2010 July | Coach4LifeChange

Change Your Mind with Observation

By JanetEisenbise on Friday, July 30th, 2010 | No Comments

The last few posts have been about some elements of Positive Psychology, which I find attractive because when put into use, people benefit by not only living free of pain and suffering, but by learning to be genuinely happy.

We know this is real change, not a figment of anyone’s imagination, because science has developed the technology to see the living, functioning brain. We know that the old neuropathways of thinking-feeling-action can be moved and changed.

In other words, the brain is much more flexible than once thought.

So how can you change your own neuropathways? One effective way is by observing someone else who is already doing what you desire or intend to do.

For instance if what you intend to do is make a complete change of profession or occupation and become a chef, you would observe someone who is a great chef and learn all you can from watching them.

What if you don’t know someone in person who is a chef? You can watch chefs cook by video or on television shows where they demonstrate their techniques.

You can also ask to interview a chef and find out all you can about how s/he learned to cook and what the most important basic techniques are.

You could also check out biographies of great chefs and learn about their lives, habits and best practices. Reading is a great way to immerse you in a new culture or experience without ever leaving home.

I know that some will object to this because they don’t really enjoy reading, don’t have the time, etc. But the importance of reading is undisputed. “Readers are leaders,” as someone once said, and I believe it is true. The smartest, most capable people I know are avid readers.

Reading and listening, watching and observing are powerful agents of change because they help to shift old patterns of belief and behavior. They are methods that will build new pathways in your brain and body.

You can super charge the vision for your new life by using your library card (or getting one if you don’t have it already); go to the biography section or go to the video “how to” section and surround yourself with new ideas of those who are already achieving what you intend.

Happiness is a by-product of a…

By JanetEisenbise on Thursday, July 29th, 2010 | No Comments

Happiness is a by-product of an optimistic view, of doing what is meaningful and most rewarding to you. It does involve a decision.

More Positive Psychology

By JanetEisenbise on Wednesday, July 28th, 2010 | No Comments

Summer in Maine

Have you wondered how you might improve your ability to make desired changes more quickly? Positive psychology coaching may offer a way to do this. There are two key components of learning new ways of thinking and establishing new patterns of behavior.

One is being open and accepting of new learning. Often we think we know already, and are closed off to new information or a new way of looking at something. Our need to be right will block off the opportunity to learn. What do you do when confronted by a different opinion or point of view? Do you immediately reject it outright?

It is important to understand that our patterns of thought and behavior are often so well established that we have no idea where they even came from. Wayne Dyer calls this “habitual mind,” and we all have acquired it from our early upbringing and are often not even conscious that we are using it.

Are you judgmental and argumentative when you hear something new that contradicts the way that you habitually see things? Then you are close-minded and missing an opportunity to widen your perspective and take in something new that could help to change your life for the better. You can become aware simply by asking yourself a question and observing the answer: “How open am I to new learning?”

The second factor is your willingness to accept change. I hear lots of people who are miserable with their life situations and want to analyze and analyze why but are immediately resistant to changing anything. They often even say how they hate change! And yet life itself is a process of change, isn’t it? If we’re not growing and changing, we are dying.

The resistance comes up in the form of explanations and excuses and reasons. I can’t make more money because my company has eliminated raises this year. I can’t learn Spanish because I’m no good at languages. I can’t exercise because I can’t afford a gym membership. I have a lousy social life because there aren’t any good men (or women).

Here is another good question for you to ask yourself: “What am I willing to give up in order to achieve this?” Would you give up watching TV in order to work a part-time job in the evening or weekend? Would you get out of bed an hour earlier in order to go for a walk before you get ready to go to work? Would you plan a menu and cook a little rather than eating fast food? Would you give up hanging out in the evenings in order to take a class?

Talk about resistance to change! We get mighty uncomfortable when we even THINK about changing our routines! Those well-worn habits have made neuropathways in the brain which means the thoughts-emotions-actions are so automatic that we don’t even have to think about them. And now changing them is awkward and uncomfortable!

But the good news is that we can apply positive psychology and make use of the plasticity of the brain. Meaning that those neuropathways are much more flexible that we once knew. Opening yourself up to new thoughts and practicing new behaviors will strengthen you and increase your resilience.

As you practice them, they will eventually become second nature to you. New goals will be achieved and new growth will occur. When you accomplish these, step by step, you will have the satisfaction of knowing that you are succeeding. And you have used positive psychology to do it.

How Can Positive Psychology Benefit You?

By JanetEisenbise on Monday, July 26th, 2010 | No Comments

Ostrich ferns

How can you make use of one of the most exciting developments in the field of psychology? Could you personally benefit from Positive Psychology?

I think the answer is a resounding yes! There are some principles of this practice that shift the focus from endless analysis of what caused the problem to what you can do to solve the problem.

While it is useful to understand how you have come to the situation you are in, failing to move beyond it will do no good.
One of the concepts that you might understand and then build upon is resilience. Webster defines resilience as:

1: the capability of a strained body to recover its size and shape after deformation caused especially by compressive stress
2: an ability to recover from or adjust easily to misfortune or change

Karen Reivich, a psychologist who does resilience training for the military has an even better definition. She says, “Resilience is the ability to grow and thrive in the face of challenges – bending instead of breaking. Compassion, patience, love, these are the words I want us to be thinking about.”

At one time the power of positive thinking was understood to be a process of forcing yourself to “paste over” your ordinary reality with some nice, glib statements. There was a character on Saturday Night Live which you might remember talking to himself in the mirror in this manner.

Instead, promote lasting change in yourself by deepening your understanding of what is going on. Stop and ask yourself, “What can I learn from this situation?” Who else is involved and do I empathize with them? What are they experiencing? How can I benefit myself and everyone else?

Relationship Tips 102

By JanetEisenbise on Friday, July 23rd, 2010 | No Comments

Black Eyed Susans

If you asked the man or woman on the street a question about what they would like most in life, they may first tell you some material possession. More money, a luxury car, a big house for instance.

But I’ll bet that on further reflection, most people would say great relationships.

There are hundreds of thousands of people looking for relationships in bars (all the wrong places) and online dating sites. If they have a romantic relationship or a marriage relationship, they often feel the need to improve it.

Parents want to feel closer and to have less conflict with their children. Older parents want to be more involved in the lives of their grown children and grandchildren.

Employees want to feel valued and respected by the companies they work for, and supervisors want cooperation and a friendly working atmosphere with the people they supervise.

To a large extent, the quality of our relationships determines the quality of our lives.

And yet, as important as they are, most of us leave it to chance. After we choose a husband or wife, for instance, we hope for the best. And if it isn’t going well, we blame and resent our spouse for not meeting our needs or being who we want them to be.

But what would happen if you treated your relationships like the most precious investment of your life? After all, that’s what they are. And yet that sounds like a novel idea.

We are used to thinking of our jobs that way. And our house mortgages and even our cars. We don’t spend thousands on these big ticket items and then just hope for the best. If we did the house would soon be falling down (or in foreclosure) and the car would be sitting by the side of the road with smoke rolling out from under the hood.

Certainly we need to support our relationships with our money. But the most precious and important commodities that we invest is our time and attention. How much time have you given the people you love this week? How much undivided attention have you given them?

I know families who never sit down at the same time to share a meal. And families who have the television or computer on the whole they are together. And families who practically live in the car during non-work hours, driving their kids to one lesson or activity after the other. It may seem important that the children take the lessons in order to have an advantage later in life. But could it be balanced with time with the family, and time just to play together?

For better relationships, take time for the people you love. Have a conversation. Turn off the TV and computer and give them your undivided attention. Ask your spouse out for a date and woo him or her again. Go out of your way to impress them. (If they were meeting you now, would they say yes to a second date?)

If you are having trouble connecting, go get some help. There are great professionals who do relationship counseling. I know there is some resistance (aka fear) surrounding this suggestion. But you wouldn’t think of taking out your own appendix would you? Most of us wouldn’t change the oil in our cars or replace our own brake pads.

So take courage in hand and invest the time and money in protecting and improving the most precious relationships in your life.

Smart Goals One Bolt at a Time

By JanetEisenbise on Wednesday, July 21st, 2010 | 2 Comments

"A Perfect Storm of Turbulent Gases"

Goal planning for most of us is a real challenge. And often the follow-through is also difficult. Even when we are highly motivated to reach a personal goal, we can become overwhelmed and lose focus.

My goals, perhaps like yours, often involve making a lot of small steps on the road to fruition. And often I get distracted by thinking about some aspect that I don’t know yet how to complete, and lose track of where I am in the process.

On Monday’s post I commented on the movie, “Hubble,” the story of the last mission to repair the giant space telescope. One of the points that impressed me had to do with reaching goals.

The astronauts had a daunting task ahead of them. They had to complete a number of difficult mechanical and technical repairs and do this in a weightless, deeply cold and airless environment. And they were wearing bulky spacesuits which were tethered to the shuttle, as were all the tools that they used.

Their gloves were especially vulnerable as they manipulated the tools and the telescope parts they were replacing. A cut to the glove would allow air to escape and would be fatal.

They practiced the maneuvers over and over again in a replica of the equipment which was in a deep pool of water to give them the best sense of weightlessness possible. They were well prepared, but of course things happen in real life that are unexpected, and their teamwork and ability to problem solve would certainly be called for.

There were some very tense moments when one team had problems loosening a bolt and then later removing a screw. They were stuck and for awhile it looked like the whole mission might be compromised or scrapped. It took hours for them to complete the task.

One of the astronauts said that he adopted a Zen approach. By this he meant that he focused on just one screw or bolt at a time. He wasn’t thinking about the whole mission, or the myriad of other screws and what if they were ALL this difficult to remove?! Instead, he focused only on the screw at hand.

I was impressed. His approach was simple and wise. Not necessarily easy though. He had trained his mind to focus on just one thing and to complete that one task before he began thinking about another. Self discipline.

We can all learn to do this. Even though sometimes I think the human mind is a lot like a band of monkeys, running around being unruly, and when alarmed, shrieking and jumping about causing a lot of commotion. It’s hard to get anything done when our thoughts are like that.

With practice, you can learn to focus your mind on one step in reaching your personal goals, business goals or career goals. That’s really all we can accomplish anyway…just the one step at hand.

Photo credit: ESA,NSA, and J. Hester, Arizona State U.

The Magnificence of Goals

By JanetEisenbise on Monday, July 19th, 2010 | No Comments

Orion Nebula's biggest stars

In recent days I have been thinking more about how to set goals and especially performance goals and the process of supporting and reaching them.

Yesterday I had one of those memorable and inspirational experiences that I want to capture and share. The story of the Hubble space telescope was showing at the local Imax theater in 3D, and I went with two friends to see it.

The pictures were breathtaking and the story was dramatic and inspiring. Of course I had heard the newscasts at the time and thought the story was an interesting one. But the movie provides more of a sense of immediacy and reality.

I remembered afterward that the unconscious mind can’t tell whether what it is seeing is real or imagined. Only the conscious mind knows that it is in a theater watching a movie. No wonder I was on the edge of my seat during the difficult and dangerous mission!

The beauty and magnificence of creation is beyond me to describe. The telescope provides pictures of galaxies millions of light years away. Even so the extent of it is unimaginable. Seeing stars being created and stars in their decline, planets with their suns and moons spinning and moving all in their own orbits is awesome. We could see our own Milky Way and within it our planet Earth, a beautiful and unique life-sustaining orb, suspended.

In all that vastness there is what I would describe as a divine order. A sense of those billions of stars and planets having a life span and a place in the universe. Laws of some kind governing their orbits and their travels in relation to the others. (What keeps them from careening into each other more often than they do?). I can’t believe this is some random series of events that just showed up.

And although it is a common hope and fantasy that we will discover another planet similar to ours, capable of sustaining life as we know it, there is no sign of it. As far as we know, we are IT. There was a reminder that we must care for, heal and sustain this one place that sustains us.

The other big impression that I was left with was the power of the human beings who created and completed the missions of the Hubble. The newscasts showed us pictures and stories of the brave crew members who are blasting off to complete the missions. What the movie shows is the vast cast of supporting members who were helping them train, developing the technology, building and refining the equipment, even dressing them before launch. I think the figure was 10,000 people and 10,000 hours to achieve the goals that made Hubble possible.

And all of them imagining the positive end in mind. We become what we repeatedly think of. For them to press on despite the difficulties, to face the dangers in order to repair the telescope, they had to have a positive outcome in mind. They were obviously NOT imagining failure, and they were NOT saying that it couldn’t be done “because it’s never been done in the past!

How often have you said that to yourself? Imagined a negative outcome to your goal? Or put off even starting because all your conscious mind can conjure up is your experiences of the past? “This is the way we’ve always done it.” or “No one in my family ever flew into space (or went to college, or made that much money, or was a successful painter, etc.).”

Such thoughts and the images you are feeding to your unconscious mind will put a quick and miserable end to the goals statements that you have set. Learn to work with your conscious mind, which feeds your unconscious mind by writing personal goals and then repeatedly giving yourself the images of the outcome you desire.

Photo credit: NASA, European Space Agency, M.Roberto and the Hubble Space Telescope Orion Treasury Project Team

Reduce Stress for Better Health

By JanetEisenbise on Friday, July 16th, 2010 | No Comments

Would you like to ensure your health by reducing your stress level? If you were able to do this in a few minutes a day, would you be interested?

How would reducing stress benefit you? We could begin with the obvious: tension doesn’t feel good. We tend to be irritable and short-tempered when stressed. Focusing is more difficult and just getting through the day is sometimes a challenge. When we are able to breathe more deeply and relax muscle tension, we feel better and function better.

In addition, stress hormones such as adrenaline and cortisol, are pumping through the blood stream in excessive amounts. If a tiger were chasing you, you would need them to ensure a quick getaway. But it’s pretty rare that we need this extra burst of energy that stress hormones afford us. And when they are chronically present, they cause real health problems.

The real consequences of stress include fatigue, depression, anxiety and physical pain. It is now understood that excess stress is at the bottom of many serious chronic and life threatening illnesses.

Lifestyle changes can make a big difference. Taking breaks, going on vacation (probably everyone’s favorite), meditating, using guided imagery are all important tools to implement. And addressing the underlying issues that are causing your stress in the first place is important too.

Some people who are constantly anxious because of stress may choose to use medications. But possible side effects are a factor that you may want to avoid.

There are a number of programs for effective, safe and easy stress relief that are worth exploring. I want to suggest that you may find yourself getting through challenging circumstances much more easily when you change your habits of reacting. With a little practice you will likely also notice that you are generally functioning better and feeling happier.

As your habits of coping change, you will be assured that your health is improving. Your improved outlook, increased energy and improved focus will tell you that you are on the road to recovery.

Relationship Tips 101

By JanetEisenbise on Wednesday, July 14th, 2010 | 3 Comments

Since the quality of the relationships we have seem to have the most direct correlation to the quality of our lives, then learning how to improve them may be a top priority. In short, those with the best relationships report greater health and happiness in their lives.

For those who are weary from the battlegrounds of married and family life, or those who are feeling bored and restless, there are a couple of very simple things that can make a difference. Of course I must add a caveat since just knowing these things won’t make a bean’s worth of difference. It is in practicing them consistently (preferably every day) that will change your life and your relationships.

Here we go:

You are likely focused on what is wrong with this person or people you are living or interacting with. If you can make a list of your aggravations with them, that is definitely the case. Since what we focus on gets bigger, your irritation and resentment will keep growing if you maintain your negative focus.

Make a list of what you do want. Think in concrete, simple outcomes. Be reasonable in keeping the person’s capabilities and personality in mind. Or as my niece has been heard saying, “Keep in mind who you are working with.” Tune into those qualities that you desire to experience in relationship with that person and write them down.

Play a new game called “Catch Them Doing Something Right.” Watch for the person to do something positive and be quick to express your appreciation for it. Acknowledge even small things with a quick thanks at least. Be quiet about infractions that you notice (breathe deeply and release your tension) and delay reacting. If it’s really important, set aside time to talk about it when you are calm and can be constructive. Pay attention to the positive qualities and behaviors and be grateful.

Focus on being the person that you wish to attract in others. Feel the feelings of peace or love or whatever you desire to experience with the other person or family members in the relationship.

When you do offer critical feedback, use what I call the “Kiss-Slap-Kiss Approach.” Begin with a truthful compliment acknowledging something you appreciate. Say in an assertive way (starting the statement with “I” not “you,”) what you want in the way of change. End in another compliment or positive comment.

You will soon be noticing a shift in how you are feeling about the relationship. First because it just feels better to be thinking and looking for the good in others. And when you are being what you desire, those qualities will be growing and becoming more a part of your daily life.

Build Better Business Relationships

By JanetEisenbise on Monday, July 12th, 2010 | 2 Comments

Do some of your goals include success at work or increasing your income? If so, consider that one of the steps toward that goal will be to build better business relationships.

Regardless of your work place or the nature of your work, you cannot succeed without relying on other people. This may include co-workers or bosses if you are employed, or colleagues, customers or vendors if you are self employed. Give some of your time and attention to building relationships with these people, and your bottom line will grow.

Here are some tips to help you accomplish better business relationships:

Make your integrity obvious to whoever you are dealing with. This means keeping your word. Show up when you are supposed to. And if you promise to deliver, then do it without exception. Your actions will determine who you are in the eyes of the people who work with you, not what you say about yourself.

If something goes wrong and you can’t deliver, then communicate directly and clearly, taking responsibility without excuse making. Explain what went wrong and what you intend to do to fix the problem. Provide a new deadline and then keep your word. You may add some additional benefit to the person if that is appropriate.

Think about how you can add value to the persons in your network. Focus on over-delivering on what they may be expecting. Don’t be afraid to go beyond the basics of your agreement.

Practice good basic relationship skills. Make good eye contact, shake hands firmly, be friendly. Learn something about the other person’s interests, important relationships and concerns. Listen more than you talk, and share appropriately in a reciprocal way when they return your interest.

Avoid complaining and negative talk about other people, the company you may be dealing with, or anything else for that matter. Gossiping about someone else sends out an alert that the person you may be gossiping about next will be the one you are speaking with. Complaining may be the vogue, but it creates a bad environment for work and soon enough people will associate you with negativity.

Offer suggestions or ideas in the right time and place. Your good ideas will be received in a positive light when they are thoughtfully presented to the decision maker in the company you are dealing with. Take some time to think about who that person may be and how you may gain influence with them. Be respectful and present win-win proposals that demonstrate the benefit to that person or the company.

Give some thought to expanding your business social network. The more contacts you have and the better you attend to these relationships, the greater expansion for opportunities to build your business. Do you belong to a professional organization and if so, do you have contact with your colleagues? Think about joining a local group such as Business and Professional Women, or Rotary, or Kiwanis or a local business promotional and development group. Volunteer and get involved.

To improve your financial bottom line, remember this bottom line for business relationship building: ask yourself “How can I bring more value to this person’s life?” If you do that, you will soon be reaping the benefits of better business relationships.

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