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Here is what your amazing brain delivers: THE ANSWERS TO THE QUESTIONS YOU ASK IT.
Here is what your amazing brain delivers: THE ANSWERS TO THE QUESTIONS YOU ASK IT.
Unless you effectively address ALL three parts of the Happiness Puzzle it may be difficult for you to achieve your highest level of happiness. How do you score in each of the three key parts?
Piece 1: Past Programming
Here is a question for you. How effective and efficient would your computer be running if you were still using Microsoft Office 1.0 (from 1990) instead of Microsoft Office 2011? Pretty obvious isn’t it. Yet many of us are actually still using old beliefs, thinking patterns and habits we learned decades ago.
We need to challenge our beliefs, our habitual thinking and our reactive patterns of behaviour. Firstly, we need to realise something is not a FACT unless it is 100% true, 100% of the time, for 100% of people. Our beliefs are not facts; just useful tools until we find something better.
Christine (from USA) Question: “With modern medicine today there are many tests you can have now to see if you are more likely to develop some awful diseases such as Huntington’s and Alzheimer’s. Would you want to know?”
One of the things I teach in the 30-Day Happiness Challenge, is to ask better questions. And also to make sure the question we are asking does not pre-suppose a ‘fact’ that is not really a fact (100% true, 100% percent of time). Otherwise the answer we get will not be relevant.
By the way. Just wanted to remind you that I am not a Doctor, in case you forgot. I am just a voracious reader, researcher and therapist / Coach.
Here is the thing on modern medicine. It is EXCELLENT at treating symptoms – or broken stuff – but crap at the preventative stuff, and the creating optimum health stuff. For more on this read ‘Mind Over Medicine‘ by Dr Lissa Rankin.
Over the years I have done a bunch of work and traveling to Singapore. Great food, nice and orderly especially after coming from Indonesia, and a bucket-load of shopping centres. Plus people working their butts off to make more money so they can buy stuff that they actually don’t need (and haven’t got the time to enjoy).Did I hear someone say ‘but what about retail therapy’? Well here is a question for you. Was the term ‘retail therapy’ introduced by the retail industry or by a team of the worlds leading therapists on emotional intelligence and stress management? Research does suggest that shopping is actually likely to make you feel worse, in the long run, as opposed to better. Having said that, if you drop the shopping for stuff you don’t need and catch up with friends for meaningful conversations, that is a different story entirely.
Here is my theory
When you look about your house, how much stuff do you see that you really ‘need’. That contributes to the quality of your life and the lives of the people around you?
There is no such thing as failure (or being ill), only FEEDBACK.
What is the feedback telling you?
The biggest opportunity we are given when we are sick is pretty clear communication from our body. And since our brain is hard-wired into the body, you can assume when the body speaks, it is our subconscious mind communicating with us. Dr Darren Weissman – one of the leaders in mind-body field – tells us, if we did not consciously choose something, then it is coming compliments of the subconscious mind. What might your subconscious mind be telling us when we get sick?
Could it be saying to slow down? Or ease up on the Oreo’s. Or get more sleep? Or let go of the worrying about things you don’t control? Or accept that change is inevitable. It is time to sit up and pay close attention especially before the symptoms get really serious. This is the greatest opportunity we have whenever we are sick. The best thing we can do is to listen to it when it is just a tap on our shoulder, rather than ignoring the tap, and setting ourselves up for something a whole lot worse.
So you are like the rest of us and know at some level there is more of you to come? Sometimes realising we are holding back, or playing too safe a hand, or letting fear stop us, is an incredible opportunity for growth. So let’s look at 5 ways to tap into even more of your potential.
Tip 1: Look in the mirror
This is about accountability. Not beating yourself up. It is having an honest look at yourself and asking if there is more in you. We have already realised there is. When we look at ourselves and acknowledge that we might actually be holding ourselves back (as opposed to something or someone outside of ourselves), it also makes it very clear we have the power to change the situation. This is you seeing what physics calls ‘potential energy’. Know it in every fibre of your being (as scary as it is to acknowledge) you have a LOT more in you, waiting to be liberated and utilised to create an even better life.
To keep the momentum going I am going to just jump straight in. How is that for momentum!!
Momentum Tip 1: Don’t make it about yourself
This is first and I think most important. It is what got me moving to write this newsletter when the other option was to kick back and read a book on this wet Bali morning (which for the record was VERY appealing). When I stop thinking about myself and start thinking about how I can help others, or serve others, or support others, it makes me dip into a source of creative energy much bigger than me. Quite often we will do more because of another person or for another person than we will do for ourselves. So focus on how you can help others. When you focus on serving others, you are also likely to be liberating some healthy brain chemicals to turn up your emotional energy.
Momentum Tip 2: Connect to the bigger picture
This is for two reasons really:
1. When you put things into perspective and given you are going to live for about another 50 years or so, is the two weeks where you worked at 40% productivity instead of 80% really going to matter? As much as I would like to think I make that much difference, the reality is my 2 weeks at half pace will mean nothing to me in 6-months time. So stop beating yourself up and just consider how you can change things from today forward. Which takes me to the next point.
This simple set of exercises – called Energization Exercises – are designed to wake up body and mind at the start of a day or any other time that you need to increase your energy. You are effectively increasing the blood flow throughout your body, getting oxygen to all of the cells in your body, waking up your amazing mind, stimulating your immune system by stimulating the lymphatic system and performing an act of self love because it is wonderful for the whole body and mind.
Below is a video to show you one series of exercises we teach at WorldsBIGGESTGym and is an integral part of the success our clients get when they do the transformational Coaching program, the 30-Day Happiness Challenge.
What do you do to wake your mind and body up in the morning?
Let us start with a question. Put your hand up in the air if you are using 100% of your potential? For all of those who have not still got their hand in the air then I encourage you to read on. For the record, my hand is down too. Firstly, it really is in our best interests to take the time out at the start of the year (or month / week / day) to get clear about where we want to go. If you took an entire day or even an entire week at the start of the year to get clear about what you want, it would be a very intelligent investment. You ROI would likely be huge. Your results would be worth the time you committed at the start of the project called ‘Your Incredible Life’. So know that old saying (which was drummed into us in the military) ‘time spent in planning is rarely wasted’ actually makes a wee bit of sense.
As you know, I (Carl) love to read and learn. One of the books I have recently read is called Hardwiring Happiness by Rick Hanson Ph.D. Great read and a great take on a powerful strategy I want to share with you. But first some background.
Velcro and Teflon
Rick Hanson makes a great statement when he says we are like Velcro for the bad and Teflon for the good. In other words we readily notice and are attracted to the ‘bad’ and tend to not let in or quickly move past the ‘good’. Now it is no one’s fault really. It is just part of our crazy evolution and in-built survival mechanisms. Back in the day (a few 100,000 years ago), we would only survive if we were hyper-sensitive to threats. So we got REALLY good at noticing all the things that could potentially go wrong. And that fixation on the ‘bad’ for all those years means we are generally subconsciously programmed to notice the bad and brush over the good.
All is not lost though and Hanson reminds us of what we can do about it. Something he calls ‘hardwiring happiness’.