It’s fair to say that most people reading this will want 2012 to be better than 2011. This isn’t necessarily negative nor am I talking recession, gloom and downturn. It’s simply in our nature to want to grow and develop – we’re designed to want to reach beyond our grasp and make things better.

It’s also fair to say most people don’t keep their New Year’s Resolutions to be better, do more to have more (and again this is in all areas: spiritual, material, relationships etc.)

Obviously, there are reasons for this (and drunkenly promising to love your dog more at 11.59pm is only one of them). The main reason is that on Jan 1^st 12:01am you are actually no different to what you were a few minutes ago. (You may, of course, be drunker though.) As a result, by Jan 20^th you have probably given up trying to change.

If you want to make real changes you need to sober up and listen. The following sound like self-help platitudes but are actually common sense.

• “To get different results you need to do something different.” (Anthony Robbins)

• “The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again” (Ben Franklin)

These sayings last because they are true but at a certain level they are still unhelpful. If you are talking about varying market strategies for your business or learning to paint – or any number of physically or behaviorally oriented skills then yes, it’s all good.

But when it comes to changing YOU then you need a different approach.

Einstein said that “problems cannot be solved at the same level that created them.” Where it comes to humans this is more true than he knew.

Our minds are dynamic systems that build themselves through repeatedly jumping to higher levels and creating new ways of thinking using the information from lower levels. Sometimes we energize certain thoughts and they become solidified as beliefs.

These beliefs end up forming (at higher levels) the basis of your perceptions, habits and behaviors – what characterizes you (your character). Their power over your everyday thinking and actions is formidable.

Therefore beliefs, because of their driving influence in these areas, are the place to start designing your New Year’s Resolutions. In fact, they are one of the best places to examine before you make any major change. Knowing solves the problem of which area of self-help to start with.

Why? Because belief-change forms the backbone of almost any self-help course of change.

Think of it this way: in 2005 American’s read $693 million dollars worth of self-help books and by 2010 the American self-help market was worth $10.9 Billion. That’s a lot of reading, listening and learning.

Virtually all of these courses will ask you overtly or implicitly to change your beliefs in order to get new results. This is reasonable.

The problem is they don’t usually tell you how.

As a result we often try to change beliefs from a lower level of thinking – using physical effort to alter our behaviors in an attempt to be different.

Our beliefs exist above our everyday level of consciousness and this is why wishing we could change, straining to change and trying to change our behavior doesn’t often work. It’s like pulling a rubber band and expecting it to stay stretched.

What do you need to do then? You need to learn how to cut the band!

In case you were wondering: Beliefs are formed one of several ways. We gather evidence for something over a period of time and one day decide (from a higher level of thinking ABOUT the evidence) to believe it. Or, we have an experience or a flash or emotion that causes us to pay special neurological attention to a particular idea – and it becomes a belief.

Ironically, the way we do both of these processes have their origin in the simplest of English words: Yes, and No.

What happens when we develop a phobia should help to illustrate my point.

When we have a shocking experience (I knew of someone who saw a bump in someone’s neck burst open and baby spiders pour out) then our minds release a massive burst of energy marking that event with a giant neurological NO! Afterwards, we don’t have to remind ourselves to feel aversion to that kind of experience – our mind kindly freaks out every time.

Thus the mind has developed a belief that we should not go near that thing – NO!

In the same way, ecstatic experiences (yes, that one as well) give us a massive burst of pleasure energy and create a neurological YES to which we are more likely to respond in the future.

We need both kinds of beliefs.

‘No’ beliefs (shocking and less so) are necessary for us to set boundaries and help us focus on what our YES beliefs are pointed towards. If you are studying for a course it helps to be able to say YES more to study than to partying. If you want to be faithful then you have to say YES to your spouse and NO to giving in to sexual temptation. And so on.

It is the combination of the things we have said YES and NO to that make up our life. Yes, life is made up fundamentally of what we say YES and NO to. If you don’t stand for something (YES) you’ll stand for anything because you don’t have a strong sense of direction shaped by your beliefs.

The good news is that we can all change even when we feel we can’t. Whenever you mentally step back and evaluate your thinking with questions like:

• What belief would I rather hold?
• What do I need to believe in order to be different in this area?
• What beliefs do I think a successful person in this area already holds?

…then you are questioning the structure of your thinking from a position of authority. You see, unlike the apes we humans can constantly question the quality of our thinking. We can ask:

• Does it SERVE me to think this way?
• Do I like the results I am getting?
• Do I want to keep on thinking this way? If I do, what will I be doing in ten years?

The mere fact of being able to question puts us in a position to change because we are now operating at a level above the beliefs! Think of it like the boss being at the top of the office building issuing orders to plebs down below.

So, if you are willing to consider that you need to some new beliefs in order to do something different – what results do you want next year? And what will you need to believe?

William James said:

“To change one’s life:
1. Start immediately.
2. Do it flamboyantly.
3. No exceptions.”

So do you want a fast effective way to change your beliefs? To start now?

To help you get a head start I have a special offer for PicktheBrain readers. I’ve created a belief change program based on the pioneering work of P.hd L. Michael Hall. It teaches you how to generate the emotional energy for change and use your YES and NO to create and destroy beliefs in just a few minutes.

There’s a manual and 12 downloadable audio tracks which will take you through the patterns. See the main page at: www.change-my-beliefs.com and the reader offer at: www.change-my-beliefs.com/pickthebrain

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“Some men see things as they are and say why. I dream things that never were and say why not.” – Senator Robert F. Kennedy

The working of the human mind naturally lends itself to metaphor as in: the playground of the mind, the battlefield of the mind, the mind as a prison. What all these allusions depend upon is framing – the mind’s natural process of capturing an idea and using it to define and focus your attention on whatever is within its scope.

Framing is the process that truly confirms the Biblical statement: “As a man thinketh in his heart [Hebrew for mind] so is he.” If you think of your mind as a playground for ideas – it will be. If you think of it as a prison – it will be.

For some people their thinking does seem to imprison them through the spiraling of their negative thoughts; it brings ceaseless unrest.

What they need is a way to break out of that cycle to create mental freedom.

So what can help? Enter the two words: “What…if…”

Do not scoff at these little incantations – they are not magic in the Harry Potter sense – but given what they can do the results can seem magical. They can help you step back, step up and step out of a limiting way of thinking.

You have probably heard about the power of acting “as-if”. It seems so trite on paper and I think many people give up on the process because when they try ‘faking it’ the original behavior is so strongly engrained that they strain against it – and fall back.

But these two words can act to open up a new world of thinking and I’m going to tell you how.

So let’s say you want to start thinking more positively and you feel you can’t.

In Neuro-Linguistic Programming the challenge to ‘I can’t’ is usually: ‘What if you could?” Pick something that is possible in the world but doesn’t seem possible for you and ask yourself: “What if I could?” You need to be prepared to push yourself but what the question does is challenge your brain to find a way to make the transition work.

• What if you could learn passionately and quickly?
• What if you could do mathematics? What would open up for you then?
• What if you were totally wrong about the sheer amount of potential you have?
• What if you did resist smoking for a week and saved yourself £10? What then?

If no answer comes, ask again, and again. Yes, forcing it can work in this situation.

Several things can and will happen after this point. At the least you’ll start to create the possibility in your mind. Yes, you might fall back and say “well, that would be great but I’m just pretending.”

Understand that actually you are not pretending (in a physiological sense.

Neurologists have said that the same neural pathways are used to pretend as to do. That is why Korean War veterans came out of five years internment better golfers than they went in – by using mental rehearsal.

The resistance you experience is likely to be a higher frame like ‘it’s just pretending’ and you’ll need to deal with that. In fact, ask “What if pretending actually caused me to make a seismic shift in my thinking and suddenly I found myself starting to demonstrate those behaviors in everyday life?”

You may find a little loosening feeling but still feel you have further to advance. This is fine, merely question yourself as to what is stopping you, and ask “What if…[you had overcome it]. If you are not good at getting information from yourself yet see my article http://www.pickthebrain.com/blog/personal-development-an-essential-key/

You can then start getting a little adventurous by presupposing what you want to happen has happened. This technique regularly opens up new mental horizon for me.

• What if I suddenly stopped feeling fear about taking aggressive action on my dreams?
• What if I was able to love others regardless of their behavior?
• What if I woke up tomorrow morning willing and able to change any belief?

Another great way of doing this is to use the Miracle Question format (by Steve De Shazzer).

What if, when I went to bed tonight a miracle occurred and when I woke up I had suddenly developed a learning state of mind that enabled me to take in and use information quickly and easily? What would be the first thing that would let me know this was the case?

This is the next level of pretending. Trainers often use two chairs for this – one for the ‘night before’ and one for ‘after the miracle’.

It seems so simple but often, just doing this causes a shift in thinking when you mind recognizes a more desirable state of affairs.

Asking ‘what if’ can open up new therapeutic and generative personal worlds. It has the power to heal and create.

• What if I truly was significant?
• What if I counted in this world?
• What if my learning state enabled me to take that masters in 2 years instead of 3?
• What if I woke up tomorrow morning and was able to recognize the positive intention behind the behavior and work with that instead of getting annoyed at what’s in front of me.

I created an extremely powerful use for the ‘what if’ questions in the NLP User’s Toolkit which you can find here: http://www.amazon.co.uk/NLP-NS-Users-Toolkit-ebook/dp/B004BSGY7A. I use it almost every day and in coaching sessions.

Perhaps one of the ultimate applications of ‘what if’  is Borrowed Genius http://www.winwenger.com/borrow1.htm which involves putting on the ‘head’ of a respected figure from history and using a process called Image-Streaming to ‘think’ their thoughts.

You may wonder if this will work for you. I ask you to consider: What if it did? What if it could? What if it does?

Try it, and find out.

Products by Douglas Cartwright

Change your Concepts, Change your Life

The Personal PowerPack

Mind to Muscle SuperPack

Other people want you to change your opinion to suit them but they won’t change to suit you. They just go on living their lives. How does that work? – Quote by My wife, 2010

John Donne said “the death of any man diminishes me” but I think a worse fate than being dead is dying inside – being diminished – while you live.

That is what happens when you poison your growth through letting others diminish, marginalize and demoralize you from reaching your potential. Let me tell you, living in fear of other peoples’ opinions sucks. I know. I’ve done it.

Yes, – you live, but you live a sickly fearful existence stunted like a tree permanently in the shadow of other peoples’ opinions. As a result, both the branches you grow and the fruit you bear will be withered compared to what they could be. You behave like a rabbit darting from safe hole to safe hole avoiding the glare of other peoples’ disapproval. It’s no way to live.

If you are fortunate enough to get a moment of clarity you will realize that millions of people don’t live this way – they lead happy self-directed lives that are productive and focused – then you can start to question your own personal status quo…and that’s where the changes start.

Then, as you grow older and wiser you realize how unimportant other peoples’ opinions of your worth really are but the trick is to realize it young – and choose amongst all the mediocrity of others peoples’ lives to do something magnificent with your life and time from an earlier age.

The desire to please others rather than live the life we’re called too has probably killed a lot of dreams and is still strangling millions of others. But today I’m going to tell you what I’ve learned in my 37 years and in case you think my age counts me out from having any wisdom remember that being old does always mean you are wiser but it may mean you have made a lot more mistakes! The question is: have you learned from them?

I’ve been through some nasty hard stuff in life, stuff that has driven other people to suicide, and yet to look at me you’d never guess. Because I’m still here, I’m joyful, and if there’s one thing I’ve learned it’s this. Live your life. Don’t be a jerk because it doesn’t pay but live your life. Or others will try to live it for you. Their greatest ambition is to stop you causing them any discomfort. Rise above it. Love them anyway.

You are designed to be great and to do great things. They may not be nine ‘o’ clock news things (Question: Do you think Mother Theresa would have stopped caring if she never got any publicity?) but you are here to make an impact for a worthy cause rather than being what George Bernard Shaw called “ a feverish selfish little clod of ailments and grievances complaining that the world will not devote itself to making you happy.”
Man and Superman: A comedy and a Philosophy

The first key to becoming great is, paradoxically, one of the hardest and most counterintuitive. You need to care first and foremost for what you think – and stop caring what other people think of you.

On the face of it, this sounds unbelievably selfish and arrogant (which is probably why so many people don’t ‘get it’) so let me explain.

You need to be the one who authorizes your point of view. That way, you can develop a determination to help people that transcends their disapproval. If you are to truly help another (with wisdom and vision) then you will need to do things that they might not like or understand. Hopefully, they will understand later but even if they don’t you need to know for yourself that you did the right things.

Secondly, if you decide what you think then you can decide to approve of yourself. By this I mean you can decide that you are worthwhile, you have value, and you are going to make an impact in the world.

For a long time I went around with the idea that it was somehow arrogant to approve of myself and as a Christian I wanted to have a humble view of myself. But then I realized I had not accepted what God said about me, which is that I am created in His image and precious to Him. I was being a hypocrite by not accepting my Creator’s (much more positive) view of me!

Here’s the point: My consciousness is the gatekeeper for what my mind lets in. I actually had
to let in the idea that God approves of me. Whether I let it in or not doesn’t change the fact that He does, but I have to be the one to authorize that thought as being valid in my mind.

What do you have to step up and give permission to work in your mind? Where do you need to say “Thought, come in”?

Caring too much what others think about us is an inhibitor to greatness, per se.

I am not saying we should not care at-all – I truly believe that striving to love our enemies and our neighbors as ourselves is exactly the right thing to do in a messed up world where hatred and anger only begets the same. As the book of Proverbs says “A wise man ignores an insult: it is to his glory to overlook an offense.”

However, giving others the right to question our worth (as opposed to our skills and performance) means we will forever live timidly in the shadow of needing their approval. And whilst we wait for a smile or a nod, they will carry on living their lives. Does that make you angry enough to want to change it RIGHT now? It should!

So why did you give others the right to diminish you? Because you want their approval so you simultaneously buy into their disapproval as well. Why do you want their approval? Well other than the fact that we are created as social animals and a certain level of approval is necessary for co-existence, the blunt fact is you don’t approve of yourself so you look for it from others.

The quote goes “The deepest desire of the human heart is to be appreciated.” That’s true, but unless you can appreciate yourself, you’ll always be a prisoner of other’s opinions.

Yet we don’t think we can approve of ourselves because we have blinded ourselves to our own capabilities and accepted the limitations others have placed on us. It is a sad but undeniable fact that our minds tend to reinforce what we currently believe and it takes a courageous man or woman to take a step back and question what seems like the reality of what we ‘are’.

So because we want the crumbs that comes from the significant other’s table we have allowed ourselves to be sold – or sold ourselves – reasons to let others criticise our worth and this is a death-sentence for the soul and foolishness of the highest order.

What really gives another human being the right (let alone the experience and the wisdom) to judge our worth and value? Are they not in the same boat as us? Were they not born, have to eat, get hungry and so on? If you prick them, do they not bleed? 

When the scales fall from your eyes and you see that mostly we judge ourselves by labels that have no lasting significance we become free to see all the posturing that we do in order to look good in the sight of others.

Do these others know all our secrets, all our dreams and aspirations? Do they know the good deeds we have done in secret or the evil we have wished on others? Do they know our joys and our griefs, our little celebrations of life and the desperation we can feel alone in the dead of the night?

How possibly do they have the experience of us to make a reasoned judgement?

Can you possibly know all that about them? I think it was Confuscious that said “knowing you know nothing is the beginning of wisdom.” It’s time to approach what people really know and can do with a little humility. They do not know you – and you only know of them what you have seen and heard.

I have found it an 18 year project to get to the point where I don’t really care what other people think of my value in their eyes so I don’t say it lightly when I point out this needs to be done. Realising, truly realising that I decide what I think was my breakthrough moment.

There is a self-help saying: “What you focus on grows” and simultaneously what you authorise, grows in your mind as well. The moment I realised I could authorise myself to believe in my own worth was the moment I truly started valuing myself. And when I could value myself, it was easier to value others. And when I could value others it was easier to overlook their behaviour because there was a bigger picture to pursue – that of helping them realise their value.

Then you realise that you are equal in value to anyone and everyone. It’s not about economic status or looks. If I or you are to do anything worthwhile in this world we need to see ourselves as equals to others in value.

I know the present way society is going encourages us to value ourselves according to labels such as beauty (did you know obese women were considered beautiful in Picasso’s time?), money and career but all this is meaningless and leads eventually to terrible consequences such as the Holocaust or Year Zero.

You, as much as the smelly old bag lady in the street, are a living miracle. Your sperm and egg made it when all the others fell by the wayside (unless you’re a twin!) You already succeeded before birth and you succeed now, everyday, although not perhaps in the ways you would like!

You have to believe in yourself, like yourself, have a realistic evaluation of yourself and yet reach for a higher more potent moral and giving version of you. Human beings operate best when they transcend their selfish motives.

Earlier this year I left my church and along with that I left the approval of my friends some of whom I had known for 14 years. I joined another and I am happy there because I am being called to grow into what I can be. I had to make a decision to do what was best for me and my family – and although it has been hard I have not regretted it.

When you let other people diminish you, you do a disservice not only to yourself but to the whole human race. Don’t do it. Read and re-read this post, and rise up to do great things. Growth and striving for greatness are natural human states. Become all you can be, and in the striving you will be happier and a better person for everything.

Paradoxically, in order to do anything of worth for other people you have to stop caring what they think of you if you do things they don’t like. Then you can start.

Douglas Cartwright is a freelance blogger and the founder of The Self Hacker Blog.

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Traditionally, when we evaluate what direction to take our lives in we do a ‘values assessment’. This is a checklist of what you believe to be important to you. It might come out something like this (in a particular area):

Business/Career

• Serving customers
• Creating a great product that adds value
• Paying for my South American holidays
• Contributing to the world
• Helping people grow and develop their thinking skills
• Etc

Once you’ve ordered your list the standard advice is to seek a career that allows you to engage and live out your values. You can then feel that you are doing something that interests and compels you.

All well and good: – if you are satisfied in determining your future based purely on what interests you in your head right now. But this approach doesn’t always work because sometimes you don’t value all the things or skills you need to in order to pursue the career you want.

Suppose you really, really want to go into bio-engineering and chemistry but you hate doing detailed analyses – and you know that you’ll have to write a number of experimental reports.

Some people would decide that the field is not for them because they don’t have a disposition towards details or they just ‘don’t like detail work’.

The easy approach seems to be picking something else. It’s not the easy approach.

As Abraham Maslow said “If you settle for being anything less than what you can be, I promise you will be very, very unhappy.”

If you have a calling, if biochemistry and fiddling with strands of amoeba DNA lovingly beckons to you with sweet smiles and kisses – why go for something else?

I advise developing what I call ‘necessary convictions’. This is the act of consciously designing the beliefs and feelings you will need in order to get the job done.

Others may say “You can’t do that!” Watch me. Those who say it can’t be done are usually being overtaken by those who are doing it. Still others may say that’s deliberately engineering your thoughts and it’s manipulative. Yes, it is. To manipulate means ‘to handle’ and we handle our own thoughts every day. This is just stepping it up to the next level.

If you want to go to work, come home and watch television that’s fine. I have a friend who is like that, and he seem perfectly happy to work 9-5 and enjoy his little luxuries.

But for those of us who represent George Bernard Shaw’s unreasonable man (or woman) we know that “all progress depends on the unreasonable man”. And if the unreasonable man needs to manipulate his brain in order to get what he wants, so be it.

Personally, I’m not prepared to be decanted into someone else’s career shaped glass because I might not be ‘pre-disposed’ towards a certain skill. I’d rather make it important to me through the use of neuro-linguistic technology, and then act from a principle I had personally installed in my mind-body. Now that’s self control…literally.

So what do you do when you need to develop a focus and value on something that you don’t really care much for but is essential for your goal achievement?

You can, at times, get other people to do it. That’s why many business people hire accountants … but even so a basic grasp of accounting principles is surely essential to make sure you don’t get cheated? But if you prefer to retain control and develop the attitude and the skills for yourself, read on.

In the values example above you may have noticed that making a profit is missing from the list. In fact, the word ‘money’ is not even mentioned on there.

What if you want to run a business but making money is currently not that important to you?

Since most business people would agree that a business is there TO make a profit, they would say “change your attitude or change your goal” or advise you to go on missionary work to Afgericanistanope. (Which is a worthy thing to do, btw.)

What these well-meaning but short-sighted folk might have missed is that in order for you to meet your other life goal of setting up a social enterprise business in South America (something which I want to do) you will actually need a fair amount of money to do it.

So you could get a high paying job but – oh! – you don’t want to work for someone else. Either you’re stuck – or you learn how to develop a strong conviction that money is an essential tool for getting you what you want.

How do you do this?

You may wonder “How can I value something I don’t value?” How indeed? You need a higher level of thinking to solve this. As Einstein said “A problem cannot be solved on the level it was created.”

What follows is the basic process for developing a felt conviction using Michael Hall’s Mind to Muscle process.

To do a full treatment on this is beyond the scope of this article but I’ll reference other sources you’ll need to look at in order to make this work.

The great thing about this process is that, when mastered, it goes beyond just believing but actually helps you feel like this was something you believed with your whole mind and body. Think of something you know you know and can’t imagine yourself not believing.

Could you imagine yourself forgetting how to type? Or ride a bike. When you feel that about the principle you’re implementing, you’ll know you’re done.

The Process: Detailed Explanation

Identify the Principle

First, you need to identify a principle or statement that you would like to have running and directing your brain.

A principle is a law or statement that applies generally within a particular field. You might state the law of gravity as “What goes up must come down!”

You can find principles all over the Self-Help World. For example, in the books about becoming a millionaire like The Millionaire Mind or Inside-Out Wealth you can find wealth principles that the great and the good (or the not so great and not so…) have used to drive their wealth mindset.

One of the most famous is Robert Kiyosaki’s from Rich Dad, Poor Dad. He defines an asset as “something that puts money in your pocket.” He furthermore goes on to say: “The Rich buy Assets. The poor buy Liabilities. Buy assets.”

So the principle is “An asset is something which puts money in your pocket.”

Develop your understanding

What do you understand by this principle? What does it mean?

Using our example, I might say that “Stocks and shares are generally assets because they can produce dividends. A rented house could be an asset because the income pays the mortgage. Buying a business that just needs investment but will produce 30% profits on last year could be an investment.”

What I am doing is developing my conceptual understanding as a framework for my conviction. Understanding what the concept is about helps me to understand WHY it might be important.

You can also ask yourself: How would living from this concept in real life benefit me?

For me, it causes me to think very carefully about what I am buying. I want to save to buy assets. I imagine how happy my children and grandchildren would be. I imagine feeling pride as I watch my investments grow and I know in my chest or my gut that I am doing the right thing.

Restate your understanding as a belief:

What do you believe about this principle? Do you want to really believe it? If you did believe it, how would you sound? You can find belief change patterns all over the internet but the important thing at this point is to create the belief that this principle is important.

The amazing point here is that once you create a belief that didn’t exist before your mind finds reasons to justify its importance.

This is why you should not be stopped just because something does not feel important to you. You can make it important to you.

Restate the belief as a decision

So now you believe this, you really, really believe this – what will you do?

When you believe something and you know it’s important to you you’ll probably want to do something about it. But it’s possible to believe and yet not act. So you need to make a specific decision

What have you decided to do because you believe what and you understand what?

What you are doing here is building a neurological highway between your mind and your muscles – getting thoughts into your very muscles so you can feel your convictions.

So, I have decided to ask myself whether something I am buying (big purchases) will put money in our pockets, and to commit (a decision) to buy assets where possible.

How does it feel?

How does it feel to understand, to believe, to have decided this? Be with those feelings for a minute.

Express what the principle would look like in action.

What is one thing that you could do today or even right now that would be a living expression of this principle?

For instance, buying some stocks that you provide dividends would be an active expression of buying assets.

Imagine doing the action and as you do remind yourself that:

• I’m doing this because I understand….

• I believe that….

• I have decided to…

• As I understand, believe, and act on my decision I feel…

Ask yourself as you do this: How would I stand? How would I look out of the eyes of someone who believed this and would act upon it? How would I breathe?

Keep repeating this above process until you feel the conviction moving down your body and settling into your muscles and body.

When it feels like something you’ve always believed, you’re done.

This process helped to make its creator a millionaire and you can listen to me interviewing Michael about it, along with a full description of what else you’ll need to do to make full use of the Mind to Muscle Pattern at http://www.personal-powerpack.com/mindtomuscle.html

To your highest and best,

Doug Cartwright

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Who would have thought that two little letters like ‘un’ could have such power?

An innocuous little word, no, a prefix in fact but when added to words to make uncomfortable, unknown, unfamiliar – it has the power to make grown men cringe with fear.

Perhaps it’s magic. As Sigmund Freud said “Words were once considered magic…do not despise the use of words” [specifically in psychotherapy in his case].

Or maybe it’s not magic. Perhaps it’s something more visceral. The founder of the field of General Semantics Alfred Korzybski would call a bad physical-emotional reaction to a word or concept – a semantic reaction.

Do people really have bad reactions to words or concepts? I think you know you do (grin).

Just complete the sentence “Don’t talk to me about…?” or “I have a real problem with…x?”

Whatever the answer, especially if it makes you feel un-comfortable(!) – this is the thing with which you have a semantic reaction.

You literally cannot mention some subjects with some people. Ask someone who has been really, really hurt and betrayed to talk about ‘love’ or ‘commitment’ or ‘trust’- and get out of the way of the flying pans!

What people are reacting to are the meanings they have given to these concepts, these ideas. And concepts are built of meanings.

A concept is, essentially, a way for your mind to categorise and recognise items in the world. Your mind creates a category description such as ‘cat’ and then you build up a list of criteria by which you recognise it.

Take the example of the concept of a ‘loved one’.  How do you know they are who they are?

Because they respond to their name? That is not enough. Because they look like the person you love.

That’s not enough either because my wife gets confused with her sister all the time: it is the fine details which makes the difference. It’s the exact pitches of their voice, the exact creases around their eyes, the way they say your name.

And then there’s the more abstract concepts such as ‘success’. How do you define success? It’s an important question which most self-help books will ask you? Why?

Because someone else’s concept of success might not work for you.

What about Howard Hughes, who died with millions in the bank, hiding in a filthy room with a chronic dirt phobia and fingernails so long they were talons.

Or another multi-millionaire who said that he would exchange all the money he had for one happy marriage.

Were they successful by their own standards? I doubt it but perhaps they didn’t think of that until it was too late.

As Jesus said: “What does it profit a man to gain the world and yet lose his soul?”

What indeed?

So, back to words beginning with ‘un’?

How do you do when you realise that some feeling is (un)familiar or (un)certain?

What about when something is ‘unknown’? Is it? Really?  Have you ever considered that things are very rarely 100% un-known?

After all, if we’re dealing with other human beings – are they totally unfamiliar entities? Do you know nothing at-all about the other person? Absolutely nothing about the situation? No idea at-all what to do.

If so, then you can say “‘yes’ it’s totally un-familiar.”

But the truth is, it’s actually more a case of how you process the concept and you may be doing it using an ‘either-or’ linguistic formula: Either it’s 100% familiar – or 100% not. And this creates polarities in the brain where you think you have everything familiar, known or certain – or nothing. Very stressful.

Basically, we tend to equate unfamiliar, and unknown with something bad when in fact it’s simply just…not familiar…not known…not certain.

How, is that inherently bad? Did God decide that the ‘unknown’ was evil?

If so, surely He would have made us with omnipotent powers! No, lack of knowing something is a very human, very natural and normal condition.

Not knowing is simply that, a circumstance or a state of ‘not-yet-knowing’. It’s the meanings you give to that not-knowing that count. And that comes back to your concepts.

You need to start finding the familiar in the un-familiar and the known in the supposed unknown. For instance, if you were to say “I don’t know how to finish” – well, maybe not this project. But have finished before? Have you finished anything before? Of course you have. So how did you know you were finished then? Can you use anything you learned there, here?

Secondly, what is your concept of ‘unknown’ etc?

List out the meanings you use: What does ‘unknown’ mean to you? If you find it means ‘fear ‘then consider if that is the most useful definition!

What if, instead, every time you felt one of your ‘uns’ you mind went “AWOOOOOGAHHHH! Oh joy! Learning on its way!!!”

What if you got REALLY curious about the unknown? What if you got excited? What if you couldn’t wait to find out what there is to know?

How would that affect your life for the better?

Your concepts or definitions of the world make a HUGE difference to how you live your life. Mostly, we go around unaware of how we have defined our world and ‘right in our own eyes’.

Yet there are 7 billion people on the planet and we are all ‘right’ – to ourselves.

One of the definitions of wisdom in the Bible is the ability to make distinctions between good and bad, and what works and doesn’t work.

You need to be able to check how well your ‘map’ of the world, the criteria you use to deicide what to do NEXT works for you.

You need to be able to examine your own thoughts and understand that they are only a mental ‘map’, a symbolic re-presentation of the world around you. And a map is only as good as it is an accurate re-presentation of the ground it stands for.

A map…can be redrawn. And concepts can be re-conceptualised. It’s just a question of believing they can…and knowing how.

Robert Dilts, in Sleight of Mouth says: “A core belief of NLP is that if you can enrich or widen your map you will perceive more choices available to you give the same reality. As a result you will perform more effectively and wisely no matter what you are doing.”

Your concepts are a KEY part of your reality. Once you change your concepts – you can and will change your life.

If you want more specific help re-constructing and deconstructing your life concepts then you can get the downloadable audio product: Change Your Concepts: Change Your Life from Living Words at: http://www.livingwords.net/change-your-concepts-change-your-life-mp3-course

To your highest and best,

Douglas Cartwright

Business planners often include an ‘exit strategy’ detailing how they plan to leave the business: will they ‘run it dry’ (increase personal salary, pay off debts and close down), sell your shares, or liquidate?  These strategies require advance planning and are often well-thought out.

But have you ever thought about your own personal exit strategies – the ones you use for giving up on your own personal projects, hopes and dreams?

In most books about personal change and growth we are often told that our reasons for pressing ahead with our projects must be more important than our reasons for quitting. This is true.

But when was the last time you examined the validity of your reasons FOR quitting?

Why DO you give up?

Is it because you are thoroughly defeated and cannot go on, broken in body and spirit? Or are there some other, lesser reasons?

You will read enough articles in 2011 about having big enough reasons to stay the course and achieve your dreams.

In this article I will examine some of the ways we justify giving up and encourage you to decide if they are really important enough to give up on what you want. Forewarned is forearmed as they say. If you know your reasons for giving up and they are invalid – you can change them.

Physical Health

I’m too tired.

Think about Christopher Reeve or Steven Hawkins. If you read their biographies they have had to cope with far more than just tiredness. Physical pain was and is part of their everyday routine.

If you are constantly tired, work out why. Unless you have a physical illness, you will have to adjust your schedule and go to bed earlier.

If that is not possible then you either need to make some radical changes or decide that the discomfort of tiredness can be tolerated in favour of your long-term goal. You simply may need to drink more water and change your diet. Coffee does not replace decent REM sleep. Red-bull should be used when you are hunting the love of your life who has been kidnapped by an evil villain (and not on World of WarCraft!)

Otherwise, when you reach the end of your life do you really want to look back and make the excuse that you were always too tired?

Low Frustration Tolerance

In small doses ambiguity, anxiety, insecurity, uncertainty and vulnerability are all normal feelings. We stunt our growth when we deny that we are human, and fallible. We don’t know everything and we are not all powerful.

When, in our minds, we act like the world should bend to our will, we deny the fact that it doesn’t. We must learn to accept and tolerate these uncomfortable feelings, and how to get on with life regardless of them. Some psychologists call the immature refusal of life’s discomfort’s LFT – low frustration tolerance and you can read about it here.

Childish thinking

The Bible says “When I was a child I thought like a child…when I became a man I put away childish thinking.” In this article are a list of distorted thinking patterns, many left over from childhood and the bottom line is that these need to go in order for you to be able to more effectively tackle life in its complexity.

You can get coaching to facilitate the change or start with some of the great books on the market: Feeling Good: The New Mood Therapy, Cognitive Behavioural Therapy or the marvellously titled: How to Stubbornly Refuse to be Miserable about Anything Ever Again (yes anything)!

Low Ego Strength

Basically, ego-strength is your ability to look reality in the face without panicking or running away. When we don’t like the facts we often engage in what Cy Wakeman, author of Reality Based Leadership, calls ‘drama’ which is nothing more than making up stories about the situation that have little basis in anything other than our own prejudices.

In the book she offers the following questions for dealing with a situation when it is not going the way you want.

• What do you believe in this moment?
• What are the facts (sensory based, facts)?
• Who kind of a manager or employee would you be without this drama?
• What would you do to help that would add value?

Bottom line: being able to face the reality of your own thoughts and feelings (like you were designed to be able to do!) and your reactions to the outside world means you can stay focused and on track.

All of these above three dovetail into this next one:

You have to deny yourself

You often have to give up one thing in order to get another. Simple. You give up eating extra sweets and chocolates to help with loosing weight. You give up late night movies to get more sleep. You give up reacting impulsively as you learn to be more patient. What do you need to give up in order to get what you want? What do you tell yourself you can’t live without which is actually getting the way of your success?

Faulty Convincer Strategy

A convincer strategy is a mental process you used to become convinced of something. How many times do you need to see, hear or feel something before you become convinced its true?

It’s worth remembering that this mental ‘ticking off’ until you reach the magic number is something you learned to do, it’s not inherent. Therefore, if you automatically give up on the third attempt, now is the time to ask yourself if there is anything magical or justifiable about giving up at that point? Do you really need to give up then? After all, some people say you haven’t failed until you give up….

Can’ting

Is that a physical can’t or a psychological one? I ‘can’t’ jump a 60 foot gap but believing I can’t talk to a crowd of people is just that  – a belief. If there is no physical reason why you can’t do something then you are physically and mentally capable of doing it – you may just need to adjust your attitude.

Change your expectations

Expectations are beliefs about the future based on what happen in similar situations in the past. But the past happened in the past possibly at a time when you had a different or fewer resources than you do now.

What would the past have been like if you had reacted with the resources you have now?

How would you react now in the same situation with the mental and emotional, physical and even spiritual resources you have now? Yes, would would and will respond differently, won’t you? (Thanks for Morty Lefkoe for this one.)

Equating Performance with Value

Do you know anyone who gets really angry or depressed when they don’t perform well at work? It could be that they have equated their value as an employee with their value as a person. We call this over-identifying with a concept, making your ‘self’ the equivalent of how well you perform the conceptual ideas. Personally, I have separated my value as a human being loved by God from the work I do. Then if I have a bad day at work, I am not a bad person and I don’t want to give up because of the psychic pain that equation causes me.

Give up on Giving Up!

Here’s a radical thought – give up on giving up! L.Michael Hall who went from sleeping in his car to being a millionaire who has written over 30 books and runs the worldwide Neurosemantics movement says that he just doesn’t process the idea of ‘failure’ any more. It’s a non-word for him like “snargaliiturgitplop”.

What if you didn’t know what failure meant?

To be clear, I am not talking about continuing on until you bankrupt or kill yourself.  But perhaps you have taken that word a little too seriously?

Success is a mental game so if you can remove as many unnecessary handicaps as possible, you’ve got a better chance of … success!

———-

If you want to start 2011 with a serious focus on building your mindset to succeed, you can contact me, Doug Cartwright, about a free Explore your Breakthrough in 2011 session.

I am a Meta-Coach who uses the most radical and effective coaching system on the market and I’d love to walk with you on your journey. Visit www.livingwords.net/freeintro.html

Warning: this post may irritate you into thinking.

I will say this short and sweet:

Emotions are not God. Stop listening to them like they are.

Your emotions, and visceral bodily feelings are not designed to carry the burden of proof you put upon them. Yes, you! Stop looking around like you don’t know what I’m talking about.  Emotions were never and are still not infallible guidance systems like certain gurus (who are usually quite bright) stupidly say.

You actually need to think, not just feel. Despite what the shopping channel says.

Use your emotions as your major decision making tool and you are sunk.

Now, do you want to know why?

Let me set the scene. As we grow we experience bodily and mental ‘feelings’ as we experience current or think about past events. We win a race, everyone cheers, we see our parents smile, we get feelings we come to label as ‘good’ or ‘positive’. We also get feelings that are not so pleasant which we often label as ‘bad’ or ‘negative’.

These are mental classifications, ways we categorise our experience, and we then respond to those as if they were real when in fact they exist only in our body and mind.

Emotions are created in the psychological-physiological space between the way we think about the world and our actual experience of it. When we get what we expect we tend to feel the nicer emotions. When we get less than we expect or something different and unwanted we experience the ‘negative’ emotions.

Emotions, as a general rule, only tell us about OURSELVES and what already think. They are a feedback mechanism giving us the ‘temperate’ of our current thinking, so to speak.

To make this clearer I will quote Albert Ellis, author of the wonderful How to Stubbornly Refuse to Make Yourself Miserable about Anything Ever Again (Yes, ever).

“We feel our thoughts.”

There – that’s it in a nutshell.

We feel OUR thoughts. But we are not always AWARE of those thoughts – sometimes we have the feeling that “it just feels right.”

The UK has the highest rate of teenage pregnancy in Europe. Now, whilst I think part of that is due to the general decline of sensible moral boundaries (and yes, I do love my country!) the other reason is probably that “it felt right at the time”. Try telling that to the aborted babies, the children born outside a stable relationship. To be clear I am not down on single parents per se – I was raised by one.

But those children could have been born into better circumstances if the people involved were not thinking with their groins or with the awareness elevating participation of alchohol.

If we elevate good or bad feelings to the role of the deciding factor in our decisions we are setting ourselves up for trouble. Emotions, essentially exist as echoes of our thoughts manifested in the body (we are not just a body carrying a brain, our brain expresses its responses IN our body – what is called somatism) and they reflect our current thinking.

How can a feeling (however strong and labelled as ‘right’) evaluate the quality of a decision? How can it compare options, decide the worth of criteria?  How can it reason, eliminate, take different perspectives etc.

Its not designed to do that. It’s a symptom of a cause – the Energy in Motion (E-motion!) in your body proceeding from the thoughts you ALREADY have. Primarily using your emotions as your ‘yes’ or ‘no’ indicators cannot give you the quality of decision that learning to think things through can.

Emotions do work as information but a very poor quality information overall.  The quality of the feeling from ‘wonderful’ to ‘awful’ can only tell us about how we feel about a circumstance.

It does not evaluate the usefulness of that thinking in the first place.

Let me give you an example. I know someone who invested a great deal of money in a foreign property because it ‘felt right’. If this person had done their due-diligence (that is investigated and thought about the results of the investigation) on the company they used they would have found out that people worldwide were having terrible experiences with them, there were opposition groups and so on. Now he has had to take them to court for years and stands to get back maybe half of what he put in. For what?

35K lost for trusting a feeling?

Something to realise is the effect of ‘state dependency’ on our thinking. This occurs all the time. It means that:

“when you’re smiling…the whole world smiles with you”

…and when you’re in a bad mood anything someone says has the potential to be interpreted wrongly. Know someone you don’t want to meet on a bad day – that’s state dependency – their state of mind depends on their current mood.

This is another reason it’s not good to make decisions when you’re not in a good state of mind. What is ‘not a good state of mind?’

Too many good feelings lead to over-optimism.

…bad feelings …lead to stupid, impulsive decisions.

A clear headed objective state (not that such a thing really exists but one where you can think carefully about your choices!) is best.

Am I advocating becoming an emotionless robot? No, I am advocating treating emotions and feelings as the bodily function (haha!) that they are. It’s ok to check in with them (how do I feel about this?) AFTER you’ve thought it through.

What do I mean thinking it through?

The following is a list of healthy thinking styles (you can look up cognitive distortions on the net and find thousands of them):

Contextual Thinking: What, when, where, who, how? How much?

Both and thinking: win-win, combining options for the best result.

Reality testing thinking: What is actually happening? How is this really going to play out as opposed to how do I wish it will play out?

Responsibility thinking: How much of this am I responsible for? What am I not responsible for?

Tentative predictive thinking: What could happen? What might happen?

Perspective thinking: what is the point of view of other people involved? How does this look to me from the outside? What would an objective observer think?

… and many others.

There is a time when it’s useful to put emotions at cause. That is when you want to use them to boost your emotional state of mind. You can do this using the Meta-Stating Process designed by L. Michael Hall.

I give several powerful and useful examples of this in the Personal PowerPack which you can get at www.personal-powerpack.com/ppp.html . Here I teach you how to use emotions to build powerful states of self-acceptance, appreciation and esteem.

To your highest and best,

Douglas Cartwright

Don’t Forget To Follow PickTheBrain On Twitter!

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“Anyone here look like slave to you?”

In the eighties there was a hilarious BBC comedy sketch series called The Real McCoy and one of my favourite clips was from Miss Rees (Miserys!) West Indian Restaurant.

In one scene, a customer sits down and waits for the waitress to take his order. She rolls her eyes, sucks her teeth and asks “Anyone here look like slaaave to you?” (see video @ 3 minutes 31 onwards)

This lady knew she was beholden to no-one and took it to the extreme. But on a serious note, I think there is an awful lot of modern day slavery going on it our heads.

As Jean Jacques Rousseau said “Man is born free, but everywhere he is in chains.” Of course, I am talking about psychological chains and as the apostle Peter said in 2 Pet 2: 191 “a man is a slave to whatever has mastered him.”

What has mastered most of us? Ourselves. We have lied to ourselves about our lack of power and then forgotten that we believe a lie.

Lao Tzu said “He who conquers others is strong; he who conquers himself is mighty.  But I don’t see many people conquering themselves.

In fact, every day I see and hear people (and I don’t exclude myself entirely from this group) thinking and acting like slaves – to their limitations. It’s as Henry Ford said “Argue for your limitations and you’ll be sure to get them!”

The problem is that we don’t know that we’re slaves, because our minds, like the Matrix, have “pulled a world over our eyes”. That world, as Professor Michael Hall would describe it is our personal matrix of frames (a blanket term for every mental phenomenon from beliefs to values) that generates the illusion.

Our beliefs act like trance inducers, convincing us of their rightness plus they also act as what NLP Master Robert Dilts calls ‘attractors’ in that, like magnets, they attract proof of their own rightness.

And as a result, King Solomon said 3000 years ago “every man is right in his own eyes” and humans haven’t really changed since then.(Proverbs 21:2)

So, we have a problem. We are seemingly stuck inside our own ‘reality’, thinking that it is Reality. And it’s only a small step (up) in our minds to come to believe that our beliefs are True (rather than fallible re-presentations of the world around us)

This, as Hall says, is the structure of fundamentalism, to believe that our beliefs are real rather than ‘maps of the territory’. I presume this is how people convince themselves to strap bombs to themselves and blow themselves up in crowded places. Or maybe it’s just to the convinced there is no need for convincing. Don’t bother me with the facts – I know what I believe…? And before anyone comments, this is a problem common to everyone, not just those with particular religious beliefs…!

This stance also prevents change. If my beliefs about my inability to ‘run my own brain’ (and break out of slavery to my desires) are REAL and even worse, this is who I am, then the whole thing adds up to a self-induced sense of bondage.

So can we step back from mental slavery?

We are blessed with the ability to step back from our thoughts. NLPr’s refer to this as taking perceptual positions but its simply the ability to reflect on what we were just thinking. And it’s not a special skill, you don’t it all the time, don’t you? (and if you asked “Do I?”, you just did it!) It’s part of your God-given meta-cognition.

What most people don’t realise is that stepping back from your thoughts brings several powerful processes into play.

First, you gain a mental position of power. You can now, like a king or queen of your domain, evaluate whether or not these thoughts serve you.

This is because when you go above or ‘meta’ to your thoughts you gain the ability to bring transformative resources to bear on the content of your previous thoughts. This is not collapsing anchors, it’s meta-stating and it’s what I use to radically change peoples’ lives whilst coaching them.

When people say they are stuck I know they are not ACTUALLY stuck, they have just believed themselves into a corner that they have no options.

I’m going to let you into one of the secrets of running your own brain.

You can always step back and question the belief you think you can’t question or change.

And that is one of the secrets to breakthrough change.

Find the taboo belief, the one that seems most real, most who you ‘are’ (and don’t like) and question it. This takes a willingness to question the felt realness of your ‘reality’.

I am reading a wonderful book called the Art of Spiritual Discernment and it talks about our modern concept of truth (which seems to be very relative and conveniently means no-one can actually tell you do anything unless it’s your truth – sounds like a recipe for world anarchy to me!) and the concept of Truth.

I do believe that Truth exists. And that the Truth will set you free. Even if you don’t believe there is an Ultimate Truth I can prove in a small way that truth (what is real) is very important to you.

Go into a shop and quietly ask the assistant to give your friend the wrong change. Then get the assistant to argue “there is no truth” so there is no true right or wrong change…and step back.

Truth is important for not getting killed. Don’t drink the bottle with the skull and crossbones on it. Stay off the motorway.

It is also TRUE that you can make your own decisions. And you don’t have to obey other people. I am not arguing for non-co-operation or pure stupidity but as my wife says “other people want you to change to suit them, but they don’t want to change to suit you”.

I am also not arguing for a world free from moral boundaries. I believe, actually, that when we know our boundaries in all areas we become more free to be creative and actualise our potential. Ask Edward De Bono, creator of Lateral Thinking. He shows us that in many cases to make a creative leap we have to have a limit to leap over….!

Budhha said: “…he, indeed, who would conquer himself is the noblest victor”

So are you ready to conquer yourself?

Annoyed at putting up with your rubbish for so long? Don’t get even, get mad. As I have written elsewhere on this site, psychological energy (read strong emotion) is necessary to break free from the attractors.

So here’s some questions to annoy you and get that energy going.

• Ho much longer are you going to continue fighting for your right to be a slave?
• How much longer are you going to insist on this slave mentality?
• Why are you fighting so hard for your own weaknesses and lack of self-control?
• When are you going to make a decision to take responsibility for your decisions?

If you want help resetting your frames to unleash the best you there is, and to actualise your potential at work and at home request a free explore your breakthrough session at www.livingwords.net

Or if you want help building frames of strong esteeming, and ownership of your thoughts and feelings and actions and words – then get the Personal PowerPack at www.personal-powerpack.com

I hope you can start saying today: “Anyone here look like slaaave to you?”

Doug is a Meta-Coach in the field of Neurosemantics and has been helping professional career clients ‘live their words’ for the last few years. If you are interested in finding out more, visit www.livingwords.net or for his latest product (for the outrageous price of £19.95) which is called The Personal PowerPack (self-esteem and confidence building) go to www.personal-powerpack.com

Don’t Forget To Follow PickTheBrain on Twitter!

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In the hit film Inception Leonardo DiCaprio plays a man who can enter peoples’ dreams to steal corporate secrets. At one point (spoiler coming) he enters a businessman’s dream and is driving down a city street in a parade of cars when a 300-ton freight train juggernauts out of a side road and smashes into the lead car taking vehicles, asphalt and everything else with it….

If you are a people pleaser, then not only are you in a dream-world where you think others control you, but you are also in that lead car. And each time you give in to someone and compromise your dreams you get hit…hard.

In this article I’m going to introduce several ‘truths’ about the mindset that leads to people pleasing, the repercussions, and what you can do about it to keep yourself ‘on track’ (and the trains decommissioned or left in the sidings).

Truth 1:

It’s your train

Train, of course, is a metaphor for negative, unhelpful attitudes, beliefs and thinking patterns which ‘derail you’ from your chosen course of action. But unlike British Rail, or the New York Metro, you actually own these ‘trains’. I know it seems that they just career out of no-where and smash into your conscious but all that’s about to change. It’s time to apply the emergency break!

Try stepping back (mentally) and asking yourself:

• Do I have to tolerate this thinking pattern any longer than necessary?
• How long before I step up and take control of what I already own?
• Am I’m willing to claim ownership now?

‘People pleasing’ often comes from believing that other people have more authority than you; that when it comes down to the deciding vote between you and them – they have the final say. This is a thinking process often referred to as a meta-program – a set of instructions that operate meta – above’ – what you are consciously aware of. You can become aware of them, but most people don’t.

So unless you have taken ownership of your ‘train’ it will continue to ‘hit you’ without you knowing where or when to expect it.

Think of it this way. When you have a problem with someone else, when you call them a bully or an enemy your problem is not just with them. It is with your concept of them. You are classifying them and rejecting them according to your mental model of how they are behaving. Geddit?

Therefore, you have the power to reclassify people in your head. Recently, I decided I would not use the concept ‘enemy’ any more as it prevented me from looking at the situation objectively (I know all perception is subjective, but it helps me to think this way!)

As I did this, I remembered something I’d been taught: “People are not the problem, it’s the frames….” And remembering that all that stands between us is a difference of opinion and as a difference opinion doesn’t necessarily make someone ‘evil’ or someone to avoid, I feel a lot freer in my head. And I don’t hear the sound of a train approaching…!

Truth 2:

Runaway trains do damage all along the line

If you’ve ever seen a thriller with a runaway train then the destruction is often caused not just at the end (when the train inevitably goes off a cliff or bridge, or crashes through a station) but also along the line, hitting cars, level crossings and various other objects it comes into contact with.

It’s not just at the time you give in to others that the train hits you. Each time you say “Ok Frank, I’ll do it your way” you take a bashing to your self-confidence (btw – the ‘fidence’ in confidence comes from fidelity and means faith/truth in – so confidence refers to your ‘faith in’ something) and increase your reliance on others.

This means, further down the life-line, you’ll have grown less and less confident in your own ability to decide for yourself. This may lead to a lowering of self-esteem and even a questioning of your personal identity.

“Why aren’t I man enough to stand up to them?”

“I’m just a weak woman and I hate myself for it.”

Ask yourself:

“Am I prepared to put up with the long term consequences of doing what others want when it’s not what I want?”

Truth 3

There are other people on the train that hit you (and they don’t even know it)

And, sorry to say – you put them there. These are people you have given authority to boss you around, and then claim you can’t do anything about it.

Remember, it’s your train.

Leaving the train metaphor aside, a great way to find out where these people are (in your head) is to use the Social Panorama model. This is an NLP model that helps you understand how to move people around or shrink them down so they don’t bother you so much. There’s a book called the Social Panorama which teaches you about it, and there’s information on the internet that’ll get you started.

Question: Who put you in charge of me?

Truth 4:

There is no Train

It’s true. It’s all in your head. Just as there is no spoon, there is no train.

The last truly great dream-world film was the Matrix (also good is the 13th Floor, 1999) where humanity was locked into a computer-generated illusion and didn’t know it. Those who broke free could re-enter the Matrix with the power to bend and break the rules of the system, and fight the Agents of the system that originally seemed undefeatable.

In real life, those Matrix rules are the mental rules you live by. These are the rules of society you have consciously or unconsciously adopted. When you change the rules, you change the game, right? If you take the ladders out of snakes and ladders, it’s a whole different game…! If you tackle the key ideas that make up your train, you can make it fall apart in a matter of minutes. A great coach can help you do this, or you could start with a book like Cognitive Behavioral Therapy by Avy Joseph which is not really about therapy but absolutely superb for busting beliefs.

Truth 5: HOW TO STOP YOUR TRAIN

Simple. You just stand in front of it and shout stop with every bit of refusal and aggression you can manage. I know you fear you’ll get pasted across the windscreen like a bug or crushed under the wheels but that’s just the way your mind works. It’s not real, remember. Repeat that as it approaches…it’s not real…it’s not real.

To dissipate the train, you just need to decide that it’s not a train (problem) any more OR that you’re not going to let it run on your mental tracks. You are the Fat Controller (only Thomas fans will get that one.)

Rise up in your mind to a place where you feel you could make a good decision from (or have made a good decision in the past). Then ask yourself if you’d eat a plate of squirming maggots in rancid flesh. Feeling the NO WAY? Then take that feeling and apply it to your ‘thought-train’. Again and again until that thought breaks up and feels like it’s not an issue any more.

This is a real technique known as the meta-no technique and is a staple belief change of the field of Neurosemantics

To summarize…

Obviously I have used a metaphor to suggest that letting others run your brain for you is unhealthy, and an illusion at best. It’s not easy to challenge what feels so real in your own neurology but seriously, for the sake of your dreams and sanity I urge you to give it a go. Here’s a hint: don’t wait until you feel strong enough to do it because you probably never will.

And if you need help scrapping your train, contact me.

To your highest and best,

Doug Cartwright

Doug is a Meta-Coach in the field of Neurosemantics and has been helping professional career clients ‘live their words’ for the last few years. If you are interested in finding out more, visit www.livingwords.net or for his latest product (for the outrageous price of £10) which is called The Personal PowerPack (self-esteem and confidence building) go to www.personal-powerpack.com

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Photo credit: 42andBlackWatch

Power: What a subject.

We all desire power to varying degrees whether we call it ‘power’ or ‘control’ or something else; whether or not it’s ‘power’ over ourselves or ‘power’ over others; power to do good, power to do evil, power to create, power to destroy…and so on.

We are fascinated by the subject.

• We write about it:

“Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.” -Lord Acton

• We sing about it.

“I got the power!” -The Hit Crew

• We study those who exercise it in one form or another.

“The new ruler must determine all the injuries that he will need to inflict. He must inflict them once and for all.” – Niccolo Machiavelli

Ultimately, despite all this attention paid, there is one foundational ‘power’ – that many of us lack and want and need more of.

Need a clue? Read the following quotes:

“He who controls others may be powerful, but he who has mastered himself is mightier still”

Lao Tzu quotes (Chinese taoist Philosopher, founder of Taoism, 600 BC-531 BC)

“Most powerful is he who has himself in his own power.”

Seneca (5 BC – 65 AD)

It is, of course, one’s personal power.

Your personal power relates how to how much you are able to consciously use your tools of consciousness:

Thinking: (T)Frames: beliefs, decisions, expectations, values etc

Emotions(E): visceral feelings with cognitive labels. We can feel a feeling in the body and name it anger, joy etc but we can also have ‘meta-feelings’ which have no specific location: self-esteem, proactivity, courage etc

Speaking(S): the words, non-verbal sounds that come out of our mouths

Behaving(B): your ownership and control of your body, your actions, direction of motor skills etc

If you don’t feel like you own your own (T-E-S-B), if you feel ‘out of control’; if you feel like others push your buttons, if you are a people pleaser, a scut-monkey for the desires of others – then you lack the perception that your personal power is your own.

Because the truth is, that you never lack personal power. You simply lack awareness that it already is yours and already is under your control. You just don’t believe it.

Think through the logic.

Every day you use your T-E-S-B to get up, go to work, speak to friends, argue with shop assistants, and make dinner.  You think about what you will and won’t do, feel what you feel and either vent or take deep breathes.

You already use what you think you don’t have.

So the issue is not, not having the power, but rather you perceive/feel like you can’t/don’t have it at certain times and in certain places.

Our attention gets diverted by our beliefs about what we can and cannot do, by the strength of our reactions to the reactions of other people.

What drives these reactions?

I want to say first that I spent YEARS looking for ways to feel more powerful in myself. Years of my life, thousands of hours, thousands of pounds, and more self-help junk than I could give away.

But I discovered that the basic reason for feeling powerless is feeling not worthy as a person, and feeling not able to cope with what life throws at us.

When we don’t feel worthy as a human being, when we feel we are bad, like we don’t have the right to exist, like we are nothing there is almost no greater pain.

We spend our time worrying about what others think but the truth is that we are worrying what WE think about ourselves. We exercise what power we think we have protecting ourselves from ourselves and what we think others think!

I find a lot of people in self-help circles don’t believe in God as the Bible describes so I’m going to keep this simple.

I do, and believing that He created me in His own image, and that what He created (me) is ‘very good’ (Gen 1:x). Thus, I have an inward affirmation of an outward perception of my Value from Someone who knows. And I am very secure about my Value.

However, whilst I wish more people would believe in God it is not necessary to do so in order to believe in your value. You can believe in the unconditional worth of human beings per se and set that frame about your Self.

Doing so tends to remove the worry about your worth because you are esteeming yourself.

And when you’re not worrying about that you can concentrate on the next part, which is the usage of your ‘tools of consciousness.’

Susan Jeffers, author of Feel the Fear and Do it Anyway, says that the number one fear we have is the fear of not being able to cope.

Neuro-Linguistic-Programming teaches a general(lie)sation that we have all the resources we need to do what we need to do.

Therefore, we all have the brain power, muscle tone, voice boxes, and mental imagery to reaffirm that we ARE in control.

Personal power involves taking that assumption and exercising self-control, taking responsibility for your response-ability, and being accountable FOR yourself and TO your relationships with others.

This all starts with (re)acknowledging ownership over our God-given tools of consciousness.

How can we do this?

One effective way is with the Neurosemantics Ownership pattern. It’s too long to print here but you can get it as part of the Personal PowerPack at www.livingwords.net/ppp.html

“One person with a belief is equal to a force of 99 who have only interests.”

John Stuart Mill (1806 – 1873)

I will give you a clue, however.

• What do you feel is totally yours?
• What is so yours that no-one could take away from you?

Imagine feeling that strongly about your thoughts.

• Or imagine a time when you were about t say something harsh but you paused, thought, and decided to say something different.

That’s an example of using your personal power.

There are a great deal of different reasons why people don’t feel personally powerful.

The reason we don’t feel esteemed and don’t feel in control often come from historical factors involving our upbringing and lack of positive affirmation from parents etc.

But it doesn’t have to stay that way. If you are prepared to hear it, those memories exist today with a date stamp of five, ten and more years on them.

We don’t have to live out of old frames of reference any more. How does it help you at 25 to be using them thinking of a 7 year old? Because that is how many people feel.

I challenge you not to stay this way. Challenge what seems to be true, what seems to be real where feeling ‘out of control’ is concerned. Get angry and change. Or get someone else to help you do it. If you’re going to change any part of the world, change yourself first.

Douglas Cartwright is the ‘live your words’ coach from Living Words Coaching and Training. If you are interested in ‘re-booting’ your sense of personal Power, get the Personal PowerPack from www.livingwords.net/ppp.html or sign up for a free explore your breakthrough session at www.livingwords.net/freeintro.html

Don’t Forget To Follow PickTheBrain on Twitter!

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