Learn to Love Yourself

I used to dislike myself a lot. And I mean, a lot. I saw myself as an unattractive, no-hoper, who was doomed to a string of bad relationships and ill-formed friendships. Funny how these ideas can be self-fulfilling. Everything I saw in myself manifested and my life went suitably pear-shaped. It was a dark time but also a valuable one as it became the driving force behind my dramatic shift towards personal development. Even today, whenever I need to keep myself on track I look back to those days to remind myself how much progress I have made. And the biggest step was learning to love myself again.

Learning to Love Yourself

Ok, ok for the cynics and skeptics out there this whole "loving yourself" business sounds like some new-age hippy fad. And to those with dirty minds it sounds…well, dirty. It's neither of those, but feel free to use it as an excuse for the latter if you want.

Learning to love yourself is about putting aside all the negative ideas you have about yourself and focusing on the positives. It can be very hard, especially if you have a lot of limiting self-beliefs, but the rewards are fantastic - happiness, confidence, great friends, and successful loving relationships. Do these sound like things you would like in your life? Of course they are, and you can get them all but you have to start loving yourself first!

The First Step

I am going to keep this article short so here is just the first step down the path of loving yourself.

Spend 5 minutes everyday looking at yourself in the mirror. Observe any negative thought that floats into your mind and then find a positive about yourself that counters it. Verbalise the positive and repeat it while looking yourself in the eye. Say it with passion and pride like you mean it!

I recommend doing this twice a day (at the start and end) to keep those positive thoughts at the forefront of your mind. Pretty soon you will start believing them. I cannot do this activity without ending up with a big smile on my face and the attitude to match it.

Future Work

If you have some very strong negative thought patterns that are hard to break keep an eye out for an article coming soon on how to destroy your limiting beliefs. The process is pretty confronting but works wonders for getting rid of those useless and debilitating negative thoughts. Don't forget you can subscribe to my email newsletter to say updated on everything that happens here.

Go ahead and start loving yourself. You are worth it.

Image: m_bartosch

Your Attitude is Your Dimmer Switch

You know those cool lights where you can turn a dial to control the intensity of the light? Well that is exactly how your mental mindset controls your life. Your attitude is the dimmer switch for your life.

The Negative Attitude ("Who turned out the lights?")

A negative attitude is the equivalent of turning your dimmer switch down. The more negative the attitude, the less light in your life. And what happens when you try to walk around with no lights on? You stumble around blindly trying to feel your way, bumping into coffee tables and doorways, and stepping in poo (naughty dog!).

Darkness is also scary. Everyday objects like trees cast strange shadows and everything just looks a little creepier at night in the darkness. Not to mention that when you cannot see details your brain likes to fill in the gaps using imagination. And a negative mindset means a negative imagination. The result? Animals look scarier, people look dangerous, and strange shapes look like crazy monsters ready to attack. Or is that just me?

I remember a good example of this happening to me when I was 10. I was reading a horror story just before bed. I'm pretty good at separating reality and fiction so I generally do not get scared by books and movies. This particular story involved a headless woman who was seen standing in a yard waving her arms and tapping on the window try to get her head back. Not very scary. I finished the story and turned off the lights to go to bed. Suddenly it was a lot scarier.

The moon was casting a shadow on my wall which looked remarkably like the head of a woman (complete with frizzy hair hanging down) hanging from the roof, and there were some crazy limb-shaped objects waving around outside and tapping on the wall. Not only was the headless woman story true but she was right outside my window!

Maybe not, but when things are dark rationality goes out the window and fear takes over using our imagination to fabricate a negative outcome. This is exactly what we do to our lives when we maintain a negative mindset.

Update 5/5/11: If you find that your life is full of negative emotions try reading my article on How To Harness Your Negative Emotions To Make Positive Changes

The Positive Attitude ("Geez it's bright in here")

The positive attitude is the polar opposite. It is like cranking your dimmer switch all the way up as far as you can and yelling "Let there be light!" Ok you don't have to go crazy like that but what happens when you have lots of light? Well you certainly don't go stumbling around, stepping in poo because now you can see everything. And it's definitely not as scary.

When I was lying in bed as that scared little 10 year old I knew that logically there was not going to be a headless woman hanging around my window (surely she would have better things to do) but the irrationality caused by the darkness was much stronger. So I grabbed a torch and crept outside to investigate. Turns out the hanging head was just a hanging fern (that explains the frizzy "hair") and those waving limbs were just trees. Phew. Back to bed.

If I had not shone a light onto my fear to expose it for what it really was (and not just what I imagined it to be) then I would have spent the entire night curled up in bed, utterly terrified. I mean a headless woman tapping on the window is obviously after some revenge and not just a friendly chat right? But I suppose that's not really the point.

The point is that a positive attitude is the metaphorical torch in our lives. The more positive we are, the brighter our life will be. Alleys wont be as scary, people will be friendlier, storm clouds will be lighter, and those strange shapes will be…well, less strange. The outcome of all this? A more energetic life with less fear and more happiness. Sounds good doesn't it?

Where have you set your dimmer switch?

Be Proud to be a Work in Progress

I will never be the perfect husband, friend, son, brother, or father, but as long as I always act with pure intentions and strive to improve myself at all times then I will be happy. I am proud to consider myself a "work in progress" because it allows me to be free to be myself, try new things, and adapt as my life changes. You should try it sometime.

I will never be perfect for I am always a work in progress and that makes me truly happy.

Work in Progress

Being a work in progress is a wonderful thing. It means you are never “finished” which means that you always have the chance to improve yourself and become something and someone better than who you are already. It allows you the ability to be comfortable with making mistakes and accept yourself for you who you are.

If you want to argue that you are not a work in progress then the only assumption that can be made is that you think you are perfect. And if you are perfect then you would never be wrong and you would certainly never make a mistake. Can you handle that kind of pressure for the rest of your life?

That is the pressure you put on yourself when your goal is perfection instead of constant improvement. You do not have to put up with this pressure though as long as you are willing to accept that no one can actually be perfect. Everyone makes mistakes. But when you start to recognize that you are actually just a work in progress then you can acknowledge your mistakes without fear because you can happily admit to not being perfect. Say it loud: "I am not perfect and I make mistakes. I am a work in progress!" It is actually quite liberating.

Being a work in progress is not just about being able to acknowledge your mistakes though. You need to be actively seeking learning opportunities, identifying how you can improve, and striving to adapt and grow yourself. The whole process begins with self-observation.

Self-Observation

Self-observation is the ability to actively monitor your thoughts and actions almost as if you are watching yourself from the 3rd person perspective. It is a key skill for living in the moment, and it can take some getting used to.

When you begin self-observation the point is simply to observe. Watch yourself and how you act in every situation. What are you thinking? What movements do you make? What thing do you say? Once you start paying close attention to yourself, like this you will notice that you start questioning why you do certain things.

Questioning why will have a profound effect on you. It will open your eyes to the underlying reasons that drive your every action and it will allow you to begin to identify habits, actions, and traits that you want to change. Welcome to being a work in progress. It may be daunting at first but once you start down the path of purposeful self-improvement your life will improve dramatically.

Don't Settle for Perfection

Some people are afraid to be a work in progress. The main reason for this is ill-founded negativity towards the concept and a general push from modern media to want perfection. Unfortunately there is no such thing as perfection and actually trying to achieve it, or believing that you have achieved it, is the real problem. If you do not want to be a work in progress then you are stagnating and just wasting your time.

Let’s say for arguments sake that right now you think you are perfect (you’re not) and thus you never need to improve (you do). You would reject the notion of being a work in progress and be content with who you are right now. But that locks you in to being the same person for the rest of your life. Will you still consider the current you to be perfect in 10 years time? No, because then it will be the "old you" and it wont suit your life experience. You would be 10 years out of date.

Sure, you might think that the person you are right now is pretty good and I hope that it is really true. But what happens in the future when you have lived more, seen more, and had newer experiences? Your life will have changed and you will need to have changed with it or be left lagging behind, holding on to a past image which you thought was good enough.

Let go of the silly concept we call perfection and allow yourself to be a work in progress. Be proud to make mistakes, just as long as you learn from them.

Image: Salvatore Vuono

Release Your Immortal Elephant

It happened late one Friday night. I had a beer in my hand and I was tired. Very tired. The words just popped out: "Release your immortal elephant."

I had been playing with my dog and was watching him wrestle and kill his little elephant toy, over and over. Every time it was moved, he would attack it with gusto and drag it back to his bed, only for the cycle to start again several minutes later. I saw strange parallels to human behaviour.

My mind picked up a gear and I was raving about life, negativity, and how everyone is weighing themselves down by dragging around an immortal elephant. For a second I wondered if I had (finally) gone crazy but I knew I was on to something when Sophie actually started nodding in agreement.

The Immortal Elephant

The Immortal Elephant is a metaphor for the negativity that holds you back in life. It weighs you down, it controls your actions, it invades your life, it restricts your focus, and no matter how hard you want to kill it it just will not die. The immortal elephant sucks.

The Immortal Elephant can be any form of negativity in your life, but generally it's the big stuff. For me, my elephant is/was self-doubt. Several years ago my life was riddled with negativity, especially about myself. Everything I did I thought I could have (and should have) done better, and I was constantly beating myself up about almost everything; my looks, my job, my lack of "success" and so on. It was not a happy time.

Late one night I stumbled upon some self improvement material online and I began changing my life. I learned to love and respect myself, I developed self confidence, I realised my thoughts were valid and that I did not have to agree with others, and I acknowledged that I did not have to be perfect as long as I always had good intentions and welcomed improvement. Finally, I had grown into the man I was supposed to be and it felt amazing. No, it felt better than amazing.

My big fat negative elephant was no longer haunting my life, bringing me down and preventing me from achieving. Had I done what everyone wishes they could do? Had I killed my immortal elephant?

No, it's immortal silly. But I had released it, which is even better.

Releasing the Immortal Elephant

The elephant is immortal because there is always negativity in our lives, and having become so used to fueling our lives with negative energy (stress, anger, resentment, laziness) it is all too easy fall back into those habits and forget all the positive work you have done. The elephant feeds on this negative energy and becomes stronger.

Releasing the immortal elephant is about letting go of the negativity in your life instead of fighting it. Just let it be. If someone in your life is angry towards you then just accept them as negative and move yourself in more positive direction. If you have negative thoughts about yourself do not get worked up about them, but acknowledge they are valid representations of your current mindset. If you have friends that use you, or cause distress in your life, then move on. Just like the schoolyard bully, the elephant goes away when ignored.

Once you start releasing your negativity, instead of holding on to and fighting it, you will notice a big shift in your life. You will naturally become happier, you will accept others as who they are, you will identify yourself and grow as a person, and you will learn to cultivate only those situations in life that bring prosperity, happiness, and positivity. Which leads me to the best part of this crazy metaphor.

Get the Elephant on Your Side

Not only does releasing the elephant have a dramatic effect on your life but it also affects the elephant too. I mentioned above that your immortal elephant feeds on your negative energy but this is only part of the story. Your immortal elephant feeds on ANY energy; positive or negative, and these energies have polar opposite effects.

Feeding your elephant with negativity will create an angry, stressful, and chaotic elephant running amok in your life. This elephant is your enemy.

Feeding your elephant with positivity creates a strong, happy, and supportive elephant that nurtures and protects you. This elephant is your best friend.

A positive elephant is the best kind of immortal elephant. It follows you around, supporting and encouraging you, and it is always ready to squash out any negativity that pops up in your life. Feed your elephant with positivity and get it on your side, working with you not against you.

What the Hell am I Talking About?

For those wondering what substance I am taking right now, the answer is none. I am naturally this bizarre. I see the world quite differently to most people and often it is very hard to explain. If this entire metaphor was too much for you perhaps this (non-elephant) summary will help:

• Negativity is infectious and debilitating.
• Release negativity from your life instead of holding on to it.
• Surround yourself with positive actions and relationships.
• I like elephants.

So, what negativity in your life are you holding on to?

Update 5/5/11: If you find it hard to rid yourself of negativity try reading my article on How To Harness Your Negative Emotions To Make Positive Changes

Decisions Cause Manifestation

Every action we take in our life begins with a decision. Without decisions we could not achieve anything. The decision is the catalyst for putting our thoughts, dreams, desires, and goals into action. Most people think that success and achieving goals comes from carefully planning the correct action but this is only partly true. Before that can happen you need to decide that it actually will happen. Deciding that you are working towards a specific outcome solidifies the idea in your mind, and also forces you to exude energy that will progress you towards the goal. When you make an active decision your mind will strive to fulfill it, identifying any possible opportunities that could help and even subconsciously controlling your actions to guide you closer to your goal.

Deciding leads to manifestation. Once something has been decided upon, things will start to occur to fulfill it. It is as simple as that. So why do most people not do this when talking about that one fantastic goal, or dream, they have? Fear. But today we are not looking at why it happens but how to take control and use the power of decisions to our advantage. Today we are going to make things happen.

An Illustrative Story - Toby the Cavoodle

First, a story to illustrate the point. This story is about Toby (warning: cute puppy picture following...)

Toby

On Saturday Sophie and I adopted Toby. Yes he is that cute in real life, but the real gem of this story is how quickly it all transpired after we decided to get a puppy.

We had talked about getting a dog for many months but always with some doubt hanging around, gnawing in the background. We both said we wanted a dog but we never really committed to getting one until last Friday night.

Sophie and I were out walking and the conversation turned to dogs (again) and then the inevitable reasons for not getting one. But we pushed through all those negative thoughts and we realised we were so definite that we wanted a dog. We both looked at each other with excitement in our eyes and decided “we are going to get a dog”. It felt right.

Arriving home, Sophie received a call from her sister who told her that the RSPCA was having an adoption drive the following day. When the universe aligns to make things happen it does it in a big way.

We canceled our Saturday plans and headed to the RSPCA, but we were let down. Most dogs were too big, or had such high energy levels, that we could not have kept them happy at our house. When we found a smaller dog ideally suited to our property and lifestyle, we discovered a family was already waiting to take her home. Feeling dejected, we went for a drive, pondering our situation. We had been certain that the RSPCA was a sign but we were still dog-less.

Two hours later we found ourselves at an out-of-the-way pet store doing some research on what we would need when we did eventually did become new puppy owners. While talking to the assistant we played with a litter of Cavoodles and during that time Toby won us over. He was fun, energetic, and smart. We had found the dog for us and he went home with us the very next day. Our decision had manifested.

Decisions Cause Manifestation

The point to the story is that nothing happened until we made that finalising decision. We both had longed a do  for months but we had never actually made a conscious decision about it. When we finally made that decision it took less than 24 hours for us to go from decision to manifestation, with many signs along the way pointing us in the right direction and reinforcing our decision.

Adopting a puppy is not really a big dream to have and because of this the gap between decision and manifestation was short. That is how the universe works; the smaller the goal, the smaller the time it takes to occur after we have decided to make it happen.

Consider the action of eating. When you make the conscious decision that it is time to eat the relevant actions occur quickly with little problems and you end up eating a meal pretty quickly. But bigger goals, like buying a house, quitting your job, or starting your own business, take a lot more time to manifest.

That is not meant to serve as a scare-tactic but work as motivation. If you are dreaming about something big then you need decide to make it happen today, so that you give it as much time as possible to manifest. Putting off the decision will only delay your goals more. Use today to decide that you will make your dream come true.

Remove Fear and Self-Doubt

Once you have made the decision, the biggest problem you have facing you is your own fear and self doubt. These are the stumbling blocks that you encounter that prevent your goal from manifesting.

If you start doubting if you will fulfill your goals then guess what? Your mind will find reasons to prove your self-doubt correct. Compare the difference between these two statements: 1) “I want [x]...I want it to happen no matter what!” 2) “I want [y]…Maybe its impossible. Maybe I should aim for something else.”

If you were given both these statements at the same time which one would you focus your attention on? Number 1 of course! Why waste time and energy on a task when we have doubts that it is even possible? And that is exactly how your mind works when you feed it doubt and fear. It is blatant self-sabotage and it prevents you from achieving your goals.

To turn this around you need to start believing and stop doubting. It can be hard skill to learn, especially if you have spent your life listening to the masses of people who try to tell you what you cannot do, so I recommend starting small. Pick a goal that is small but will be noticeable when it is fulfilled. Make a decision that you will achieve your goal and state your decision aloud. This helps you feel more accountable. Even better is if you can tell someone you trust - your partner, friends, or family. Spend 10 minutes a day, preferably at the start, reminding yourself that you made this decision and you fully intend to see it fulfilled.Then wait for he opportunities to unfold in front of you, often in unexpected ways.

Decide to be successful.

If you liked this article you might like reading more on The Self-Fulfilling Prophecy and The Way You Think and Why it's Wrong.

Live in the Moment

Living in the moment sounds like a nice sales phrase that some 1990s motivational speaker slapped on a book to sell more copies but living in the moment, also referred to as mindfulness, is about increasing your awareness to everything occurring around you at every given moment. It means listening to and observing your internal dialogue, being more attentive to outside factors, and identifying the aspects of your life that you do and do not have control over. And enjoying it all in the process. Our world is full of distractions and each one makes it harder to focus on our self, to live in the moment. If you are oscillating between emails, web sites, text messages, phone calls, meetings, and so on, it can become too easy to let those distractions take over your mind and just plod through the day with one foot in front of the other without ever looking where you are really going.

At work we fantasize about leisure time and then during our leisure time we worry about work. Not only is that wasting our time but it means we are never focused in the present which is very unhealthy.

The biggest problem with living like this is that life becomes a series of boring, often negative, events running together one after the other. Trust me, I have spent months at a time in this unhappy cycle drifting from one task to the next without being tuned in. At the time it felt normal (“no-one is really that happy are they?”) and I blamed my crappy job for most of it (“if only I didn’t have to work I would be happy”). Wrong on both counts.

I’ll be honest, the job really was crap but that was not the ultimate cause for my unhappiness. It was the lack of mindfulness. I was just not very good at living in the moment. Maybe the job was not stimulating enough for me but for the most part it was my fault - I was choosing to be miserable about my job and that choice was making my life miserable too.

The Choice is Yours

That is the best thing about discovering the ideology of living in the moment. Choice. Everything you do is your choice and everything that occurs in your life is an outcome derived from your past choices. (Hmmm...This is getting into other favourite topics of mine – intentions and manifestation - more articles for my to-write list).

Every single choice or decision you have ever made is what brought you to this current point in life. You chose to open the web-browser, you chose some actions that brought you here, and then you chose to read this article. It did not just happen upon you and it never will. Life is the same. At any point in time you can define your life as the sum of all your past choices, good or bad.

That might sound scary at first, especially if you are a pessimist, but it is actually quite remarkable. Sure, if you believe you have made “bad” choices in your past then you might be worried but there is no need. Everyone makes mistakes and a choice is not bad (or good) once it has been made. Once a choice has been made it is no longer a choice but a decision, or action, that has occurred. The moment for choice has gone, and we are in the next moment, ready to make our next choice that will define us.

The beauty of this thought pattern is that those past choices only define you right at this moment and every choice you make from now on changes your definition. So are you still going to choose to be negative? Are you going to sit there and whine and complain, be mean to others, and drive yourself with negative emotions such as anger and fear? Or are you going to choose to define you life with positivity, happiness, and love?

I hope you are starting to see the link between living in the moment and being aware of the choices you make. If you need further encouragement you might like to read my article: The Way You Think and Why It’s Wrong where I describe two key flaws the brain has which hold us back from living in the moment and achieving our full potential.

Think Like a Child

There are many positive outcomes that you will notice when you start being mindful and leaving in the moment. The biggest is the shift from judging your thoughts to observing them. When you re an observer you neither push them away or pull them toward you but learn to identify each as a valid thought. The result is profound – you awaken yourself to experience your life once more.

Remember when you were a child and you could spend the whole day playing without worries, often creating a completely reality? Would you like to regain that care-free attitude where everything in life was a fun adventure? Then think like a child.

“I’m a superhero with magic powers. Zap!...Zap!..Zap!....Ooooh a butterfly!”

Ok, maybe not quite like that but the point is to remember that children predominately live in the moment. They rarely stress about or replay past events through their mind, or worry about what the future will hold. They are just focused on living (and enjoying) the current moment and everything else takes care of itself. That is what we want to achieve.

I will finish this with a quote from #a fantastic article from Pyschology Today which extols the virtues of being mindful in every moment of your life:

Mindful people are happier, more exuberant, more empathetic, and more secure. They have higher self-esteem and are more accepting of their own weaknesses. Anchoring awareness in the here and now reduces the kinds of impulsivity and reactivity that underlie depression, binge eating, and attention problems. Mindful people can hear negative feedback without feeling threatened. They fight less with their romantic partners and are more accommodating and less defensive. As a result, mindful couples have more satisfying relationships.

Five Tips to Help You Live in the Moment

With that in mind I have assembled some quick tips for you to try to break yourself out of the past/future focus and draw yourself into your present. These aren’t shortcuts (it’s best if you have actually read and understood the above) but they can help you get started.

• Catch your wishes – look out for your phrases like “I wish [x]" and turn the tables around. Ask yourself “what can I do right now to start making [x] happen?” If the answer is nothing, then it is not worth your time right now so let it go.
• You do not have to like the present, but you do have to accept it. Things happen and sometimes you don’t have any control over it. Accept that the present is unchangeable and move on.
• Smile – start the day with a smile and you set the tone for the day. Force yourself to smile and your mood will change. Check out this research for more details
• Breath – there is a reason why focusing on your breathing is the starting point for most meditations. It relaxes us, frees our mind, an also reduces the effect of pain and stress on our body.
• Reduce “zoned out” activities – you know what they are. They can be fun and good at times but they teach you the bad habit of ignoring your own reality. Try to do things that encourage you to see and experience the world, things that make you ask questions and challenge your mind.

Enough writing. It’s time for me to go spend some time with Sophie, being mindful and enjoying her company. If you like this article then you can check out all of my other articles in the archives or subscribe to receive updates every time I publish a new article. For now though, if you are still hungry to read more about living in the moment then I recommend reading some Steve Pavlina, starting with The Power of Now.

Sometimes We All Need Some Alone Time

Everybody needs some alone time, or "personal space", every now and then. We humans are naturally singular creatures. We communicate and interact with others by forming relationships, which have many important positive outcomes for our lives, but ultimately we are individuals and as individuals we need some time devoted solely to ourselves. This alone time is what helps us feel refreshed. It enables us to be selfish once in a while and truly focus on ourselves, which is a very good thing. I did not think this really needed to be talked about until I was lunching with my lovely, soon-to-be-wife, Sophie. Long story short, while we were talking over lunch, we came to the conclusion that not many people recognise their own need for some alone time, let alone respect others' need for it, and most seem to consider it as a big black mark on their relationship.

Hence this article - read it, digest it, think about your relationships, consider your own needs for alone time, and learn to respect others' needs. Your relationships will prosper.

Why Alone Time is Good a Thing

Personal space is what keeps us, as individuals, feeling refreshed. Taking time out from others enables us to, relax, recharge our batteries, learn about ourselves, and return to our relationships in positive mindset. The whole point of taking this time to be alone is that humans need time to be selfish. Being selfish gets a bad wrap in society as it has big negative connotations, but well spaced and considered selfishness is actually beneficial to our lives.

When we take some time to solely think about ourselves, and not have to consider our impact on others, we begin being self-aware. It can be a little daunting at first, but the result of this awareness is that you learn what drives you, what excites you, and what motivates you. This new-found self-awareness is a beautiful thing and it has a dramatic positive effect on your life.

The Signs You Need Alone Time

Everyone has their own unique traits that bubble to the surface when in need of some personal space. You need to learn to recognise your own signs, but if you have trouble doing this the general rule is that if you start pushing people away then you need some time alone. Some examples are:

• Being mono-syllabic - conversations are supposed to be fun two-way social interactions. If you're not trying then you do not want to be there.
• Itching to be elsewhere - if you are out and you desperately want to be home then do everyone a favour and leave. Take some time for yourself.
• Unexplained moodiness - feeling cranky for no reason? You probably need some time alone.

There are plenty more examples but you need to recognise your own and deal with them appropriately.

Tips for Making the Most of your Alone Time

Wondering what to do to make the most of your personal space? Try these:

• Express your need instead of hiding it - tell people why you need to be alone. Do not dance around the subject (or worse; lie about it) because this will just cause people to start second guessing you and your relationship. Be honest and you will be respected for it.
• Engage your mind - watching TV, browsing Facebook, or playing games are not good uses of your alone time. These are time-wasters and that's exactly what they do. Don't waste your alone time or you wont come away feeling refreshed.
• Be selfish - Do something that you love. You will appreciate the time much more
• Be "in the moment" - don't just do something alone for the sake of it. Use the time to increase your self-awareness and you will feel much more refreshed afterward.
• Schedule it - you schedule time for work meetings and tasks so why not some time just for you? It is your life after all.

Respecting Others' Need for Alone Time

Relationships, on all levels, are important parts of our lives. The offer us the chance to learn, experience, and grow. Sharing our thoughts and passions with others naturally excites and energises us, but sometimes being alone can have the same effect. When someone close to us needs to have some personal space it is our duty to respect and encourage that. Remind yourself that it is not a comment on you or your relationship but just a natural human desire.

I am reminded of a classic Seinfeld episode where the line "It's not you, it's me" is used to end a relationship. A funny line, but also with some insight into human psychology, whether or not the writers intended it. As I mentioned above, we are individual creatures and because of that we are the centre of our own existence. As a result our first instinct is to take responsibility for everything that happens in our lives, but it is good to remember that we only ever fully understand a situation from our own perspective and we can only ever control our own actions. It often really is nothing to do with you.

Extra Reading

There are plenty of good resources out there that talk about this exact issue but for those playing at home here are my recommendations:

• The Secret to Self Loving at Think Simple Now.
• How Do I Take Time Alone In a Relationship at The Ririan Project.
• Alone Time for the workplace from the e-book "Getting Real" by 37Signals.
• How Do I Take Time Alone In a Relationship at Ask Love Coach.
• Giving Yourself Alone Time at What I Think About.

So start planning some more alone time for yourself and ask how you can encourage and support the same in all your relationships. Everyone will benefit.

Edit (17/5/11): I wrote another article recently, Spend Time with People that Energise You, where I talked about the reasons why we feel like we need more alone time and why it can be aided by looking at the kind of people you spend your time with.

The Self-fulfilling Prophecy - Re-train your Brain!

The self-fulfilling prophecy is a simple thing to understand - everything that we do, say, and expect of ourselves will eventually happen in our life. That means that if we think and act in a positive manner then positive events will surround us and we will manufacture ways to achieve those positive outcomes. The bad news is that this works the same for both positive and negative thoughts, so we need to re-train our brain in order to master the art of creating positive self-fulfilling prophecies. Because our brain is a complex machine that likes to prove itself right it will always be on the lookout for ways to prove our internal "self talk". If it cannot find an obvious example as proof then it will create what it needs.

In any situation if we talk negatively to ourselves, downplay our skills, or expect failure, then we have already stacked the odds against us. We have sabotaged ourselves because we have given our brain the green light to prove all those negative thoughts. The big problem though, is that because our brain is brilliant at ignoring information it deems as irrelevant, while it is trying to prove our negativity countless positive events zoom straight by without notice.

Therefore, when a negative outcome finally occurs our brain is vindicated and our original negative thoughts feel justified - "I knew I was going to fail all along". This is the self-fulfilling prophecy. Luckily it's not all bad news.  We can use positive thoughts to create positive results with a little bit of simple brain training.

Training the Brain

When we perform physical training we are, in essence, teaching our muscles how to react to various stimuli. If we bust weights at the gym 3 days a week, our muscles become stronger, and when confronted with a test of strength in an everyday situation our muscles perform the required physical output automatically.

Our brain is like this, but a thousand (if not a million) times more efficient. Our brain does not need training 3 days per week for several months to adjust to stimuli. In fact our brain is such a wonderful tool that it can automate basic actions immediately after learning them once. Just once! Complex actions take longer but this whole procedure is best illustrated with an example. It is a long example but bear with me as it demonstrates the point beautifully:

Example: Learning to Drive (The Brain on Auto-pilot)

Cast your mind to when you first starting learning to drive. You read the various manuals and road rules first to prepare but it is not the same as actually doing it is it? The first time you drive you need to remind yourself of every step and it feels like there is so much to learn; "sit down, buckle seat-belt, key in ignition, foot on pedals, check gear, check mirrors, start car…".

After a few lessons of driving along deserted streets in first gear you have mastered those little skills and are ready to move on and learn more. But what happens with those early little tasks? Do you just get an ever-growing list of tasks you need to check off and remind yourself of every time you drive? Luckily, no. Your brain recognises those early tasks are simple and easily repeatable so it takes control away from you and puts these tasks in its autonomous section, allowing you to be fully focused on learning the next set of skills. And this process of locking tasks away continues throughout the entire learning experience. Pretty cool stuff hey?

Fast forward several years and now you can drive a car without even really thinking about it. In fact people can often drive from one place to the next, changing lanes, making turns, stopping at lights, and not even remember the trip! This happens because the brain is now on "auto-pilot", automating everythng it can so that your valuable resources can be better spent on other things - like worrying if you need to pick up milk, or if you should have chatted to attractive girl at lunch.

With any task we perform, if it is easily repeatable, our brain can take control and begin to make it happen autonomously. It is a fantastic skill to have but it comes with a pretty big problem - our brain does not distinguish between good or bad actions when automating. If you think negative thoughts, or create negative situations, in a repeated manner then your brain starts to automate it. It assumes that because the action has been repeated several times it can be locked away and taken care of automatically. I don't know about you but I don't want my brain putting negative thoughts on auto-pilot!

Unfortunately most people do not understand this, and thus they use the wrong technique when training their brain to automate skills. If an Olympic weight-lifter was training with poor technique there would be a long list of dire repercussions, including endangering their life. But in physical examples like this there is always the possibility of enlisting help - getting someone else to observe your technique and provide feedback. In the sport of "brain training" there is no such thing. You need to be your own coach.

Training (more like "re-training") the brain is one of the most important aspects of Positive Happiness, and if you start acting like your own personal coach - cheering yourself on, observing your own mental "technique" and providing motivation to stick to your positive training regime - then you are well on the way to discovering the hidden happiness in your life.

The Way You Think and Why it's Wrong

The brain is a magnificent and powerful tool. It is responsible for so much in our life yet nearly everyone takes it for granted. To most people the brain is just another organ that does it's job with minimal fuss. To be fair, it does do an awesome job with such a mammoth task list - breathing, pumping blood, controlling our organs and nervous system, and other autonomous actions like walking, talking, and eating.

The human brain will answer every question it is asked and it will try to prove itself right.

All that stuff (and a lot more) is all taken care of automatically by our brain so that we do not even have think about it. Sounds great doesn't it? Well yes it is pretty good, and it is this characteristic that allows us to acquire new information easily, but it also exposes two fatal flaws - the human brain will answer every question it is asked and it will try to prove itself right.

Read that sentence again. No matter what the situation, no matter what the question, and no matter what the variables, the brain will always come up with at least one answer. Then it will find some evidence to prove that answer right. Let's look at why that is such a problem.

Fatal Flaw 1: The Brain Answers Everything

The issue here is that people ask their brain the wrong questions. Not only do they waste the potential of this wonderful resource, they actually use it to impose false restrictions in their life by asking the wrong questions.

If our brain answers anything we ask it imagine what happens if we start asking negative questions. Suppose we were having a bad day and we asked "What else will go wrong today?" Our brain would start compiling a long laundry list of all possible things that could happen in the day that would be considered "wrong". All this is done without us even realising it but the end result is a long list of possible negatives which leads us to the second major flaw.

Fatal Flaw 2: The Brain Likes To Be Right

The brain is such a wonderful data-processing tool (it receives millions of inputs every second) that it is constantly analysing and comparing information against it's predetermined hypotheses. When a new theory is postulated, the brain attempts to find any information that proves it, including cross-checking information from it's past experiences.

I hope you can see the problem here. If we have asked our self a negative question ("What else can go wrong today?") and our brain has provided a list of possible outcomes then it becomes fixated on finding information to prove that list. So now, we are pointing our most powerful resource in the wrong direction and it is going to use all it's power to achieve what it deems is a successful outcome (i.e. being right), even if that means a negative outcome for us.

Conclusion: Start Asking Positive Questions!

The easiest way to turn this negative cycle around is to start asking yourself positive questions. Ask yourself what good things can occur, or what people like about you, or what makes you successful, and you will discover a whole range of brilliant answers that you never even considered. As a benefit, your brain will be focused on proving those positive theories to you that your life will suddenly be full of opportunities that you would have otherwise missed. This is known as the Self-Fulfilling Prophecy, which is worth an entire article on its own.

For now all you need to remember is that positive questions lead to positive answers which lead to positive opportunities.

Image: Boaz Yiftach

The Gratitude Attitude - A lesson in Positivity

Humans, in general, tend to focus on the bad things in life. We are always quick to point out the negatives and we love to complain, bitch, whinge, moan, and whine, whenever we get a chance. Don't believe me? Try naming five words that describe the action of talking about positives. It is hard. Much harder than naming negative words. In fact we have so many words in our language that describe a negative action or have a negative connotation that negativity is our default stance. I will leave it up to the philosophers to determine which came first though - the negativity as a default or the negative-based language. The point is that when surrounded by negativity we become a naturally negative being, and when we are negative we just end up creating more negativity in our life. Not a good place to be. The brilliant thing is that we can change this cycle with a little forced positivity called "The Gratitude Attitude".

The Gratitude Attitude

The objective is simple - be more positive - but how do you suddenly introduce positivity into a negative environment? Gratitude is the answer. Gratitude simply is the action of being thankful, and I am talking about being thankful for EVERYTHING! Even the littlest positive thing that you can imagine in your life is worth being thankful for.

Change your thoughts and you change your world - Norman Vincent Peale

The simple action of gratitude encourages you to open your eyes and see all that is great around you, to experience it, and enjoy it. So are you keen to change your world and take the first step to becoming a positive and happy person who loves their life? Then try keeping a Gratitude Diary.

Exercise: The Gratitude Diary

To easiest way to start introducing positivity into your life is to keep a daily Gratitude Diary for at least two weeks. I promise that you will notice the difference.

Night: Every night before you go to bed write the heading "I am grateful for:" and underneath it record three unique things from the day. Trawl through your entire day and find three separate positive things that you can be grateful for. They do not have to be anything particularly big - it could even be just a great sandwich you had!

Morning: Grab your Gratitude Diary and re-read the entry from the previous night. Physically read it aloud and cast your mind back to remember the three positive things that you wrote down the night before. I recommended doing this as soon as you get up to prevent slipping back into negative habits (alarm clocks are prime candidates for encouraging negativity).

Extra: When you get the hang of this exercise you can increase its effects by limiting yourself to only adding things you have not been grateful for in the past. This will force your mind to search your day and extract any positives, no matter how small.

Note: When keeping a Gratitude Diary, the more specific the better. Instead of saying "I am grateful for my wife" try to find a specific action from the day that you can be thankful for. For example: "I am grateful for my wife making me coffee this morning". The little things really do count the most.

Feeling gratitude and not expressing it is like wrapping a present and not giving it - William Arthur Ward

Image: nuttakit