Sometimes we find it hard to know when it is time to make a change but perhaps this quote from the Dakota Indians will help you.
“If you should find yourself riding a dead horse, it is advisable to dismount”
Self Help books have been out a long time now. Napoleon Hill’s “Think and Grow Rich” was published in 1937 at the end of the Great Depression and is still in print now. This was the forerunner of a mountain of similar publications that have followed since. One piece of advice that turns up time and again in probably every book of that genre is that if we don’t formulate our goals clearly they are unlikely to materialise. There is so much information out there about setting goals that a browse round your local bookshop will offer you a large selection of motivational books with plenty of hints, tips and ways of doing just that. However maybe Lewis Carol also had something to say about it in “Alice In Wonderland.”
Alice came to the fork in the road.
“Which road do I take?” she asked.
“Where do you want to go?” responded the Cheshire cat.
“I don’t know,” Alice answered.
“Then,” said the cat, “it doesn’t matter.”
- Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland
That was written in 1865!
“The person who conducts is not the same person who is sitting here..there’s a moment of metamorphosis..you have to change..if you haven’t really tried to undergo that metamorphosis you’d better not go on stage.” That was Sir Simon Rattle talking in an interview for the BBC programme “Imagine” in which the cameras followed the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra on a tour of China. But this was no documentary of lost instruments and double booked hotel rooms but a real in depth look at how the elite musicians in this world renowned orchestra cope with the physical and psychological pressures of performing to the very highest standard each time they walk onto the concert platform.
So what did Sir Simon Rattle mean by this “metamorphosis” he talks about undergoing, and how can we achieve it in our professional and competitive challenges? A lot of my clients come to improve their presentation and self confidence in sport, music, and business but to get the best results we often have to leave behind the everyday person that our friends and relatives know and take on the persona that will get the job done. This persona has no room for doubts and worries about our abilities and has to be completely focused and at the very least give an appearance of confidence on the outside. This does not mean one has to completey leave behind the real you but it does mean that to get results you need to develop a strong degree of focus, determination and self confidence to really achieve your true potential. There are many ways to develop this and one is to find someone in your field that you admire and can relate to and “take on the mask” of that person when you are in your performance situation. Ask yourself what would they think, feel, hear and see in this situation? How would they react to enable them to get the best results? Then start to bring these attributes into your own performance situations. Just be sure to choose a role model that uses their skills in an empowering and structured way then you will begin to develop extra skills and techniques that will give your that extra performance edge.
Liked this post from helpothers.org so thought I would pass it on.
“One of my teachers had each one of us bring a clear plastic bag and a sack of potatoes. For every person we’d refuse to forgive in our life, we were told to choose a potato, write on it the name and date, and put it in the plastic bag. Some of our bags, as you can imagine, were quite heavy.
We were then told to carry this bag with us everywhere for one week, putting it beside our bed at night, on the car seat when driving, next to our desk at work.
The hassle of lugging this around with us made it clear what a weight we were carrying spiritually, and how we had to pay attention to it all the time to not forget, and keep leaving it in embarrassing places.
Naturally, the condition of the potatoes deteriorated to a nasty slime. This was a great metaphor for the price we pay for keeping our pain and heavy negativity!
Too often we think of forgiveness as a gift to the other person, and while that’s true, it clearly is also a gift for ourselves!
So the next time you decide you can’t forgive someone, ask yourself… Isn’t MY bag heavy enough?”
- from www.pravsworld.com
Do you sometimes meet someone who seems to almost radiate a certain warmth and personality that makes tham easy to talk to and be around? It’s as if they radiate a special light that touches anyone they come into contact with. Their energy goes out to others rather than being locked up within themselves.
We can all tap into this energy by accepting that we all have our own unique and valuable place in the world and that by allowing our true “being” to shine out we can touch others and connect with the world around us.
Rather than keeping our head down and concentrating on our own problems how would it feel to open up a little and make this connection with others in our everyday life? Why not just try it and imagine that you also have your own unique “light” to give out. If you don’t do this already, instead of thinking constantly about your own perceived shortcomings and problems try letting your “light” shine out and see how it can reflect back into your own life in ways you may have never imagined.
The Five Principles of Reiki
Just for today…. do not anger.
Just for today …. do not worry.
Honour your parents, teachers and elders.
Earn your living honestly.
Give thanks for every living thing.
To find out more about happiness try this site.
The Wolves Inside You
An elder Native American was teaching his grandchildren about life. He
said to them, “A fight is going on inside me.. it is a terrible fight and it is
between two wolves. One wolf represents fear, anger, envy, sorrow, regret,
greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false
pride, superiority, and ego.
The other stands for joy, peace, love, hope, sharing, serenity,
humility, kindness, benevolence, friendship, empathy, generosity, truth,
compassion, and faith.”
“This same fight is going on inside you, and inside every other
person, too”, he added.
The Grandchildren thought about it for a minute and then one child
asked his grandfather, “Which wolf will win?”
The old Cherokee simply replied… “The one you feed.”
In my last post I was writing about Creating an Opportunity every day. This does not need to be just in the business sense.
How would life be if we created an opportunity every day for postive effect in our family life and our relationships? Think of the transformations that would be possible and the improvements we could make in our everyday lives by just doing one extra thing that could help our family life or one small change in our behaviour or actions that would help us enjoy even more our relationships and friends.
It doesn’t need to be anything big. We are often so busy getting on with the business of everyday living that we put off until tommorrow addressing these areas. But just one opportunity created each day adds up to 365 in a year. That is a lot of change.
Each time I get an initial enquiry for weight loss or to stop smoking one of the things I will be ascertaining is whether it is themselves or their partner or family that wants them to make the change.
There are two reasons why this is important. The first is that the chances of a successful outcome are reduced if we are attempting to change for someone else’s benefit and if so we will soon find ourselves falling back into our old patterns of behaviour.
The second and most important is that to make a change it must be made because we want to do so. Granted, it will be great to experience all the positive spin-offs that may well occur but the most important change has to come from within ourselves. This change is a belief in our own value as a person and our own right to make an improvement in our lives. Without that belief we have no firm ground on which to initiate change and let it become part of our way of life.
The point here is that to be the person we want to be – to be able to help or be there for those that are important to us we need to value and believe in ourselves first. On a plane we are told in case of emergency to put on our own oxygen mask before our child. It makes perfect sense. Only by helping ourselves will we be able to help anyone else.
The more empowered we allow ourselves to become the more strength we have to be there for others.