Sat, 19 December 2015
The impetus for this week’s blog post and podcast was in part inspired by a conversation between the two of us. We’d been to see a couple of films and Julian was feeling a little stupid that he hadn’t really fully got to grips with their plots. During a conversation he said ‘You know, at the heart of it – I think I’m not very bright.’ Of course, as soon as he said it he realised it was a limiting belief and on some level knew it’s patently not true, and yet on another level he realised this was in part what he believed about himself. Having The Changeability Podcast and a personal development site like this tends to make you notice this type of thing but doesn’t make you immune from it, and here was an unhelpful belief rearing its ugly head. That got us thinking about unhelpful beliefs, which in turn got us thinking about counteracting them. The Stephen Covey quote mentioned above goes on to say something interesting;
How can we describe ourselves more positively and change our perceptions of ourselves, or make a paradigm shift in what we believe about ourselves? It’s the end of December at the time of writing and recording, which makes it an appropriate time to consider the year past. One way to begin changing your self perceptions is to think about what you’ve achieved or what are you proud of in this past year. Here’s a few things we achieved this year.
What about you? What are you proud of achieving this year?Doing this exercise for yourself
It doesn’t have to just have to be about things you’ve achieved this year? We started with achievements for the year, because of the timing - but it could equally be something you’re pleased with today. In many ways it’s more useful to do this on an on-going basis than once a year. So what are you proud of today? Write down one or two things you like about yourself or you’re proud of doing or being, or pleased with how it went or how you behaved. You can do it daily. It could be a characteristic, the way you think,a skill, an act of kindness, something you’ve produced, something you are e.g. a parent, brother, sister, child, friend, colleague. Being happy or smiling at someone. Maybe you’re a good listener, or you were there when someone needed to talk. Or you contributing to your community or entertaining people or are a good conversationalist. Maybe you just like the way your hair looked today or your outfit. This helps counter-balance the lack self-esteem most of us experience - feelings of not being worthy or good enough, like ‘I don’t feel I’m very clever’. But all meanings and labels are meaningless apart from the meaning we give them, and yet they colour our lives and have a massive impact on us and the way we feel about our lives, which impacts what we do. The whole idea of cleverness is an artificial construct – something that only exists because of the meaning we give it. What on earth does being clever mean? Is it intelligence – if so what does that mean? It must be more than an IQ score which only measure a very specific narrow set of thinking skills, and which only matter in a certain context. It’s all about the meaning you give it. If you don’t believe those things yourself they won’t affect you. Someone can tell you you’re as thick as two short planks but if you don’t believe it yourself, it doses’t smatter. It only matters because of the meaning you give it. It’s time to reinvent the meaning by noticing the things you are good at, or like about yourself or are proud of. This is the contrary evidence to your negative beliefs that will boost your confidence and general sense of well being and belief in yourself. We tend to focus on the future and what we need to achieve, our goals and aspirations – and indeed we’ll be looking at this soon – but it’s also time to recognise and celebrate your achievements, big and small, and the things you like about yourself and what you’ve done – today. One of the films we saw this week was the last of the Hunger Games films (The Mockingjay part 2). At the end of the film Katniss Everdene says she copes with thinking of the horrors they’d been through, by making a list in her head of all the good things she’d witnessed, the good things that people had done and the kindnesses shown. And that’s what you’re doing, here but for yourself – about you.
From Proud sung by Heather Small and written by Wayne Anthony Hector, Steve Mac and Andrew Gerard Hill Episode 73 of The Changeability PodcastHear us talk about all of this and more in episode 73 of The Changeability Podcast. Thank you Thanks for listening to the Changeability Podcast. We love having you here and appreciate you spending your precious tine with us. Links10 things I’m proud of and the rewards of pride in your achievements - blog post Let us know your commentsWhat are you proud of today? Let us know in the comments below.
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Sat, 12 December 2015
I just don’t have the timeIf you find yourself complaining you don’t have time to do what want because you’re too busy, here’s 12 suggestions of how to free up your time and energy. They come from our guest on episode 72 of the Changeability Podcast, Rob Cubbon, who shares interesting insights into the drains on our time and energy that sap us of the will to achieve what we want in life. If you recognise the name it’s because we talked with best-selling author Rob Cubbon in episode 58 about his book: ‘Free your thoughts: How I re-programmed myself for happiness and how you can too.’ We realised there was one aspect of the book that deserved wider coverage, so invited Rob back to discuss his advice on how to free up your time and energy. The rationaleIf you spend your time involved in negativity, you’re not using that energy and time for more positive pursuits. Look at your habits, would you have more time and energy if you did without them. What are these activities and habits we’d be better off without? How to free up your time and energy
A final thoughtWe’re not saying you have to do any or all of the above, but suggest that these are potential drains to our time and energy. Of course ultimately it’s for each of us to decide what we want to do with our lives. But maybe, when you catch yourself complaining about not having the time or energy to do something you’d like to, this list will serve as a reminder of where to look first to free your greatest assets - time and energy. Episode 72 of The Changeability PodcastHear Rob and us discuss how to free up your time and energy on this week’s episode of the Changeability Podcast, as Rob joins us from a shared working space somewhere in the world. If you’d like to find out more about Rob and what he’s done to change his life and work, you’ll find him at www.RobCubbon.com Resources mentioned on the show
What’s next?Which of the suggestions do you agree with? Which don’t you agree with? How do you free up your time and energy? Do you practice any of these suggestions yourself and why? Let us know in the comments below.
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Sat, 5 December 2015
We all find ourselves subject to criticism - not least from ourselves, but also from others. And we don’t like it. It makes us feel horrible - hurt, rejected, guilty, fearful, let down, misunderstood, angry, humiliated, insecure, embarrassed or unappreciated. What you can do about it? You can’t always prevent it or stop it - but you can handle it, by changing the way you feel about criticism and how you deal with it.
Here’s 37 ways to deal with criticism. Read them or listen to episode 71 of the Changeability Podcast to hear us talking about 37 ways to deal with criticism and more.
That’s 37 ways to deal with criticism. We’d love to hear any you’ve got any to add – leave a voice message, comment below or join our FB group. Here’s a final thought about criticism; accept the truth – you’re not perfect.
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Sat, 28 November 2015
If you don’t want to be criticised - don’t do anything .Although you’ll probably then be criticised for not doing anything, or for doing nothing - if that’s actually possible. The meaning behind it is clear - the more you do the more people have to criticise you about. the more you open yourself up to judgement. We’ve all met people who always seem to be worried about what other people think about them. So much so it’s the determining factor in deciding if they do or don’t do something. But let’s not let such thinking keep us living small lives and stop us getting out there, making an impact or doing what we want. Because the truth is that whatever you do you’re likely to be criticised. Not least because we all do it. We criticise ourselves and and we criticise others - even if it’s only in the privacy of our own minds. But it’s actually a lot more out there than that if we’re honest. Over the last few weeks we’ve been talking about feelings and being criticised brings up all sorts of feelings in us, so we thought it would be good to think about criticism and why we don’t like it. Starting with what it is, when and how we experience and ending with why we don’t like it. What is criticism?There’s many ways to describe criticism and they involve the following elements and concepts:
The modern word of criticism comes from the 14th century French expression critique and has roots in Latin ("criticus" - a judger, decider, or critic), and, even earlier, in classical Greek where "kritos" means judge, and "kritikos" means able to make judgements. this conveys the notion of the critic owning a sense of discernment - which isn’t often the first thing we think about when we’re being criticised. The Oxford Dictionary carries 3 definitions of criticism
We’re talking predominantly about the first definition here. When do we experience criticism?We all experience criticism, at least in the sense of feedback, by virtue of growing up. It’s practically impossible to grow up and not be subject to criticism of some sort - and there are key sources of it. For most of us it begins, and keeps going, in the family. Staring with our parents and our siblings and maybe extended family too like grandparents, uncles and aunties and cousins. Then we go to school and it really kicks in big time and carries on into college and university - hopefully in a constructive feedback variety,even if it doesn’t always feel like that. This continues into the workplace - only now it’s called 1:1s and performance reviews or even team meetings. It also happens if you work for yourself or are involved in a creative enterprise. We’re not immune from criticism from our friends either. In fact the closer or more intense the relationship the more likely we are to experience criticism. Which leads us to another potential source of criticism - our nearest and dearest - our husbands, wives or partners. If you have children you will at some point endure their criticism - especially during those teenage years they’re trying to break free, find themselves and put their own stamp on the world, and you get criticised for much of what you do and stand for. Do we ever welcome criticism?There are occasions when we welcome criticism. We actively seek out people’s opinions on something, with the expectation they will be critical, by critiquing something we’re working on because we want to improve it or get buy-in. Or we want to choose between alternatives and look for the discernment of others (like the original definition from ancient Greece) where the criticism is to determine a preference. Or we know there’s something wrong with a project or creation and want honest guidance or feedback to help us improve it or get a different perspective on it. When learning a new skill, criticism can be the mechanism to teach us where or how we can improve. The way it’s delivered determines whether it’s seen as criticism or teaching or guidance. And not just how it’s delivered but how we hear it (more of that next week). Whilst there may be times when we welcome or seek criticism, although we might not call it that, for most of us most of the time we see criticism as an unwelcome fact of life. Criticism and why we don't like itWe don’t deny it may be good for us, that we can learn from it and become better at something or improve some aspect of ourselves - but we don’t like criticism. Why is that? Because we don’t like the way it makes us feel. Isn’t that at the root of it? In fact we don’t like the way that being criticised makes us feel so much that we almost fear being criticised. We don’t like criticism because when someone criticises us:
If you have a high level or strong sense of self-esteem you might still feel these things we’ve talked about today - hurt, humiliated, outraged, rejected, guilty, uncomfortable, and also unappreciated - but it will be short-lived and you’ll bounce back quicker. You’ll have more resilience and your sense of worth isn’t dependent on what others think of you so much. You can’t avoid criticism but you can deal with it better - whether it’s justified or not. But there are things we can do to help ourselves change the way we deal with criticism and that’s what we’’’ going to talk about next week in episode 71. So if you have any ideas or ways you do this we’d love to hear them. Episode 70 of the Changeability Podcast Listen to episode 70 of the Changeability Podcast to hear us talking about criticism and why we don’t like it. We’d like to hear what you think We’ve been thinking about what we might do with the podcast next year. There’s two things we’d love your feedback on:
Please let us know - you can get in touch with us by:
Thank you for listening and reading - we look forward to hearing from you. |
Sat, 21 November 2015
We are emotional beings with feelings, and together with our thoughts (which are intricately linked to our emotions and feelings) is what make us us. But our own feelings don’t exist in isolation. We are after all social beings and exist in groups, communities, nations, continents and the world. Our feelings and behaviour affect other people’s feelings and behaviour and other people’s affect us - in a positive or negative way. And the way we deal with the feelings of others can have a positive or negative impact on them or us. You only have to look at the news to recognise that as a human race we’re not always very good at dealing with the feelings of others. We see examples of religious intolerance, and social and political inequalities around the world and close to home. Our feelings do not exist in isolation and we are part of a larger community (whether we want to be or not). The more aware you become of your own feelings, the more you will find yourself able to tune in to the feelings of others. Exercising your own feeling muscle enables you to understand and empathise with others better. Empathy is a key concept here. It’s the idea of experiencing something alongside someone - putting yourself in their shoes. It differs from sympathy, which is more about feeling sorry for someone. Empathy is linked to the idea of emotional intelligence. This is the skill of managing our own emotions and being able to recognise and deal effectively with the emotions of others and handle our relationships with empathy. Empathy is a skill, and one of the indicators for happiness, we talked about previously. But how do we get it? It’s a social skill we learn and pick up as we’re growing up, but some people more so than others.
You might say emotional intelligence and empathy can help us become better, more effective and successful people, and better for the communities in which we operate. Paying attention to the feeling of others is a good place to start. A question for youHow often do you ask yourself in a particular situation, where you are talking with a friend, colleague, or family member: “How does anyone else feel right now?” And perhaps a more interesting question is: “How might the way they are feeling be affecting the way they are behaving?” Last week we looked at setting feeling goals and suggested ways to do it, including keeping a diary of your feelings and how you behave when having these feelings. This increased awareness of your own feelings and associated behaviours gives enables more insights into the behaviour of other people. An important distinctionNotably the distinction between the person and their behaviour and the role feelings plays in the the relationship between the two. It’s helpful when dealing with people’s feelings, to separate the person - and their inner feelings - from the person’s behaviour - which is how they are acting or what they have said. As human beings we have a tendency to conflate, or combine the person and their behaviour into one. If a person is behaving angrily, on some level (whether we would say it consciously or not) they are an angry person. We associate the person with their behaviour. Now as we know from ourselves, this is not the case. You might have just had a very distressing meeting with someone which left you feeling very angry, from which you bounce straight into another conversation where you’re perceived as aggressive, defensive or angry. If you assume the person and their behaviour are one and the same thing, you might see them as behaving unreasonably towards you and react accordingly. But if, when someone is behaving very angrily, you can practise separating their behaviour from the person inside, you can respond to how they are behaving rather than reacting to them as a person. This is of course easier said than done! There’s a temptation, as we discussed in ‘dealing with negative thoughts’, that we ‘mind read’ what we think the person is feeling from their behaviour. Here’s a little exercise you can do: Over the next couple of days keep a note of how other people demonstrate their feelings.
Dealing with unfamiliar feelingsIt’s harder to deal with other people’s feelings when they’re feelings we ourselves are less familiar with. This in turn affects how you respond to them. But how do you determine which feelings you’re less familiar with? You draw up a feelings map. The feelings mapDraw up a list of your feelings under three categories: physical, emotional and state of mind:
Then plot these onto your feelings map. Draw 4 concentric circles (circles within circles). On the smallest circle, write in the word ‘often’; on the next circle up, write in the word ‘sometimes’; the next one up again, write ‘rarely’ and the final circle write ‘never’. Now divide those circles in three (like a third of a cake slice each) and on the outside of the cake slices (thirds) write the words: Physical feelings, emotions and states of mind. Now map your physical, emotional and state of mind feelings onto that feelings map. So if you feel you ‘never’ express the emotion of sadness, then under the emotion segment of your feelings map, write ‘sadness’ in your ‘never’ concentric circle. (See Feelings Map) This gives you a map of your feelings, divided into physical feelings, emotions and states of mind and how often you feel them. Now you’re able to look at your feelings map and see at a glance which feelings you feel least often and armed with that knowledge ask yourself: “Which feelings do I feel least often and how do I tend to respond when others are expressing those same feelings?” Love and angerFor example you might find you don’t express feelings of love very often and therefore tend to ignore that emotion not only in yourself but also when others are expressing that emotion. Now you’ve recognised those feelings of how you deal with love within yourself, you can develop a strategy for dealing with it in other people. So you might decide your strategy will be to say something very positive about that feeling and to explore with the other person how they are feeling. “Wow, that’s wonderful. Tell me more about it?” In effect you are exploring the feeling in others. Where as before you were judging them by your own standards of how you would behave, you are now sort of stepping into their shoes. If you find anger difficult to tune in to and express yourself, your strategy for dealing with angry behaviour in others could be to focus on separating their behaviour (anger) from who they are (the person) and practice assertively standing your own ground. It’s worth saying that none of this is an excuse for bad behaviour on anyone’s part and we’re certainly not suggesting you should put up with unacceptable behaviour or when people are riding roughshod over your feelings. Group feelingsWe’ve talked about dealing with the feelings of others on a one to one basis. What about group feelings? Human beings are after all group or pack animals. We’re social beings and are affected and influenced by those around us - particularly in group settings. It’s easy to get caught up in the wave of what’s going on, unless we’re clear about what we feel. You only need to go to a football match or pop concert, to see this in action – generally in an enjoyable way where we take pleasure in the camaraderie of our fellow supporters or fans. But of course this same process can also be used towards less innocent ends, like mass rallies - where people can be influenced towards a more dangerous end. Group feelings are also present in the smallest groups, in our own home within our own families or in the offices and places where we work, and influence how we feel and act as individuals. It can be helpful to think about the way group feelings can affect you and ask yourself:
By paying attention to the feelings of others and by being aware of how we deal with our own feelings we can ‘deal with feelings’ more successfully. The Changeability Podcast Episode 69Hear us talk about all of this, including how often we think we’re aware of other people’s feelings (we have different views on this) and whether we think animals have feelings (of course they do but are they really ours?) and much more in episode 69 of the Changeability Podcast. |
Sat, 14 November 2015
For many of us, our behaviours are often influenced by our childhood and underpinning those behaviours can often be a feeling of needing to be loved. The manifestation of that particular ‘feeling’ may well take the form of always striving to achieve – and by being in perpetual ‘doing’ mode - continually trying to prove yourself worthy through what you do. Something I’m sure many of us can recognise in ourselves even if we don’t always realise or acknowledge the cause. Recognising our feelings is perhaps the first stage in a three-fold process of dealing with feelings. How we deal with those feelings successfully is then second part and if we can do that whilst being mindful of the third step – the feelings of others (as well as ourselves) then we are well on the way to feeling good. The process of undoing years of engrained thinking patterns and the way we feel about ourselves, our feeling patterns, is hard, with no ‘quick fixes’ but is a path worth travelling. And one way we might assist this process is to go about setting feelings goals – goals about how we want to feel in our lives. But firstly… Why set feelings goals?We’re probably all aware of the concept of engrained thinking but we might not always think about engrained feelings. Feelings often bypass the rational mind – and we just find ourselves reacting to them – often in an habitual way –perhaps because feelings tap a more primitive part of the brain. Setting goals around how we feel then, is a practical way of putting into practice what we’ve talked about in our last two blog posts and podcasts: Setting feelings goalsSo the first thing about setting feeling goals echoes the earlier comment about how ‘it’s hard to undo years of engrained thinking patterns’. These are long-term feeling goals and as such this is an incremental journey. But a rewarding journey none the less. And just because its not a quick fix, doesn’t mean it’s ‘unfixable’. Give yourself some time with your feeling goals. The first step is to identify what you want your feelings goals to be about. What aspect of your feelings do you want to think about? Different sorts of feelings goalsDo you want to:
It might be advisable not to take on too many feeling goals, so it may be you initially decide on one feelings goal and aim for that. What can you do to think about and create feelings goals? Here’s 7 ideas to get you started. You don’t have to do them all at once, some you will deliberately set out to do but others will come to mind at different times and situations. 1. Feelings diaryA good way to explore your feelings is to keep a ‘Feelings Diary’. In it you might jot down particular feelings you have, the strength of those feelings, what prompted you to those particular feelings, how you responded to them and indeed how you might respond to them more appropriately moving forward. Or note down at key moments in the day, what your body is telling you about how you are feeling at that moment. Through doing this you come to recognise underlying situations or themes to the way you feel on a day-to-day basis. 2. Change the way you talk about your feelingsBe personal in your conversation, rather than using generalised statements based on what you think you should feel, or even what you think others should feel. Instead of expressing yourself in terms of ‘you’, ‘one’ or ‘they’, make a connection with how you really feel, by using ‘I’. E.g. Right now, I am feeling… In other words, speak for yourself not others. 3. Reflect on your feelingsWe can only really understand what we’re feeling and the effect of those feelings on us, if we take the time to regularly reflect on our feelings. Give yourself a moment in the day, perhaps before you drop off to sleep to have those thoughts. 4. Spend time with people who accept your emotionsWe hopefully all have people in our lives that accept us for who we are, and with whom we can share our emotions and feelings. Prioritise your time by spending it with the people who’re supportive of your emotions and with whom you can share your feelings. 5. Conversations around feelingsWhen I was younger, a friend and I used to have classifications of how we conversed with people. Essentially, conversations were divided into Level 1, Level 2 and Level 3 type conversations. Level 1 conversations – were small talk. The weather, the football scores, whatever and it surprising in life how often our conversations with key people in our lives essentially stay at this level – the level of small talk. We always have similar conversations and they do not stray onto unsafe territory – whatever that might mean. To have more meaningful conversations, however, we have to switch up a level, to level 2. Level 2 conversations – were typically more intellectual conversations. Conversations about religion, history, politics, view on women’s rights, to name but a few and here you get more of a sense of what a person is like and the commonality of your views with that person. Level 2 conversations can be more heated, particularly if there is disagreement. But you certainly get an idea of what a person is like from these types of conversation – including if you are going to share or differ in your opinions. Once again, many conversations with people in life do not stray beyond level 1 and 2, but you probably feel you know people better who you have had level 2 type conversations with on a regular basis. Certainly these level 2 conversations do reveal more about you, albeit on an intellectual level. Level 3 type conversations are on another different level again - conversations of emotion and feelings. Here you reveal a lot more about yourself – personal stuff, stuff you might only reserve for your closest friends. Rather than dive in and reveal everything about yourself – which can be a little overpowering - you might test an initial Level 3 type conversation with a person, by revealing a small intimacy or personal fact and seeing how the conversation went with that person – did they respond by revealing a little bit more personal stuff about themselves? Or did they keep on safer territory? Although this might seem trivial, or just a bit of fun, in fact it is quite an interesting statement on the nature of our relationships. Do you always conduct your life on the safer grounds?If you believe that might be the case for you, try deliberately revealing a little more (shifting to Level 2 or Level 3 type conversation) when you’re next chatting with someone who you know quite well but have always had the same type of conversation with and just gently explore and observe the response. In the lovely book The Little Prince by Antoine De Saint-Exupery, there’s a lovely quote which says:
But I firmly believe it is a risk worth taking. Who knows it could be the start of a wonderful new deeper relationship? 6. Write an open letterIf you think you might have difficulty expressing your feelings person to person, another useful little technique is the open letter. Write down in a letter to a friend, a partner or even yourself, what you’re feeling about something. And don’t worry, you don’t even have to send it (though you could if you feel able) – the act of writing it down will help to clarify the feeling and may help you realise what you want to achieve from expressing the feelings in writing. 7. Letting goIf you have difficulty expressing your feelings, try letting go a little more. Little by little, see how emotionally expressive you can be. View it, if it is easier, as an experiment – though the idea is to explore feelings rather than totally distance yourself from the process. So there you have it. 7 ideas to get you started with feelings goals. What next for your feelings?Hear what we had to say about ‘Feelings Goals’ in Episode 68 of The Changeability Podcast – an award winning podcast dedicated to help you manage your mind to make changes in your life. Or let us know what you thought about our 7 suggestions in the comments below. Alternatively, leave us a voicemail by clicking the pink tab on the left hand side of this page and who knows, your voice may feature in a future episode of our podcast. I’m rather feeling - you’re spoilt for choice! |
Sat, 7 November 2015
It’s been a week where I’ve had to deal with “nothing more than feelings” in a very public way, speaking as I have at my father’s funeral. An event of this magnitude can bring up many feelings and I think it would be fair to say I’ve experienced the whole spectrum - feelings of sadness and grief but also gratitude and joy as we celebrated as well as mourned Dad’s life.
And yet amidst the on-going sadness Kathryn and I have also experienced other feelings like accomplishment when we recorded 8 videos in 2 days for our business and happiness and gratitude when Kathryn’s podcast, Podcast Divas hit the top of New & Noteworthy in iTunes in 4 categories. So it seems fitting therefore to think about the process of dealing with feelings. Last week we asked what are feelings, what purpose do they serve, and how do you recognise and own your feelings? Now it’s all very well recognising you’re having them but when you’re in the presence of intense feelings, what do you do next? Whilst it’s true you can’t always choose how you feel, you can choose how you respond to how you feel, and that’s what we’re talking about today, dealing with feelings. So once you’ve recognised you’re feeling something there are a number of choices you can make with how you go about dealing with them. Here’s five ways. 5 ways of dealing with feelings
So how do you judge which will be the most useful in any particular setting?A good rule of thumb is to consider what makes the circumstances better for you in this situation or ideally better for you and the other person(s). Or you can consider what makes the situation worse and avoid that. So ask yourself if you’re really feeling fed up with someone - would expressing my feelings make the situation better or worse? And how do you balance those 5 choices?A nice way to consider how to balance your feelings is to do the following for each of your five ways of ‘dealing with feelings’. So taking the example of ‘Expressing your feelings’. Say to yourself? Do I need to express my feelings more, or am I expressing my feelings about right or do I need to express my feelings less? You’ll know the answer if you listen to yourself. Repeat this process for channelling your feelings, switching your feelings, controlling your feelings and reasoning your feelings and you’ll get an idea of how you predominantly deal with your feelings. You’ll also be aware of the other options you have and which ones you’re under using. In the end the skill of dealing with feelings is probably about balancing those 5 ways, rather than defaulting to one in particular. Tell us how you deal with feelingsTell us how you deal with your feelings by leaving us a voicemail using our new voicemail service – it’s a pink ‘Send us a voicemail’ tab found on any page. And who knows we may feature your voice on our podcast. We’d really like to share your collective knowledge of these matters. Or you can leave us a comment below. If you feel like it of course! And talking of podcasts… In episode 67 of the Changeability PodcastHear us discuss all the above, plus:
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Sat, 31 October 2015
Having recently talked about the ups and downs of life and a week when we experienced what might be called extremes of feeling, this week we put feelings in the spotlight. How are you feeling right at this very moment as you read this? We all have feelings, they’re an intrinsic part of our human experience, but what are they and what purpose do they serve? What is a feeling?How do you describe what a feeling is?
Dictionary definitions of a feeling include:
That’s what feelings are but what’s the point of feelings? Why do we have them? Feelings have a purposeFirst thing to recognise is that feelings do have a purpose. They are like a bodily alarm system, alerting us to dangers and opportunities in life. We can respond to feelings in different ways:
But to ignore them disregards a powerful tool in the changeability armoury. To discount our feelings removes some of the meaning from life, as feelings are powerful indicators of our bodily and mental emotions. Taken to extremes, totally repressing our feelings can lead to mental and physical problems. Feeling skillsBeing aware of our feelings, and how we respond or choose to express them, is a skill. A skill we’re not normally taught. But one we think can be taught and learnt, (we would say that wouldn’t we), and developed into a useful tool. We all have instances when we haven’t dealt with our feelings in a helpful way.
One of the keys to developing the feeling skill is summed up in the phrase: “You can’t choose how you feel, but you Recognising and owning your feelingsThe first step is to recognise you’re having the feeling in the first place. This involves getting in the habit of tuning in to what you are feeling and taking ownership of those feelings. You can find clues in your speech. ‘I’ not ‘you’We often express our own feelings by using the ‘you’ word. We might tell a friend, “You know, you feel really upset when someone doesn’t listen to you properly.” When what we actually mean is, “I feel really upset when I’m not listened to properly.” Such phrases appear like general statements but are really statements about the way we think and feel or the way we believe others should think. Substitute ‘I’ to make it a statement of your feeling and you
Mindfulness and feelingsMindfulness can help us recognise and own our feelings. “Mindfulness is the awareness, that arises through paying attention, on purpose, in the present moment and non-judgementally.” Jon Kabat-Zinn One popular mindfulness meditation technique is the body scan, where you pay attention to sensations in your body as in your mind you progressively scan your body from the tip of your toes to the top of your head, becoming aware of the sensations in your body but without attaching labels to them. You can use a similar process for recognising your feelings. Bring your awareness to your breathing to make a connection with your body. Your body is where your feelings connect, it acts as a channel for your feelings and reflects them. If you listen to episode 66 of the Changeability we talk you through this but if you want try it for yourself now start with a couple of breaths in and out and begin to observe your body. What is your body telling you about your feeling right now? Using the ‘I’ word say to yourself: “Right now, I am feeling … You might have said tired, angry, irritated, annoyed, hungry, sleepy, alert, bored, energised – sad – or a completely different feeling of your own. Typology of feelingsThere is a huge range of words to express our feelings but broadly speaking they come under three wide categories of feeling:
How do you feel when you watch a really good horror movie? Perhaps a sense of fear, but one related to your body exhibiting characteristics like feeling on edge or a fast beating heart and heightened sense of awareness. After all eliciting feelings is a key driver of a film. “A film is - or should be - more like music than like fiction. It should be a progression of moods and feelings. The theme, what's behind the emotion, the meaning, all that comes later.” Stanley Kubrick
Quantifying your feelingsOnce you’ve identified, recognised and owned your feelings you can take it a step further by quantifying the strength of feeling using a simple process like red (for very strong) amber, green – or assign a number from 1-10. Remember to focus on the whole range of feelings, not just the more negative ones we’re sometimes more aware of but also feeling happy, joyful, thankful, excited, exhilarated. Episode 66 The Changeability PodcastListen to the episode 66 of the Changeability Podcast to hear us talking about all of this and more and join us next week to explore what we do next in ‘dealing with feeling’. Say helloWe have a new feature this week here at BrilliantLivingHQ.com – voice mails! Yes you can very easily send us a spoken message – for free – and we’d love to hear from you. Why not humour us by trying it out and letting us know who you are, where you live, and something you like about listening to the Changeability Podcast or the website – go on, we’re waiting for your call! |
Sat, 24 October 2015
Our guest this week is Luke Strickland of The Potting Shed Podcast who joined us in the studio to help us with exploring creativity. About Luke StricklandWriter, thinker and dreamer Luke Strickland, is the host of the The Potting Shed Podcast, an eclectic exploration of a variety of topics helping you to be the person you’re created to be. His warm, engaging style is like a chat with a supportive friend. In the best Potting Shed traditions, it is nurturing - nurturing and guiding with honesty and humour as he shares his struggles and successes along life’s way. Join us as he talks about exploring creativity in his life and how you can do the same in yours. Episode 65 of the Changeability PodcastIn this week’s episode, we explore:
If you like what you’ve heard please leave us a review on iTunes or Stitcher. If you’re wanting to make changes in your life or business we invite you to sign up for our Changeability Starter Kit - a free video course delivered to your inbox - and start getting clear about what you want. Thank you for reading and listening and we look forward to being with you again next week. Links:
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Sat, 17 October 2015
“Life has its ups and downs. When you are up, enjoy the scenery. When you are down, touch the soul of your being and feel the beauty.” ― Debasish Mridha This week we’re talking about the ups and downs of life and how we react and deal or cope with them. True to say partly spurred on by the week we’ve just had. It’s included the normal ups and downs of everyday life but on top of that there’s been some heightened ups and downs. In today’s episode (64) of the Changeability Podcast we share a couple of major events that happened to us this week and use them to think about the highs and lows, ups and downs of life generally, together with suggestions of things we can do to help us cope with them.
Life is full of ups and downsIt might sound obvious but ups and downs of life are just part of life. However calm and stable someone’s life appears, a closer look will reveal ups and downs. We all have them because they’re part of the human experience – a condition of our humanity. Whether of our own making or down to circumstances outside our control. This week we’ve experienced both. From down to upKathryn had the pleasure of giving a presentation to 150 Shell employees at a conference at Canary Wharf, London. Talking about how to thrive in times of change, it was a privilege to share the agenda with Baroness Susan Greenfield and VPs from Shell, Microsoft and Cisco. The whole experience went from a down point of being outside the comfort zone and a fear of uncertainty prior to the conference, to the up of meeting fantastic people, delivering an adrenaline fuelled performance and accompanying sense of accomplishment, boosted by lovely feedback.
From up to downFollowing the conference Kathryn returned home from London to the news that Julian’s father had taken a turn for the worse, and he sadly died a few days later. The death of a loved one is the ultimate downer or low point, but is still a bittersweet experience. A mixture of ups and downs even within the low points. A slight sense of relief for the release but shock at the dawning realisation of the finality of the situation. Thankfulness and gratitude for the relationship and the memories you find yourself talking about together in the time spent preparing for the rituals and ceremonies accompanying this time.
That’s been our experience this week which got us thinking about some of the ways to help cope with the ups and downs of life. Here’s 20 of them. 20 ways to deal with the ups and downs of life
Episode 64 of the Changeability PodcastYou can hear us talking about all of this and more on episode 64 of the Changeability Podcast. If you like what you’ve heard please leave us a review on iTunes or Stitcher. If you’re wanting to make changes in your life or business we invite you to sign up for our Changeability Starter Kit - a free video course delivered to your inbox - and start getting clear about what you want. Thank you for reading and listening and we look forward to being with you again next week. Links:
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Sat, 10 October 2015
If you ever wondered how to start and finish anything in life, then you can’t help but be inspired by Tom Boother’s story.
Tom Boother studied politics at the University of Leicester. And on graduating he did what all graduates do and sought to become a racing driver. Unfortunately, however, racing driving did not seek him and he was unsuccessful in securing the necessary funds to race at the level he wanted. So he returned to college to study Law, at the College of Law in London. It was whilst here, and with no athletic ability that Tom literally stumbled into the bizarre world of Ultra running. Ultra Running is an extreme form of running where runners typically cover large distances over rugged and challenging terrains. What’s a large distance, we hear you cry? Well, the official definition is anything over a marathon, though in reality the distances are considerably longer and the ground significantly rougher! Using the metaphor of Ultra Running, Tom now speaks on how to start and finish anything - including big challenges and projects in life and business. It’s a unique slant and his stories though sometimes literally bloody provide valuable insights and illuminate how we can start big challenges, become the person who is capable of completing them and embrace the pain necessary to complete them.
And it’s this starting and finishing which is so intriguing. Why do some people achieve what looks to others as impossible? And do we need challenges in life for fulfilment. At the heart of it all, Tom outlines three key components needed to complete big challenges and in this order:
Business typically spend a huge amount of time writing plans and setting corporate and employee targets. Tom’s refreshing relook, emphasises the need to get in there and do it, exploring the overall importance of doing tasks to ascertain if we like them, perhaps prototyping them and learning what is needed to succeed prior to then formalising this in a plan of action.
Fascinating stuff. Episosode 63 of the Changeability PodcastHear about all of this in episode 63 of the Changebility Podcast and discover:
Plus:
Links mentioned on today’s show:
What’s next for you?If you’ve been inspired by Tom’s story let’s us know in the comments below. What lessons have you learnt? We’d love to know.
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Sat, 3 October 2015
Following on from their recent success of winning best self-help podcast at the UK Podcasters Awards ceremony 2015, Kathryn and Julian were invited to the BBC to take part as guests on Lesley Dolphin’s afternoon radio show. ‘On the Sofa with Lesley Dolphin’ – is a BBC Radio Suffolk feature interviewing local people about their lives and successes. So with the tables turned and the spotlight glare firmly on Kathryn and Julian, we sat down for a warm-hearted discussion and interview about Changeability, winning an award and life – ‘On the sofa with Kathryn Bryant and Julian Illman’ Episode 62 of the Changeability PodcastOn today’s podcast discover:
Links mentioned on today’s show:
What’s next for you?As always, thanks for listening to the Changeability podcast. We would love it if you could take a moment to leave a review on iTunes or Stitcher of our show – we read them all and it might be yours we feature on our next show. Alternatively if you’ve learnt something new about us, we’d love to read your comments below. Bye for now. |
Sat, 26 September 2015
Dalai Lama XIV According to neuroscientist and psychologists, one of the significant aspects happiness is it can be a learned response because the characteristics of happiness exhibit plasticity. Yes, this means we can take specific actions to make us feel happier. And when we when we practice or repeat them they build up into a habit. You know this from your own family, friends and colleagues that some people seem naturally happier than others, but this doesn’t mean your happiness level is a pre-determined given. Because what we’re talking about here means that we can develop and build up a happiness habit over time. Another key finding is happiness is the sum of lots of small actions and happenings rather than one big event. So it’s better for our happiness level to do lots of daily little things like kissing your loved one, enjoying a laugh, or eating something you like, rather than one big thing. All of which is brilliant news for brilliant living because we can do something about it. Following on from last week’s article and episode 60 of the Changeability Podcast, 10 ways to be happy here are 10 more ways to be happier. 1. AppreciationEvery night before you go to bed write down three things you appreciate in your life in an appreciation, gratitude or thankfulness notebook - Big or small things about your day, about you and others or the world. Date it and think about them as you go to sleep – and finish your day in the most positive of mind-sets. 2.Step out into natureGet out into nature and daylight. Immersing our senses in the natural environment stimulates the production of serotonin and dopamine, which makes us feel happier by heightening our mood and gives us a dose of vitamin D. This also gives you a fractal hit. Fractals are naturally occurring patterns that are pleasing to us – and nature is full of them everywhere you look. You might not be aware of it but subconsciously you love them and nature is the the place to soak them up. 3.Stay curiousBe interested – whatever your age and circumstance. Don’t you think that the most interesting people are those who are interested in others and the world? They take a wide view – not small or narrow minded but always wanting to know about people and the world. It’s easy to get in a rut with work, where we live, the people we know, and what we do for fun. Travel and holidays are great for experiencing new things and meeting new people, but we don’t need to travel to do this. Staying curious is the opposite of being cynical and small-minded – it’s being interested and big-minded. Learning something new, which boosts our self-esteem, gives us a sense of accomplishment and leads to us feeing happier. 4. Give up complainingThis is a real challenge - give up complaining – about anything. Try it starting today and see how long you can last. It probably wont be long. Because like so many things we do, think and say - complaining is a habit and breaking this habit will make you happier. Every time you're tempted to say something negative, notice it, stop and don’t say anything at all, or find another way to frame what you want to say in a positive light. We didn’t say it would be easy (we’re still working on this big time) but even being aware and reducing it will decrease negativity. 5. Be purposeful – have purposeThis is about intention and purpose - and having some! Think about the things that give you purpose in life, these are motivation behind what you do. It could be something significant like how you want to live or achieve this year, month, week and why. It’s not necessarily about one overriding purpose – but finding the purpose in the multiple ways we spend our time. We can find purpose in almost anything we do.
6. Find your strengths and valuesFind and focus on using your strengths and values. The research of positive psychologists like Martin Seligman show the happiest people recognise and use their character strengths and virtues. Character strengths include things like persistence, hope, critical thinking, zest, gratitude and virtues like humanity or justice. What are yours? Think about when achieved something you’re proud of – what personal qualities allowed you to accomplish it. You can measure your strengths through questionnaires. The University of Pennsylvania’s VIA survey of character strengths will determine your top 3 signature strengths. It’s free but you need to register. We value our relationships, job, and interests more when they’re in alignment with our personal strengths and virtues. Research shows that one of the best ways to boost long-term happiness is to use our strengths in new ways and situations, stretching ourselves a little (but not too much) rather than focusing on our weaknesses. 7. Take control and change what you don’t likeThis is a big one, and ties in with purpose and intention, and living to your strengths and in alignment. Because if your life is full of things you want to change then it makes it tougher to live in alignment and be happy. This doesn’t mean we want perfect lives – we’re not going to get that. But there may be certain things that you really don’t like about your life, or you want to improve or have more of – if that’s the case, and it’s something that can be changed, then you need to change it. If you want to change what you don’t like to what you do like, you can start today with our Changeability Starter Kit. This free mini-course of 7 videos, mind work and practical actions, helps you kick-start change and make the fist crucial steps towards the changed life you want. One of the big benefits of getting the Changeability Starter Kit or making the decision to change is you start to take action and control. A sense of control over the parts of our lives we can have control over is an essential ingredient for happiness. This is self-efficacy, feeling that what you do makes a difference – that you are at the centre of your actions rather than things happening to you. 8. Be Social – Relationships
This funny quote is not necessarily true because our relationships and being social might be the most important ingredient of all when it comes to happiness. When asked about the causes of happiness in an Harvard Business Review interview, the Harvard Psychology professor Daniel Gilbert said if he “had to summarize all the scientific literature on the causes of human happiness in one word, that word would be “social…If I wanted to predict your happiness, and I could know only one thing about you, I wouldn’t want to know your gender, religion, health, or income. I’d want to know about your social network—about your friends and family and the strength of your bonds with them.” Find ways to nurture the love, friendships and relationships in your life – we all take them for granted at times but relationships really are the most important thing in our lives. 9. Find your spiritualityThere seems to be a link between religion or spirituality and happiness. Psychologists think that religion and spirituality may make us happier for several reasons. The social aspect and support of being part of a community of like-minded people. A belief in something bigger than ourselves can give people a sense of hope and meaning to life and provide solace, support and resilience in times of trouble. The link between spiritual practices like prayer and the benefits of meditation and mindfulness, like a reduction in stress and anxiety and increase in calmness and positive thinking. This is one of the key findings in the book by neuroscientist Andre Newberg and therapist Mark Waldman called ‘How God Changes Your Brain’ But you don’t have to be involved with organised religion to benefit from this. It’s about finding a way to connect with your spiritual side and make time for sacred moments. 10. Laugh and smileSmile and laugh a lot – every day. Even when you don’t feel like it – it will still do you good and make you happier. Try it now – make a great big smile. If you’ve ever heard ‘The Laughing Policemen’ you’ll know that laughter is contagious, but it’s also good for us.
According to the Mayo clinic in - Stress relief from laughter – it’s no joke – laughter is not a cure-all but does have a positive effect on us mentally and physically. When we laugh we take in more oxygen-rich air, our heart, lungs and muscles are stimulated and endorphins released by our brain. Our stress response is activated and relieved and our heart rate and blood pressure increased all of which makes us feel more relaxed. There may also be longer term benefits to our immune system and improvements in our mood. Best of all, laughter is fun, free, and easy to use. So smile more and find things to make you laugh. If you remember nothing else from this, keep in mind this final thought - If you think you’re happy – you are! Episode 61 of the Changeability PodcastListen to episode 61 of the Changeability Podcast to hear us talk about all of this and much more – including Julian’s impersonation of the Laughing Policeman and keep listening for the real thing! What to do next?
Links mentioned in episode 61
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Sat, 19 September 2015
The amazing thing about happiness is it’s a skill we can learn and practice and make into a habit.
As mentioned in What is happiness and the Neuroscience Behind It, four of the key characteristics of happiness exhibit plasticity, which means we can do something about it, we can grow and develop more happiness.
There’s nothing lucky about being happy. Happiness isn’t down to our circumstances, luck, money, career, success, talent, education, weight, looks or age. The good news is there are simple actions we can take to make us happier. It turns out that simple actions are exactly what it takes to be happier, because the fascinating thing about happiness according to psychologist Ed Diener is that the frequency of positive experiences is more important for your happiness than their intensity. This means we’re more likely to be happier if we have lots of rather nice small things happen in a day rather than one amazing thing. In other words as Daniel Gilbert, author of the 2006 best seller, Stumbling on Happiness noted in an interview for the Harvard Business Review,
Here are our first 10 ways to be happy. This is the small stuff, the actions we can do everyday to make us happier and hone our happiness habit. Most of them don’t take long, and are free. 1. Choose happinessMake the decision to be happy. Say out loud ‘I choose happiness’. It sounds ridiculously simple and it is – but ultimately being happy is a personal choice. Being happy is about attitude and the approach we take. Happiness is a skill we can learn and a habit we can foster, and it all starts with the decision to be happy. 2. Look upIt doesn’t need to be complicated. Here’s one of the simplest quickest ways to feel happier. Go outside and look up at the sky. Stand up straight, put your shoulders down. Take in the vastness of the sky and know that you are an integral part of this amazing universe. 3. Be kind and spread the loveSay or do something nice for someone today. It will make you both feel good and especially you. If you want to feel good – do good! It’s not just about money, it could be giving time or skills, or just helping someone out with a random act of kindness. Even a kind word or smile can make a difference to someone’s day. Try going around smiling at people – it does make you feel good. 4. Move itGet moving - dance, walk, jump, run, skip, swim, gym – however you choose to do it, get some exercise and release your happy hormones. Research into the link between depression and exercise shows exercise improves our mood and makes us feel happier. 5. Be positiveThink positive thoughts and experience positive emotions. Positive emotions help us become more perceptive and open to the world, and flexible and creative in our thinking. Which in turn helps us be happier. Thinking positive thoughts means being aware of your thoughts and the self-talk when it veers into the negative and replacing them with more positive empowering thoughts. One great way of doing this is through affirmations.
6. Cultivate optimismIs your glass half full or half empty? It might be a cliché but it nicely demonstrates the different way in which optimistic and the opposite of optimistic – pessimistic, people view the world. The same events and circumstances elicit very different responses based on our attitude. It sort of stands to reason that optimistic people are happier because they’re not looking for the negative in a situation or others. But there is research to show optimism has other benefits as it’s linked to life longevity and other health benefits like improvements to your immune system and being better able to cope with illness with quicker recovery. 7. Look after yourselfThe body and mind intimately connected. One influences the other so it’s not just about looking after your mind, happiness is about your relationship with your body. Boost your energy, enhance your mood and optimise brain function through eating healthy food (most of the time), drinking plenty of water and getting enough sleep. 8 hours often cited as optimal but it varies a lot person to person – something we need to work on! But fact is that it’s harder to be happy if you’re tired, hungry and dehydrated. 8. Be mindful of the present momentBe mindful of the present moment and notice what’s going on around you. Stop and look and make an effort to do it rather than rushing around not seeing what’s around us. Be mindful about what you’re doing like how you eat or how you interact with the important people in your life. Try Mindfulness Meditation – being intentionally and non-critically aware of the present moment. Sit quietly with closed eyes. Focus on your breath and don’t ponder the past or future but experience the present moment – on purpose and without judgement. Just ‘be’ for a few minutes. Find out more with our Beginners Guide to Mindfulness Meditation. 9. Get in the flowAlternatively do something that concentrates your attention on the here and now in a way that gets you in the flow. This is that state of being when you can get lost in or caught up with something you’re doing. You become so completely immersed in what you’re doing that you lose track of time. You suddenly realise an hour has passed. It might be a physical or mental activity like singing, practicing an instrument, being creative, playing a sport or dancing. It’s when you become totally absorbed in concentrating of something. A growing body of scientific evidence indicates that flow is highly correlated with happiness. 10. Do something newDo something fun, try a new experience, take new opportunities, try a new sport, interest or hobby. Do at least one of these every day to feel more alive, keep your plasticity going and make you feel good. Episode 60 of the Changeability PodcastHear us talk about all of this and more in episode 60 of the Changeability Podcast including:
What to do next?
Links
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Sat, 12 September 2015
‘Being happy is something you have to learn. I often surprise myself by saying “Wow, this is it. I guess I’m happy. I got a home I love. A career that I love. I’m even feeling more and more at peace with myself.” If there’s something else to happiness, let me know. I’m ambitious for that, too.’ Harrison Ford How happy are you? This begs the question – how do you know how happy you are? Is it something you can measure? Is it something we should measure – and at what level can we measure it or could we measure it, if it’s possible. At an individual level or what about something bigger, like a county or state level or even a national level. How do you know how happy you are?That’s a bit of tricky question isn’t it? Because we don’t really go around measuring how happy we are - do we? We sort of know it don’t we, that’s even if we stop and think about it which we don’t do most of the time. We just get on with going about our lives until something notable, good or bad happens, or maybe we plan something so we’re looking forward to it and thinking about it makes us feel happy. Happiness is something we have a feeling for. Websters describes it as a "a state of well-being and contentment." We all know the physical effects of happiness; like smiling and laughing. And there’s also physiological reactions when we’re happy, like increased activity in the brain's left prefrontal lobe and decreased amounts of the stress hormone cortisol in our bloodstream. We often think about happiness in terms of the negative or in retrospect. We realise when we’re not feeling happy. Something happens to make us sad and we look back and think that we were happy then, even if we didn’t necessarily think about it at the time. How happy we feel can frequently change depending on the context. As we talked about in episode 56 on ‘What is Happiness?’, this is reflected by the different types of happiness. The short lived experiential happiness of doing things that make us happy and the longer term underlying sense of wellbeing. So you could have a different answer for ‘am I feeling happy today’ to ‘am I happy with my life’. If we stop and think about it, we sort of know if we’re happy in the moment or not, or with our overall sense of wellbeing – but is there a way to measure happiness for ourselves and wider communities? How to measure happinessIt turns out there are lots of ways to measure happiness and quite a lot of psychologists are doing it. In an interview with the Harvard Business Review Harvard, psychology professor Daniel Gilbert said:
Measuring happiness is mostly done through happiness surveys where people are asked to rate their satisfaction with aspects of their lives. For example, one of the most critical questions asked in the World Values Survey is:
This enables comparisons between sections of the population and internationally such as the sophisticated broad ranging survey measuring subjective well being carried out by the OECD, the Better Life Initiative. The OECD survey acknowledges there’s more to life than the cold numbers of GDP and economic statistics. So they created an index which lets you compare well-being across countries, based on 11 topics they identified as essential in material living conditions and quality of life. More than 60,000 users of the Better Life Index around the world have shared their views on what makes for a better life and you can share your own index on what makes for a better life and see how you score on it. In the UK the ONS Office for National Statistics has developed new measures of national well-being, to provide a fuller picture of how society is doing by supplementing existing economic, social and environmental measures. Measuring National Well-Being: Life in the UK March 2015 and another one on International Comparisons, provide a snapshot of life in the UK today across the 10 domains of national well-being. It’s the third annual summary to be delivered by the Measuring National Well-being programme. The tiny country of Bhutan is a champion of measuring national progress not only through gross domestic product, as economists do, but through tracking Gross National Happiness. The Bhutanese government has been surveying it’s citizens since 1971 on their psychological well-being, health, education, living standards and time use. They also track cultural diversity, cultural resilience, quality of governance and community vitality as well as ecological diversity and resilience.As well as asking people about their happiness in the moment and overall life satisfaction, some psychologists have found more creative ways to measure happiness, including monitoring social media for happy tweets, Facebook feelings and Instagram grins. How can you measure your own happiness?If you want to measure your own happiness you can take the numerous multiple choice quizzes available online. They will help you think about where you are across different criteria. Or you can do that with our chart your life exercise, which you will receive if you join our Changeability Starter Kit. This gives you a quick snap shot of where you are now, and is a good place to start. You can then measure yourself on these scales in a few months time if you want to see if things have changed. Or if you want a quick multiple choice quiz there’s one on the TIME website. With the 4 key questions that Edward Diener devised for the Satisfaction With Life Scale in 1980 and has been used as the basis for many studies since. You score yourself on a scale of 1-7 for each orf these statements:
Although it’s quick, convenient and interesting to ask yourself these questions, it doesn’t really go anywhere after that. So the best way to measure your happiness is to keep a happiness journal where you record how you feel throughout the day. The emotions you experience at different times. Or you can do an overall summary at the end of the day, but isn’t quite so robust as our feelings and emotions change considerably throughout the day. And that’s the challenge of doing these online quizzes they are literally a snap shot of how you feel in that moment. What you’re after is a more in-depth realistic assessment, if you’re serious about it, by recording your emotions over at least a week. Episode 59 of the Changeability PodcastHear us talk about all of this and more in this week’s episode of the Changeability Podcast – on iTunes, Stitcher and TuneIn or the player at the top of this post. Choose happiness and make it happenSo what about you? Do you describe yourself as very happy? Comment below. If not do you want to do something about it? Listen next week for our tips, actions and techniques on how to be happier. Links
Thank youThanks for reading or listening – and if you want to help us out please subscribe to the Changeability Podcast on iTunes and leave us a rating and review – it would be much appreciated.
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Sat, 5 September 2015
Here at BrilliantLivingHQ.com we love thinking and talking about how our thoughts impact our lives. How what we think makes a difference to what we do, which is where the concept of mind management comes in. When we realise we don’t have to be defined and confined by the way we think, because they’re just thoughts and we are more than our thoughts, we can do something about it to make changes and get the life we want. We call it managing your mind. Our guest for today, Rob Cubbon, calls it ‘freeing your thoughts’ and he’s done just that. So we just had to talk to him and now bring you the conversation in this week’s episode of the Changeability Podcast Rob Cubbon is an Amazon bestselling author, online teacher, graphic designer, digital nomad and all-round good guy! Rob helps and inspires people to build sustainable online businesses, earn passive income and experience greater freedom and happiness in their lives.
Rob’s also the author of ‘Free your Thoughts: How I Re-programmed Myself For Happiness And How You Can Too’, his latest Amazon bestseller about the mindset shift he enjoyed which enabled him to sort out his life and start his own business, find his own calling and happiness.
Episode 58 The Changeability PodcastIn episode 58 of the Changeability Podcast Rob talks about how he did this, sharing the good, the bad and the ugly, including:
Links
If you enjoyed this interview please send Rob a tweet to let him know at @RobCubbon |
Sat, 29 August 2015
When have you been at your happiest? Do our happiness levels change throughout our life? Does happiness depend on your age? This week we’re talking about the link between happiness and age and thinking about how happy we are at different stages of our live, does it change and what does it mean for us. When have you been at your happiest?When you look back are there times when you felt really happy? Was it your childhood, first love, student days, staring out with your career or family, or maybe getting a big promotion. We tend to look back at happier times, which might make us think we were happier when we were younger, and our carefree school days or at least the long summer school holidays were a time of happiness. We didn’t have to worry about paying the mortgage or bills but there were probably other insecurities, maybe a worry about what others thought and wanting to fit in, not to mention the pressure of homework and exams. Whilst for those who couldn’t wait to become an adult, the happy times began with leaving home and starting out on your own. Age as a happiness factorAlthough individual circumstances vary, according to research our happiness levels change throughout our lives, so how happy you feel could also be influenced by your age. According to a study by Dr Hannes Schwandt of Princeton University for the Centre for Economic Performance at the London School of Economics, we’re happiest at 23 and 69, and unhappiest in our mid 50s. Our happiness levels are U shaped throughout our life. The optimism of youth and looking forward to future achievement accounts for a peak of happiness at 23. But the other happiest age of 69 is more surprising. Life is exciting in our twenties and thirties, getting on at work, maybe meeting a partner and starting a family. And then you get into your 40s and 50s and the pressures started building. You’re getting higher up in your career with more responsibility, or re-entering the workforce after having a family. Your children are getting older, bringing different pressures to bear on you from one end, whilst aging parents present another dimension of worry and potential stress. You’re caught somewhere in the middle. The LSE study was based on a study of a panel 132,609 life satisfaction expectations matched with subsequent realisations. And one of the striking things about their findings is that there was little variance between socio economic or culturally diverse groups or genders. And this U shaped pattern of happiness over the life span (high during youth and old age, low during midlife) has been observed in other studies also. It seems to hold around the world and has been documented in more than 70 countries, in surveys of more than 500,000 people in both developing and developed countries, according to a paper by David Blanchflower and Andrew Oswold of Warwick University,Is Well-being U-Shaped over the Life Cycle? The researchers in the LSC paper measured people’s expected life satisfaction and actual life satisfaction, and it basically showed that we aren’t very good at estimating how happy we will be in the future. Why? Because we all tend to overestimate the likelihood of positive events and underestimate the likelihood of negative events. This is the optimism bias. So e.g. we tend to expect to be healthy in spite of an unhealthy lifestyle. According to neuroscientific research this ‘optimism bias’ is due to the selective processing of negative and positive information in the frontal brain and this is what which allows us to hang on to our biased expectations even when confronted with evidence to the contrary. Basically we’re not very good at estimating how happy we’ll be as a young or older person - but there’s a difference in the reason why. Young people tend to overestimate their future life satisfaction or future happiness while older people underestimate it. So as young people we expect to be happier in the future whilst we’re young but expect to be less happy as we get older. But this isn’t what actually happens. One of the reasons is we overestimate the impact future changes will have on our happiness. This is because we don’t realise how quickly we adapt to life changes such as changes in income. We think earning more money will have a bigger longer lasting effect on our life than it actually does, because we very quickly adapt to the new situation and become used to it. At the other end of the spectrum, we anticipate a drop in income when we become elderly and we think this will have a big negative impact on our happiness levels and satisfaction with life. Once again we overestimate the impact this will have because we adapt to it quickly. That explains the high points, but what happens in the middle at the bottom or low point of the happiness age bias U shape. The researchers put the midlife dip in wellbeing down to unmet expectations. When we’re young we have high expectations but as we get into middle age we realise we’re not going to achieve everything we thought we would or wanted to, and we start to abandon our higher unmet expectations. Then as we get older we have less expectation of doing so much and become more accepting of our situation or as the researchers say – we experience less regret. So from our late 50s wellbeing starts to increase again. According to an article in the Huffington post – it keeps rising until we’re 85 – which is good news because it was also found that those who stay positive live 7.5 years longer. Other reasons why people get happier as they get older are that happy people live longer and it has been found that as people age they enjoy "ordinary" experiences more. People become more satisfied with their life through family, health, and home, and have more time and energy for hobbies and interests.
What does this mean for us – is there anything we can learn from this? It means you’re fine if you’re 23 or 69 – because they’re your happiest times of life. Of course academic studies don’t directly reflect our experience on an individual level in this way really. But there are some general points we can take away. Firstly to be aware of what these studies about happiness and age tell us:
And finally just because it looks like 69 and thereabouts might be a high point, happiness isn’t something to wait until you’re 69 to experience. The Changeability Podcast Episode 57Hear us discuss all of this and more in episode 57 of the Changeability Podcast including:
Thank youWe know there are millions of blogs and podcasts out there, so we really appreciate you being here. If you would like to support the podcast further we would love you to: Subscribe to the show on iTunes, Stitcher or TuneIn and leave us a rating and review.
Vote for The Changeability Podcast in the UK Podcasters Awards – up to the end of August 2105 Links mentioned
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Sat, 22 August 2015
We all want to be happy, but what is happiness; is it a skill we can learn, and what does neuroscience have to say about it? What is happiness?What do you want in life? To be happy? That’s what most of us want -but what is happiness and how do we get it? The dictionary definition of happiness is
But surely there’s more to happiness than a fleeting feeling. Whilst happiness is relative as it means different things to different people depending on circumstance and interest, it would seem there are two distinct types of happiness. Two types of happinessThere’s things that make us feel happy, the experiences of things we love doing and we want more of. This is hedonia – pleasure and fun. It’s transitory, in the moment – it happens, it makes us feel happy, and then it’s gone and the moment’s passed. Then there’s a more fundamental type of happiness. The sort of happiness which ideally underlies or underpins our lives. It’s a state of being that comes with being content with yourself without relying on other people or external props. This is wellbeing or ‘eudaimonia’ which captures the idea of living a meaningful life as first described by Aristotle. This sort of happiness is more enduring. Happiness and Brilliant LivingWhen we were thinking about the characteristics of brilliant living, we kept coming back to ideas about happiness because the characteristics of brilliant living equally apply to wellbeing and happiness. This is what we came up with for starters:
The neuroscience of happinessIs there a scientific basis for understanding what makes you happy? There’s been a lot of scientific interest over the past 10 years into what’s going on in our brains when we experience emotions such as happiness. Developments in neuroimaging have greatly assisted this, as scientists can monitor reactions in the brain in real time. Richard J. Davidson and Brianna S. Schuyler in an article on The Neuroscience of Happiness highlight four constituents or elements of happiness and wellbeing. Happiness and wellbeing levels are higher when people are better able to sustain positive emotion; recover more quickly from negative experiences; engage in empathic and altruistic acts; and express high levels of mindfulness.
Results of a study by Killingsworth and Gilbert where 2000 people recorded on a phone app how frequently their minds wandered and how happy or unhappy they felt at that moment, showed their minds wandered 47% of the time and they experienced significantly more unhappiness than when they were focussed on an activity – almost any activity! Mindfulness meditation training results in a decrease in what is activated in our brains during mind wandering. The conclusionOne of the most significant findings of the neuroscientifc evidence is these 4 constituents of wellbeing all exhibit plasticity. Which is a huge finding because it means with training and practice we can develop and transform these behaviours and ways of being.
Now that is significant for all of us. We can actually increase our happiness by learning how to grow it effectively and enhance it through training. It ultimately means happiness is a skill we can train for, practice and get more of. Episode 56 of the Changeability PodcastHear us discuss all of this and more in episode 56 of the Changeability Podcast, on iTunes, Stitcher, TuneIn or download or listen at the top of this page. Links mentioned in episode 56Only days left to vote for the Changeability Podcast for Best Self-Help Podcast in the UK Podcast Awards. Voting closes 31st August 2015 and we would love your support. Many thanks if you’ve already voted.
You can also support the show by subscribing to it on iTunes and leaving us a review on Stitcher, TuneIn or iTunes, this helps us greatly and we’ll read your review if you write to us and let us know you’ve left one – write to hello@brilliantlivinghq.com
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Sat, 15 August 2015
We all feel overwhelmed at times. Seemingly insignificant circumstances can tip us over the edge into feelings of overwhelm that on other occasions wouldn’t bother us at all. What one person finds overwhelming, others cope with comfortably or even thrive on. People have different thresholds and causes, but we all experience it and it’s not nice or good for us. So what is it, what causes it and how can we go about dealing with overwhelm? Quote
What is overwhelm?Overwhelm according to psychologist Marla W. Deibler, PsyD, is what happens when we’re ‘feeling completely overcome in mind or emotion…When we think a stressor is too great for us to manage, we feel overwhelmed.’
We experience it in our emotions – feeling anxiety, anger or irritability; in our thoughts as worry, helplessness and doubt and in behaviour like crying or panic. Causes of overwhelmThe list is endless and personal to you but here are 9 common causes.
Quote
Dealing with overwhelmBe realisticBe realistic about the commitments you take on and how long something will really take to do. Give up multi-tasking (it’s a myth anyway). Learn to say noIf you think you can’t do it well or don’t have time to do it or just don’t want to do it – if there is any element of choice – learn to say no. Many of us find it hard to say no to requests for our time and attention because we think people wont think so much of us or like us if we say no to their request. Practice saying no. Avoid saying yes straight away by developing a tactic to give you a chance to reflect, like checking your calendar. Take control or give up controlFind a way to seize an element of control in an overwhelming situation. E.g. if you’re finances are overwhelming you – start organising them, get familiar with them – face up to it and start taking some control. If you’ve taken on too much because you want to be in control then it’s about giving up control – letting others in to play their part. Ask for help and accept it.
Keep things in perspectiveDoes it really matter that much if it doesn’t get done, or it’s late? Why are you getting worked up about it – are you worried about what others will think. Notice your underlying self- beliefs. Ask yourself what’s the worst that can happen. Change your energyDo something to dissipate the negative energy building up and change it to a more positive energy like get up or go out and do something physical – walk, jump, dance. Break the cycle and put a bit of distance between you and the situation that’s causing you overwhelm by doing an activity you enjoy and can immerse yourself in. PivotBreak a downward spiral of thought by finding a small slightly more positive thought connected to the situation that give you a small nudge from negative towards the positive, and then another so you gradually pivot. AppreciateFind something to be thankful or appreciative or grateful for. PrioritiseLook at your priorities – and prioritise them. Don’t try and do everything because no-one can. Set boundaries for yourself – around your time and activities.. MeditationTake a few moments a step back physically and mentally and slow down your mind – focusing on the present moment – not worrying about the future – even the near future and everything you have to do – not worrying about the past and what you didn’t get done – but spending a few moments in the here and now in a non-critical non-judgemental way. Affirmations and visualisationAffirm the behaviour you want to have and visualise the person you want to be. The Changeability Podcast episode 55Hear us talk about all of this and more in episode 55 of The Changeability Podcast on iTunes, Stitcher, TuneIn or the podcast player at the top of this page. Links mentioned on the show this week:
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Sat, 8 August 2015
1 year of podcastingIt’s celebrations all round at Brilliant Living HQ as we celebrate the first birthday of our offspring – the Changeability Podcast. Podcast Award FinalistsPlus a massive bonus celebration. We’re thrilled the Changeability Podcast has been nominated as a finalist for the UK Top Self–Help Podcast Award. How wonderful is that A huge heartfelt thank you all you marvellous people who nominated the Changeability Podcast. And if you want to be totally fabulous all over again you can vote one more time for us until the end of August. Only one vote per IP address is allowed. Click and vote via FB, Twitter, G+ or anonymously. It’s really quick and easy! The award ceremony will take place at New Media Europe – an amazing conference for anyone interested in digital media, podcasting, blogging, social media, business and the internet.
10 mind management techniques on the Changeability PodcastIn our first year and 53 episodes of the Changeability Podcast the theme’s been how we can manage our minds to make changes in life and be happier. We’ve looked at it through the 10 mind management techniques featured in the book, Changeability: Manage your mind - change your life. In episode 53 of the Changeability Podcast we take a quick romp through these 10 techniques – to remind you and give you a quick overview and to share snippets from some of the shows. Starting with this great quote – which sort of sums up the notion of change.
Mind managementThe idea behind mind management is we can use our minds to help make changes or have more success. If left to their own devices, our conscious and particularly subconscious minds can sabotage our best intentions and efforts. 1. Vision setting. Get clear about your aspirations, dreams and goals, so you know where you're going. What do you want to change, achieve, have more of, improve or do differently from now? This is the vision of your changed life and the milestone goals to get you there.
Step back to your starting point and look at what holds you back from changing what you want to change and being the person you want to be. These are your limiting beliefs, negative self–talk and inner dialogue. 3. Clearing the ground Having identified your limiting unhelpful beliefs, it’s time to examine and release these disempowering thoughts. 4. Empowering positive affirmations Replace negative self-beliefs with empowering positive thoughts and affirmations, to affirm how you want to be. Imagine or visualise the outcome you want. Whatever you want to change – see it in your mind’s eye as if the changes are in place – and importantly, how you got there. 6. Appreciation Place yourself in the here and now by appreciating what you have now, on route to your changed self. Practice appreciation to make it a daily habit, and train yourself to look for more to appreciate - you’ll find it. 7. Mindfulness Meditation Practice mindfulness to notice being in the present moment on purpose, without judgement or criticism. Experience the benefits of Mindfulness meditation in return for a simple focus on your breathing for a few minutes every day. 8. Action This is where mindset meets actions and stuff happens, based on the previous techniques. Take your vision and milestone goals and break them down into actions and trigger actions, so you know what to do, can fight procrastination and build momentum. 9. Accountability If you want to achieve your goals and boost your success, make yourself accountable because:
10. Reflection and celebration Learn from your experiences and find and take every opportunity to celebrate your successes – however small. Episode 54 links and resourcesListen to episode 54 to hear more about the 10 techniques with excerpts for previous shows – including some of our favourite bits.
What to do nextThank you for reading and listening. Please vote for the Changeability Podcast before 31st August 2015.
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Sat, 1 August 2015
IntroductionWe all like celebrating don’t we? But do we do enough of it. There’s lots of reasons to celebrate – sporting victories, birthdays, weddings, new job, and ways of doing it – party, slap-up meal, presents – and so the list could go on and on. Important and great as all of those are, that’s not the sort of celebration we’re talking about here. Because we’re interested in why and how celebrating can help us make changes in life and business and achieve our goals. it all comes down to 6 reasons why you should celebrate success. All too often this side of review and evaluation gets missed. We focus on what’s not working so we can change it and forget to recognise what’s gone well and to purposefully stop and celebrate it. And not just in passing but – but also to recognise it and do something positive about it – in other words to celebrate it – on purpose. We’ve got lots to celebrate this week
These are all special occasions but what about the more everyday things we do – especially around achieving our goals, making changes, and getting more success. Why should we celebrate?So that’s all nice and lovely but what’s the big deal with celebrating our achievements and successes – is there an actual reason why we should do it. In other words how will it help our changeability. You wont be surprised to hear that there is? 1. To learn and adaptTo recognize what’s working well and why, and if there’s is something you can take from it to inspire or replicate in other actions and goals. So basically you can do more of it. And what about from a mind management perspective? 2. Developing a success mindsetWhatever we want to change, achieve or have more of – be it money, health, fitness, romance, happiness – success lies at the heart of it. A large part of success is about your state of mind – so it’s about having a success mindset. And this success mindset requires cultivation. Yes, techniques like affirmations and visualisation have a part to play, but celebrating your success is another tool for cultivating a success mindset. Focus on what you’ve accomplished, rather than a long overwhelming list of what you’ve still got to do. Celebrate every success, no matter how small the win, to cultivate your success mindset. By telling yourself ‘I am successful’ or ‘I can succeed because I’ve succeeded before’ you build up your self-belief and success attitude. Conversely by not noticing or downplaying your success, or thinking it’s down to luck or others, you may be telling yourself you haven’t done enough to be proud of, or you don’t deserve to celebrate. Whereas when you notice and celebrate your successes you then start to see yourself as someone who is successful rather than someone who’s trying to become successful. 3. MotivationMotivation is also connected to mindset - because we are motivated by our successes. So give yourself as many opportunities to be successful as you can. Notice the small wins along the way. If you break your goals down into milestones, actions, and trigger actions, each give you the chance to mark up a success and reinforce the changes you’re making. This can have a cumulative effect leading to the magic of momentum. 4. Feeling goodOne of the best reasons to celebrate success is simply that it feels good. Feeling good is what it’s all about after all, isn’t it? We’re driven to make changes in our lives because we want to feel better, be happier and feel good. Or as Esther Hicks puts it, ‘There’s nothing more important than that you feel good’. 5. Happy chemicalsThere’s a reason why it feels good when we celebrate success and it’s to do with the neurohappy chemicals in our brain. Dopamine is released into our brain when we anticipate achieving something or we achieve it - and it feels good, so we want more of it. We also get it from not such healthy pursuits, so why not build lots of opportunities for that dopamine rush into what we do, like setting small goals so we have lots of chances to celebrate success. 6. Sharing successCelebrating success isn’t necessarily just about you. It might be, but it can also give others the chance to join in with your celebration, be motivated and have a share in your success. And a good point to remember is you have to recognise your own success if you want other people to as well. How you do it is up to you – but just do it and have some fun. Episode 53 of The Changeability PodcastYou’ll hear about all of this and much more in episode 53 of the Changeability Podcast, which you can hear on iTunes, Sticher, TuneIn or the top of this page. Including:
Links mentioned in episode 53
Thank you for reading or listeningWe’re celebrating you today for reading this and listening to us and for generally being amazing. So what about you – what are you going to celebrate achieving today and how? Let us know in the comments below.
Don’t forget to sign up for your Changeability Starter Kit |
Sat, 25 July 2015
Thus wrote Aristotle and whether you agree with his ancient Greek wisdom or not, honest self-reflection and review is a powerful and underused tool for success and change. Yes it’s hard, yes it’s scary, yes it might seem like a bit of pain – but evaluating your progress might just be the difference between learning from your experience and repeating your mistakes. How do you know what you’re doing is effective unless you measure and evaluate it. In episode 52 of the Changeability Podcast we explore the importance of evaluation. How we do it and what we’re evaluating. In episode 52 you find out:
Links and resources mentioned in episode 52
Like the podcast? nominate it for an awardShow us some love by nominating the Changeability Podcast for a UK Podcaster’s Awards. It’s super simple to do and we will think you are truly wonderful. You can vote for us once a day every day until the end of July – so that’s only a few days left to go. Go to this link and click ‘Nominate this podcast now’ Vote via email, or Facebook or Google
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Sat, 18 July 2015
Nobody likes the ‘f’ word. And we’re not talking about that old Anglo-Saxon epletive some people call swearing. No, this is much worse! This is something that absolutely nobody likes or wants to be familiar with. It’s FAILURE. No-one wants to fail. In fact we’re programmed to avoid it where possible – or at lest to avoid what getting out of our comfort zone might do to us. The Fear of FailureThe fear of failure runs deep in all of us. It lurks buried in our psyche, only to raise it’s head when we want to change something in our lives or business or try something new. It seems virtually impossible to become an adult and escape picking up a fear of failure along the way. The fear of failure scuppers invention and enterprise; stops us fulfilling our potential and living our best life – if we let it. We try to avoid it where we can, either by staying safe, living small within our comfortable familiar world, or by procrastinating over any action that might incur failure. But if we want to live an examined life – if we want to reflect on our progress towards the life or business we want – then open honest reflection with ourselves is the way to go. Many resist such honesty – either from within or from others. We don’t seek out the critique that might help us change or be more successful. We carry on doing the same things we always do, and you know where that leads – nowhere. “Insanity is doing the same thing, over and over again, but expecting different results.” Narcotics Anonymous We like the familiar – because our subconscious wants to keep us safe and that means sticking to what we know – even when it’s not serving us well. And facing up to things not working might make us feel like failures and that we’ve wasted the time and effort we’ve already put into it that thing. It might be years - with a job or business, or a relationships. We shy away from failure because of what the word means to us – the negative connotations.
But what if instead of avoiding the ‘f’ word, we were to embrace it? Make a virtue of it? Change the way we think of it and even the very word itself. What if you were to look at things not going as well as you’d hoped as simply feedback rather than failure. So every time you thought about potential failure you saw it as feedback. What if you were to reclaim the ‘f’ word in a positive context. No need then to avoid the ‘f’ word.
You are like a scientist observing an experiment of honest reflection without a failure label. If we change the way we look at failure to see it as feedback, we don’t need to be afraid of it. In fact we can totally change our whole approach to life and how we do things. Imagine if you weren’t afraid of failing – what would you do?
The Changeability Podcast Episode 51In episode 51 of The Changeability Podcast we chat about all this and more including:
Links mentioned in episode 51
Vote for usIf you like the Changeability Podcast please nominate us for a UK Podcasters’ Award at http://ukpodcasters.com/directory/podcast/changeability-podcast-manage-your-mind-change-your-life Vote via email, Facebook or Google If by email don’t forget to confirm the email that comes to you to verify you’re a real person. If we’re worth it you can even nominate us once a day every day for the rest of July – which would be fantastic. Thank you
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Fri, 10 July 2015
We’ve reached episode 50 and Step 9 of The Changeability Podcast – hurray! Not entirely sure why, but 50 seems a significant number – a bit of a milestone. And we’re marking this 50th episode with the launch of the Changeability Starter Kit. Sign up now for your free short series of videos to get you started on your first Changeability step. Accountability
Today’s episode calls you to be accountable. If you’ve set your goals, worked on your inner self talk and beliefs through affirmations and visualisation, know the actions to make those goals happen for you and you’re all set to go – what’s going to keep you on track? What will motivate you when events throw you off course, you reach a plateau or your goals feel out of reach? It’s the 9th of our 10 Changeability steps and it’s a big one – accountability or to put it another way - find a way to be accountable. Accountable for your actions, your goals, yourself. In episode 50 of The Changeability Podcast you’ll find out:
What to do nextSign up for your Changeability Starter Kit today Join the Changeability Facebook group and share your goals – use us to keep you accountable Links and resources mentioned in episode 50
Vote for usShow us some love by nominating the Changeability Podcast for the first ever UK Podcaster’s Awards. It’s super simple to do and we’ll be forever grateful to you. Go to this link and click ‘Nominate this podcast now’ Vote via email, Facebook or Google If by email don’t forget to confirm the email that comes to you to verify you’re a real person.
And if you really like us you can nominate us once a day every day for the rest of July – you amazing person! |
Sat, 4 July 2015
You know what you want, you’ve created your vision and set your goals. You’ve got in the right mindset and done the mental preparation. You’ve planned your actions and know where to start – so what now? Well it’s time to actually do it – it’s time for action. Planning for action is key but none of it matters if you don't put your plan into action and follow through on your goals. Changeability is about taking action. But it’s not a ‘running around like a headless chicken’ sort of action. It’s not being busy for the sake of it action. It’s about managing your mind to make changes in your life, and that means it’s action based on mind management techniques. The very techniques we talk about on The Changeability Podcast and are laid out in the Changeability: Manage your Mind – Change your Life book. If you follow and practice these your action becomes:
It’s time for action, but there’s potential traps stopping you.
ProcrastinationProcrastination is the number 1 killer of action, but what’s behind it?
Overcoming procrastination
Busyness for the sake of busyness
Sometimes we just like to feel we’re busy. Being busy is almost addictive and makes us feel like we’re achieving something even if it’s not the actions we need to take to get us to our goals. Set your priority and prioritise it Make this your one thing to get done before moving on to other activities The ‘to-do’ listSurely the most simple productivity tip of all time is the good old fashioned humble to-do list.
Action on actionThe time for action is now – and the key is consistency and purposeful activity.
The Changeability Podcast episode 49In episode 49 of The changeability Podcast – Time for Action – we talk about all of this and more including:
What about you?What are you taking action on today? Let us know in the comments below. If you like listening to The Changeability Podcast help us outNominations have opened for the first ever UK Podcasters’ Awards and are open for the whole of July. If you like our podcast we would absolutely love it if you’d consider nominating us for a UK Podcast Award. You can nominate us up to once a day for each day of July – so if you really love us you can do it everyday – but even once would be fabulous. Simply click here and then on ‘nominate this podcast’. You’ll be asked to verify it with an email address, Facebook or Twitter (this is to make sure it’s only 1 vote per podcast per day). Thank you very much K and J xxx
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Sat, 27 June 2015
Changeability is the ability to change. It’s the fundamental ability underpinning your approach to what you want in life and how you get it. It’s what The Changeability Podcast is about - developing the ability to change through managing your mind. Getting you in the right mindset and way of thinking to achieve what you want to achieve. And the Changeability book Changeability: Manage your Mind – Change your Life is basically a 10-step framework of tools and techniques to do just that. Yes it’s crucial to focus our thoughts and use the power of our thoughts and mind to help us do what we want to do – but that’s not the end of the story. Today we’re talking about what comes next. Because it’s all very well doing all this prep, getting yourself in the right frame of mind and developing the positive mindset to get you where you want to be – but you still have to actually get there. That means taking action. The one thing that differentiates those who read this and think it's interesting from those who change something as a result is they take action. And to take action you need to plan for action. But not just any old action. It’s not about being busy for the sake of feeling like you’re doing something. Effective action comes from knowing what you want to achieve, and what to change to get there. It’s the big picture stuff your goals come out of. Reverse engineeringReverse engineering is the term for a technical process, where you start with a finished product and take it apart to see how it works, the components and interrelationships, so you can put it together again or improve it. Reverse engineering begins with the product and works through the design process in the opposite or backwards direction. Basically that’s what you can do with your life – start with the finished product, how you want your changed life to look, and work backwards to see the steps that need to be taken to get you there. Action planning
When you don’t know where to startIt all seems to make logical sense – but what about when you don’t know what actions to take. You’ve got your vision, you’ve set your milestone but don’t know how to get there? Some goals will have more obvious actions to take, like a healthy eating plan or training regime, but sometimes you wont know what to do. The trick here is to find a way to take the first step. Think around the subject; do a bit of research and make an educated guess about where would be a good place to start. It doesn’t have to be perfect; it’s about finding a way in, getting started and building momentum.
The Changeability Podcast episode 48To hear us talking more about action planning for success and other things along the way listen to episode 48 of The Changeability Podcast. Resources and links mentioned
Thank youThank you for reading and listening to the podcast. And a special thanks to the action takers who’ve been generous enough to leave The Changeability Podcast a review. This is very important to us as it makes a big difference to the visibility of the podcast which in turn means more people listen.
So if you have a couple of minutes to help us out we would very much appreciate a review and rating on iTunes or Stitcher. |
Sat, 20 June 2015
Is Mindfulness Meditation good for you? As amazing as some of the claimed benefits of meditation might seem, there is a growing body of work that suggests mindfulness meditation is indeed good for you. Putting aside the inevitable caveats and variables, the evidence of hundreds of studies is that meditation is good for you – physically, mentally, and emotionally. And the surprising thing is that many of the positive benefits are felt after only a few weeks of mindfulness meditation practice. Episode 47 of The Changeability PodcastIn episode 47 of The Changeability Podcast we talk about what these benefits of meditation are. Listen above or on iTunes, Stitcher or Tunein (and subscribe so you get every episode automatically.) You can find references to the academic studies they’re based on, in the books listed in the resources section below. (Also good further reading on the subject.) But it’s not just about academic studies and therapists. What we’re talking about is also based on the evidence and experience of people like us. We asked the Changeability Facebook group if those who meditated experienced any benefits. You can hear their answers in the podcast episode. Listen to hear the full version, but here’s a summary for you. Quote:
The benefits of meditation include:
Now that really is something! It’s great to hear about medical and other benefits of meditation, but what most of us are after is everyday happiness and resilience, experiencing more joy in our lives getting the most out of life. This is what mindfulness can deliver if we make the small effort to practise it. Try mindfulness meditation for yourselfIf you want to try mindfulness meditation for yourself and start experiencing the benefits there’s 3 ways we can help you.
Resources and links mentioned in episode 47
Thanks to Ange, Craig, Vicky, Rich, Janet, Keith and Melissa, from the Changeability Facebook Group for your insights and quotes.
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Sat, 13 June 2015
If you want to make today your favourite day – everyday – mindfulness meditation is a great place to start. It helps us focus on the present moment rather than worrying about a future that may not materialise or a past that’s gone. So in a way it helps us make the most of every day by living more in the here and now. It gives us a space to stand back from our thoughts and internal chatter and see them as just that – thoughts which are not us and don’t have to define who we are. The basis of mindfulness meditation is simple. Gently focus your attention on something like your breath going in and out of your nose and be purposefully aware, in a non-judgemental way, of thoughts that arise and let go of them. But just because it’s simple doesn’t mean it’s always easy and straightforward to do in practice. It can be but equally it takes practise and commitment. Here are 21 simple tips for mindfulness meditation, to help you start and/or stick to your meditation practice. They’re tips we’ve picked up from others or are our take on what we’ve found useful in answer to common issues. It’s certainly not an exhaustive list so let us know if you have any to add to the list. Issue – My mind keeps wandering and I’m getting distracted by thoughtsThis is normal. It’s the nature of our minds to wander and all part of the process of mindfulness meditation. It might be frustrating sometimes when we get distracted with thoughts abut what we’re planning to do or replying something from our past. But mindfulness meditation is not about stopping the thoughts or getting it right or wrong. It’s about practicing a way of thinking, of gently focusing attention on something specific like your breath going in and out, whilst being aware of the present moment in a non-critical way. Tip 1 - Notice your thoughtsNotice your thoughts – what you’re thinking – acknowledge them and let them go. Tip 2 – Name your thoughtsName your thoughts. For example say to yourself –‘oh I’m an unhelpful thought’. But bear in mind that one of the facets of mindfulness is to observe on purpose but without judgement or criticism. So the trick here is to observe and acknowledge the thought in a matter of fact way, as devoid of emotion as possible. Tip 3 – Thoughts as bubbles and cloudsSee or visualise your thoughts as something, give them a physical representation of them – e.g. bubbles, clouds or waves. Tip 4 – Acknowledge your thoughts and take gentle actionOnce you’ve recognised it - do something with the thought. If you see it as a bubble, burst it. If it’s a cloud, let the wind blow it across the sky in your mind and out of sight. Tip 5 – Quickly record truly persistent thoughtsIf you have a thought that just keeps coming because it’s about something you absolutely have to remember to do, you can have a notebook to hand to jot one word to remind you – and then get straight back to your meditation. This is not necessarily recommended but is one way to deal with a doggedly persistent thought. Issue– I haven’t got time to meditateYes you have and the answer is to make time so you can try it and see for yourself. You may find like others have even though you’re spending more of your time on meditation, paradoxically it seems to give you more time. Tip 6 – Set a regular timeSet yourself a regular time to start with. It’s all about building a habit and that takes a bit of commitment, so set a reminder on your phone or put it in your diary. Tip 7 – Get up earlierIf you really feel you haven’t got 10 minutes to spare in a day then set your alarm to go off 10 minutes earlier in the morning. Get up and meditate before the day starts – everyone can survive on 10 minutes less sleep in a night. Issue – I could never meditate – it’s not for me – I can’t sit down for more than two minutes – I can’t stop my brain workingYou don’t need to stop your brain working. No one can stop their brain working and you wouldn’t want to or you’d die! Revisit the first 5 tips about dealing with distracting thoughts if you’re worried about how you can’t stop the thoughts. Tip 8 - Think about what you’re saying - because you’re worth itLook at the reasons behind what you’re saying. Are you saying that everything in your life is more important than your wellbeing. Or maybe you don’t think you deserve to spend this time on yourself for some reason. Maybe it seems a little self-indulgent to be spending time on what might seem like a self-centred pursuit. If so read our article - Self-help or self-indulgence. Tip 9 – Take a realistic look at how you spend your time on different activities in a dayThis also ties in with the time issue. But can you really not sit down for 10 minutes in a day. Spend a day noting down everything you do and the likelihood is you can fit in 10 minutes and you can sit down. Indeed you probably have sat down for 10 mins today. Don’t forget that every time you watch television you’re sitting down and using time you could use for meditation – or at least a few minutess of it.
Tip 10 – Count your breathsIf you find it hard to sit down for a few minutes and softly direct your attention to your breath, you can help yourself maintain focus and bring yourself back to the present moment by counting your breaths. Count each in and out breath up to 10 and back, and as you get more used to this type of focus, count just the out breaths. Or count to a smaller or larger number, whatever you find helpful. Maybe 5 maybe 100. Issue – I sometimes fall asleep while meditatingThis is close to our hearts – especially for Julian! There are different views about whether we should do anything about this or not. Some say if you fall asleep it’s alright because it shows you need the sleep. Whilst that might be the case we think it’s good to try and do something about it, like get more sleep at night if you need it, but also there are some people who just fall asleep very easily and often! So here’s a few tips to make it less likely. Tip 11 – Keep your eyes openOne way to deal with it is to keep your eyes open. Many people like closing their eyes when they meditate, like we do, because it helps take away the distractions of what you’re seeing, but you can meditate with your eyes open. If so try lowering your eyes, let them glaze over a little (sometimes called having a soft gaze or focus) and not really focus on anything in particular. Tip 12 – Light a candleOne way of helping keep your eyes open but your gaze soft, in other words not getting distracted by looking around you, is to gaze softly on a lighted candle. This gives you something to rest your eyes on without really looking at it. Tip 13 – Think about your positionAre you lying down to meditate or reclining right back? If so, your body may be too relaxed and in an all too convenient a position for nodding off. So think about the position you’re meditating in. Which leads us to our next tip Issue – I find myself slumping overIf you find yourself slumping or drifting down your chair it’s worth thinking about posture or position. Tip 14 – Sit up straightIt seems to be generally acknowledged that whether you’re sitting on a chair or the floor or using a meditation cushion, you’ll have a better meditation experience if you can sit with your back straight, away from the back of the chair. Otherwise you’re tempted to lean against it and before you know it you’re back to slumping over. Tip 15 – Shuffle on your chair to get evenly distributed!Shuffle around on your chair for a second before you start, rocking from side to side to get comfortable and distribute your weight evenly. Many people (including us) don’t actually sit straight most of the time but have a tendency to slightly lean to one side. If you don’t believe it, look at how you’re sitting right this minute – is your weight evenly placed on your seat? Tip 16 – Imagine you’re a puppetThere are a couple of little visualisation tricks to help you keep a better posture. Imagine there’s a string coming up your back and neck and out of the top of your head – like a puppet. Imagine your head is touching the sky. Issue – I don’t know how long I should be meditating forLike so many things in mindfulness and meditation there is no right and wrong. It’s about what suits you and your lifestyle. One minute is better than no minute, and 10 minutes is often better than 1 minute, simply because it may take you a minute or two to settle into your meditation. But 1 minute spend in mindfulness meditation can be enormously beneficial in some circumstances, like a stressful situation at work or home where it can help to step back and take time out. Tip 17 – Do what you canTry starting with however long you can manage or feel comfortable with. If you’re worried about the amount of time then 5 minutes is a good start. If you like to have a set amount of time to aim for, 10 minutes twice a day seems to be enough to experience benefits and cultivate the habit. Tip 18 – Build up graduallyStart with 5 or 10 minutes and stick with that if it’s convenient and doable – or try to build it up a few minutes a week. And you don’t have to do the same amount of time everyday – sometimes you can do it for longer and other times keep to the 10 minutes. It’s about regularity rather than overall time. Issue – I wonder if it’s better to use music, sounds or silenceIt all depends on what works for you. Many people like to be silent where possible because it’s about being aware of the thoughts in your mind, and you might find it easier to notice your internal chatter with the least distraction. You can meditate with any sounds going on around you either from others or of your own choice. Tip 19 – Try a selection of soundsWhilst silence is golden, you may like to try meditating to other sounds sometimes. It’s not so much about listening to the sounds but having them replace or cover other more distracting noises in the background. This can be good where you can’t meditate in silence – e.g. on the bus or train or in a café or park. It’s a matter of trying it to see what suits you. You can use meditation music or natural sounds, for instance we have a seascape on our guided meditation – with a choice of a silent background or seascape with sea and seagulls. Issue– I’ve heard a lot about it but I’m not sure meditation is for meThe thing to do is just give a go. You’ve nothing to lose and a lot to gain. Tip 2o - Keep a journalKeeping a journal or diary about your meditation practice can be useful, especially when starting out and you’re not sure what to make of it all. The idea is that you act like a scientist observing an experiment from the outside and take notes of what comes up for you. Tip 21 – Start with a guided meditation or short courseAnd we have just the thing for you. If you’d like to do a short course where in 1 and a half hours from now you will be up and running and have a guided meditation to keep – then Julian’s Beginner’s Guide to Mindful Meditation is a quick and reasonable way to get started. Alternatively download our guided meditation mp3 ‘Meditation Moments - With Breath in Mind’ Episode 46 of The Changeability PodcastListen to episode 46 of The Changeability Podcast where we talk about all these tips and more. You can listen here on BrilliantLivingHQ.com or on iTunes, where you can subscribe to get every episode downloaded automatically, or on Stitcher and TuneIn. Links and resources mentioned in Episode 46 – 21 Simple tips for mindfulness meditation
Hope you find these tips helpful – we’d love to hear your suggestions – so send them and any comments or questions to hello@brilliantlivinghq.com or send us a message on Twitter or our FB page at Brilliant Living HQ And don’t forget to download your guided meditation course or .mp3
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Sat, 6 June 2015
If you’ve tried mindfulness meditation, you can’t help but notice the thoughts keep coming. Here’s 7 simple techniques for dealing with your wandering mind.
If you’ve tried mindfulness meditation, either following along with the short guided mindfulness meditation on The Changeability Podcast episode (44), or you’re a regular meditator – you can’t help but be aware of the mind’s tendency to wander around during your meditation session. You’re just settling into a few minutes of focusing on the here and now, you’re noticing your breath going in and out and suddenly you’re aware of thoughts crowding in about all sorts of things. Maybe it’s something you should have done, or an upcoming meeting or event you’re organising. It might be you’re hungry and can’t stop thinking about your next meal. Whatever the thoughts are, this is normal – if a little irritating sometimes! Some people feel that if they can’t clear their mind and not think of anything then meditations not for them, or they can’t do it. But everyone can do it – it’s just how you define ‘doing it’. It’s not about getting it right or wrong. It’s about practicing a way of thinking, of focusing your attention on something specific – like in our case we’ve been paying attention to our breath. It’s about the practice – which is why ‘practice’ is such a great word in relation to meditation. Because it’s about the experience of doing it rather than getting to an an end point or destination. It’s about gently being aware or turning your focus onto your breathing, and re- turning your attention back to your breath and the here and now as other thoughts start coming into your mind. The thoughts keep coming and gradually you get snatches of moments where they don’t – they may be incredibly fleeting on some days and other days, with practice the space between them gets longer. But it takes practice and to be honest, some perseverance and commitment. So don’t be surprised or hard on yourself if you find it challenging or think you’re failing in some way, this is part of the process. There is always the opportunity to re-commit and get back to it. So to get back to mindfulness meditation and your wandering mind – there a few little techniques you can try out to help you turn your attention away from the thoughts and back to your breath. You can hear us chat more about these in episode 45 of The Changeability Podcast, but in the meantime here are a couple of ways of dealing with your wandering mind. Notice you’re thinking these thoughts – you might even think ‘I’m having a thought’. Then find a way of letting it go. One way of doing this is to visualize the thought as something. You might it in a bubble that bursts, leaving the thought to evaporate and disappear. Another technique some people like to use is to count your breaths, either in and out or just out. This helps you to bring the focus back to the breathing. None of these stop the thoughts coming but can help you deal with them so they don’t become too distracting and take you away from the purpose of your mindfulness meditation – being in the here and now in a non-judgemental way. On Episode 45 the Changeability Podcast you’ll find out:
Links and resources mentioned in episode 45
What to do nextIf you’d like help in getting going with mindfulness meditation – and a shortcut to help you stay on track, we have a couple of Brilliant Living® resources for you. A short course where in 1 and a half hours from now you will be up and running and have a guided meditation to keep with Julian’s 'A Beginner’s Guide to Mindfulness Meditation' short course. Or if you just want a super quick way to get going, download our guided meditation mp3 ‘With Breath in Mind’. Six 10-minute tracks to choose from. Talk to usIf you have any ideas, comments or questions we’d love to hear from you at hello@brilliantlivinghq.com
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Sat, 30 May 2015
He might have lived a long time ago but it’s fair to say Pythagoras knew a thing or two about the power of the mind. He knew he did his best thinking in the silence of a quiet mind – and he certainly did a lot of brilliant thinking. Coming up with new ways of thinking about mathematical equations. Now we don’t have to be mathematical geniuses to appreciate the benefits of a quiet mind but most of the time life doesn’t seem like this. We rush around busy in body and mind – so how can we can learn to manage our minds? How can we learn to be silent so our quiet minds can listen and absorb and do much else besides? One of the best ways is to manage your mind with mindfulness meditation. MindfulnessWhy do we need to manage our minds? Because all too often our minds are full of thoughts about what’s happened in the past or planning what’s going to happen in the future. Of course we need to think about these things sometimes but not at the expense of what’s going on around us in the here and now. So the idea of mindfulness is that we’re mindful of the present moment, but that as far as possible we do this in a non-critical way. (See last week’s post for more about this) Mindfulness is about purposefully being aware of the here and now and in a way that doesn’t judge it or put meaning on it – but just experiences it. And one of the best ways to do this is through a simple form of meditation. MeditationMeditation itself comes with a long history which crosses cultural and geographical boundaries. It’s a feature of many of the world’s great spiritual traditions, but we’re not talking here of meditation in spiritual or religious terms. Today meditation has become part of the mainstream with millions using it as a tool to improve their lives and wellbeing. Meditation is becoming increasingly popular amongst the business community with prominent companies such as AOL, Apple and Google, offering meditation and mindfulness classes for their employees. Meditation is increasingly seen as a success tool with the potential to unlock productivity and creativity. At Brilliant Living HQ we see meditation as a key mind management technique –maybe the most important of all the mind management techniques and tools we advocate. Not only is it of huge benefit to us in many ways (more on this very soon) but it enhances all the other mind management techniques we talk about – like visualization and affirmations. It’s all about attentionSo what’s the common factor across the traditions and disciplines and different ways meditation is used? It’s attention. Meditation is about focusing attention in a relaxed way on a something – it might be a chant or mantra or something physical like beads or an image. Or it could be something as simple and fundamental as your breath. This is a simple form of meditation anyone can learn to do. There’s no great mystery or intricate elaborate ritual to follow – you just need to be able to breath and focus your attention on your breath. If you can breath you can meditateWhen you start this simple meditation technique of focusing attention on your breath, the first thing you’ll probably notice (apart from maybe wondering what you’re doing!) is that your mind wanders off all over the place. Straightaway you might start thinking you’re not doing it right, but don’t worry because this is all part of the meditation experience. Remember that mindfulness is about not being judgemental about what happens in the moment. So the trick is to not judge it or get irritated but to bring the focus back to your breath. Doing this will help you become more aware of your body, your feelings, your thoughts and perceptions and the incessant activity of your mind. At the same time you’ll keep returning your awareness to the present moment, rather than dwelling on a past you can’t change or worrying about an undetermined future. Of course it’s easier said than done! But the brilliant thing about when you manage your mind with mindfulness meditation is that it’s all part of the process. The whole point isn’t to get it right or wrong but the experience of the practice. Yes, we find it hard to sustain our attention. Our minds flit away from this simple task. But by returning the mind back to the breath when it wanders, it can gradually help us observe our thoughts. You are not your thoughtsYou are not your thoughts and mindful meditation gives you a way to sit back and watch your thoughts as they enter your mind, and to recognize the sort of thoughts they are and their impact. The aim is to view these thoughts without self-judgement. It’s almost as if you step outside of yourself for a few minutes as an observer. This helps you realize that your thoughts are just your thoughts in that moment. You don’t need to be defined by them and can change your reaction to them or let them go. So if you can breathe and be quiet for a few minutes you can meditate. Episode 44 The Changeability PodcastIf you want to manage your mind with mindfulness meditation now’s your chance. In Episode 44 of The Changeability Podcast we chat about mindfulness meditation and talk you through a quick guided mindfulness meditation, so you can try it for yourself. You can listen to it here on this page or on iTunes, Stitcher or TuneIn Quick-start meditationMany people like to follow a guided meditation to keep them focused on their meditation, specially to begin with. Our guided meditation Meditation Moments: With Breath In Mind is a great place to start. Just download the MP3 tracks, sit back and think along to Julian’s calming voice. Links and resources mentioned in Episode 44 – Manage your Mind with Mindfulness Meditation
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Sat, 23 May 2015
Everywhere you go it seems people are talking about mindfulness. It seems to be the new ‘in-thing’. Of course it’s been around a while, thousands of years in fact in its oldest forms, and more like 30 or more years in its present western form, but it’s come right into the mainstream now. Companies like Google have staff queuing up to participate in mindfulness courses they’ve instigated. Entrepreneurs are falling over themselves to let us know how many minutes they’ve been meditating on their newly discovered meditation apps. Celebrities are tweeting their love of mindfulness meditation. So there’s certainly a lot of it about. But what lies behind this media interest? That’s what we explore in Episode 43 of The Changeability Podcast. Mindfulness – what is it and why you need it?
Do you ever feel a bit like Alice in this quote? Life sometimes feels like you’re always looking back or looking forward while life today seems somehow out of your grasp. It’s like you’re a time traveller worrying about the future, or reliving past wrongs (or maybe good times). Do you ever drive somewhere and can hardly remember the journey because your mind was so full of thoughts and concerns that you barely noticed the countryside you were driving through, or the architecture of the buildings in the city around you. In fact more worrying, you didn’t even notice the other cars on the road. This is what happens when we’re not aware or ‘mindful’ of what’s happening in our day-to-day lives - and don’t worry – we all do it! But mindfulness can help us deal with this. Mindfulness seeks to resolve this by helping us focus on the present moment – the here and now. To be mindful – or aware. And to do so, as far as possible, in a non-judgemental way, because that is where the real power of this mind management technique kicks in. One of the godfathers of modern mindfulness is Jon Kabat-Zinn whose Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction course (MBSR) has spread throughout the world and he describes mindfulness as:
Mindfulness MeditationAnd one of the best ways of doing this is through Mindfulness Meditation. Starting with simply focusing on your breath for a few minutes at a time – you can become aware of the thoughts rushing through your mind and what you’re focusing on. The trick is to gently refocus your thoughts on your breath. We’ll talk more about mindfulness meditation over the next couple of weeks, but for now it’s enough to start noticing your thoughts and being present in your day. Links and resources mentioned in episode 43 of The Changeability Podcast
A Beginner’s guide to Mindful Meditation
Start Mindfulness Meditation today with a special half price offer on our “A Beginner’s Guide to Mindful Meditation” - in 1 and a half hours you will be meditating. This link will take you to the special page on Udemy (the online learning platform where the course is hosted) for listeners of The Changeability Podcast. |
Sat, 16 May 2015
We’re just back from a long trip. We’ve had great times, met wonderful people and had a lot of fun. But it wasn’t all sweetness and light.
We had our share of things not going to plan, which can be especially frustrating when you think you’ve planned something carefully.
If you heard episode 41 last week you’ll know about our trip because we talked about the benefits of travel – and some of the good things we learnt or have been reminded of while away. That was part 1 – so this must be part 2! “I believe that everything happens for a reason. People change so that you can learn to let go, things go wrong so that you appreciate them when they’re right… and sometimes good things fall apart so better things can fall together.” Marilyn Munroe In episode 42 you’ll find out about:
Send us your storiesLet us know about something you’ve learnt while travelling, doing something different to your normal routine or when things don’t go to plan. Send it to hello@BrilliantLivingHQ.com and we’ll include it in a future podcast.
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Mon, 11 May 2015
We’ve been having an adventure. From the surrealistic glitz of Las Vegas to the silent arid beauty of Death Valley, the splendours of Yosemite and Sequoia National Parks to the bustle of LA and finally the tropical paradise of the Philippines .
We’ve spent the last 5 weeks travelling for business and pleasure and on today’s episode of The Changeability Podcast we talk about the benefits of travel we’ve experienced along the way.
Episode 41 is part 1 of our personal perspective on things we’ve noticed as we’ve been travelling around, starting with the benefits we’ve seen.
In episode 41 we talk about:
Your experience of travel and it’s benefitsWhat about you? Tell us about your experience of travel and it’s benefits. Write to us at hello@BrilliantLivingHQ.com or join our private Changeability Facebook Group today and talk to us there.
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Sat, 2 May 2015
“There are two types of people in the world. Dreamers and haters and the only difference is one thing, haters gave up on their dreams.” – Answer to the author of this quote is found in the podcast. Joe Pardo is a New Jersey-based dreamer, who has always believed that society starts with you, and that to make changes in society you must first change how you yourself think. His innate curiosity about people inspired him to start the motivational Dreamers Podcast and he now aptly considers himself a “recorder of dreams.” Joe’s just released his first book (April 2015) called 31 Life-Changing Concepts, a book for people like him who hate to read books. He’s packed it full of pictures and very direct messages and challenges for the reader.
Changeability Podcast – Episode 40Here us talk with Joe about his book, his dreams and those who’ve inspired him in episode 40 of the Changeability Podcast. Listen by clicking above or subscribe to our podcast on iTunes or Stitcher. In Episode 40 you’ll discover
Resources and links mentioned in Episode 40
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Sat, 25 April 2015
Our thoughts are critical. “If you realised just how powerful your thoughts are, you would never think a negative thought.” - Peace Pilgrim The wrong types of thought, the negative thoughts that often come to mind throughout our day, can make you feel bad and stop you achieving our best. So today we’re thinking about NATS. And we don’t mean those pesky little insects that buzz around you and over your head when you’re enjoying a warm summer’s evening walk or drink outside the pub. We’re talking Negative Affirming Thoughts (NATs for short). And if you’re not recognising them, then they might just be preventing you living your fullest life now and getting in the way of you achieving your goals or making the changes you want in your life. “The primary cause of unhappiness is never the situation but your thoughts about it.” - Eckhart Tolle So today we want to look at the different varieties, or maybe we should say ‘species’ of NATs out there. Because if you’re aware of them you’re more likely to recognise them and do something about them when you notice yourself thinking them. And sometimes just catching out that thought is enough to dissipate it or stop its influence on your behaviour. Why are these thoughts affirming?You probable think of affirmations as something positive (like those we’ve talked about before) but affirmation just means affirming something, or making it firm, and this can be in a negative way just as much as in a positive way. So with negative thoughts the danger is that you constantly reaffirm or reinforce them until they become the way you think and then get in the way of you doing what you want to do. In his book, Change your Brain, Change your Body Dr Daniel G. Amen puts forward 9 types of negative thought (that he calls ANTs – automatic negative thoughts). David Burns, in Feeling Good: The New Mood Therapy, outlines 10 common mistakes in thinking, or thinking errors he calls cognitive distortions. NLP has a similar concept so we decided to roll them all into one bundle and somehow we’ve ended up with 11! So here’s all 11, how you can spot them and then swat the little beggars! So go on, see if you’re thinking these thoughts and learn how to stop them before they take a hold (you know you want to!) The 11 Negative Thoughts1. All or nothing thoughts Recognise, one slip up doesn’t mean you’ve given up; it means just that – you’ve had one slip up. 2. ‘Always’ thinking – overgeneralization Ask yourself. Does this always happen, every single time? Really? If not then recognise you’re overgeneralizing. Say to yourself – just because one event happened, doesn’t necessarily mean I am permanently this way of being. 3. Focussing on the negative Learn to look for the silver lining in every cloud and count your positives rather than your negatives – in other words look for the positives in situations. 4. Thinking with your feelings or emotional reasoning This species of NAT mixes up and confuses feelings and facts – which leads you to make decisions based on how you feel rather than objective reality. Look for evidence to see if it’s really true. If you feel you’re never going to get a grip with your bad back, then book an appointment with you doctor or physio to see if there’s anything that can be done about it.
5. Disqualifying the Positive This involves always shooting down good or positive experiences for no real reason – so you can keep a negative belief even though the evidence points to the opposite. It’s as if the good stuff doesn’t count because everything else is bad about your life. Swatting those NATs: Think about what does count and why. Learn to accept compliments by just saying ‘thank you’ (so when someone compliments you on your new shoes just say thanks instead of – well they were only cheap, or I got them in the sale) Or try bigging yourself up – or bolster your view of yourself by listing your good qualities, skills and accomplishments. 6. The Guilt Trip or ‘should-ing’ Try asking yourself questions like - what is stopping me doing this, or what rule says I should, or simply ask ‘why should I?’ Another technique is to use ‘could’ instead of ‘should’. 7. Labelling and mislabelling There’s an error in logic going on here, where you make a leap from a behaviour or action to an identity, so the identity is determined by the behaviour. Ok, so you may not be very good at maths at the moment, but you can’t just give up before you’ve even tried. That’s just defeatist. You didn’t say when you were a child “I tried walking once and I was useless at it.” You didn’t, did you? OMG!
8. Magnification and Minimisation This is where you magnify or exaggerate the negatives and minimise or understate the positives – people often do this to themselves. I can also be where you catastrophise – or jump ahead to the worst possible outcome, expecting the worst case scenario to actually happen. Or thinking that a situation is unbearable when it’s just unpleasant; like when you think ‘I can’t stand this.’ Swatting those NATs: Ask yourself what would happen if you did stand this. Examine exactly how something is so bad – and compared to what. 9. Fortune telling – jumping to conclusions Talk back to those thoughts. Ask how you know it will turn out this way. Say - Ah, that’s fortune telling thinking – and tell yourself it doesn’t always have to end that way. 10.Mind reading Another form that jumping to conclusions takes is when you think you know what someone else is thinking even though they haven’t told you. And how about letting go of a need for approval because you can’t please everyone all the time. As to thinking about you, the truth is most people are too busy thinking about themselves to think about you. 11.Blame - Blaming others for your own problems and not taking responsibility for your actions is toxic and disempowering. When you find yourself blaming yourself ask how much of this problem is really your responsibility. And quit blaming others and take responsibility for your actions. If you are smoking, it’s because you choose to and equally, you can choose to quit! Empowering, isn’t it? And finally. Remember, recognising negative affirming thought patterns is the first step in learning to change them. Changeability Podcast – Episode 39Here us talk about all of this and more in episode 39 of the Changeability Podcast. Listen by clicking above or subscribe to our podcast on iTunes or Stitcher. Resources and links mentioned in Episode 39
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Sat, 18 April 2015
What are the ingredients for a fulfilled life, how can you get them and what gets you going in the morning? Just some of the massive questions we’re discussing with Gary Ware from Breakthrough Cocktail.com on today’s episode of the Changeability Podcast. We’re delighted to welcome back Gary to talk about these massive questions and more and to share with us an exciting online event he’s organising - The Elixir of Life Summit. And you don’t get a better name than that for an event – after all who wouldn’t want the elixir of life? Before we get to that, Gary tells us the story of his self-development journey and how he came to be putting on this event. From feeling unfulfilled and lacking a sense of purpose to being fired up by a huge goal much bigger than himself. One of the defining activities in this journey for Gary and many others has been the introduction of a specific morning routine. This is a routine of morning rituals which work together to perfectly set your intentions for the day. Gary shares how he went from everyday being a scramble to get to work and get things done to a changed perspective and way of doing things. He even looks forward to jumping out of bed at 5.30 every morning. We talk through the steps of this morning routine and if you’re a regular listener to the Changeability Podcast or you’ve read the Changeability: Manage your Mind – Change your Life book – you will recognise most of them. It’s great to hear how Gary does them everyday and how he fits it in with his busy schedule. And if you’re thinking you’re a night person or you could never do all this in the morning Gary shows you how you can get it done in as little as 6 minutes if you need to, but assures us we’ll love it so much we’ll want to get up earlier to do it more, and never hit that snooze button.
You will also hear about this amazing online summit Gary’s put together to help people feel better, get unstuck, be happier. Listen to the episode for the detail but here are a few key points about it. The Elixir of Life Summit – Ingredients for a fulfilled lifeIt’s an online event so everyone can attend – 27th April to 1st May It’s a great opportunity to get into the detail of each of the ingredients for a fulfilled life including, health, wealth, mindset, personal branding, productivity, living life on purpose, goal setting, mindfulness, improv and more... 23 (in the words of Gary) ‘awesome people’ presenting the sessions – we couldn’t possible comment as we’re one of them. Free to watch in real time. All profits from the sale of all access passes (after the event and with bonuses) going to Pencils of Promise to build a school in Guatemala. Sign up here Resources and links mentioned in episode ?
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Sat, 11 April 2015
What have self-development and improv got in common – well quite a lot it turns out, according to our guest in today’s episode of the Changeability Podcast - Gary Ware. Gary is a breakthrough mixologist! (Listen to find out what that means!) By day a digital marketer, by night a comedian specialising in improv comedy. At the end of a busy day, he also has his own website BreakthroughCocktail.com and a podcast of the same name helping ambitious professionals live up to their full awesomeness potential. We talk to Gary about how he got to this point and why he took up improvisation, what he’s learnt from it. How it helps him in his work and life, and what we can learn from it too – even if you don’t want to get up on stage and try it out for yourself. There’s lots of gems in here but a couple that really resonated with us were: Say yes – even when out of your comfort zone. But don’t stop there and don’t say “yes but…”, say “yes and…” Gary explains what this means most eloquently. Our perception is failing equals bad – but we can learn more from our failures than our successes. How we perceive and interpret failure is all down to our mindset and what we look for. And Gary’s looking for fun. We’re working on this!
Quote“You can't connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future.” Steve Jobs In episode 37 we find out:
Resources links mentioned in this episode
Find our more about Gary or contact him at:
If you enjoyed this episode tweet Gary a tweet to let him know @GaryWare |
Sat, 4 April 2015
We often look to the future to make us happier. We think about the changes we want and that somehow we’ll be happier once they’re in place. Or we think we want more of something to make us happy, more money, more cars, more holidays, more tech. It might seem counter-intuitive but studies indicate that in reality these aren’t the things that make us happy.
It doesn’t mean we don’t want to change or improve things in our lives, or indeed have more – but that those things alone are unlikely to increase our happiness and fulfilment, if we’re not happy now. They may give us a temporary lift but all too soon it becomes the norm and we’re looking for the next thing, when we might be better finding ways to bring more joy, time and experiences into our lives. Gratitude and appreciation can help us do this by focusing on what we have rather than what we want. We can train our brains to look for the positive and the good and what we appreciate and are thankful for, and as we seek it out we will find more.
Research indicates that one of the best ways to be happier right now, in the only time we know we have, is by practicing gratitude – or appreciation.
But how to do it? Here are 15 ways to practice the art of appreciation. Choose those what appeals, try it out, pick and mix:
Changeability Podcast CA36You’ll find all of this and more in episode 36 of the Changeability Podcast, including:
Links and resources
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Sat, 28 March 2015
It’s all very well knowing gratitude is the best attitude but how do we actually do it – how do we do gratitude? Because we’re not talking about noticing a lot of nice things today that make us feel all warm and fuzzy and then forgetting it all for the next month. That’s not going to help us much. And the evidence tells us that gratitude and appreciation are helpful to us. They make us feel happier right now, and in our lives in the future, they put us in a good place from which to make the changes we want. As we mentioned last week, by deliberately seeking out gratitude filled moments you train your mind to be on the look out for more. An article by Eric Barker in TIME Magazine this week ‘Here’s How to Scientifically Train Your Mind to Be Happy’ talked about the very same thing. He wrote that training your mind to look for errors and problems (as happens in careers like accounting and law) can lead to a pervasive pessimism that carries over into your personal life. Yet these negative ways of thinking can be overcome by training your brain to seek out the good things in life. Primarily through counting your blessings day by day, i.e. practicing gratitude and appreciation. Alongside using retrospective judgement, basically putting a positive spin on negative past events to remember the good, and expecting things to get better because optimism can make you happier. Cultivating the habit of gratitudeAnd the key to getting the benefits of gratitude and appreciation is to make a habit of our gratitude. So how do we do that? Well how do we make any habit? We practice it (either intentionally or not) by doing it over and over again, until with repetition it becomes ingrained in our mind. But how do you practice gratitude and doesn’t that sound a bit like hard work? OK so like most things worth doing in life it might take a little effort. And we’re certainly not saying we have this perfected ourselves by any means. But we’re trying it – we think it’s worth the effort and we invite you to try it out for yourself too. After all what have you got to lose? Feeling better about your life and the world, enjoying and making the most of your life, and having a positive impact on those around you as you’re happier in yourself. The appreciation listThe most simple straightforward way to kick start your gratitude habit is to write down 3 new things you are grateful for and appreciate each day. And if you want to really supercharge the launch of your gratitude habit then start your appreciation list with 10 new things you appreciate every day. Do this every day for 30 days and by the end of a month you’ll have a list of the 300 items, people, experiences, and sensations you’ve appreciated on purpose. And reading through this is sure to make you feel good. Episode 34Hear us talk about all of this and more on ways to turn gratitude from a few nice thoughts every once in a while to a mind management technique that works. Listen to episode 34 of The Changeability Podcast. Resources and links mentioned in this post and podcast episode 34:
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Sat, 21 March 2015
If you want to jump out of bed in the morning shouting ‘I love my life’ at the top of your voice (and mean it) - the time and place to start is here and now. It’s brilliant to have a vision of how you want life to look – and goals to get you there. It’s great to use tools like affirmations and visualization to put you in the right frame of mind to achieve those goals. But it’s not just about looking forward to happiness in some future time. It’s about where you are now, being happy with who you are and what you have now. And this is where gratitude is the best attitude kicks in. Gratitude and appreciation give you a simple yet amazing mind management tool with the power to change how you feel right now and carry you forward towards your goals.
Gratitude is one of the universal themes from our shared experience of what it means to be human. It crosses cultures, gender and age, and features in the world’s great religious traditions. Every language in the world has a way of saying ‘thank you’. But despite the fact it’s easy to say, and we throw out cursory ‘thank you’s everyday, it’s not so easy to feel and experience. To make gratitude a deliberate part of our daily lives takes practice. So is it worth it? Psychologists have quantified benefits in the well-being of those who carry out simple but regular gratitude practices like writing down 3 good things that happened to them a day. Writing down 5 things they were grateful for once a week for ten weeks, had a measurable positive impact on the happiness and health levels of a group studied by Robert Emmons and Michael McCullough of the University of California. And if when it comes to managing your mind, gratitude is the best attitude to focus you on the good things in your life and train your mind to look for more of the same.
Gratitude and appreciation act as a bridge from the here and now to where you want to be. They put you in a good place by realising and feeling great about all the marvellous things in your present life. This doesn’t mean you don’t want to make changes but that you’ll be in a better place from which to start making those changes whilst experiencing present life to the full.
Episode 34 of the Changeability PodcastWe talk about all this and more in episode 34 of the Changeability Podcast – where we ask if gratitude is the best attitude. Links and resourcesEmmons, R. A. (2007). THANKS! How the New Science of Gratitude Can Make You Happier. New York: Houghton Mifflin Company. Episode 33 - The Time of Your Life
Appreciate to Accumulate – a guided gratitude MP3 to kick-start the appreciation habit |
Sat, 14 March 2015
You think you have timeDoes this apply to you?
The answer, if you’re being honest, is probably - yes it does. We all think we will always have more time. We know on an intellectual level we wont. We understand the concept that our time here is limited. We see the evidence all around us. And yet we often don’t accept it on an emotional level, and don’t act in accordance with it. We carry on living our lives as if there will always be a tomorrow. Another time for us to make the changes we want to make and live the lives we want to live. Maybe even another time somewhere in the future when we’ll be happy. With that happiness depending on changes we have yet to make. So we find ourselves saying I’ll be happy when…(fill in the blank). Time as a PresentIf this all sounds a bit depressing, what about this then?
This is the flip side. We can only ever really know the here and now – the present. Which is more reason to make the most of each day. This saying also captures the essence of mindfulness – of living in the present moment and being mindful of the here and now. Time as a conceptTime is an odd concept. We take it for granted but what is it? Is it a conceptual construct or convenient unit for us to measure changes and progress? And how do we relate to it in our personal lives. The Changeability Podcast Episode 33These are some of the questions we’re asking in episode 33 of The Changeability Podcast – where we’re talking about The Time of Your Life. We get a bit philosophical in this episode as we talk about time and how we relate to it, based on 3 things that happened this week to bring the subject of time to the front of our minds. Specifically in episode 33 you find out about:
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Sat, 7 March 2015
What is it that stops us doing what we want to do? We’re not talking about the things we think we should be doing but those things we think we truly want to do. Yet even though we want to do them, something gets in the way of us actually doing them. It might be starting that new business, or the novel you know is inside of you. Maybe it’s shedding the excess pounds getting you down, or eating the healthy food that’ll give you more energy. Whenever you want to do something but you don’t see it through, you are resisting it on some level. You are experiencing resistance to your goals, desires or dreams. And we all experience it, that’s not the issue. The issue is what we do about it. Do we let resistance win out and sabotage our intentions, or do we recognise it and deal with it. That’s what we’re talking about in episode 32 of the Changeability Podcast with guest Tony L Brown.
Tony is a coach, consultant, speaker, trainer, digital marketer, and host of the 3Vs Podcast, who helps people transition from employee to entrepreneur.
Tony’s also a man who knows all about resistance in his own life and with those he works with. Tony believes in battling resistance and shares with us 5 steps to overcoming resistance.
In episode 32 you’ll find out about:
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Sat, 28 February 2015
Are you a rudderless boat being tossed about in life’s sea or are you on course to get what you want from life? These might be difficult questions to answer but the secret to getting the changes you want in life starts here - being clear about how you want your changed life to look. “Do you know where you’re going to, do you like the things that life has shown you, where are you going to, do you know?” Whether you recognise the song or not, the words capture the first technique to manage your mind to get what you want in life and business. It’s about setting your intentions and then finding out what’s getting in the way of making them happen. The likelihood is there are self-beliefs and negative thoughts lurking about in your subconscious working hard to keep you precisely where you are now. Nice and safe and secure, at least as far as your mind is concerned, even though you might not realise that’s where you want to be! Yet recognising those thoughts is a great step forward and the start of getting rid of them. But what to replace them with. This is where positive affirmations come in, fortified by the power of visualizing the future you want. Today we’re taking you back to school for a little revision session –starting with a little test - but don’t worry, you don’t have to tell us your score! And by the end of it you’ll be up to speed with the 5 mind management techniques we’ve talked about on the Changeability Podcast so far. You’ll find out:
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Sat, 21 February 2015
This excerpt from Changeability – Manage your Mind – Change your Life sums up what we aim to do, not only with this book, but also on the Changeability Podcast. Our aim is to help you understand that internal mental programming and give you ways to work with it so you can change what you want to change, improve what you want to improve and have success in whatever you want to do. This week on our 30th episode of the Changeability Podcast we look back at some of the key themes of the past 29 episodes. These are the big ideas that underpin what we talk about on the podcast, write about in the blog and lie behind the Brilliant Living® products. We believe that by understanding and taking these four themes on board you put yourself in a stronger position to make this quote come true for you.
Changeability Podcast Episode 30In this episode you find out:
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Sat, 14 February 2015
Do you like to daydream? As a child were you told off for daydreaming in the classroom when you were supposed to be doing your school work? Maybe you were imagining what you were going to do with your friends after school, or what you wanted to be when you grew up, or how great it would be when you were old enough to do what you wanted. If so don’t knock it, you were practicing a useful technique to help you get that life you dreamt of having. Because visualization is like daydreaming on purpose.
And with some tips on how to make the most of your imaginings and a bit of practice you can hone your daydreaming so it becomes a great mind management tool for you. That’s what we help you to do in episode 29 of the Changeability Podcast. Episode 29 The Changeability PodcastThis week’s episode is a slightly different format (not that we really have a set format!) – with a practical show of two halves. In the first half we give you through a step by step visualization guide. We share exactly what you can do to get the most out of your visualization experience – and enjoy it as a positive step on the way to making it real for you. In the second half we have a guided visualization for you to listen to. But only do so where it’s safe to listen and relax (so not while driving at 70mph down the motorway). We wanted to give you a way to get started straight away on some visualization practice if you haven’t done it before – and if you’re already into visualization then it will give you another visualization to use. We decided to share a visualization for abundance with you, as many people would like more abundance in their life. An abundant life is one full of the things you want it to be full of, which for most of us includes love, security, health and money amongst other things. Free giftWe’re excited to hear what you think of this guided visualization and as a thank you for listening to our podcast and for taking action to develop your changeability, we would love to give you a separate mp3 recording of this visualization for free. We do sell a version of this in the website shop which has two different voices, so you can have a male or female version – and if you’d like this you can buy it here. Or you can get your FREE version (female voice) here. We hope you enjoy it and look forward to hearing how you get on. Specifically in this episode you find:
If you’ve got any other tips to add to make your visualisation even better in some way please let us know –drop us an email to hello@brilliantlivinghq.com and we’d also love to hear from you, as always, about how you get on with your visualization or what you’ve successfully visualized. |
Sat, 7 February 2015
What does it take to be successful in any part of your life? Yes, setting goals. Yes, being clear about what you want. Yes, doing the work and putting in the hours to create or improve or develop the skill or the relationship – or whatever it is you want to achieve. But what if there was another ingredient that you could throw into the mix to give you that extra edge? Would you use it to up your game or even get ahead of the competition? These might sound like sporting metaphors and we’ve used them on purpose, because this is the very thing that many people, including sportspeople, use to give them that extra something that leads to their success. So what is it that they have? Well it’s something we all have it’s just they use it for a specific purpose. It’s IMAGINATION. They use the power of imagination to create the success they desire, and you can do the same. It’s true that the imagination is where this success initially starts, and where it plays out until it becomes reality. But in that imagining and playing out of your vision of what success looks like and how to get it, you’re planting the neural seeds that grow into expectation and even memory, both mental and physical. This is all about mindset and getting your subconscious mind to work for you. If you’re after inspiration to imagine your way to success, you’ll find it in episode 28 of the Changeability Podcast where we look at some of the people who have done just this. You’ll hear from and about people who’ve experienced massive success in their field, whether in sports or entertainment. But it’s not just about the rich and famous as we also share some more everyday examples of how visualization can help you imagine your way to success, whatever that success looks like to you. The Changeability Podcast - Episode 28In this episode:
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Sat, 31 January 2015
If visualization is one of the key mind management techniques sports people use to perform better and reach their goals, then mentally rehearsing what you want to achieve can do the same for you. You don’t have to be an elite athlete to experience the benefits of using your imagination to visualize the future you want. But how to visualize to get what you want? What’s the best way to do it? In episode 27 of the Changeability Podcast we take a look at what you can do to get the most out of visualization. These are the little tricks of the trade of how to visualize for maximum effectiveness – in other words – how to visualize to get what you want. It’s got a lot to do with rehearsing and making it as real as you can.
In episode 27 you find out:
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Sat, 24 January 2015
This week we’re talking about a straight up, full on, mind management tool you can use in life and business to help you make changes and achieve your goals - VISUALIZATION. Visualization uses the power of your imagination to create the life you want, by creating in your mind’s eye what you desire or want to achieve, and repeatedly visualizing it. Far from being something way out or weird, visualization is natural and we all do it everyday of our lives. We visualize when we’re being creative or planning something. We use it in a positive way - like looking forward to our next holiday, or in a negative unhelpful way - like when we unnecessarily imagine things going wrong for us. (We talked about this in episode 20 ‘What is Visualization’ when we first looked at visualization.) So if visualization is something you do naturally – wouldn’t it be great to take the visualisation you do naturally everyday, enhance it and make it work to your advantage? As a mind management tool - using the power of your mind to do what you want in a deliberate way (we’re all for that at BrilliantLivingHQ). That’s the theory and In episode 26 of the Changeability Podcast we start looking at how we make it a reality – through using the technique of MENTAL REHEARSAL. We look at what mental rehearsal is and how to use it to get the most from your visualization. And if you think you find it difficult to visualize, we talk about different ways people can ‘see’ things in their mind.
More specifically in episode 25 you find the answers to these questions:
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Sat, 17 January 2015
If you want to get inside the mind of a successful entrepreneur and businessman, then episode 25 of the Changeability Podcast is your chance. Because this week we talk with Chris Ducker who takes us on the roller coaster experience of what being an entrepreneur has been and is for him. Chris shares the highs and lows, fears and rewards of his entrepreneurial journey so far and we chat about the mindset, techniques and tactics, which have made him the success he is today. And it’s not all sweetness and light, as Chris opens up about the challenges he’s faced along the way and how he’s dealt with them. “Do what you do best – delegate the rest” Chris Ducker Chris, of ChrisDucker.com – is a serial entrepreneur and accomplished businessman, with a bricks and mortar business in the Philippines employing over 200 staff and an online business helping become people start or improve their own businesses. He is also a coach, blogger, author of the best selling book Virtual Freedom, sought after speaker and host of the popular New Business Podcast. And as of this week, co-host of the #1 business podcast – 1DayBB alongside his friend Pat Flynn of Smart Passive Income fame.
More specifically on episode 25 you will find out about:
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Sat, 10 January 2015
5 words for a great year aheadThe power of wordsThere is power in words. We all know the power of words to motivate, educate and communicate. We use words to communicate with each other and also with ourselves. Our thoughts are formed in words and we have an inner-voice that commentates on what we do and think, and not always in the most positive of ways! So why not use your words to your advantage? One way of doing this is to have a few well-chosen words that sum up the essence of what you want to achieve or experience in the year ahead. These become your words for the year. The idea is you write them out and place them where you will see them every day. And you regularly repeat them, think about them, look at them and use them, until they’re impressed onto your subconscious and become part of how you think, act and behave. In short, these words work as shorthand for your aspirations and as affirmation of the way you want to be. They are a reminder of your goals and reinforcement for your intentions. Your words for a great yearSo what are your 5 words for a great year ahead? Choose between 1 and 5 words to sum up what you what to achieve, experience, be or or have in the year ahead. Here are 5 suggestions to get you started: ChangeIf you want this year to be better than last year, then thinking about what you want to change is a great place to start. Will this be a year of change for you and if so what is it you want to change? It’s no good doing everything the same as you did it last year and probably the year before that, if you want to have a different outcome. So think about the word change every day. What is it you're changing this year, what is it you want to do differently? How do you want your year to be different from last year? What is it you want more or less of, what is it you want to improve? All of these things can be encapsulated in that one little word change - which is why it's so great to have it as one of your words of the year. Write it out and look at it every day and remind yourself every day what it is you’re changing in your life. And if you want to have the changeability - the ability to change – you might like to start here. LovePeople say money makes the world go round and of course we all need money but what about love? The Beatles sang all you need is love and we know that's not true either. But the truth lies somewhere in between. The fact is that love is what makes life great. Love is what motivates us to do things and makes us feel good. This can be love for your family, your spouse or partner, your colleagues and friends and love for yourself. By having love as one of your words this year it helps to remind you of the driving force of life and the thing that holds us together as families and as communities. If you'd like a way of reminding yourself about love or want to open yourself up to more opportunities for love in your life - check out these affirmations for love. AbundanceAbundance is a bit of an old-fashioned word that is also a great word because it captures the essence of so many things. Whatever it is you want more of in your life - the word abundance can capture it all. Do you want abundance in monetary terms; this is how most people think of the word abundance? It’s a lovely word for it because it gives this beautiful idea of having more than you need. Abundance suggests there is no limit to what you can have. This is an abundant world we live in with more than enough to go around. There is no limit on money, it’s an energetic exchange of value and a commodity. So if you want more abundance in your life, if you want money in your life in this coming year, focusing on the idea of abundance is a great way to start thinking positively about what you have and how you can have more of it - what ever that might be. GrowthThe word growth encapsulates the notion of learning or developing or getting better at something. It could be a new skill, or the way we want to act, it might be a characteristic we want to develop like being more attentive - or maybe we want to read more because reading and learning is at the root of development of any type. Maybe you have a business and want to grow your business - so the word growth is great because it can be whatever you want it to be, personal or business related. But as with all your words – as you write it down, as you say it, as you think it, have an idea in your head about what you mean by it otherwise it’s just a vague concept. Thank youAppreciation, gratitude, thank you - they’re all words which bring us back to the here and now and help us be grounded in our everyday experience. In doing so we become aware of all the amazing, fabulous, wonderful, gorgeous, lovely things in our life that are going well. Having the words thank you or appreciation or gratitude helps to remind us every day of what we already have and how privileged we are to live in this age, in this time of comfort, luxury and modern medicine. The Changeability Podcast Episode 24 - CA024
You can hear us talking about all of this and more in episode 24 of the Changeability Podcast, where we also share our own words for the coming year. |
Sat, 3 January 2015
The first of January was dedicated by the Romans to their God of Gates and Doors - Janus. Janus had a distinctive and unusual look – he had two faces which rather cleverly meant he could look behind him with one face whilst simultaneously looking forward with his other face. Just as doors and gates look in two directions, this god could look both backward and forward at the same time. This made him not only the guardian of exits, entrances and transitions, but just as you go through a door or gate to enter a new place, Janus was seen as the God of Beginnings. We of course remember Janus in the name of our first month of the year, January, but he represented beginnings and firsts of all types. This makes Janus a perfect symbol for us at this and any time of the year. So although we’re doing the two-faced Janus thing of looking back (in last weeks Changeability Podcast - episode 22) and looking forward to new beginnings today at the beginning of January – it doesn’t matter whether you read or listen to this in January or any month or day of the year. It’s about new beginnings of any type at any time. Indeed Janus was originally honoured on the first day of every month and at other key times in the year and people’s lives such as harvest, birth and marriage. Whilst the passing of one year into another lays down a useful marker in time to think about our lives, we can take any time as a cut off point to sign off a portion of our lives and start a new segment afresh. Compartmentalising our thinking into years, months, weeks or even days, gives us a convenient time span to divide and measure ourselves by. The great thing is that any moment in our life can be a gateway to a new and different pathway – to new beginnings. In today’s episode of the Changeability Podcast we’re talking about the concept of looking forward. And asking you what you’re looking forward to doing, achieving, experiencing and being this year. Are you approaching this year with excited anticipation and embracing it as something to literally look forward to. Because when we look forward to something – we expect it to happen – we’ve set an intention to do something and are now looking forward to it. We’re looking at ways of doing this on today’s show. Specifically in this week’s episodes we look at:
5 questions to kick-start your year
Here’s to a great year ahead. We appreciate you being part of ours and hope we continue to be a part of yours. For action
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Changeability Podcast: Manage Your Mind - Change Your Life
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