project and we are all unique. There are no miracle cures to be passively accepted and followed.

We simply get results from our actions and interactions with others and if we want something different then do something different and observe the result to determine our next action.

Your thoughts?

Technorati tags: managing change, life. self-help

Endings

For some the ending of something is an occasion for sadness and regret instead of recognizing that it is a natural part of life. After all life is a process not something to be gotten over with.

With a small shift in perception a lot of unnecessary sadness could be eliminated from our lives. Change is a part of life and it usually starts when something ends rather than when something begins.

It is the ending that provides the opportunity for us to change something in our life to give us a different present or future outcome.  In a lot of situations something has to be over before something new can begin.

Your thoughts?

Technorati tags: endings, beginnings, change

Seduction

Some of us can want something so badly that we seduce ourselves into believing that we can easily obtain it with little effort. We simply don't see the pitfalls or the preparation necessary to accomplish our goal.

Then we wonder why we fail time after time or get blindsided by the unexpected. We have a warped perception of the task ahead of us and ill prepared to accomplish it.

We need to learn pessimism is not always a negative viewpoint but a necessary check and balance needed to formulate a plan of action. Anticipation of events and situations that could derail our plan allows us to see early enough to respond by modifying our actions in time to minimize or circumvent the problem.

Flexibility can only happens if we are prepared to modify how we are accomplishing the task while maintaining the goal. Progress is always incremental and may require detours to arrive at our final destination.

Optimism provides the fuel to get started while pessimism keeps us prepared to respond to events.

Your thoughts?

Technorati tags: pessimism, optimism, managing change

Be Prepared

We often hear or read about life lessons. For some it means all of our trials and tribulations are part of what we agreed to come back and learn. For others it means learn so that they can do it to others before it is done to them and others treat life like a book to read about but not really think about. And so on.

A lesson requires a receptive mind to learn anything from it. If we learn just to be able to parrot it we will soon forget about it after the need is over. Just look at your schooling after exams are finished.

But lessons require one additional key ingredient that is often ignored. One is taught according to their fitness to learn. If we don't bring this requirement to the table we ignore the preliminary lessons and preparation often necessary for success. Be prepared and receptive for learning new things opens up new lessons to be learnt. They are there everyday of our lives.

Attitude can indeed be a critical component.

Your thoughts?

Technorati tags: lessons, life. managing change

Key Step for Change

We can sometimes embark on making a major change without proper preparation. This refers to a habit we have had a long time and now wish to change. We have our habits for a reason.

Sometimes the reason is buried in the past and we don't remember how it started. It is not really important to understand why it started but to understand why we keep it. It meets a need no matter how deep or superficial a need it is.

If we want to change something then we should first understand why it exists. Then we can decide to eliminate or replace that habit with one we want.

Your thoughts?

Technorati tags: habits, managing change

Change your Mind

We can get hung up on making changes for a number of reasons. Perhaps we are afraid of failure or we are not certain that it is what we want and so we hesitate because we don't want to make a mistake. We all can have individual concerns that make a change somewhat like climbing Mount Everest.

This kind of approach makes change an obstacle rather than a natural part of life. We make changes all the time adjusting to what is going on in our environment and often without even thinking about it. We just do it and then in the next moment just do something else.

Change can be as simple as changing our mind on what we want to do in a situation and then if we don't like the results to keep on changing until we are satisfied with the results. No big deal as long as we give ourselves permission to change our minds any time we like as long as we accept the consequences of our decisions.

Worrying about change does absolutely nothing except give us heartburn. We definitely have to think about the results the change will bring to our personal environment and if we can live with that then just do it.

Change your mind change your life.

Your thoughts?

Technorati tags: change, life, worry

Something Sleeps

Some people are known to go to extreme lengths to keep their world unchanged. They may change friends when their friends change to improve their lives. They may live by a set of inviolate rules which no one may break. They may live a solitary existence with only acquaintances that never see the real person.

When we resist change to this degree then something sleeps within us. We might even restrict thinking about or paying attention to anything that might lead to change. We are frozen in our growth and all of the joy available in life is lost. We are in the twilight zone.

It is when we strive for things and embrace the change that creating anything gives to us are we truly living rather than just existing. In this view of life there are no failures just answers to what ever question we are asking of ourselves.

We can sleep while life passes us by or decide to accept change as an essential part of living. As always the choice is ours to make. Do we sleep or do we live.

Your thoughts?

Technorati tags: living fully, change

Inside Out

All change really works from the inside out. It starts with the statement I need to change not circumstances. Without this kind of emphatic ownership we will tend to look for or wait for external events that may or may not occur and are not within our control.

If what we have been doing is not getting what we want then we need to change our actions. Our actions will not change until we change how we feel about what we are currently doing.

To look outside of ourselves keeping the same perspective and attitude that have been unsuccessful to date is pointless. Granted we have to ensure that we have spent enough time using our current approach to have seen any results from our efforts. 

To change how we do things requires a new perspective in order to discover new approaches. Thus change occurs from the inside out.

Your thoughts?

Technorati tags: managing change, perspective

Key Distinctions

We have a tendency when we are very unhappy with our life and the way it is going to throw the baby out with the bath water. We are frustrated that our dreams that we have for ourselves seem to be out of our reach. We become desperate.

In this state we feel that the only thing we can do to put the dreams within reach for us is to throw away what we have and seek a totally new path. This is when relationships can end, careers abandoned and desperate actions taken.

For a few this may be the only route they have to take. But for others what is needed is a careful examination of both what we desire to have happen in our lives and more importantly what we already have.

We may be at a point that our original goals are at odds with what we thought we wanted and now it is time to adjust our goals to who we are now.

We may need to adjust what we define as success and find that we have already accomplished our goals just in a way different than we envisioned.

We may need to drop some unrealistic goals and relax and broaden our goals to accept new challenges that have meaning for us while keeping what is important to us.

These are just a few of the key distinctions that we need to make before we throw the baby out with the bath water.

What would you add to this list?

Technorati tags: key distinctions, personal growth, managing change

Our Stories

We tell stories all the time. Stories are how we communicate. We have stories of how smart we are. Stories of where we are going, where we have been and where we are right now. We have different stories of our life depending on who is our audience and what impression we want the audience to have.

We also have stories we tell ourselves where we are the only audience. This is where our choice of stories affects what we do right now. If we tell ourselves stories of failure, embarrassment, what we lack or what is not possible then we will act it out after all it is our story and we are the storyteller.

Our stories are not complete tales but chosen fragments of our life and circumstances to support the meaning we wish to give the story we have chosen. Our past is a story as is our future.

As we are the storyteller it is our choice of what stories we use.

Do your stories support you or hinder you?

Technorati tags: stories, meaning, managing change

Too Much Truth

We may want to make a major change to accomplish a desired goal and find that we run into trouble at almost every turn. This is not an uncommon problem.

It arises from the fact that our beliefs, truths, and habits are like an interwoven multicolor ball of wool that have built up in layers over the years as our lives grew more complex and diversified.

Now we have reached a point that we want to change a major belief or habit. The real root issue is that beliefs are our truths that we have held and bound our experiences to and the result is like the famous Gordian knot. Now we are attempting to duplicate the feat of Alexander and cut through it with one swipe of the sword. 

It could result in trying to change too much truth all at once and it may overwhelm us and stop us in our tracks. If we reach this barrier then we need to change our approach.

We could treat a major change more like peeling the layers of an onion. Each layer represents truths, beliefs, and experiences that we have to restructure in the context of the new belief that we wish to hold. As with peeling an onion we have tears (emotions) that we need to stop and wipe our eyes and wait a moment to let the effect evaporate. Layer by layer we can steadily approach our goal of changing our beliefs and truths until it is done.

Not all things can be fixed by approaching it with a sword.

What has been your experience?

Technorati tags: managing change, beliefs, truth, perspective. personal growth