goodselfhelpstuff.com

Just a note to let you know that I have added a review of this excellent book in the “reviews” section.

Like

Unlike

Last Saturday we had a “family movie night” – the selection was “Fantastic Mr Fox”. It’s great! -  funny, witty, charming and endearing – and a great story too! It had all three of us laughing out loud, especially the scene where Mr Fox is having a heated argument with his lawyer (who is an impeccably dressed Badger). Just thinking about it is making me smile now.

On reflection, the kid’s movies we have watched lately have been far and away the best movies we have seen of any kind. “Up” in particular, was hugely entertaining – I would defy anyone not to be moved by the opening twenty minutes where it tells the story of a marriage without using any dialogue at all. And before the kids have a chance to get bored with the emotional stuff the film blasts off into a fast-moving and funny adventure. Great movie-making.

The first movie that my son was really (obsessively) into was “Monsters Inc”, which is a bona-fide classic. Before I saw this one 300 times I probably hadn’t watched a kid’s movie since I was a kid myself and I was really amused by how cleverly they work on different levels and how they weave in subtle jokes that appeal to us “grown-ups”. To use an old cliche “there is something for everyone” in these movies.

I was going to expand on this and debate how they appeal to our need for escapism, innocence and child-like joy but – you know what? – that’s not necessary at all. Let’s not analyze everything to death and tie ourselves in knots wondering about “what does it all mean?”. Today’s good self help tip is simply this, spend time with your family, watch kid’s movies and have a laugh.

And bring popcorn.

Like

Unlike

I have just finished Wayne Bennett’s book “The Man in the Mirror”, which is the story of his 21 years coaching the Brisbane Broncos rugby league club. It concludes with a great quote on leadership by Lao-Tzu which sums up the approach that Bennett aspires to.

“The great leader speaks little. He nevers speaks carelessly. He works without self interest and leaves no trace. When all is finished the people say ‘we did it ourselves.’”

This is pretty accurate as he has worked tirelessly to turn the Broncos into  not just a successful sports team but also an institution that plays a genuine development role in the lives of the men who play for it. He is also famously un-talkative and  un-motivated by money or the trappings of success (to relax he goes to work on a farm!).

Wayne Bennett really is an icon of coaching over here and he has achieved some remarkable things in the world of sports and in his family life. He works in the tough world of professional rugby and has a lot to say about building character, sacrifice, dedication and teamwork but he also has a surprisingly emotional and cereberal side to him. This really comes out when he talks about his relationship with his disabled son, Justin and what his family means to him.

If you want to read more about his uncompromising and principled approach to life I’d suggest you start with his earlier book “Don’t Die With The Music In You” which is shorter and has more varied content than “Man in the Mirror”.

Like

Unlike

Wouldn’t it be great if you could receive a postcard from a future version of yourself assuring you that everything turned out fine and you were in for a great time?  How would you feel if you somehow got some unexpected good news from your own future? I can certainly remember times in my life when I could have used some encouragement and a bit of reassurance that things were going to get better! If you were able to send a “postcard to your past” what would you send?

Firstly, I’d like you to identify a time in your past when you were feeling down. This could be a time following a particularly sad incident or a period when things weren’t going too well for you in general terms. When we are feeling really miserable it becomes difficult to visualize things ever changing for the better. Pick one of those times.

Now take some time to identify three really good, positive events or experiences that you have had since then. Spend a bit of time doing this and really bring these to mind, reliving all the happy memories that these arouse. These three happy events are your “postcards” that you can mail to the “you” that was going through the sad time (you can use “video-diary” entries instead if you prefer). Now put them into the cosmic postal delivery system (!)

Imagine the past version of yourself, struggling with crappy circumstances, how would receiving these happy postcards make you feel? How would your outlook on life change?

I thought back to the time when I was newly separated and had just moved into a rented house (with about six items of furniture!). I was about ten thousand miles away from home and I could feel every one of those miles. Back then I was struggling with life and I felt pretty sure that I would be on my own for a long, long time. Divorced and unhappy. How nice it would have been to receive a picture of my wedding day and know that I would be happily married in three years time! What a relief it would have been to receive a note saying “Don’t worry – it all works out fine!”

I find this exercise of mapping your happy experiences onto times when you were feeling miserable is a great way to encourage the habit of looking for the good in life and reminding you that bad times don’t last. It also make you wonder if there aren’t some more great “postcards to the past” that are going to come your way.

Like

Unlike

Do yourself a favour and read this article on how scientific-engineering is used to “design” fast food. This process ensures that we get hooked on increasingly health-destroying foods – a particularly telling quote reads:

“The (food) industry has jacked up what works for it,” Stiglitz said. “The learning is evolutionary.” Practical experience has been its guide – it does notneed lab rats when it can try out its ideas on humans. Its decision-makers do not have to analyse human brain circuitry to discover what sells.

I don’t which is more depressing – the immoral cycnicism of the “food-designers” or the blind conformism of us the consumers. I’m afraid it leads you to some glum conclusions.

Karl Marx once famously remarked that “religion is the opium of the people”.

Now it’s food.

Like

Unlike

Several years ago I had a health assessment done which gave me quite a shock. The results told me that I had very high cholesterol levels, my diet wasn’t great and I wasn’t at all fit – this is not good news for men heading towards their 40’s. Statistically, it’s actually very bad news (as anyone selling life insurance knows). So, feeling a bit panicked by it all, I resolved to do something about it and flung myself into a dieting and exercising regime. I remember throwing out a lot of food from the refrigerator (goodbye ice-cream!), buying a bike and planning a lifestyle that would help me to turn the results around and secure my health. I had visions of a few months hard work and self-denial and then getting a new set of test results which showed I had returned to a state of “being healthy”. Job done.

This approach – a big overreaction and a belief that I could “get back” my healthiness – wasn’t particularly successful. On the plus side, it was better than doing nothing but the lingering belief that I could take action, return to “health” and then maybe drift back into my old habits wasn’t a good one. What I was shying away from was committing to making healthy choices regularly, most of the time on an ongoing basis.

For me, good health is not a question of reaching a future goal like running a marathon or having a good health assessment, it’s more about making the small but correct choices “now”. And it’s always “now”, in case you hadn’t guessed! Much better to focus on the process of being healthy rather than some imagined end result.

With happiness too – there is a common misconception that it is something that we can “own”, “achieve” or “reach” in some way. As if we can put a final tick on our happiness to-do list and say “right, I’ve done it all so now I can be happy!” Of course, this is misguided thinking because there is no end-point you can reach where, after your long years of struggle, you will be transformed into a happy person.

There is a lot in my life that I feel great about already but, like most people, I’ve got a shopping list of things I’d like out of life and it includes:

Having enough money so I don’t have to work 9-5 in a “traditional” job anymore.
Owning a cottage by the sea in Whitby on the Yorkshire Coast.
Driving a VW Golf R32 car
Having a book of photography published
Driving around Australia
Having a long holiday in the USA

If someone were to wave a magic wand and give me all these things I have no doubt that I would be happy for a while. Very happy in fact! But, after a while, the novelty would wear off and I know that I would return to whatever “base level” of happiness I was at before I got all these new things and experiences. Chances are I would probably start working on a NEW list of things to want so I could continue to postpone happiness until I got THOSE things too!!!

So if there is no end-point – no relationship or house or dream holiday that is going to guarantee of happiness – what will? Basically, choosing to be happy – or ALLOWING yourself to be happy now. Being grateful for what you already have, counting your blessings, noticing the small things that go right or add something of value to your life.

Both health and happiness are what you do; they are how you’re travelling not  some far off destination.

Like

Unlike

Whilst writing the previous post I realized that I also wanted to promote another remarkable individual working wonders to raise money for charity despite a diagnosis of cancer: Steve Prescott.

Former professional Rugby League player Steve has embarked on an amazing series of fund-raising events as a response to his diagnosis of a rare form of stomach cancer. He is still going strong and the current video on the home page of his “Steve Prescott Foundation” webite gives a good summary of what he is all about. Some of you may struggle a bit to understand the Northern English accents but please persevere – it’s a story worth hearing!

*Update*  Steve was awarded the MBE in April 2010 and dedicated it to everyone who has helped out through his foundation. He said “I feel this medal I’ve got in front of me is a ‘people’s award’, it’s for everybody’s help and generosity and support – that’s how I class this now.”

Like

Unlike

If you spend a reasonable amount of time reading self help material you read words like “inspiring”, “motivation” and “passion” so often that they are in danger of  losing their impact.  You see them so often you can suffer from “familiarity-blindness” to the point where they barely register with you. To take the example of “inspiration” – what does this actually mean?

A dictionary definition of inspiration is:

in•spi•ra•tion n.
1.
a. Stimulation of the mind or emotions to a high level of feeling or activity.
b. The condition of being so stimulated.
2. An agency, such as a person or work of art that moves the intellect or emotions or prompts action or invention.
3. Something, such as a sudden creative act or idea, that is inspired.
4. The quality of inspiring or exalting: a painting full of inspiration.
5. Divine guidance or influence exerted directly on the mind and soul of humankind.
6. The act of drawing in, especially the inhalation of air into the lungs.

(Source www.thefreedictionary.com)

I feel number two is the most meaningful and in particular the part “or prompts action or intervention”. Feeling uplifted or enriched by something is a wonderful thing but the real sharp end of inspiration is when it moves you to actually DO something as a consequence; when it doesn’t just change your mood, it changes your actions.

It’s the very nature of inspiration that it comes and goes. It’s an ephemeral thing that can strike when least expected and also resist all attempts to manufacture it. The one thing I have found that makes me consistently change the way I do things (and often pressurizes me to do things I don’t want to do but know I should) is this. I keep a paper copy of this in my office at work.

I first became aware of Jane Tomlinson when my first wife was being treated for Breast Cancer in West Yorkshire back in 2000. Later on I read the first book that she wrote with her husband Mike called “The Luxury of Time” and it was a very moving read as a lot of the experiences and places in the book were very close to home (both emotionally and literally). Events like visits to Cookridge Hospital in Leeds, her Husband’s visit to St Austin’s Church in Wakefield (which was in the next street to where we lived) and the life-changing rollercoaster ride of cancer really brought it all back to me.

The Tomlinson family live in Rothwell, which is not far from where I used to live. We always warm to a “local hero” but the scale of what Jane and her family achieved in raising funds for charity really does cross all boundaries. It’s quite amazing that someone should respond to a diagnosis of terminal cancer by turning to athletics as a means of raising money – and even more remarkable when you consider that she had no real background in sports prior to her illness. By the time she finished her fundraising efforts she had completed a full Ironman event and even cycled across the USA. Despite all of these accomplishments, the Tomlinson’s were able to keep a real feeling of normality about them and there is a very “down to earth” feel about the book and the family life it portrays. Albeit a family facing enormous challenges and achieving amazing things.

There is a quote from Jane’s husband Mike which I have in the quotes section of this website. It goes…

“People are good at making excuses and saying they haven’t got time. It’s down to lack of will power and motivation. Get a grip! If you want to do it do it! A friend of ours said that he wanted to do the Ironman but had no time, but people who are extremely busy run the marathon. Gordon Ramsey did the marathon he’s got self motivation. He ran to and from work. Most people can’t be bothered. To say you haven’t got time is rubbish it just depends how much it means to you. If Jane wants to squeeze an extra hour of training in she’ll run home from work or get up at 6am to do an hour of swimming before work. Or she’ll put a stew on for tea and go for a run while it’s cooking. It’s about managing time. Jane has a terminal illness, three kids, a job, a charity to run and will do 15 to 20 hours training per week.”

I love this quote. To me this captures that mixture of the absolutely ordinary and the truly remarkable. A seemingly everyday kind of person, someone who you could easily pass unnoticed in the street, someone on their way home from work thinking about what to cook for their family that night, could be a multi-million dollar fundraiser and a person who redefines for us all what’s possible in life.

Her example does provide motivation and inspiration for me in those small, everyday life situations. When I am manufacturing excuses not to go to the gym I read that bit about:

“Jane has a terminal illness, three kids, a job, a charity to run and will do 15 to 20 hours training per week.”

And, without fail, I am shamed into going after all! It changes my behaviour – how can it not? Similarly, it prompted me to take go bald in the “Greatest Shave” appeal for leukaemia and put my hand in my pocket to give to charity. I get inspired to do things differently.

Sadly, Jane died in 2007 but not before she had achieved an amazing series of accomplishments including winning “Sports Personality of the Year”, “Greatest British Campaigner” and being made a CBE (Commander of the Order of the British Empire). She had also raised a fortune for a variety of cancer and Children’s welfare charities and touched the lives of millions of people. Apart from these tangible things one of the aspects I find most admirable was her refusal to let her illness define her and dictate the script of how she should live her life. As she said:

“Part of what I am doing is saying to people that just because you’ve got the sort of prognosis that I’ve got it doesn’t mean that you’ve got to sit at home and wait for death to come. It’s to try to say to people ‘actually I have as much right, whatever time I have left, to live it the way I want to live it’”

The Tomlinson family continues to raise money for charity through their website here and the annual 10K Run for All.

Like

Unlike

I firmly believe that we are capable of more than we think we are. I believe that most people have more resources than they are aware of – that they are stronger, kinder, more innovative and more talented than they perceive themselves to be. So what stops this potential being realized? What gets in the way of these talents and stops them flowing from the inside to the outside world?

Unfortunately, a lot of the time the answer is that “we do”.

1) A variety of fear-based beliefs prevent us from realizing our potential and doing what we need to do. These can take the form of:

2) Lack of self-belief – maybe we don’t even RECOGNIZE the abilities we have within us.

3) Fear of failure – by not trying and staying in our comfortable rut will be kept safe and free from ridicule.

4) Too busy – we are simply too busy and pulled in so many different directions that we just can’t give anymore.

5) Panic – the fear of not achieving something sends us into a tailspin and makes us even less effective.

I remember being at the gym sometimes last year, labouring away on the treadmill and watching the bank of three TV’s at the front of the room. Most of the time they show re-runs of M*A*S*H  but on this day we were treated to rather extensive coverage of an Australian TV celebrities’ fall from grace. This guy was that kind of “radio shock-jock” cum serial TV show guest that you get a lot of these days – anyway he had made some particularly ill-judged remarks on air and was now being fired from shows and losing sponsors left, right and centre. I forget the actual figure but it was costing him well over a million dollars. The consensus of opinion on the treadmills was “how can an oaf like that be earning so much money?” I guess the answer is that at some point in his life he decided he SHOULD be earning so much money and that then devoted his time to doing so. He probably didn’t spend too much time doing all the same old things that guaranteed he would only be pulling in $50,000 dollars a year instead.

So, belief and confidence can be pre-requisites for getting more out of yourself but for people struggling with a lack of self-belief it’s not quite that simple. It’s unlikely that someone who has being struggling with a lack of confidence for thirty years will say “hey, thanks for pointing out things would be better if I just had more confidence – I’ll go and do that then”. And the next time you run into them they are starring in a West End musical…

Self belief can be hard won and for some people it is a lifelong battle. A short-cut to confidence that I have found useful is this:

“If you CAN’T do it then be someone who CAN.”

This means that you can “borrow” the approach of someone else to a particular task or challenge and deal with it in the way that they would. By doing this you can approach things more laterally and access the resources that you already possess. Let me share a personal example, not an earth-shaking one but it demonstrates the point.

Recently at work I was going through a particularly busy patch; I had budgets, audits and staff review to complete all to short timescales. Then I caught a cold and tried to muddle through this work when it felt that my head was full of cotton wool. This all got a bit overwhelming and I was starting to feel some low-grade panic when I thought about it all! I was definitely not in what they call “a resourceful state”. The next morning, before  I went to work, I sat down and thought about how different people would approach my situation and how they would find a way through it. I imagined a highly paid and respected business consultant coming into my work just to address my situation. This is what I came up with…

A) Their approach would be calm, confident and methodical. It was obvious that they were in charge of the situation and there was no doubt that they would see this process through to the end.

B) The first thing they did, even before they turned on their PC, was to make a simple list of everything that needed doing. Once it was all down on paper they then numbered the tasks in order of priority.

C) They then rang around the people who were expecting the work to be done to confirm what the deadlines were and whether they could be extended. They didn’t do his from a position of weakness; they weren’t pleading for more time, just confirming the requirements and assessing whether that amount of work would fit into the schedule. If it wouldn’t then the dates would have to change and people were likely to respond to this because they were dealing with somebody who was obviously in charge of what was going on.

D) They then took their list and made a schedule of what they would work on and for how long. Rather than hopping from task to task and wasting time worrying about how time was running out they calmly worked on one thing at a time for a set period.

E) To reduce the amount of interruptions they closed the office door, put the phone on divert, STILL didn’t read those disruptive emails (they could be addressed later).When people did interrupt they were dealt with politely and firmly.

F) Throughout the day they worked methodically, making steady progress on each of the tasks. They were aware that some would not be complete by the end of the day but that was expected as they had scheduled some of them to carry over into the next day.

So when I arrived at work that day I already had a blueprint of what to do. The panic and frustration just evaporated because I had a plan in place and I could visualize how the whole day was going to go. The point I am making here is that I already KNEW what to do and how to do it – I had the resources but I couldn’t get to them because the anxiety was getting in the way. By just stopping, drawing breath and imagining how someone ELSE would approach the same problem I was able to hack into those resources and solve my own difficulties. Clearly being the “me” that was paralyzed through too many jobs wasn’t doing the business so I “became” someone who COULD do it.

Have you any “hacks” that you use to get yourself into a confident state or to overcome problems? Please comment below if you have a tip that you would like to share.

Like

Unlike