Word Power

POSITIVE TRIGGERS

Having the correct use of language to describe things is important for evoking positive or negative reactions. It's why advertising agencies are populated with very clever people all trying to tap into our emotions to sell us stuff we don't really need.

We are all swayed and primed by words. Just watch an Apple keynote address for how skilled their marketing folks are at marketing technology to us. See how the language used can whip up a frenzy for products that are marginally different to the previous versions. These products are not going to radically improve anyone's lives. Arguably, they don't even warrant ditching the previous version and splashing out on a 'new' one. Yet that's what I've witnessed many times. A friend, when asked recently why she wanted the latest top spec iPhone 6s over her top spec iPhone 6, quipped 'It looks amazing, I just want one' - she doesn't even know why - let alone what the new phone's features do over and above what her existing phone does. 

Negative Triggers

Just in the same way that we can be swayed and cajoled to part with hard-earned cash, we can also have our moods affected by negative words. 

One of the worst offenders for making the mistake of priming us with negative thoughts, are doctors. The medical profession is full of official-looking, uniform-wearing 'experts'. And hearing a diagnosis from a health professional (an assumption based on knowledge gained from what has been before), can either fill the recipient with hope or fear. Research has shown where priming has either given greater success for recovery or helped condemn patients to a worse fate. 

The way we label things, grouping them into clusters and badging all under the same terrible banner without clearly making distinctions, arguably causes a lot of grief in those that are sick/unwell. 

For example, Cancer is always said to be 'in remission' instead of healed, so the very language implies that this disease is still there and ready to come back at any time. The use of language in this instance is very important to retain a positive mindset and something to be addressed/improved in the medical field. 

Counter Clockwise is another one of those books (alongside The Logic of Lying), that needs to be read by everyone if we are all going to better understand how our mind is open and receptive to good or bad messages, which, depending on how we choose to interpret them, can be for our greater detriment or benefit.  

First Privileges

EARLY BIRD CATCHES THE WORM

Getting up that bit earlier, getting to the venue that bit before you need to and turning up at the place/occasion/event before everyone else, means picking the best seats, getting that spot on the beach, best spot in the gym class, advantageous position at the table and extra time for sussing out the lay of the land - to gain any other potential benefits that are there to be had. 

I used to be in the camp of turning up just in the nick of time (but often arriving late) and foolishly thought that I was making the best use of my time by running everything close to the wire. This I have now learned, has been way off the mark. Rushing around all the time means higher stress levels, poor overall experience, scattered/low quality memory of the events we're dashing from-to plus a reputation for being unreliable and for holding everybody else up. 

Take It With You

A lot of our tasks to be completed these days, involve being near a computer. With a smart phone or tablet, we have the ability to talk while we walk/drive and tools to communicate travelling on public transport, or do any of the tasks that require computer/comms equipment, that can either be actioned en route, or on location - completed during the quality free time remaining before the event has started. 

Get Ahead Of Your Head

It's so obvious, yet, I see people (myself included) rushing to do things at home/work - 'just 5 minutes more...' - things that can be done whilst travelling or after arriving where we're going to. But we can't see it at the time. Yet, just getting up that bit earlier gives us an advantage on our brains. Because we have extra time to assess the day, reason with priorities to be done at that moment and brain capacity to just stop for a moment and think 'can this be done on the way or later?'. It's so simple, I can't believe it's ever missed and yet this Eureka moment is such a flash of revelation once realised. Every time I recognise the option to just put off what can be done while on the go or later on, I feel a gift of time being regained, which in turn helps me to relax more and enjoy being in the moment. These revelations usually come to me when I've started the day earlier and less so when I'm on a back foot - ie. frantically trying to play catch up with all my tasks. Putting off the unimportant tasks to allow time to get ahead of myself, makes all the difference between having a stressful as opposed to a rewarding and enjoyable day. 

Back To Basics

PAINTY FENCE

Re-learning simple tasks like walking or painting can be therapeutic and rewarding. We can see these actions for the simple movements that they are but if we study them closer, focussing on the flow of each movement, the engagement of our muscle motor neurons to produce delicate & intricate steps/strokes, we can see the true beauty in such basic motions that we are able to produce with our bodies.

Making each footstep slow and deliberate is a form of meditative yoga practice, as is the focus on breathing. If we think of movements as a way to connect with the air and earth, each movement has more significance in what we do.

Painting brush strokes can also be focussed on to quieten the busy mind and allow clarity to come through. Because when every stroke is applied carefully and deliberately, we can immerse ourselves in the 'now' moment. It's amazing to see that also practicing deliberate yoga breathing techniques while painting, a state of zen can be entered, equal to that felt while doing a martial art like Qi Gong. I don't think my painting partner was aware of these thoughts while singing along to a tune from Kiss FM....Still, I'm reminded of a great scene from an '80's film that relays these thoughts perfectly. 

After having such a frantic work life in an office for many years where I was caught up in so many mindfully stressful situations, I've now managed to find working pleasurable again, at the end of a brush. 

I've deliberately taken a very low-brow, low-stress, low-responsibility position in my current role - my only focus being on the painting. How rich and rewarding this position has been, seeing the immediate results of my work manifest in front of my eyes all the while leaving my mind to be free from noise. 

While I am able to continue working this way, It's my aim to invest my full attention to this new painting task, just as the sushi apprentice does repeatedly, in perfecting the rice for their master over many years. 

Wasted Talent

TALENT WITHOUT DISCIPLINE

Kirkland Laing had a gift. He was a naturally talented boxer who took on and beat the legendary boxer Roberto Duran in 1982. Kirkland, a Jamaican immigrant from Nottingham, who grew up in the poor parts of East London, had the prospect of becoming a success as one of the greatest British boxers, which would have brought Kirkland fame and fortune. But, Kirkland was someone who did things his own way and despite the best intentions of those closest to him to curb his partying antics (often going at it hard the night before a bout), he managed to blow his money and any future of making the millions of pounds so deserved of a gifted fighter. After beating Duran, he went on a year-long partying spree at the point when he should have focussed on becoming a world champion. Kirkland eventually slipped into obscurity, filling his days with gambling, drink and drugs. He could have taken a different path, but he lacked an important tool that talent needs in order to shine out - self-discipline.

Kirkland talked in this video about one day giving up his partying ways and writing a book on his life. A book has been written, but not by Laing. It's called 'The Gifted One' by Oliver Jarrett. This story of greatness unrealised is the same story we all can have played out in our lives if we allow it. Planning out our fun times to fit around much needed work focus can be achieved through having daily assessments and checks, insuring we never lose track of our intended life path.

Even The Greatest Minds Slip Up

WE ARE ONLY HUMAN

We cannot be perfect all the time. Don't be so hard on yourselves! Even the great sages slip up. The most inspirational of people like Ghandi, Mandella and even Jesus, have all strayed from the path.

Every day, we make decisions, which, based on our temperament, can be poorly executed through lack of sleep, hunger, stress and factors out of our control. 

The key is to recognise when anger, frustration and negative emotions are affecting decisions and those around us and try to make a correction or apologise for our unwarranted behaviour.

Making a note of the times when we are clearly not at our best and identifying why these behaviours have occurred, can help us to better manage moods and unlock hidden stressors that are the catalysts for any sharp, reactionary emotional outbursts. 

We should take these moments as a positive - because, it's when we see what underlines these behaviours that we can act and make the greatest improvements for personal growth.  

Punctuality

CLOCK WATCHING

Being mindful of the time can mean a lot. Want to do well at work? Be punctual. Because, just being on time is all that some people will ever ask of you.

Being on time, sends out the message of professionalism and respect. Punctuality means consideration for others' needs will be met. Precision and attention to details - a consistency for doing hard work and reliability. This will be the message received - all without doing anything other than being somewhere when you say you will be. 

Getting into the habit of being on time, takes nothing more than setting a time and then sticking to it. Yet many cannot keep to something so very simple. This because they have become used to throwing out excuses why they are late. 

Blaming Others

We all do it. If we can shoulder blame elsewhere, we will - especially on our partners. It makes us think we're doing the right thing and someone else isn't, when in fact, the partnership is mutually flawed. Thing is, when timings are mentioned without consideration for factoring in the needs of the other parties involved, we tend to allow time slippage to happen without making prior allowances for it. So, once a time has been agreed, this agreement should also make allowance for some contingency too. That way, unforeseen circumstances can be adjusted for and countered against without the need for blame. The contingency plan means we'll still be on time too.

Removing the Badge

I've been late on many occasions and so has my partner. Without realising it, we've now allowed ourselves to become labelled as those people who are constantly late. It's become expected of us. My partner will blame me and me her. And no matter how hard I now try to be on time, this label has become firmly fixed. Because we are one unit in our friend's eyes, we are both tarred with the same brush and it will take a lot of hard work for us both to remove this slight on our characters.

Consistency is the Key
If I'm to remove my always late badge - I need to first establish clear timings in advance. This starts from the moment I wake up. Deciding the night before on having a clear time to get up plus establishing a mutual & definite morning routine for exercise, eating, ablutions and preparation for the day, means a routine (with some factored-in contingency) can easily be set and adhered to without deviations from the set timings. 

If this structure can be retained over days/weeks - the chances of sticking to it over longer periods of time will be increased and a new focus on sticking to timings will be established. 

Definite Timings

Agreement in advance is paramount for keeping good timings. We now have shared diaries for collaborative events. Timings are there for all to see. So if they aren't working, this needs to be addressed. If timings cannot be mutually kept, then individual times need to be established. If only one member of the partnership is on time, it's still a late blip in the eyes of the third party. So agree definite times even if they are staggered and be clear with whoever is meeting up that these are agreeable for all. 

I pledge to always be on time (from today)

Be serious about this new pledge to make it stick. I've now told myself that the new regime will be started from today. This has also been agreed with all parties concerned (namely, my partner). And just like a business contract, this will be continually assessed to ensure punctuality is adhered to from this day onwards. 

Justification

JUST BECAUSE

There's always a reason for why. We don't just follow blindly, we do all the things we do because we justify them in our minds first. Of course we do, we're rational beings, right? When we action a task, we would first have thought about the reasons for doing it - and after, made a justification why it's a good idea or not. Turns out, this isn't the case. We don't always have a good reason why because the word 'because' is all we need. And you'll see how many times I've used this word to justify in this post alone!

The copy machine study

A study was conducted in 1977 by Helen Langer, 'The Mother of Mindfullness' where she asked her research assistants to jump the line at the photocopier, asking just three questions to those in the queue. The answers to these questions showed that by having a justification - whether it made sense or not, was all that was needed. The results from her studies into behaviour were groundbreaking in that they help us to understand why we make decisions - good or bad. She has also made extensive studies about the illusion of control, ageing and mindfulness theory - and a book written in 2009 which I'll be adding to my reading list called, Counter Clockwise: Mindful Health and the Power of Possibility.

I've just read about this experiment with the Xerox machine on another one of James Clear's fantastic blog posts. It shows quite simply, how we'll allow decisions to be made even if there's no rational reason for making them. 

So what does that really mean for us making our plans for improvements?

It means that we have to constantly check our own reasoning and always question the thinking and opinions from so-called experts. There's so many ways to be caught out with marketing, popular opinion/trends, dogma/propaganda - it's all down to us at the end of the day - so if our own brains are deceiving us...we're not going anywhere. And worse - if left un-checked, this deceit can fix strong ideas in our minds that affect the rest of our thinking and we become inflexible to new ideas. 

It's really interesting once you understand that we are capable of making bad/unreasonable decisions. Because we can then see how it's possible to make more decisions & excuses based on these previously made decisions which have become cemented in our minds once we've justified them to ourselves as the truth.

Important decisions
We make many decisions throughout our day. Some of these are clearly very important like 'Is it a good time to cross the road? - yes it is, because I've checked and the road is clear'. Other thoughts are harder to make a clear decision on because they feature lower down on our priority list for important tasks. We'll have a set of possible outcomes which require more thought power/time and often in this position, we'll lazily attach a decision to these lower actions - using the higher more important decisions as a basis for justification. So, in this example: Should I get up early today? It's a decision we make based on having many positive outcomes that we know of - but unless there's a fire in the house, it comes down to making a reason why every day - and we get up purely because of that decision. Therefore, If we have a clear important reason that we can use to manage lower ranking ones - we stick to that one without question...we just need a positive & important reason.

Down tools syndrome

Yesterday, I woke with the alarm at my usual time of 5am and it was clearly not enough sleep for that day. So I justified staying in bed a little longer and that ended up being 'til 7am. It's ok. My reasoning was sound - I'm feeling a bit off-par at the moment and a bit of extra sleep will be good for me to recover from a slight cold. It's a decision to get more sleep rather than wake up so early when I don't really have to for life-saving reasons and therefore halting the cold from getting any worse.

The bit that's not ok. I then used this important reasoning to stop me doing my jobs. One by one they came up and I pushed them back/postponed and cancelled them - because I had to avoid getting a cold. It was amazing to observe this behaviour in myself - like having a health & safety officer in my head! He was shutting down the factory because of a potentially serious threat to the workers when all that was required was a temporary adjustment to the working hours. Luckily, the managers who make decisions on important factors like making money, are in a position of power to question why, because they've been known to be right on many occasions before, so my factory stayed open and I was very quickly up and running on full capacity again. 

To stay on top of these thought processes to ensure we do the things that are benefitting us the most - we just need to have a high level priority 'why' at the forefront of our minds. 

The School of Life

LEARNING HOW TO LIVE

It always amazes me when I observe how supposedly intelligent and 'wise' people are doing things that are not beneficial to themselves or anyone else. They're stubbornly stuck in their ways because they truly believe they know what is right - when clearly there are better more beneficial ways to do things...if one looks hard enough. A lot of people chose the easy and lazy option and it seems to be the older, well-educated and outwardly respected folk that get stuck in their ways the most. They don't like to have their thinking challenged and they stop learning & growing as a consequence.

Watching some more of Alain De Botton's short documentaries and reading The Consolations of Philosphy again, I've learned another truth today - we have to understand that failure and hardship are to be embraced as a way to improve ourselves. We should abandon comfort for true fulfilment. Nietzche said, 'That what does not kill me - only makes me stronger'. This is why, I've pushed myself in the gym, when I could have stayed at home - this is why I get out of bed early when I could so easily stay in bed and why I chose to avoid the comfort zone.

Another one of Alain De Botton's projects, The School of Life, has some great courses and a helpful list of good reads for better understanding how to live life. I cycled past it the other day. It's located in one of my most favourite areas of London - Bloomsbury. It's well worth having a look at the website, even if it's just for some reference for what to read. Alain also has his TV documentaries, Ted talks etc. on there too, which you can watch for free. You can learn about another great project Alain's involved with, Living Architecture - where you can book a room at some fantastic properties in the UK.

Mindfulness

BEING AWARE

Look around you. How many people are aware of their surroundings? Who's switched on & savvy and who's present in the moment? Not many. And that's because most people are somewhere else while they go about their day. The way you can tell is to look people in the face. They should be able to pick up your gaze even with only their peripheral vision, but a lot of people will not even see you looking at them if you're directly in their field of vision. These are life's sleepwalkers. 

A lot of the time, we slip into our autopilot mode - the threat of danger is low and we either switch off completely or we allow this time to think of banal thoughts, like what's for dinner etc. Sure, having a nice tea is good but why not keep your mind primed and really focus on making your thoughts more effective instead? I found some great techniques for developing your situational awareness which will help you to remember places, people and events - boost memory and elevate levels of consciousness. I'm already realising how important meditation is for setting up your mind after waking and before sleeping - and these extra techniques should help for memory retention.

Practicing a little bit of self-awareness every day is great for improving observation of the world around us. What I'd also like to do at some point in the near future, is dig deeper to really get to know myself by taking a very powerful course at a silent retreat. The participants stay still and silent for 10 days and in this time discover many things about themselves. It's called Vipassana meditation and there are centres all around the world. The centres, funded by donations only, are becoming very popular as more people choose to learn about themselves, so advance booking at one of these centres is often required. 

Being a very active person - my mind races all over the place, so, Very likely, it is going to be tough for me to remain quiet and meditate for so many hours but I've read about people getting some amazing results by stripping away all the noise and getting to know who they truly are. 

Amazing People

POWER OF THE MIND

There's some extraordinary people out there who are doing things that defy science and logic. Ram Bomjon Gadhi is one of those people. I was looking up some info today on meditation as it's something I'd like to introduce into my day, when I stumbled upon this boy and was so transfixed, I ended up watching the entire documentary. The BBC initially visited India, in order to film Ram over a few days. They wanted to see if the meditation and boy's alleged divinity was all just an elaborate hoax because there were claims the boy had remained in the same mediative state without food or water for 10 months. Ram was actually planning on meditating for 6 years as did Budha, who was born very close to Ram in the same area of India. The documentary discusses with 'professionals' the life-threatening symptoms we would normally expect to see when a person stops taking nourishment for only a few days. We get to hear from other holy men that have supposedly gone without any food or drink for many years. There appears to be no solid scientific explanations for any of these amazing feats of endurance and ability to exert such control over the body.

The power of meditation

I've watched another powerful documentary recently about prisoners in one of America's toughest jails, who have taken up Buddhism. The story follows the lives of some of the most violent and dangerous prisoners as they use their House of Healing meditation techniques for self-healing and to face up to their demons. The documentary, The Dhamma Brothers, is available on Youtube and Netflix. 

There are some things that we just cannot explain through science. The world is a wondrous place and there's so many amazing people in it. There's stuff we'll never understand and if these prisoners have shown me anything - it's re-affirmation that we have the capacity to look inwards and never too late to make great changes. I believe we should help our prisoners find themselves again and allow them the chance to give back to society. If this means they do good things from the confines of a cell - ie. too much of a risk and never to be released or if they are non serious offences and can be re-educated in order to work again within society - it's going to be better than just locking them up. 

Fine Dining at Brixton Prison 

I'm going to check out The Clink over the next week or two - which is a charity that supports prisoners by educating them to work in kitchens. There has been a huge success rate for lowering the re-offence figures of those that have taken the programme. 

The Supernatural

Seeing as I was drawn to supernatural feats this morning - I also watched another interesting documentary called The Boy Who Lived Before, about a boy who claimed to have been re-incarnated. It was pretty eerie stuff - and there were so many coincidences in this documentary that it's given some good reason to believe that reincarnation is real...