Think Smarter!

Recent science is showing that most of our thinking travels along well-worn pathways in the brain.  It’s much easier to keep thinking in the old ways than to go off-road, so to speak, and go in new directions.

The problem with old ways of thinking is that since action follows thought, if we don’t change the way we think, we’re going to get to the same old places. But, how to change the nay-saying that goes on in our minds and stops us?

Brain Exercises!

Today I have some ‘brain’ exercises to help you. Start by choosing something that you usually think of as difficult. Don’t choose something that’s hugely difficult, just something that’s moderately difficult. Also choose something you can do soon, so you can test out the effects of the exercise I’m about to give you. I’m going to choose making dinner because I’m tired and it’s feeling hard to think about going down to the kitchen to make something.)

7 Steps to Brain Fitness:

Step 1:  Create a picture of you doing this something easily.

Step 2:  Freeze frame an image of that coming true.

Step 3:  Make the picture hugely brighter. Imagine you have a dial and that you can turn up the brightness big time. Do that.

Step 4:  Imagine the size of the picture you have in your brain and make it 5 times bigger so the image is right in your face.

Step 5:  Imagine the feelings of satisfaction in your body being huge, swelling through your entire body.

Step 6:  Step into that picture in your mind. Let it be a ‘live’ picture now and hear what you would be hearing, feel what you would be feeling, see what you would be seeing.

Step 7:  Test this out as soon as you can.

As for me, I just did this exercise on my ‘making dinner’ difficulty. I’m noticing that I feel a LOT more positive and energetic about making dinner and am going to do this right now!

Before I go, just let me say that this exercise is like a lot of the exercises in the 40-day online course, ‘Change Your Energy, Change Your Life’. If you want to try the first 10 days at no charge, click HERE!

Today I want to illustrate my point about ‘helping others’ through a powerful story. I know you’re going to be moved by it, just as I was.  Before reading it, please accept my apologies for not posting an article in so long. I was getting a book off to the publisher~! Here’s the story!

A Powerful Story About Helping Others:

It was 1942 and Sussi Penzias, a young Jewish woman who’d fled Nazi Germany, was traveling alone, hoping to remain unnoticed. Since she’d arrived in Italy three years earlier, she’d been moving from place to place, hiding from the authorities. Now she was on her way to yet another safe house in a new town.

Suddenly, the door at the end of the train car swung open and two police officers came in. Sussi’s heart beat wildly. They were wearing the black uniform of the Fascisti, the government police. To Sussi’s horror, the policemen began making their way down the aisle, stopping at every row to examine the papers of each passenger.

Sussi knew that as soon as the policemen discovered she had no papers, she would be arrested and sent to a concentration camp, where she would face unimaginable suffering and almost certain death.

The officers were getting closer, just a few rows away. There was no escape. It was only a matter of minutes before they would reach her seat. Sussi began to tremble uncontrollably, and tears slid down her cheeks.

The man sitting next to her noticed her distress and politely asked her why she was crying.

“I’m Jewish and I have no papers,” she whispered, hardly able to speak.

To her surprise, a few seconds later the man began shouting at her, “You idiot! I can’t believe how stupid you are! What an imbecile!”

The police officers, hearing the commotion, stopped what they were doing and came over. “What’s going on here?” one of them asked. Sussi began crying even harder.

The man turned a disgusted face to the policemen and said, “Officers, take this woman away! I have my papers, but my wife has forgotten hers! She always forgets everything. I’m so sick of her. I don’t ever want to see her again!”

The officers laughed, shaking their heads at the couple’s marital spat, and moved on.

With a selfless act of caring, the stranger on the train had saved Sussi’s life. Sussi never saw the man again. She never even knew his name.

Helping Others IS Helping Ourselves:

Sometimes we, as small business owners or just as people, can be so focused on getting our own goals met, that we forget the bigger purpose of our lives and our work.

I have fallen into this trap many times by fashioning my goals in terms of how much money I want to make or how many clients I want to have. I notice, however, that when I switch my focus to helping others, the questions change.

Questions That Reflect Helping Others:

If I turn my focus to helping others, I start asking, ‘How many people can I help this week?” or to “How Can I Serve My Clients Better”. I have noticed time and time again that really good things start to happen in my work and in my personal life when I move my focus from what I want to ‘get’ to what I want to ‘give’. Others notice and trust me more and that’s vital for ALL my relationships, personal Or professional.

Try it yourself. Focus on helping others for a while by concentrating on what you can GIVE!

Here is a quick, but wonderful exercise to help you boost your Self-Confidence:

Step #1: Boost Your Self-Confidence:

Vision Yourself:  Imagine that you’re dreaming and you can look at yourself how you are right now-where you’re sitting, what you’re wearing, how you’re holding yourself, what you’re thinking and feeling.  Be as honest as possible with yourself, visualizing every detail. Rate your current level of self-confidence between 1 and 10, 1 being low and 10 being high.

Step #2: Upgrade Your Vision:

Now, start removing any negative aspects of your self-image, brightening it up with positive images. Make yourself look more powerful, stronger, more confident, more sure of yourself. You may only make a few small changes, but create an image of yourself in your mind that accentuates all the positive traits you know you have. If you feel your smile is good, focus on that in your self-image. Rate your level of confidence in this vision.

Step 3:  Super-Size Your Self Confidence:

We all know what it’s like to focus on all the small negative things–our big teeth perhaps, or some personality trait we don’t like. But, do the exact opposite here. Blow up those positive traits to super-size proportions and hold this image in your mind.

Step 4: Compare the Images:

Now put your two images next to each other, placing the person you reflexively see against the person you want to see. In the next few weeks, just keep focusing on the second image, not the first. Take actions to actualize this new self into the world–for example, wear the clothes this new self-confident you would wear, take the stance, use the language and take the actions your expanded self would take. Let the vision of this new self show you the way!
If you wanted to be stronger physically, you’d do some strength training. You wouldn’t expect new physical strength to just  happen. It’s the same with self-confidence. This exercise is like a bench press for self-confidence. Use it over and over again and watch your self-confidence grow.

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SPECIAL REQUEST:

I have just started a fan page for Personal Best Coaching in Facebook. If you like this article, would you go to http://www.personalbest.org and click the ‘Thumbs Up’ thing in the box that says “Find us on Facebook’? THANKS!  K.

I believe humanity is at the same place. We’ve moved into a very special time on the planet where learning is not optional. It’s “Evolve or Die” for us too. I know that’s a strong thing to say, but I believe it’s true. But growing up is fun too and offers us all kinds of new opportunities.

So, even if you’re reluctant to learn something new, persist anyway. And enjoy this video!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QpTqV6LPl8c

Or phrases like, “The reality is…”, or “The truth is….”

I use them too from time to time, but I’m trying not to.

Why? Because the older I get, the more I realize that life is essentially a mystery and I’m less inclined to want to box it up into anything firm or fixed. I’m more interested these days in letting it be the deliciously fluid thing that it is!

Don’t get me wrong, part of me would ‘absolutely’ love to nail ‘life’ down into some sort of certainty, but I can see that my wanting of that is more about my own need to create a sense of stability than anything else. (Eckhart Tolle says this is the small ego-based self trying to shore up its sense of importance).  If I really acknowledged how uncertain it is and let my language reflect that, I might have to face some fear.

Lately, however, I’ve been experiencing the advantages of not knowing. First of all, it’s more fun ‘not to know’. Allowing myself ‘not to know’ lets me be a learner and once I do that, life becomes much more of an adventure. It also becomes more exciting and makes me feel more alive!

That’s one of the reasons I love September–it’s a time of expansion, a time to pick up some new skills or interests. That’s not only fun to do, but it’s good for the healthy functioning of the brain!

So how about taking that sculpture course you’ve seen advertised? Or what about learning Spanish? Or signing up for that screenplay weekend? Whatever it is, let yourself be a learner.

And if you want to learn how to do a website, here’s a course I can highly recommend. It’s Christina Hill’s Website Creation Workshop. You take it online and there’s videos and a live classroom each week where she reviews your student project. I learned so much in this course that I was able to revamp one website and do another from scratch. But the BEST part, was that the learning was easy and fun. There was no techie language or steep learning curve and I love that I can now manage my own site(s).

Anyway, if you’re interested, tomorrow, August 26th at 2 pm (EST), she hosting a free webinar called ‘Planning Your Website’.  In the ‘class’, you’ll get to ‘meet’ Christina and learn about WordPress. To register for the course, click HERE!

Or, to check out the course on it’s own, go HERE!

Or, here’s the URL:

http://thewebsitecreationworkshop.com/a/?af=1079349

Happy learning!

In my opinion,  we probably all have many Future Selves –I expect that they sit on the shelf of time like a a set of DVD’s, just waiting for us to pick one and play it on the screen of our lives. What we pick is, of course, up to us.

The Future Self I want to pick or maybe ‘activate’, for myself (and for others,) is the one that describes the BEST possibility of myself, the one that would be the fullest expression of all I could be.

The question is, how would one activate this possible self?

For me, I realized the first step was to get to know this BFS better. To do that, I had to spend some time sensing what she feels like–her core energetic, so to speak. After a few tries, I was able to write down a list of characteristics that described my Best Future Self.  She is:
* radiantly calm
* deeply trusting of her deep value
* wise
* has an air of incredible nourishment
* expansive

Overall, her energy is similar to that of the Dalai Lama. (Blush!)

Once I had the list of her attributes,  I started aligning myself with these characteristics.  As often as I can, I think the thoughts, feel the emotions, and do the activities that are most in alignment with the energetic of my Best Future Self.

It’s feeling wonderful.

In this way, I am bringing the future into the present. Or, maybe we’re meeting somewhere in between. As I reach forward to her, I feel her reaching backwards to me. It feels as if we’re becoming a team. I have asked her for more information about how to bring my Now Self into greater alignment with her and got a clear sense that she’s willing to advise me. I’ll report as we go!

What does YOUR Best Future Self feel like?

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RESOURCE:

At my new website: http://www.happinessanyway.com, I’ve posted a whole bunch of meditations that you can do just by clicking on them. I’ve kept them purposely short so you can do them quickly and easily. Each and every one of them will help you modulate your energy. CLICK HERE for quick access. I’d love to know how you like them. I’m going to be offering a very cool online course in the next while called ‘Change Your Energy, change Your Life’ and these meditations will be part of that offering.

Check it out. Once again, CLICK HERE for the link.

I feel it’s my job as a coach to help people tap into their deeper knowing. I want to save people from pushing themselves up a ladder, one struggling step at a time, only to find out later that they’ve put their ladder against the wrong wall.

Take Samantha. When she called me, she told me she wanted to get married. As I probed further, I learned her partner wasn’t so sure he wanted this. Then, I asked her what she hoped being married would accomplish.

“It would give me a sense of security. I would know I’m loved.”

I asked her to think about her friends and family to see if  “feeling secure and loved” were the inevitable result of marriage

I could hear her wince.

“Well, I guess with the divorce rate at 50%, that’s not always the case.”

I invited her to explore other ways she might deepen her feeling of being loved and secure from within herself.  Now things got interesting.

As we did this, she started feeling more and more powerful. Obviously, she was liking not having her well-being depend on external circumstances.  And, of course, as she took responsibility for creating her own feelings of being loved and secure, she stopped putting pressure on her significant other. And of course, when her significant other felt free to give to her or not, he became a much more responsive partner.

So, when you’re thinking about what you want, go deeper. Ask yourself what you imagine this item, event, or experience will give you on the inside. Once you know this, see if you can just create it on your own. I have developed a whole bunch of ways to help people do what I call energy modulation, so if you want to go deeper with this, click “Free Ideas” up in the menu bar to set up a free idea session.

Meanwhile, here is something I loved that I wanted to share with you:

AN OPPORTUNITY:

Would you like to set up and run your own website? Or revamp your current one so you can manage it yourself?

Tomorrow, Christina Hills is having a tele-seminar on how to do just that. I can personally attest to what a great teacher Christina is, as I took her Website Creation Workshop last year and loved it.  I’m not only a non-techie, I’m tech-less!– but through her tutorials and videos, she shows you how to set up a WordPress website, even adding photos, audio and video. I not only revamped this site, personalbest.org, but I created a whole new one at http://www.happinessanyway.com

And instead of it being a gruelling, hair-pulling out experience, I found it fun and creative.

In the class tomorrow, she’ll explain how it all works, with pictures, handouts and non geeky web talk.  The class is a 10 am pacific time and 1 EST and it’s free. To find out more, go to:

http://thewebsitecreationworkshop.com/cmd.php?af=1079349&u=TheWebsiteCreationWorkshop.com/preview

Or, if you can’t make the call, go here:

Successful people learn to switch their perspective to keep their energy high. If you tell yourself that “Business is terrible”,  or that “No one cares about me”, you’re not going to have much energy. But if you tell yourself, “Business is  recovering” and that “People are beginning to value me”,  not only will you feel more like taking your life/business on, but brain science tells us, you’ll be changing your future.

We now have solid scientific studies that prove the fact that “Neurons that fire together, wire together”.  What this means is that the more you repeat a thought or action, the stronger the neurological patterns become, the deeper the grooves in the brain and therefore, the more easily that thought or action can recur.

That’s what makes it so difficult to change our perspective sometimes–the pathways are so well trodden, we can slip into them easily. Developing new ones may feel like a slog at first, but it’s worth it for our thoughts shape our actions and our actions shape our future.

Here’s the fun story:

Bill was working on his family genealogy and found out his great-great uncle, Remus Starr was hanged for horse stealing and train robbery in Montana in 1889. He even found a photo of  Remus, showing him standing on the gallows. On the back of the picture were the words:

“Remus Starr–Horse thief, sent to Montana Territorial Prison, 1885. Escaped 1887, robbed the Montana Flyer six times. Caught by Pinkerton detectives, convicted and hanged, 1889.”

Bill decided to revise things a bit. He cropped the picture into a head shot, then he rewrote the text:

“Remus Starr was a famous cowboy in the Montana Territory. His business empire grew to include the acquisition of valuable equestrian assets and included intimate dealings with the Montana railroad. Beginning in 1885, he devoted several years of his life to service at a government facility, finally taking a key role in a vital investigation run by the renowned Pinkerton Detective Agency, In 1889, Remus passed away during an important civic function held in his honor when the platform upon which he was standing collapsed.”

Now that’s a change in perspective! (Maybe Bill should consider a job in gov’t public relations!)

Sorry about the mucked-up email that went out last week. New distribution glitches were the problem, but they are now solved.This newsletter is the one you should have received. Here it is now!

Don’t you just love the fresh start the New Year offers? No matter what 2009 looked like, there’s a brand-new year ahead, waiting for you to create it the way that you want.

What would it take to make 2010 special year?

Are you tired to doing the same things in the same way?

Are you frustrated that the problems that plague you continue to plague you?

Would you like to create a WONDERFUL 2010, one that will make you grin? Check out the offer at the bottom of this post!!!

People often ask me what’s the #1 catalyst for people to change.

Is it a clear picture of your goal?

Is it being more organized so you have the time to create your goal?

Is it having confidence in yourself?

All these things count, but in my experience, the #1 thing that guarantees success is this:

SUPPORT!

Here’s why. Let’s say you decided to climb Mt. Everest. Impossible, you might think. With things the way they are, that’s probably true.

But let’s say you had highly skilled trainers, fabulous equipment and the best Sherpas on the planet. Chances are you could pull it off. In fact, there’s an fabulous story about an Ontario family, The Mallorys, that pulled off this very feat.

Dan Mallory (not related to the famous Mallory that died on Everest) his wife and 3 kids made it their goal to see if they could make this dream come true.

Here’s a picture that says it all:

Four of them made it to the top. (The fifth had an injury that prevented them for attempting the climb.) What an extraordinary feat!

This story shows that no matter how big your dream, you can do it–IF you have support. That ‘support’ can be in the form of know-how, equipment, mentors –but the most important is mentors or coaches. Coaches help you hold the vision of your best life, they help you get the skills and equipment and cheer you on every step of the way. All exceptional athletes have coaches. So do many highly successful people. Having a coach makes attaining your goal more easily and more quickly.

HERE’S MY OFFER! To help you create YOUR best 2010, I’m offering two months of coaching for the price of one! Two months is the perfect amount of time to get some big new habits installed, like losing weight, or starting that small biz, or completing those tasks you’ve been procrastinating about. If you’re wanting to do a few life renovations, now is the time to start! If not now, when?

This offer is available to anyone who is not currently in an active working relationship with me, but for those who are, you’re welcome to extend this offer to friends. And if one of your friends does sign up, I’ll give you a special “Energy Modulation” session as my thank you. I have been exploring “energy modulation” techniques for a while now –in fact I’m about to unveil a new website called Happinessanyway.com where I will be offering you further tools for this, but you will get a chance to experience some of these awesome tools for tweaking your own energy.

This offer is available until the end of this week only. To contact me to find out how this could work for you, or to sign up, email me: karen@personalbest.org or go to the contact page on my Free Session Idea page and put OFFER in the message line and add you details. Let’s make 2010 the BEST year ever!

Every blessing to you!

Karen Hood-Caddy

http://www.personalbest.org