Not being a mind reader I’ve thought and thought about what those words and  tone actually meant.  He said that, because being an unreasonable friend, I was pushing him to change a thinking habit.

The thinking habit he has wanted to change is the one where he criticizes himself very harshly when he doesn’t do something perfectly.  He will even verbalize it as “I’m such an idiot” or “I’m terrible at that” or “I really screwed that up – as usual” or “I’m just not good enough”.

You may recognize that the line “I’ve been trying to change this for 40 years” is yet another self criticism.  I pointed this out and he responded that “NO, it’s just a fact.”

Facts are not really facts.  Einstein taught us that everything is relative.  Post Einstein-ian physics has taught us the universe is a very very weird place where things exist and don’t exist at the same time.  Where we are all, at this very moment, hurtling through space at hundreds of thousands of miles an hour while we think we are sitting still and reading (or writing!).  And we are not even sitting on the chair we that we think, it is a fact, that we are sitting on.  We are actually floating above it upon nuclear forces.  We think it’s a fact that we and the chair are solid things when we and the chair are mostly empty space.   Facts are arguably opinions about which we have feelings.

The common example we all know is; “the glass is half empty” vs. “the glass is half full”.  While both of these statements are logically equivalent they have very different effects on us when we think them.  One has us focusing on what we don’t have and one on what we do have.  One has us feeling sad about what we don’t have and one has us feeling grateful about what we do have.  There are deeper levels than this but consider how you want to feel.

Just recently a very talented, successful and well loved singer drank herself to death.  You may know who I mean.  If not, I’m sure you can think of a similar case.  I’m guessing she chose to think in a way that left her feeling angry, frustrated and sad.  I’m guessing she drank to numb the ensuing pain.   Choosing to think this way seems to know no boundaries, economic or otherwise.

Thinking habits do not change easily.  Habits are well trained neural networks that are part of our sub-conscious mind.  Consciously realizing we have a habit we wish to change does not make the neural network go away.  It is a thinking muscle, if you will, that must be consciously retrained until we have the habit that we want.  This process takes time and discipline.  You have to “hear” in your mind the response generated by your sub-conscious and then consciously replace it with the thought-response you want.  Saying it out loud – thereby getting in one repetition of the new habit will reinforce the new sub-c0nscious thought-response you are trying to create – helping make it a habit.

This can be slow and detailed work.  My favorite phrase here is “slow down to speed up.”  The more you slow down and catch your thinking and change it the faster the replacement becomes habit.  Most of us think because we’ve learned something or become consciously aware of a bad habit we will change it immediately. Then when the same bad habit shows up a few moments or days later we get frustrated that what we learned didn’t stick.  Then we criticize ourselves and, often, give up.  Because we didn’t learn it the first time we stoop to bad mouthing ourselves and quitting.

So the most important word is forgive.  We simply must understand and forgive ourselves.  Understanding the nature of changing a habit helps us not have unrealistic expectations of ourselves.  Forgiving ourselves for continuing a behavior we know we don’t want gives us the permission and encouragement to keep working at changing it. 

NASA learned it takes about 30 days of continuous reinforcement to rewrite a strong neural network.  With intermittent reinforcement it takes longer.  Forgiving yourself and consciously rewriting the thought until you have the new habit simply takes as long as it takes.  Getting mad at yourself and beating yourself up – just kills you.  Forgiving yourself and not rewriting the thought is another way of dying.  You have to to both, forgive yourself and make the conscious effort to rewrite the thought.

If you are not growing you are dying.  Create the lifelong habit of growing your thinking and all the moments of your life become opportunities to become a stronger you.

To my friend – you should think “I am so happy to learn, now, how to make changes I have wanted to make for 40 years.”  Forgive yourself for not getting it perfectly right every time and keep making the effort.  It is the effort that makes you strong.

Your unreasonable friend,

Dennis

Are you a business owner or leader that wants better results?  Here is a flyer for my upcoming workshop; GrowthCLUB.

copyright@DennisWillis 2011,2012 Business Coach Ohio

The “things are so bad…” conversation. Yesterday, this well educated and scarily smart business owner leaned closer over the table and whispered, “I think the real unemployment rate in Cleveland is probably over twenty percent.”  He went on to real off a bunch of facts and brutal realities about our area.  He capped it off with, of course, “Lebron really hurt this area.”

Boomtown. I was born in Cleveland and grew up in Elyria.  My father owned a construction company.  He moved us to Elyria in the early 60’s because it was booming.  For a year or two Elyria was the fastest growing city in the entire country.  Northeast Ohio was booming.  People were moving here from everywhere. 

We were at the top then.  We were making cars and steel and tires and machine parts and a whole bunch of other stuff and selling it everywhere.  Cash was being pumped into our region and people were following it.  Houses and schools and malls were being built and jobs were plentiful. 

Are we at the bottom now?  There were some down times between then and now.  The original oil crisis had lines at gas stations we’ve never seen again.  The original financial crisis had the savings and loan collapse and our government bail out plastered on the front pages.  Some say it is worse now.  Some think we are heading for a double dip. 

Boom then bust then?  So what did I say that stopped my friend and changed the nature of the conversation.  “Things come in cycles don’t they?”, I asked.  “You are saying we are at the bottom of the cycle right?  Well, what comes next?”  He brightened up a bit and asked, “So you’re saying we’ve got nowhere to go but up?”

We are in this together.  Belief is one thing action is another.  He sent me an email later on asking me for ideas on how we can help each other make money.  Now we’re talking! 

Action.  Don’t get your hopes up – get into action.  Positive attitude and positive thinking are important.  Positive action is necessary.  What are you willing to do?  Jim Rohn said, “Don’t wish it were easier, wish you were better.”  Ghandi said “be the change you want to see in the world.”  How can we be better – each of us has to work on ourselves – then we all become better.

Opportunity.  Here is just one little idea.  Positive cash flow is needed in our area.  Let’s focus on just that.  Companies that sell products and services outside Northeast Ohio bring cash into Northeast Ohio.  Let’s identify these companies and find them some referrals.  If you own such a company tell us about yourself so the rest of us can help you find business.  I just now created a Facebook page for this purpose.  It is http://www.facebook.com/pages/I-Refer-NEO/122978311079105?filter=1. Click now  and type in a sentence and a link to your website.  Take just this little action.  Let’s see what we can do together.

Better.  No matter how good we are – we can always be better.  I’m part of an organization dedicated to that belief.  What we’re learning from doing that with 10,000 business every week is available to you too.  Contact me (denniswillis@actioncoach.com).  Here is a link to a few videos of business owners of various size businesses who are succeeding at getting better results http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=actioncoach+testimonial&aq=0.

copyright@DennisWillis 2011,2012 Business Coach Ohio

Fear is an ancient protector of our very skin from physical threat.  An ancient savior that has become a crippling nuisance when we need, for example, to speak publicly.  Fear has become a brain cramp when we try to talk to someone we find attractive.  It’s become a liability in our professional lives preventing us from picking up a phone to call a prospect.  It is as if fear has caused the phone to weigh ten thousand pounds.

Perhaps, in our bones, we still carry the old knowing that standing out in the crowd can attract a watching predator or a that approaching a potential mate can attract a violent competitor.  Odds are pretty slim, today, that you’ll be eaten or beaten for letting your light shine bright.  Few, however, do.

To shine you must relax your grip on fear.  Simple.  Really.  I’m serious.

It is a simple thing to start running fear out of your life.  You accept the fact that you use thoughts to drive up your fear.  You become aware of when you have such thoughts.  You replace them with other thoughts.  Repeat until fear is at a useful level.

Fire yourself up instead of beating yourself up. Negative thoughts are self demolition and work hand in hand with fear.  We lead our self to self – paralysis with this one-two punch combination.  Negative thoughts leave you feeling more vulnerable to potential predators and competitors.

The good news, you deal with your own negativity the same way you deal with your own fear.  Positive, courageous thoughts grow positive and courageous lives for ourselves.  Start listening to yourself.  Start upgrading your thoughts.  Start choosing to feel joyful instead of fearful.

Start talking to yourself positively.  Stop talking to yourself negatively and fearfully.  Here’s how.

1) Planned self talk.
2) Planned self listening.
3) Planned pattern interruption.

Now, here are the details.

1) Planned self talk.

Say good things to yourself out loud at least twice a day.   Listen to yourself and repeat so that you believe them.  Come up with a list of 20 things to say.  You must start them with “I am.”
Say things like:
I am in a state of joy.
I am happy.  OR  I am in the process of becoming happy.

2) Planned self listening.

Listen to your thoughts and write down the negative and fearful ones.
Categorize them.  Below are three links to articles on categorizing negative and fearful thinking. Create challenges and/or replacements.  Suggestions on how to do this are also in the articles below.

3) Planned pattern interruption.

Catch yourself talking yourself down or scaring yourself.  Stop yourself.  Substitute your challenges or replacements and feel better.Catch yourself saying to yourself “I’m horrible at  ____________” and simply think (and say) “I have an opportunity to be better at ____________.”

A simple process.  Now you have a simple choice.  To live in fear or joy.  I hope you pick the latter and start talking yourself up.

Articles
http://www.dbsalliance.org/site/PageServer?pagename=empower_negativethinkingWS
http://els4kids.blogspot.com/2008/12/automatic-negative-thoughts-ants-ideas.html
http://www.byui.edu/CounselingCenter/Stress%20Management/Challenging%20Distorted%20Thinking.htm

copyright@DennisWillis 2011,2012 Business Coach Ohio