CrushPessimism.com

Recessions Are Good For You

adam@youmeworks.com (Adam Khan) — Sun, 18 Oct 2009 20:13:00 +0000

THERE MAY be plenty of bad things about this recession, but it may have at least one very good side: Evidence is strong that bad economic times are good for your health. Read more about this result here:

Scientific American article

MSNBC article

Yahoo News article

University of Michigan article

Bad news may sell better, but good news is better for you. Read more good news here: Good News.

Optimism is a Cause Worth Fighting For

adam@youmeworks.com (Adam Khan) — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 21:26:00 +0000

Four negative biases keep pushing us toward pessimism, cynicism, and defeatism. Most of us have no desire to feel or think negatively but we do it anyway, usually against our will. Why is negativity so difficult to resist? Because the negative biases are built into our brains and the biases are a fixed and inevitable part of the nature of reality.

Pessimism and negativity function like viruses or lampreys, sucking the life out of our naturally buoyant natures. The four negative biases are:

Most of us believe we are not pessimistic. But everyone, including you, no matter how hard we have have worked to rid ourselves of it, still has vestiges of the infection still lurking in our minds, and the negative biases are constantly having their influence on us.

The battle for optimism is a lifelong fight, like an epic clash between Good and Evil, taking place in your own mind and in the world at large.

Whether you want it or not, you are playing a role in the battle between strength-giving optimism and insidious, debilitating pessimism. The never-ending battle is noble and worthy and inspiring. When it doesn't feel that way — when it feels like a burden or a hopeless struggle — it is only because of the negativity that infects your thoughts, which you can clean out right now.

If you let these forces (the four negative biases) drive you down into pessimism, cynicism, or defeatism, it has consequences for you personally, and for the people around you. Pessimism is bad for your health, it interferes with your ability to persist and accomplish your goals, and it feels bad.

Your own negativity has the same (but milder) impact on your friends and family (moods, emotions, and thinking-styles are somewhat contagious). Your pessimism or lack of it will strongly influence the explanatory style of your children, influencing their persistence and ability to learn and achieve throughout their lives.

But you, of course, can do something about all of this. You can remove pessimism from your own mind. And you can help others remove it from their minds. And you can also spread the word to the world in general about both the negative biases and their consequences, and also about the undemoralizing technology.

We can restore our lost motivation and bring back the health, the good feelings, the determination, and the energy that was once native to our minds. You know in your heart this is a cause worth fighting for. Never give up.

Coaching on Asking a Good Question

adam@youmeworks.com (Adam Khan) — Thu, 23 Jul 2009 23:55:00 +0000

I'VE COMPLETED my list of suggested questions. And you now know why you should use questions to direct your mind. But before I leave this important topic, I wanted to give you another good method for asking questions. And that is by using another all-purpose tool: Making a list. A good way to use the power of asking a question is ask it on paper and then make a list of answers. Ask the question and keep writing down answers. Set some kind of target — 100 answers, for example — and don’t stop until you hit the target. I think you’ll be surprised at some of the things you come up with, and probably surprised at how creative you really are.

Or set a timer for a period of time, say an hour, and keep coming up with answers until the timer beeps. Pick one question, set your alarm, and jot down as many answers to the question as you can in that time. Don’t monitor your answers or judge them (yet). Just try to answer the question as creatively as you can.

The first few answers will be normal, predictable answers. But then you’ll run out of those, and your creativity will have to kick in.

When your time is up, go through and pick the best answers.

A freeform question-and-answer session can be productive too. By "freeform" I mean to ask whatever question comes up for you, and then answer it to the best of your ability. Then see what question comes up for you next, and then answer that one.

For example, this little freeform dialog happened when my first book was published and I was trying to get it for sale in bookstores. I hit several setbacks in a row and I was feeling dishearted. Yet the written dialog I had with myself lifted me out of my depressed state within minutes. I felt strong and determined afterwards. My fighting spirit had returned.

Q: Why do I feel sad and defeated?

A: It seems like all I do is stick my neck out, then people are mean to me, and then I feel like a loser.

Q: Why do I want to promote this book?

A: I want Klassy proud of me. I want to make a difference with my life. I want to sell lots of books. I want to make money.

Q: Would I be willing to gain those things if I had to pay for it by sticking my neck out, having some people be mean to me, and occasionally feeling like a loser?

A: Yes. Absolutely.

In that short time, I suddenly felt determined. My motivation came back. I remembered that every person I admired had experienced similar trials and hardships, and my line of questioning cast my setbacks in a new, more noble context.

The primary way of asking questions is to create a good question and then have it on your mind for several days or weeks, pondering it in your spare time. It's a good way to direct your mind, motivate yourself, increase your determination, and make lasting changes.

But the two variations I mention in this article can work more quickly. Either ask a question and challenge yourself to make a list of answers, or use a freeform question-and-answer technique. Any questions?

The Best Question To Ask

adam@youmeworks.com (Adam Khan) — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 23:34:00 +0000

YOU HAVE seen my list of suggested questions. (See the list here. See the article on how to use questions here.) But I'm not quite finished with this powerful topic. I have a little coaching for you on the way you use questions to direct your mind. The first piece of advice is to make sure your questions do not have the word "why" in them.

A woman (Vivian) wrote to me and told me she had trouble sleeping. She had four kids and she was worried some day she would commit suicide. I was telling her about this principle of asking questions, and she tried it the very next night. But the question she pondered all night was, “why do I think I’m destined for suicide?”

Vivian said, “I was up all night answering myself! I thought of answer after answer. The list went on and on, each answer breeding more questions of its own.”

I told her that generally “how” questions work much better than “why” questions. She had been suffering from insomnia for a long time. But the very next night after she learned about the difference between "why" questions and "how" questions, she asked herself, “How can I prevent myself from ending up a suicide?” and she thought of so many good answers so quickly, she relaxed and fell asleep and slept longer than she had in a very long time.

The next day I told her about studies on suicide showing that people with suicidal thoughts who don’t commit suicide had a reason to live. That almost sounds so obvious, it seems almost ridiculous someone had to do an experiment to prove it. The reasons people had varied quite a bit. Some people didn’t kill themselves only because it would be too painful for their sister, or it was against their religion, or they had some purpose they wanted to fulfill. But the difference between those who stayed alive and those who killed themselves was simple: The people who had a reason to live did not kill themselves.

The next day, Vivian was thinking about that study and she realized she really wanted to see her boys grow up. She had four sons, the oldest was 13. She said, “I have thought before that I’m here because they need me, but it felt like an obligation. But I’ve realized I really want to see my sons grow up to be old men.”

That is a powerful realization. I'm sure you can easily grasp the tremendous difference in motivation, determination, and power between an obligation and a genuine, sincere, deeply-felt desire.

So she had a goal, and the thought was on her mind for a few days, when she told me, “I like to watch them and think about them ‘then’ and ‘now’ and now I wonder what they’ll be like when they’re older. It’s a surprise I don’t want to miss. This very thought has been in my mind the past couple of days...’it’s a surprise I don’t want to miss.’ It’s exciting and motivating.”

Do you see what happened? She had a new question she was asking. "I wonder what my kids will be like when they're older?" Her question was purposeful (since she can influence the outcome) and forward-looking. And it directly counters the thought of suicide, doesn’t it? She’ll miss the surprise if she kills herself. It’s a question that can’t be answered now. She has to stay alive to see the answer. Brilliant, really.

She was already asking questions without realizing it. We all are. She started doing it deliberately and stopped asking herself "why" questions and it totally changed the direction and tone of her life.

It can work the same magic for you if you would only start using it. Why not start today? Wait, change that to: "How can you start today?"

The Top 25 Questions To Ask Yourself

adam@youmeworks.com (Adam Khan) — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 08:09:00 +0000

IN THE article, The Steering Wheel Of Your Mind, I talk about the power of asking questions. What follows is a list of questions that create good results. You can and should, of course, create your own questions, but if you ever need some help, or just want a good question you can pull out and start using without having to think up any, use these:

1. What am I grateful for?

2. If I was happy about this, what would I be thinking about it?

3. What did I do right today?

4. What CAN I change?

5. Does this help my goal?

6. What does life expect from me?

7. How can I prevent this from ever happening again?

8. What is the best use of my time right now?

9. How can I use this to accomplish my goal?

10. What's good about this?

11. What is my goal here?

12. What is another way to look at this?

13. What else?

14. What memory makes me feel good?

15. Ask questions to find out more about the situation.

16. What if it really happened?

17. What abilities do I have? What am I good at?

18. What is one healthy thing I could do today to feel better?

19. What needs to be done next?

20. What good have I been ignoring?

21. How can I look at this as a good thing?

22. What could I do to make some progress on my goal?

23. Could I just do part of it for now?

24. What would be a more reasonable explanation?

25. What emotion am I aiming for?

Direct Your Mind: What Emotion Am I Aiming For?

adam@youmeworks.com (Adam Khan) — Sun, 05 Jul 2009 23:19:00 +0000

ONE OF the problems with the positive thinking literature is its obsession with cheerfulness and enthusiasm, which often translates into acting cheerful or enthusiastic, which often translates into being phony. And being phony doesn’t feel good. That's one way "trying to be positive" short-circuits itself. But cheerfulness and enthusiasm are not the only two positive or worthwhile emotions. Many other emotions are superior, especially around other people. It can be annoying for other people when you are acting cheerful and enthusiastic when they don’t feel that way at all. Especially if they suspect you're faking it.

But nobody would be annoyed if you were cultivating the feeling of affection or kindness. Those are also positive emotions. And they focus your attention outside yourself.

Another good emotion to aim for is calmness. Another is a feeling of determination.

Once you know what emotion you’re trying to cultivate, it will influence what you do. When you’re aiming for calmness, for example, you will probably change your posture a little, and maybe change the way you breathe. You might take deep breaths more often. You'll speak differently. Trying to cultivate calmness might change the way you're thinking and the way you treat people. And the result will be: You’ll feel more calm and relaxed.

Whatever emotion you cultivate influences you. Most of us want to be "a more positive person." And that's admirable. It would make the world a better place. It would make us personally happier. But let's do it in a way that feels good inside. And let's do it in a way that helps others feel good too. Think about the possible positive emotions, and choose to cultivate the ones you really like. W. Clement Stone liked enthusiasm and showed us how to cultivate it. Napoleon Hill liked cheerfulness and showed us how to cultivate it. What emotions do you like?

Direct Your Mind: What Would Be a More Reasonable Explanation?

adam@youmeworks.com (Adam Khan) — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 22:24:00 +0000

WHENEVER A setback or failure occurs, you will explain it. You can’t help it. Your explanation will come quickly and automatically. And your explanation will seem entirely self-evident. (Learn more about that here.) Some of your explanations are good, some will make you feel bad unnecessarily, and some will make you less capable of dealing with the setback successfully.

The main technique in the antivirus for the mind is to look at your explanation and see if you've made any thought-mistakes.

If you then find mistakes in your explanation, you will naturally form new explanations of the setback. The question for today (What would be a more reasonable explanation?) goes straight to the task of creating a new explanation. You can use the question as a sort of shortcut to the antivirus for the mind once you've trained yourself to detect mistakes in your explanations. You can also use this question if you don’t have time to look for mistakes and want a quick and dirty method. After a setback occurs, notice the explanation you automatically made for it, and then ask yourself what would be a more reasonable explanation.

For example, let's say you have a goal to make ten thousand dollars this month but by the end of the month, you didn't achieve your goal. This is a failure, and you will explain it automatically. Let's say you explain it like this: "The economy isn't doing very well right now."

But then you use today's question. You ask yourself, "Is there a more reasonable explanation?" Not that there is anything horribly wrong with your first explanation. It's that not bad. It takes the blame off yourself, so it will keep you from feeling too bad about it. But on the other hand, the explanation leaves you somewhat powerless. It doesn't give you any avenue for finding a way to make ten thousand dollars when the economy is doing poorly, which leaves you somewhat helpless in the face of forces outside yourself.

So you try to think of another explanation (something that is true). "I didn't do all I planned on doing. That's why I didn't make the ten thousand dollars." This explanation gives you an avenue to pursue that might actually lead to you achieving your goal next month regardless of what the economy is doing.

It's always good to come up with more than one alternative explanation. So you try again. "I wasted a lot of time on the least profitable part of my business. If I eliminated that part of my business, I would have more time for the more profitable things." Again, this could lead to actions that might make you more capable of hitting your goal next month.

Every failure is probably influenced by many different factors. Trying to come up with alternative explanations opens your mind to factors in your power to control, and that not only makes you feel better, it makes you more capable of changing things in the future.

If an event happens and you feel bad about it, your feelings derive largely from how you explained the event. And your ability to deal with the setback is influenced by the way you explained it. However reasonable your automatic explanation is, can you think of an even better explanation? If you can, it will change your feelings and your capabilities.

Direct Your Mind: Could I Just Do Part Of It For Now?

adam@youmeworks.com (Adam Khan) — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 22:17:00 +0000

THE TIME-management expert, Alan Lakein, calls this the "Swiss Cheese" method. You poke a hole in your project. After you poke enough holes in a project, there isn't much left. A large project becomes easier and easier to tackle the more holes you poke in it. Also, when you don’t have the time or motivation to tackle your project, you can do some small thing that moves it forward, even a little, and that will do two things: It will improve your mood, and it will make the project a little less intimidating.

This question keeps you moving. It keeps you making progress.

One of Lakein's techniques is to set a timer for five minutes, and work on your project until the time is up. Because it is so brief, you are not at all intimidated. Five minutes. You can stand just about anything for five measly minutes.

Often you'll find that once your five minutes are up, you don't really want to stop. But by giving yourself such a small goal to begin with, you are able to get something done. Without that technique, you would have gotten nothing done on that project.

And working on your project for even five minutes gets you thinking about it, which is usually a good thing.

We tend to think about projects as a whole. This question gets us thinking about doing smaller parts of the whole. Do you have a large project you've been putting off because it is such a large project and you don't want to get started? Ponder this question. Can you do something on it for five minutes? Can you do a small part of it for now?

Direct Your Mind: How Can I Look At This As a Good Thing?

adam@youmeworks.com (Adam Khan) — Sat, 20 Jun 2009 18:52:00 +0000

ON AN old radio show, back in the days before television, The Amos and Andy Show was extremely popular. It was a comedy show, but sometimes they said something profound. In one show, Amos asked the Kingfish why he had such good judgment. The Kingfish replied, “Well, good judgment comes from experience.”

“Then,” asked Amos, “where does experience come from?”

“From bad judgment,” answered the Kingfish.

There’s always something to learn from misfortune. And that’s what this article is about: Dealing with adversity and setbacks. Dealing with events you didn’t want to happen.

The Kingfish pointed out one way you can always look at a setback as a good thing: You can learn something from it. At the very least, you can learn how to avoid having the same setback twice. But if you use your imagination, you can do better than that. Before you even see how something turns out, you can find ways of looking at an event that would make you feel good about it, even when it is obviously bad.

I’ll give you some examples in a minute, but I want you to see that if a “bad” thing has already happened, there’s no point in thinking of it as bad. Thinking it’s bad doesn’t help you to correct the problem, if it can be corrected. And if it can’t be corrected, it still doesn’t help you to think of it as a bad thing. People can learn and remember just fine when they feel good. You don’t have to feel bad to learn from your mistakes. In fact, people tend to learn better in a positive frame of mind than a negative one.

So there is no good reason to ever hold onto the judgment of a situation or event in your life as bad, awful, terrible, tragic, unfortunate, or lousy. It doesn’t do you any good to consider an event that has already happened to be bad.

You can find a way to look at anything that happens to you as good, and people who are habitually successful and happy do exactly that. You notice I said “anything that happens to you.” If someone you loves dies, do not try to see it as good. You probably wouldn’t anyway, but this is a disclaimer to let you know I’m not a nut case. When something terrible happens to someone you care about, this question is probably not appropriate. The question is for events that happen to you personally.

Sometimes you'll hear someone say, “I’m glad that terrible accident happened to me; it made me aware that my priorities were wrong.” And people who find meaning and value in even “bad” things in their lives are happier and more successful than those who just think it was a terrible misfortune.

And it’s not a matter of chance which way they look at it. It’s up to each person how they will look at their circumstances. We have the choice, and we will live with the feelings that spring out of the choices we make.

If we take the easy way and choose to look at a “bad” thing as bad, we will get the results of the easy way: Bad feelings. But if we use our heads with a little more vigor, if we make the effort to actively look for what’s good about it, if we choose to find a way to look at it as a positive thing, we will get the results of that choice too: It will be easier to wake up in the morning, we will be nicer to the people we love, we will take advantage of what we do have in our lives, and we will feel better in general.

You can ask yourself, How can I look at this as a good thing? Or you can simply assert to yourself, This is good! and then ask yourself why it’s good. Declare it’s good, and then allow your mind to find how you’re right. Either way works well.

Try it right now. Think of something in your life that you consider “bad.” It could be a condition you’ve lived with for some time, or something that happened recently you don’t like and wished hadn’t happened.

I’ll go along with you. I was a little curt with my sister-in-law, and now she’s not talking to me. Obviously that’s bad. Any idiot can see it’s bad. Only a starry-eyed goober would say that’s good. But I’m going to try to see what’s good about it. And come along with me, bringing the thing you think is bad with you. How can you look at it as a good thing?

How can I see it as good that I have this situation with my sister-in-law? Well, I can see right off the bat, I get to use it as an example in this article. Not only that, but it may be an opportunity to apply some of the other principles in my toolbox and might give me some good examples for those also.

How else? Hmm. Well, I really haven’t gotten to know my sister-in-law very well as of yet, mainly because we live in different cities. And I know that sometimes in working out a conflict, people get to know each other a lot better, and there’s no reason to think this won’t happen with us. I can see it as good because it is an opportunity for us to get to know each other better, and at a deeper, less superficial level.

How else can I look at it as a good thing?

What about you? Have you found ways to look at yours is a good thing? Be creative. Look at it from outside your own perspective. If a professor of psychology knew about your situation, assume she could see it as good. How would she explain her position to you?

If everything is easy, I have no opportunity to apply what I’ve learned. In applying what I’ve learned, I learn it better. In handling a difficult situation, I can take knowledge and turn it into skill. From this perspective, anything difficult is good. Friedrich Nietzsche said, “That which does not kill me makes me strong.” Although that statement isn’t strictly true, the attitude is a good perspective to adopt when difficulties come your way.

I tell you truthfully, if you make these principles a part of your thinking, you’ll be unsuppressible, unstoppable, and you will feel pretty good almost all the time. No kidding. The way you think makes a difference. And each principle is like another plug in the bottom of your bucket. Less and less of your happiness leaks out as more and more of these principles become a part of your thinking.

I know that some of them were a part of your thinking before you found CrushPessimism.com, although you probably don’t have them worded exactly this way. I haven’t put in principles like "I can change my own life for the better" because you already think that way or you wouldn’t be reading this article. You already think in a healthier way than many people who wouldn’t bother looking at this site because they think "I’m just the way I am and I can never change."

You also already know that even if you are doing better than most, you can always get better. And each new principle, repeated many times, is a solid step in that direction. This one (How can I look at this as a good thing?) is extremely useful.

This is a principle of thought. And thinking is most creative when it is a dialog — specifically, asking and answering questions. That’s how to do your most productive creative thinking: Ask yourself a question and then try to answer it.

For example, Sylvia has just been fired. She is on her way home from her ex-job. But she asks herself, almost with bitter sarcasm at first, “How can I look at this as a good thing?”

Sometimes when your body is filled with a negative emotion, a question like this won’t have a good effect right away. Don’t give up. Ask it again. And again.

“This isn’t a good thing,” thinks Sylvia, “not a good thing at all. ‘But how can I look at this as a good thing?’” She just needs to keep asking. She needs to awaken the part of her brain that answers questions.

And it is awake! “Maybe I’ll get a better job,” she says to herself without much conviction.

Ask it again! Keep asking the question. Sylvia does, and her mind turns more and more to the question, and it stops mulling her misfortune and stops moaning about how wronged she has been, and turns slowly toward the question. Then her mind kicks in and starts bringing up answers, slowly at first, and then faster and faster.

“There were a lot of things I didn’t like about that job. Now I have an opportunity to start over. It’s a good thing I got fired. I should have moved on from there long ago, but I guess I was just being lazy. This could be the best thing that could have happened to me. Maybe I should sit down and carefully decide what kind of job I want to get, and what kind of company I'd like to work for..."

And so on. Once the mind gets going, it can really come up with some good stuff.

Ask yourself: How can I look at this as a good thing? And keep asking.

Direct Your Mind: What Good Have I Been Ignoring?

adam@youmeworks.com (Adam Khan) — Mon, 15 Jun 2009 18:46:00 +0000

WE ARE nearing the end of my list of recommended questions to ask. Remember, the principle is to direct your mind by using a good question. Read more about the principle here. This question is one of my favorites. What good have I been ignoring? The answers go on and on, improving my mood the whole time. I keep thinking of more and more good things I've been ignoring. The question almost demands it.

The emotional fallout from this question is abundant good feelings of happiness, gratitude, and pleasant surprise. When you ask a question like this, you’ll find answers everywhere. The question makes you look. You’ll realize someone has done something nice for you and you hadn’t really noticed. You’ll remember a great time you had a couple weeks ago and realize you hadn’t thought of it since then.

The question sets your mind to be on the lookout for good you’ve overlooked. You’ll notice good news items you might not normally notice, like how this lake got cleaned up or that disease now has a cure. The question helps overcome a natural tendency of the mind to get used to good things and only notice bad things. Read more about the mind's negative bias here.

What has been improving? What’s been getting better?

Ask this question, think of some answers, and ask it again.

This is especially a good question to ask if you’ve had your attention on what has been getting worse, or if you've had a feeling things are going badly, or you’re worried they will go badly.

This question won’t solve all your problems, of course, but it can reduce the amount of distress you’re feeling by widening the tunnel vision stress causes. You’re not trying to fool yourself or pretend everything is rosy. You’re looking to acknowledge the reality of what has been getting better.

When those are acknowledged, you are less distressed and more able to make things even better. And it is good for your mood. A good mood is healthy and productive. What good have you been ignoring?

Direct Your Mind: What Needs To Be Done Next?

adam@youmeworks.com (Adam Khan) — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 18:38:00 +0000

WE'RE LOOKING at different questions you can use to direct your mind. This one will help you stay productive, especially in a distracting environment or if you feel upset. It is good all by itself, but I often add a little statement to the front of it when I use it myself. I say: That’s not worth the attention; what am I doing next? In your life, you know some people irritate you, some kinds of circumstances annoy you, and there are things that make you angry. When something bothers you, you have a choice: You can do something about it or leave it behind you. This question is for the things you aren’t willing to do anything about (or can't do anything about).

There’s no sense in even thinking about something if you can’t do anything about or aren’t willing to do anything about it. That's easy enough to say, but the problem is, of course, that our minds tend to stick on things like that, don’t they? If something seems unjust or wrong, it’s hard to get it out of your mind. Negative feelings compel your attention. The feelings arrest your attention, and generate thoughts that arrest your attention, even when you’ve already decided not to do anything about it.

It takes a firm act of will to unstick your mind and go on about your life, but it’s an extremely useful ability to have. Get in the habit of not ever dwelling on something you can’t do anything about. Train yourself to redirect your mind to something productive. How? By asking yourself the question: "What needs to be done next?" Or, “That’s not worth the attention; what am I doing next?”

Attention is your main resource. It’s really all you’ve got that’s worth anything. So when your attention is consumed by useless thoughts or feelings or actions, you’re throwing pieces of your life down the drain, and there are so many good things you could be doing with your attention.

There are more things, subjects, people of a positive nature than you could ever put your attention on. Why waste it on something negative unless you want to, or unless it serves you?

Say there are ten billion potential objects of attention available in the world at any one time. But you are limited. You have only so much time. You can pay attention to only so many things at once. For the sake of argument, let’s say you have only a hundred available units of attention at any given moment. There are ten billion objects available, but you can only partake of a hundred. Why take fifty or even ten of your hundred units and waste them on something unproductively negative?

What would you think about someone who had a hundred dollars and spent ten dollars buying something she didn’t want, even though there were at least a million dollars worth of things she really did want? You would think she was foolishly wasting her money, right?

You can put a stop to the waste of your attention. Say to yourself: “That’s not worth the attention; what am I doing next?” Use the question to plug the leaks in your bucket.

Your mind is attracted to certain things, compelled by certain feelings, some of them negative and harmful. And your mind doesn’t change direction easily. The machinery of your mind, if we can call it that, is stubborn. But you don’t have to put up with it. Start saying to yourself today, “That’s not worth the attention; what am I doing next?” and don’t stop until a new habit is formed.

Start with little things, and when the big things come along, you’ll have the resources to deal with them. As William James wrote:

So with the man who has daily inured himself to habits of concentrated attention, energetic volition, and self-denial in unnecessary things. He will stand like a tower when everything rocks around him, and when his softer fellow mortals are winnowed like chaff in the blast.

Use this question and use it often and you will have power and self-control far beyond your peers. But here let me issue the following clarification: This statement + question (that’s not worth the attention; what am I doing next?) shouldn’t be applied to certain things.

If you have a drinking problem, for example, and it’s destroying your health and your relationships and your financial future, you can do something about it, so this statement + question is not applicable.

If you are experiencing grief because a loved one just died, your grief is worth your attention. It is healthy to grieve and unhealthy to suppress it. And there is something you can do about it. You can’t bring your loved-one back, but you can talk to someone about it. You can write about your pain in a journal. People who do these things after a big loss are healthier in the long run than people who don’t.

Dale Larson, PhD, and his research team at Santa Clara University surveyed close to 300 people about events in their lives they considered shameful or painful, and also about how much of these things they kept to themselves or shared with other people.

The researchers then looked at the volunteers’ records of mental and physical health problems. Of course, those who experienced severely stressful things like losing a parent as a child or rape, experienced more health problems, but the problems were significantly reduced in those who had talked about it than those who kept it a secret.

And in general, those who tended to keep painful or shameful experiences to themselves suffered more headaches, fatigue, and indigestion than those who had a tendency to confide things with a trusted friend.

James Pennebaker, PhD, who has done a tremendous amount of research on this subject, says, “not discussing or confiding [a traumatic] event with another may be more damaging than having experienced the event per se.”

Apparently, holding things in is a kind of psychological “work” and is a strain to do.

I should point out that it doesn’t work to share your pain with just anybody and everybody. If you’re going to talk, talk to a trusted friend, someone you know won’t share it with anyone else and who will not criticize you or make fun of you, but will listen. Or, as Pennebaker has found, it even works to write it in a journal.

This statement + question (that’s not worth the attention; what am I doing next?) is to use for the annoyances and frustrations of daily life, including the people in your life who like to mess with your head or who seem to deliberately try to make you unhappy.

Did you think you were the only one? Think again, my friend. We all have people in our lives who seem to act like friends, but bring us down in one way or another.

The author of Little Women, Louisa May Alcott was once given this friendly advice: Find work as a seamstress or servant.

You’ve probably heard of Vince Lombardi. He’s one of the most famous football coaches in the history of the sport. An expert once said of him, “He possesses minimal football knowledge. Lacks motivation.”

In 1933 Fred Astaire had his first screen test. The testing director summarized Astaire like this: “Can’t act. Slightly bald. Can dance a little.”

The better you are, the more you accomplish, the more people will try to bring you down. That’s just the way it is and there’s nothing you can do to change that reality. You can, however, respond to it any way you choose.

I want you to remember something: Life is only so long, and then it’s over. Don’t waste precious moments. Don’t throw away your attention.

I know a woman who brings up bad news every time you talk to her. She reads the newspaper, and whenever there’s something particularly tragic or terrible, it obviously sticks in her mind, as it would most normal people. I don’t read newspapers for that very reason: I don’t want things like that stuck in my mind. There’s nothing I can do about a car accident that happened yesterday.

This woman brings up bad news, and doesn’t just mention it, but goes into graphic detail, and she’s skilled enough to give you a sharp, full-color image of the tragedy in all it’s vivid sadness.

When she talks to me, she gives me things that compete with other thoughts, images, ideas. There’s a limit to how many thoughts I can hold. The same goes for you. Our capacity for attention is limited. Even if we’re much better than average, we can only hold so many thoughts at once. So in this sense, thoughts are in competition for our attention.

Graphic, compelling, tragic thoughts compete very effectively because strong emotions demand attention. I used to listen to this woman, but then I realized something important: When she shared her news, it served her goals, but not mine.

Now as soon as the headline comes out of her mouth, I change the subject. I don’t let her fill me in on the graphic details. Luckily, I don’t have to talk to her much. It’s just an occasional thing. But it’s an example of how some things that compel your attention very strongly don’t necessarily help you. Giving them your attention may serve someone else, but only poured your precious moments down the drain.

The same holds true when the thought has not been put there by someone else. The human mind is incredibly full. Your mind can wander far and wide, and sometimes it stumbles upon a worry or fear, and even though it may be an emotionally gripping thought, that doesn’t mean it has to be thought through, figured out, or solved.

When something is emotionally commanding, it often feels as if the thought is clamoring very loudly for your attention, like a baby crying or loud moans of pain from someone nearby, but the feeling may have nothing to do with the worthiness of the thought itself.

After I decided to write books for a living, I was often haunted by the worry: “What if I never make it? What if nobody wants to buy my books? What if I try and try and I go broke and wind up a penniless street person and die of cold in some gutter as an old man?”

Somewhere along the way, probably in a fit of despair, I created that vivid mental image and it was compelling for emotional reasons. But it was a stupid thing to think. Yes, the book business is not as “secure” as some other fields, but I had made up my mind to do it, so this kind of worrying was not doing me any good.

This statement + question (that’s not worth the attention; what am I doing next?) put my mind on a new track. When I get that image now of being penniless street person lying in a gutter, this statement + question is fast on its heels, and it happens so quickly now, the image has begun to motivate me and increase my determination.

How?

Because of the question: What am I doing next? Because of the haunting image, what I wanted to do next was work on becoming successful in the book business! I wanted to make sure I didn’t goof off. It motivated me to burn the midnight oil. As soon as my thoughts turned to what I needed to do, I was off and running and forgot about the worries. I was too busy making it happen to worry whether it was going to happen or not.

This is totally different from what used to happen. The image used to bring me down. The image was compelling because it was me in the image, and I was afraid of it. It was like a leach, sucking my lifeblood (my attention) and contributing nothing to me. It was a parasitic thought.

And what is the best thing to do with a parasite? Kill it. If you had a tick or a leach or an intestinal worm, you wouldn’t hesitate to cut its life short. Mercy or compassion for a parasite would be stupid. It’s leaching off of you. It is taking your life, your energy, your attention, and only taking. Giving you nothing.

When you have a thought in that category, show no mercy, show no coddling, and do not play around: Cut it off without delay.

And the way to cut off a thought, the way to kill it, is to replace it with a better one. The mind won’t remain empty for long. You can’t just stop thinking something. You have to have something better to think instead. It is counterproductive to try not to think something.

Two researchers from the University of Virginia — Daniel Wegner and Daniel Gold — told 110 female and male subjects to think about a past lover who they still desired. Then they were given eight minutes, and in that eight minutes half of them were told to continue to think about the lover. The other half were told to suppress thoughts of their previous lover — to not think of them at all.

Then the researchers hooked everyone up to a device that measures emotional reactions. It measures how much sweat they produced on the surface of their fingers, and the subjects were told to think about their former sweethearts again. Those who had spent eight minutes trying to get their old flames out of their minds had a much stronger emotional reaction.

One of the researchers, Daniel M. Wegner, PhD, is somewhat famous in psychology circles for his many experiments showing that when you suppress a thought, it makes the thought more intense and obsessional. Some of his earlier experiments went like this: He put people in a room with a tape recorder and told them to speak aloud whatever was on their minds, except for one thing — under no circumstances were they to think about a white bear.

The tape recorder recorded their ongoing thoughts, which included something about a white bear, on average, about once a minute. There are billions of things to think about, but their minds kept coming back to the one thought they were trying not to think. They tried as many mental tricks as they could think of, but the thought of a white bear kept coming back to them.

When you say to yourself, “That’s not worth the attention; what am I doing next?” you are putting your mind on something else instead of trying not to think something. And it works.

Do this often enough, and even a thought that used to haunt you often will begin to remind you to think the new thought. After awhile, your mind will start to streamline the process and skip right over the old thought, and at that point you’ve effectively choked off its lifeblood (the attention it was draining from your life). It only lives by your attention, and when it no longer gets any attention, it is dead.

And when it is dead, you have just gained more life.

The question, “What needs to be done next?” is also good just by itself. It gets your mind thinking productively, no matter what’s happening. It can help you pull yourself out of a bad mood. It can help you get back on track. Try it today.

Direct Your Mind: What Is One Healthy Thing I Could Do Today To Feel Better?

adam@youmeworks.com (Adam Khan) — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 08:46:00 +0000

YOU HAVE control over your mood to an astonishing degree. Anything from taking a nap to having a snack to antivirusing your mind can make you feel better in a very short time.

Some people are hesitant to improve their mood. People have told me before, “that’s just the way I feel right now,” and imply that if they were to try to change their mood it would be dishonest. Hogwash. They clearly haven’t thought that one through. Your mood changes like the weather. You are not your moods any more than you are the water that moves through your body.

It would be similar to saying, “My body just stinks. That’s the way I smell right now,” and that is your reason for not showering. As if showering would be dishonest. It’s just stupid. If you don’t want to put out any effort to feel better just because it feels better, then think about doing it for your better health. Or do it because it will improve the moods of those around you. Or because it makes you more effective in dealing with people. There are many good reasons to improve your mood and no good reason to continue in a bad mood when you can easily change it.

One man told me it bothered him that when he was at work and he was in a bad mood, his co-workers didn’t like it. “I feel like I’m obligated to pretend to feel good when I don’t.”

“What makes you think you’re obligated,” I asked.

“I don’t know,” he sighed, “they try to cheer me up, or they give me a bad time about being grumpy, or they get short-tempered with me like they’re mad at me for not feeling good.”

“That’s interesting,” I said. “I remember reading a study on charisma. They had three people in a room just sit there. One of them was naturally charismatic, and the other two were not. They were told to just sit there and not say anything for a little while. At the end of that short time, without saying a word, the moods of the two less-charismatic people had moved toward the mood of the charismatic person.”

He looked puzzled.

“In other words,” I explained, “They tested the moods of all three before and after sitting in the room together. Let’s say the charismatic person was feeling irritable beforehand. Maybe one of the other people was feeling cheerful. After sitting in the room, the cheerful (but uncharismatic) person was more irritable.

“All I’m saying is that moods are contagious, and that is especially so when someone is charismatic, like yourself. So probably when you’re in a bad mood, it starts ruining the mood of the people around you and they are resisting that.”

“What, so I’m responsible for their moods now?” He didn’t seem to happy about this.

“There is some good and bad to just about anything. When you’re charismatic, it’s great because you make friends easily, people like you, you're more persuasive, you have more influence on others, and so on. But on the other hand, people pay more attention to your moods and that may seem like a burden, but it is nothing more than being in a position of leadership. Charisma is a power. And like the uncle in Spiderman said, ‘With great power comes great responsibility.’”

He laughed but he got the point too. And I hope you do too.

Whatever the cause of your mood, it is almost always true that you can do something about it. If you feel stressed, you can meditate or do some aerobic exercise. If you feel like you have no energy you could have a cup of coffee or go for a walk or take a nap. If you feel angry, you could use the antivirus for the mind or write in a diary or talk to a friend. If you feel lonely, you could reach out and communicate with someone or read a good book on relationships. For more ideas, check out The Top Ten Ways To Raise Your Mood.

Ask yourself how you can improve your mood at the moment, and keep asking until you come up with some good answers, and then pick one and do it.

When you want to improve your mood, simply ask the question: What’s one healthy thing I could do today to feel better?

Direct Your Mind: What Abilities Do I Have? What Am I Good At?

adam@youmeworks.com (Adam Khan) — Mon, 01 Jun 2009 06:52:00 +0000

THE BEST WAY to direct your mind is with a good question. Ask yourself a question and ask it again and again. You can make up your own question or you can use one of the ones I've suggested in The Steering Wheel of Your Life. One very good question to ponder is, "What am I good at?"

Recalling your own abilities helps nurture and strengthen those abilities (making you more capable of getting things done) and it also makes you feel better about yourself to remember what you’re good at. Try it right now and you’ll feel noticeably better almost immediately. Technically, you may "already know" your strengths. But if you took five minutes and thought up four of your greatest strengths right now, you would feel noticeably better. You'd feel stronger and more capable, and those are useful feelings to experience.

You have strengths you take for granted. But if you suddenly didn’t have one of your strengths, you would sorely miss it. Recognize that simple fact, and appreciate what you have by asking this question: What abilities do I have? Ponder it. Write down your answers. Make a list, and as you think of more, keep adding to the list.

If you think about this in your head, your thoughts will tend to drift toward your weaknesses and the mistakes you've made because of your automatic negative bias. To help you focus on the question, use paper and pen and set a target: Either set a timer or aim for coming up with a definite number of answers.

In other words, set a timer for say, twenty minutes, and keep coming up with answers until the timer goes off. Or write at the top of a piece of paper: Ten things I’m good at. Then don’t stop until you write down ten. Forcing yourself in this way squeezes out good answers you might not otherwise come up with.

Do this exercise and you will feel better. And those kinds of positive emotions are good for your health. But not only will it make you feel better, but it helps you realize what you are especially good at, and those are usually things you should do more of.

Brian Tracy, Alan Laiken and many other experts on accomplishment have pointed out that if you are not very good at accounting and you’re great at selling that you’ll make more money and have more fun in the long run if you’ll spend the money to pay an accountant so you can spend more time selling. Find out what your abilities are and you'll find it easier to focus on what you're good at.

It may not be a good idea to brag to others about your special qualities, but it is very good for you to acknowledge your abilities to yourself. False internal humility in the privacy of your own mind is really a form of lying to yourself, and self-deception of this kind is not good for you.

Ask yourself the questions, "What abilities do I have?" and "What am I good at?" Becoming more aware of your abilities makes you saner, healthier, and stronger. You'll feel better and get more done.

Find out your "signature strengths" by taking the VIA Signature Strengths Questionnaire at the Authentic Happiness web site.

Direct Your Mind: What Could I Do To Make Some Progress On My Goal?

adam@youmeworks.com (Adam Khan) — Fri, 29 May 2009 21:59:00 +0000

ONE OF the most important things in your life is having a purpose. And one of the best ways to feel better and have a more fulfilling, meaningful existence is to make progress on your goal. Chores and distractions, however, can easily absorb so much of your time that you never get around to doing something toward your goal. That's frustrating, and it brings you down, which makes you less motivated to work on your goal. It makes you less motivated to do the one thing almost guaranteed to bring you up.

This question — what could you do to make some progress on your goal — focuses your attention on something that will make a difference to you right now and in the long run. It makes you feel better immediately to make progress on a goal. And the ultimate achievement of your goal will make a difference to you in the long run.

And all you need to do is make some progress. It’s not either you work for ten hours on your goal or you can’t do anything about it. You can almost always do something that will make some progress toward your goal, and a little is much better than nothing. The question is what could you do, not what would be the most ideal if everything were perfect. If you think of something and it would take three hours and you only have fifteen minutes, keep thinking. What could you do?

Try it right now. What could you do to make some progress on your most important goal?

Direct Your Mind: What If It Really Happened?

adam@youmeworks.com (Adam Khan) — Tue, 26 May 2009 06:43:00 +0000

EDNA FOA conducted research on social anxiety to find out what helped the most to reduce anxiety. The answer was changing the way a person thought about consequences. That was the key to whether she succeeded or failed to manage her anxiety.

Specifically, anxious people expect the consequences of a negative event to be worse than they would actually be. And of course this makes them more anxious than they need to be.

When you worry about something, you’re asking yourself, “What if?” You wonder, What if X happened? And you think the consequences would be terrible. That’s what scares you. What if it happened?

What I’ve discovered I do (and apparently I’m not alone) is I stop right there. I don’t think beyond it. I worry, “What if that happened?” and it scares me so much I don’t want to think any more about it. But when I make myself follow through on the question, my anxiety is usually cured in short order. Let me give you an example.

When my wife and I first got married, whenever we had an argument, it made me very upset. I was always afraid the argument would bring our relationship to an end. My question was, “What if she leaves me?” It sounds stupid now, but I never once thought beyond that. It was too awful to contemplate. This is the woman with whom I share all my dreams. This is my best friend. This is the one I love with all my heart. It was too terrifying to think any further than her leaving me.

This worry put me in a panic, and usually my desperation to prevent an impending disaster would only make our fights worse. I wouldn’t let us take a break. She wanted to leave and go for a walk. I wouldn’t let her go until we had resolved our argument. Of course, it is almost impossible to resolve an argument between two people when both are upset, so my actions prolonged our arguments and made them more destructive.

One day I asked her how she managed to stay so calm when we argued. I always seemed to get intense, but even when she was mad, she never got anxious or desperate.

“Do any thoughts go through your mind when we’re arguing?” I asked, “Do you say anything to yourself? Do you picture something?”

Turns out, she did something very specific. She did it every time and it kept her calm. Like me, she also had the thought, “What if this is the end of us?” But she didn’t stop there. Rather than recoiling from the thought, she faced it. She deliberately imagined the worst that could happen. She tried to see a little movie in her mind of what would happen if we divorced. She imagined going through the sadness, moving to a different place, and going on with her life.

And as she imagined time passing, she could see that she would survive, and even if this tragic thing happened, there would actually be some happiness down the road.

This seemed like a pretty straightforward technique, so I gave it a try and it really calmed me down. Our fights became less intense because I wasn’t trying so hard to stop the fight (try to end an argument quickly and it will make the fight last longer).

Imagining the worst does two things: First of all, imagining a divorce and us moving away from each other always makes me sad. No matter how angry I am when I start thinking about it, I always feel sad because I realize how much I would miss her. That is a good realization to have during a fight. It’s a perspective that sometimes goes out the window when I’m angry, and it’s worth remembering.

The second benefit is realizing that even if this worst-case-scenario happened, I could still go on and be happy. That helps me keep the situation in perspective and helps me calm down. And my lower anxiety helps me listen. It helps me speak more calmly and kindly and sanely.

I tried it the very next time we had an argument. It worked beautifully. It may have been the first time we ever argued when I stayed relatively calm. I didn’t panic at all. I didn’t get desperate. I tried it again the next argument. And the next. And that’s about all it took. That was more than twenty years ago, and I now never even consider the possibility that an argument spells doom. It totally cured me of that particular anxiety.

All I did was think beyond the original fear. Try it with one of your fears right now. You’re afraid of what? What makes you afraid when you think about it?

What if it happened? Really, think about it. What if that terrible thing really happened? What would come next? And then what? And then what?

Jim says, “I get nervous at work because I’m afraid my boss is going to get mad at me.”

I say, “Okay, what if he does?”

Jim: “It would be upsetting.”

Me: “Yeah, so? Then what would happen?”

Jim: “He might write me up. That means it would be a warning, and one more and I’ll be fired!”

Me: “Okay, let’s say that happens. He writes you up, you don’t improve, and then he fires you. Then what would you do?”

Jim: “I’d have to find another job.”

Me: “Okay. Could you do that?”

Jim: “Yeah, I think so, but it might not pay as much as I’m making now.”

Me: “So, what would you do then?”

Jim: “I’d have to buy fewer things.”

When you follow the line of questioning, it always seems to peter out into nothing. You realize you could handle it. You’d live. It wouldn’t be catastrophic. It may be difficult. It may be inconvenient. It may be a challenge. But it's nothing to get distraught over.

According to the research, the two biggest mistakes anxious people tend to make is that they think the bad thing is more likely than it really is, and they think if the bad thing happens, the consequences would be more horrible than they really would be.

This is the antidote: Ask the question, “What would happen then?” and keep following the realistic consequences out to their probable natural conclusion, and your fear usually fades or disappears.

I need to warn you about something. Please remember this: It won’t work to tell yourself, “It’ll be okay.” I’ve tried it and it doesn’t have any impact on my anxiety. You must go through the visualization. You must see it happening and see how you’d handle it. Be honest in your imaginings. Try to make it true-to-life. Don’t try to imagine it more positively than you really think would happen. That’s not the point. What do you think would really happen? Imagine it. And what do you think you’d really do about it? This will have a definite — and maybe even a dramatic — effect on your feelings.

Like a magic bullet, it goes to the heart of your worry and dissolves it.

In his book, How to Stop Worrying and Start Living, Dale Carnegie tells the story of a man who cured himself of a very serious case of anxiety using a method very similar to this. His name was Earl Haney and he had ulcers. Bad ulcers.

One night Haney had a hemorrhage and was rushed to the hospital where he stayed. He had holes in his stomach lining and had to have his stomach pumped every day. His diet was alkaline powder and tablespoon of half-and-half per hour. He was in bad shape.

This continued for several months. His weight dropped from 175 pounds to 90 pounds. Three doctors agreed he was terminal. Death was inevitable. He was basically waiting around to die.

Finally a thought dawned on Haney. He realized he always wanted to travel the world before he died and he figured if he was going to do it, he’d better go now.

Of course, his doctors were strongly against the idea. Haney would have to pump his own stomach twice a day. Crazy!

Haney went ahead with his plans anyway. He bought a casket and took it with him so if he died on the way, he could be buried in the family plot back home.

He boarded a ship from Los Angeles to visit China and India. During the voyage, he gradually gave up on all the pampering and stomach pumping. He let it go. If he was going to die, so be it, he thought. His worry and tension evaporated. He stopped worrying.

Even during a typhoon, which should have scared him to death, he actually enjoyed it because he had already looked at the “what if.” It didn’t bother him. He’d looked at the consequences already: He would die and his body would be sent back to Nebraska. His alternative was wasting away in a hospital, and he’d much rather die in a typhoon on his way to China.

He started really enjoying himself now that he was free of constant worries, and he gained 90 pounds on his trip. His health returned. When he got home, he went back to work and never felt better in his life.

He was cured. He stopped cowering in fear at what might happen. He had learned to take an honest, unflinching look at the likely consequences of possible negative events. The constant worry evaporated into the thin air it was made of.

You can have the same sort of recovery from your worry. Think about something you have worried about recently. Now ask yourself, “What if it happened?” Really. What if it happened? What would you do about it? How would you respond? And then what would happen? And then what? And how would you respond to that? Follow it through as realistically as you can and see if that doesn’t have a dramatic effect on that particular worry.

When your own distress is making things worse, go ahead and confront the worst that could possibly happen. Don’t just do it briefly. This isn’t positive thinking. Don’t merely tell yourself, “Oh, there is nothing to be afraid of, everything will be all right.” That won’t work! Imagine the worst case scenario clearly in your mind. Imagine what would happen. Imagine time passing. And be realistic. Don’t try to be optimistic with your imaginings. Try to imagine what you really think would happen.

What you will discover is that this is not the calamity you feared. And your increased calm will help make a calamity less likely.

What Are We Fighting For?

adam@youmeworks.com (Adam Khan) — Tue, 05 May 2009 00:45:00 +0000

This is one of the most inspirational speeches on film. Samwise Gangee says it all:

Direct Your Mind: Ask Questions To Find Out More About The Situation

adam@youmeworks.com (Adam Khan) — Mon, 04 May 2009 00:38:00 +0000

AL SIEBERT has spent 40 years interviewing survivors of all kinds to find out what makes them different from people who don't survive difficult situations. One of his discoveries is survivors tend to be curious. They ask questions about the situation.

Often people who didn’t survive tried to impose their own “shoulds” on the situation: People should act this way; nobody should be allowed to be so brutal; nobody should have to eat food with weavils in it. Rather than opening their minds to the way things were really working, they pointlessly occupied their minds with fruitless indignation at what should not be.

Survivors on the other hand, says Siebert, asked themselves questions like, “What is going on here?” “How do the guards see this?” “What must I do to give myself a chance to survive?” They were curious, open, and inquisitive.

This kind of questioning is good for a great many applications besides surviving in a POW camp: at work, in your marriage, with your kids. Find out how things work, what’s going on, who responds to what, what people are feeling and why, etc., etc. There is so much to know and so little time. So open your eyes and ears and start asking some good questions.

Direct Your Mind: What Memory Makes Me Feel Good?

adam@youmeworks.com (Adam Khan) — Sun, 12 Apr 2009 05:59:00 +0000

YOU HAVE good memories, and they can make you feel good, but only if you recall them. You could have a fantastic memory that you never reminisce about and you can forget it ever happened! In fact, it is almost for sure you have many wonderful moments you've already forgotten. Some of them might be recent. The event happened, it was great, but life moves on and you haven't thought of it since. That memory is on its way to being forgotten.

But not if you ask yourself this question occasionally: What memory makes me feel good?

Every time you remember something, you strengthen the memory. When you don’t recall a memory, it tends to fade away unless it was emotionally significant, and even then a strong memory is not guaranteed.

Depressed people have just as many positive events as un-depressed people, according to the research, but depressed people reminisce more about their negative events. They strengthen those memories so they seem more real, they are more vivid, and they are easier to recall again because they’ve been recalled before.

You can use this same method in reverse and you’ll feel better more often. Your life will feel richer and more wonderful because your memory will be full of easily-recalled great times. You will have more confidence in yourself because you'll remember more of your triumphs and successes. You'll feel more in love because you'll remember more of those special moments you've had with your mate.

Ask yourself the question and ponder it. You'll be happier.

Direct Your Mind: What Else?

adam@youmeworks.com (Adam Khan) — Tue, 07 Apr 2009 05:47:00 +0000

IN THIS SERIES on directing your mind, I'm giving you several questions I have found to be useful. Read more about the principle here: The Steering Wheel of Your Mind. The question I will cover in this article is, "What else?" It is a good question for a lot of situations.

For example, Yale psychologist Alan Kazdin did an experiment with kids suffering from “conduct disorder” — young people prone to violence, vandalism, truancy, and hostility.

Psychologists have tried many things over the years but not much has been successful. How do you change a problem child into a healthy, happy, productive youngster? Theories abound. Results are rare.

Kazdin tried something unusual. He taught the trouble-making kids and their parents how to think up options for handling situations, and to come up with different ways of interpreting situations — other ways besides using hostility.

The result: Significantly less troublemaking. Fewer problems. It worked.

The question is, “Why did it work?” Think about it for a moment. When the only response you have is hostility, that’s what you do, regardless of whether it gets you the results you’re after. Kazdin trained these people essentially to ask themselves, “What else?” The parents and their kids learned to say to themselves before they responded to something, “Okay, I could do that (what I’ve always done), but what else could I do?” He taught them to think of new options they’d never thought of before.

And also he taught them to ask, “What else could it mean?” When someone bumped into one of these kids, for example, instead of immediately interpreting it as a hostile attack or a threat, he learned to ask himself, “Okay, it might mean that, but what else could it mean?”

It seems a simple solution to a difficult problem. But it’s harder than it seems. Our minds naturally streamline our mental processes. Asking what else? makes the decision-process more complex. So it takes some deliberate effort to turn your mind to the task of coming up with alternative ideas. It is not really difficult, but it doesn’t come naturally.

This question is useful in many different ways. As I’m writing this, it’s really cold outside, and even though a little while ago I had the heater turned up and my feet covered, my feet were still as cold as ice. Turning the heater up and covering my feet were obvious solutions. But, I asked myself, what else might work? What else could I do?

When you ask yourself a question, it awakens a part of your brain that answers questions. Ask a question, and your mind seems to search through all the things you’ve heard or know, and it often comes up with something.

I suddenly remembered something Klassy (my wife) told me years ago: “If your hands are cold, cover your head.” She used to live in Lake Tahoe, California, and she learned how to deal with very cold weather. I grew up in Southern California and didn’t know much about it.

So a little while ago I put a wool hat on. My feet aren’t cold any more.

What else? It’s such a valuable question. It’s especially useful when you’ve been doing something a certain way for a long time.

I’m always surprised when someone comes up with a new way to do something familiar, because it makes me think, “Now why didn’t I think of that?” Once you see the new way, it seems kind of obvious. But it took somebody asking what else? to come up with it.

“Unaware of Mind’s effect in patterning and enslaving their lives,” wrote William Bartley III, “people live in a state of waking sleep, in a state of enchantment, of mesmerism, most of the time. Every day, in every way, they become more and more the way they have always been.”

A couple of days ago I saw measuring spoons, but rather than having a separate spoon for teaspoons and tablespoons and halves and fourths, it was a single spoon with one end of the cupped part capable of sliding back and fourth, making the cup bigger or smaller, and there were lines on it for teaspoon and half teaspoon, etc.

Why didn’t I think of that? Because I didn’t ask, “What else could measure teaspoons besides the measuring spoon I’m so familiar with?”

What else? is an especially practical question when what you usually do doesn’t work very well. When a certain person makes certain kinds of remarks, you could get angry and defend yourself, but what else could you do?

You can do a certain task grudgingly, but how else could you do it? What other ways could you go about it? In what other ways could you think about it?

When you interact with your teenager and you both end up angry, ask yourself, “What else could I do?” What other approaches or responses can you think up besides what you normally do?

Here’s a good rule: If what you’re doing isn’t working, do something else.

Of course, you don’t want to go with something just because it’s different, because the new idea could be worse.

Creativity is the process of thinking up new ideas and then rejecting most of them. But those are two processes, and the parts of your brains involved in each are different, so they shouldn’t be done at the same time.

In other words, when you’re thinking up alternatives, don’t judge the ideas for their merits at the same time. Let your mind go. Let it come up with crazy ideas, off-the-wall angles, impossible notions. This stretches your mind beyond the limits which has previously confined your thinking. Out of that loosened-up state of mind, a truly original idea and sometimes a perfect solution can suddenly become obvious. You just couldn’t see it before because you were unknowingly confining your thinking about that subject within certain parameters.

Think up ideas, and keep thinking them up until you get a good one. And if it’s important enough, and you have the time, keep thinking up ideas and see if you can come up with an even better one.

After you’ve thought up all the ideas you want, then and only then, judge the ideas for their merit. Do not do the creative part and the judging part simultaneously because it will interfere with your ability to think up novel out-of-the-box ideas.

The best way to characterize “thinking” is as a dialog. Consider thinking as a dialog with yourself. I know that if it is with yourself it’s supposed to be called a monologue, but thinking isn’t done very well as a monologue because there is nothing to provoke the thoughts further. A monologue is an expression of an already-decided thought. Dialog can create something new.

Have a thought and then criticize it and you have a dialog. Come up with an idea and then ask, “What else?” and you have dialog, and that’s where good thinking happens.

“Well, my in-laws are coming over,” says Pete to himself, “and they always drive me nuts. Every time I open my mouth, they make me sorry I said anything. Maybe I’ll just not say anything.”

If Pete stops there, his monologue has created one idea. But this time he has a dialog with himself, and thereby becomes more creative. “Yes, I could try that,” he says to himself, “but what else might work?”

“What else might work for what?” he asks himself. “I guess I need a goal if I want to think up an idea to solve it. I need to know what I’m trying to accomplish.”

“I want to feel happy even when they are here,” he decides.

“Do I feel happy when I say nothing?”

“No. I’ve tried that before. It’s not much fun. It’s a little better than being annoyed, but I’m definitely not happy.”

“So what else could I do?”

“Since I want to be happy, I should do what makes me happy. I really enjoy playing my new video game. Maybe I can enlist one of them to play with me.”

“Good idea. But I’m not going to stop there. What else could I do?”

“I like talking about politics. I could make that my theme for the night. I could turn every conversation to the subject of politics.”

“That’s not bad. What else could I do?”

And so on. The more Pete asks, the more ideas he’ll get. Some of his ideas will be goofy or won’t work very well, but thinking is like good photography: You take lots of pictures and then get rid of almost all of them. You’ll have maybe two or three good ones, but they were worth it.

Creativity is like that. You generate lots of ideas and throw out most of them. But in generating so many, you have more to choose from, so your chances of getting a better one improve as the number of ideas increases. And the way to get many ideas is to keep asking, “What else?”

Tool For Changing Your Thinking

adam@youmeworks.com (Adam Khan) — Sat, 28 Mar 2009 01:06:00 +0000

HAVE YOU EVER heard a good piece of advice or come to a good realization only to forget about it a week later? Sure you have. I just found a great little online tool that helps me keep my insights in mind long enough for them to do some good. It's called Resnooze. Here's how it works: Type a message to yourself, and then choose how often you want to get it in your email inbox, and click on the button "Resnooze myself." That's it. Every day or every week or every month, your message will be delivered to you via email, for as long as you wish, for free.

I use it all the time now. Check it out: Resnooze.

For more help with making changes permanent, check out articles here: How To Make Lasting Changes In Your Life.

Direct Your Mind: What Is Another Way To Look At This?

adam@youmeworks.com (Adam Khan) — Fri, 27 Mar 2009 19:56:00 +0000

THE BEST way to direct your mind is with a question. You can make up your own question to ponder or you can take one of the questions I've come up with and found to be productive. This one is almost universally helpful: When you feel bothered by something, ask yourself, "What is another way to look at this?"

You look at your situation in a certain way, and it is automatic. You generally don't take the time and think about the best way to look at the events in your life. The events happen, and you interpret them in whatever way you normally interpret those kinds of events.

But whatever interpretation you make of a particular event isn't the only one possible. And if the way you interpret it doesn't help you deal with it, that's a good time to explore other ways to look at it.

How would your grandmother have looked at the same circumstance? How would the person you most admire look at it? How would you have looked at this when you were ten years old? These are all questions to help you get outside your point of view and look at the situation from a different angle.

If you feel bad or you’re not getting things done, or you’ve got a problem you can’t seem to figure out, it pays to take another look at the thing. You’ve looked at it from your automatic perspective already. So get outside your own point of view and see what you see.

One way to get outside your own point of view is to literally imagine yourself not looking out of your own eyes. For example, imagine being Mother Theresa sitting across from you as you tell her your situation. Imagine that you are Mother Theresa listening to you.

Look at yourself over there. How would you (as Mother Theresa) view this person's (your) problem? How would you look at it if you were Mother Theresa or Gandhi or Lincoln?

And don’t try to be yourself asking how Mother Theresa would look at it, but try to imagine yourself as her, and you as a stranger and really see how she would see you. Give yourself advice from Mother Theresa’s point of view (or whoever you chose). This is a very simple way to "think outside the box."

This is not that hard to do. It is almost like daydreaming. But it will help you tremendously if you feel stuck. It will help you change the way you feel about a situation, and help you deal with it better. You will gain more flexibility in your point of view and you won't get so stuck in a single perspective that may be counterproductive.

Think of something you feel stuck with right now. Something that bothers you. Or something that makes you feel bad when you think about it. Choose one thing.

Now ask this question: What is another way to look at this? Keep pondering the question for several days. On your way to work, turn off the radio and ponder the question. While you're in the shower, ponder the question. As you are lying in bed ready to go to sleep, ponder the question.

When you think of an answer that seems surprising and illuminating, write it down and then keep asking the question. Maybe you can think of something even better. There is always still another way to look at the same situation. Pondering this question is a good way to find it.

Direct Your Mind: What Is My Goal Here?

adam@youmeworks.com (Adam Khan) — Sat, 21 Mar 2009 19:49:00 +0000

EVEN IF you have a goal, it is abstract, no matter how concretely you have defined it, because you can only really take action on it in this very moment. So it’s an excellent practice to try to keep in mind one clear goal for what you’re doing now. To know your goal at this moment. Asking the question, “What is my goal here?” — and doing it often — helps you keep your goals in mind, and it can be illuminating.

When you ask the question, sometimes you just drop what you’re doing because it is not a goal you want to pursue now that you think about it. For example, if you are busy criticizing someone, ask yourself, “What is my goal here?” You may find what you’re trying to accomplish is to make the other person feel bad, or punish them for something they did. This goal might have been created without your consent by an automatic, emotional reaction. In other words, you didn’t really consciously or deliberately choose that goal.

But now that you’ve asked the question, “What is my goal here?” you can choose. You can think about what you really want in this situation. Let’s say you decide what you really want is to make sure the person doesn’t do it again. Then you’d have a clear goal and a clear path for action. You might simply decide to say to the person, “Please don’t do that again.” Or, “If you do that again, you’re fired.”

Ask yourself, “What is my goal here?” Ask it all the time. It will help you accomplish your goals faster. It’s effective. It’s therapeutic. It’s healthy. And it will make you more productive. You’ll waste less of your time doing things you really wouldn’t do if you thought about it.

Wants are fleeting, changing, whimsical, and often conflicting — and are sometimes too short-term and motivated by immediate gratification. For this reason, “What do I want?” is a lousy question. “What is my goal here?” is much better.

A bad attitude is often just insufficient purposefulness. When you’re on track, thinking about your goal and moving toward your goal, you’re not bothered by annoyances because it is counterproductive to even think about it, just as when you’re pulling your son out of the way of a speeding car, it would be irrelevant whether or not he was sassing you. Don’t resist your feelings or fight them. Just get back on purpose.

Pondering how you can accomplish your goal keeps your mind on your goal, and that’s one of the best things to keep your mind on. Make your goal the central organizing principle of your life. You can do that with this question, asked many times a day, every day, like an obsession.

Ask yourself, “What is my goal here?” Ask it all the time. You’ll feel better and get more of what you want.

Direct Your Mind: What's Good About This? or How Can I MAKE Something Good Out of This?

adam@youmeworks.com (Adam Khan) — Mon, 16 Mar 2009 07:17:00 +0000

THE COMPASS (and its use in navigation) was developed in the Mediterranean because the sailors had several disadvantages: very deep water, the winds varied a lot in the winter, and the skies were usually overcast. So you couldn’t reliably navigate by sounding, by the wind, or by the stars. Those were the three ways sailors all over the world used to navigate. In the Indian oceans, the monsoon winds are so regular (they change directions with the seasons) you could easily determine your direction by simply noticing which way the wind was blowing. And they have clear tropical skies so they could usually navigate by the stars.

Northern Europe is on the continental shelves of the Atlantic, so the water is shallow enough sailors could drop a lead weight attached to a rope to the sea floor to find their depth, and thus could tell where they were by how deep the water was. This was called making a sounding, and it was a very accurate method of locating ones position in charted waters.

But the sailors of the Mediterranean had to develop some way to navigate without shallow waters, clear skies or predictable winds. And because they had to develop navigation by compass, Spain, which borders both the Atlantic and the Mediterranean, was the first to find and colonize the New World.

Without having the know-how to navigate by compass, nobody in their right mind would have sailed across the Atlantic. There would have been no guarantee they’d be able to find their way back. They’d have no familiar landmarks, no soundings would work, wind directions would of course be unknown, and whether or not they’d have clear skies was unknown.

The “disadvantage” of sailing the Mediterranean turned out to be quite an advantage for Spain.

But of course, given the mind’s natural negative bias, I’m sure most people of Spain assumed their sailing conditions were only a disadvantage.

The lesson here is simple: When you think something is a disadvantage, think again. Assume there will be an advantage in it and then find it or make it. This intention is a fundamental key to a good attitude. With it, the inevitable setbacks in life won’t bring you down as much and you will handle problems more effectively.

I know some people would scoff at this idea. It's too airy-fairy. It might remind them of some annoyingly positive people they know to whom everything is great, but somehow, behind their forced smile, they can see it’s all a facade.

But this idea can be used with depth, rather than as a way to merely show a pleasant face to the world or hide your pain from yourself. It can be done with intelligence and wisdom.

Many people think cynicism and pessimism are good in some ways. But they aren't good. Negative attitudes are actually dangerous, unhealthy, damaging, and contagious.

In a study at Washington University in St. Louis, researchers interviewed people who had experienced a either a plane crash, a tornado, or a mass shooting. They interviewed the survivors a few weeks after the traumatic event and then again three years later.

In the first interview, some people said they found something good came out of the event. Some reported they realized life was too short not to pursue their most important goals, or they realized how important their family was to them. Three years later, those were the people who recovered from the trauma most successfully.

In an interview in Psychology Today, Carl Sagan said of his fight with cancer, “This is my third time having to deal with intimations of mortality. And every time it’s a character-building experience. You get a much clearer perspective on what’s important and what isn’t, the preciousness and beauty of life…I would recommend almost dying to everybody. I think it’s a really good experience.”

Think now about something you have that you normally consider a disadvantage...

Are you in debt? Did you have a rough childhood? Were you poor? Didn’t have the advantages wealthier kids had? Do you lack education? Do you have a bad habit? Has something terrible happened to you? Are you frustrated with your career? Not making as much progress as you'd like? Feel stagnant?

Pick one thing in your life you normally think is a bad thing.

Now ask yourself, "What’s good about it?" Or if there is really nothing outright good about it, how could you make something good about it?

If you don’t get a good answer right away, that only means it’s a tough question. And it means when you find a good answer, it will probably make a bigger difference. Try living with the question for several weeks or even months. Ponder it while you drive. Wonder about it while you shower. Ask yourself the question every time you eat breakfast. Live with the question and you will get answers.

And your answers will help you make things turn out better for you. As Klassy (my wife) often says, “Things turn out best for those who make the best of how things turn out.” As I write this, Klassy is at her ill mother’s house, taking care of her, and I only see her on weekends, and not even every weekend. I miss her terribly. Obviously this is a bad thing.

But I’m using this time to work on a book. Instead of moping or simply suffering, I am making the most of it, taking advantage of it. When the ordeal is over, we will have gained a lot from this misfortune. That was my commitment when it started and by thought and action I’m making it come true.

It is not putting your head in the clouds to take advantage of your reality — what you have, where you are, and when you are. It’s an entirely practical way to deal with “disadvantages.”

If you have a tendency to simply feel bad about your disadvantages, even that can become an advantage. Overcoming your tendency might teach you something valuable — something you couldn’t have learned without it. And you can teach what you learned to your children, making a difference to the whole trajectory of their lives.

Trying to make the best of something that has already happened helps create solutions. It helps make things better. It is even better for your health. It keeps you from feeling as bad when bad stuff happens. It lowers your stress, and less stress is good for you. As Richard H. Hoffmann, MD, said:

The human body is a delicately adjusted mechanism. Whenever its even tenor is startled by some intruding emotion like sudden fright, anger or worry, the sympathetic nervous system flashes an emergency signal and the organs and glands spring into action. The adrenal glands shoot into the blood stream a surcharge of adrenaline which raises the blood sugar above normal needs. The pancreas then secretes insulin to burn the excess fuel. But this bonfire burns not only the excess but the normal supply. The result is a blood sugar shortage and an underfeeding of the vital organs. So the adrenals supply another charge, the pancreas burns the fuel again, and the vicious cycle goes on. This battle of the glands brings on exhaustion.

Frequent negative emotions play havoc on your system. The idea that something good may come from your misfortune allows you to consider that things might not be as bad as they seem at the moment, and in a sense, makes it possible to procrastinate feeling bad. Procrastinate long enough, and you might just skip it altogether. This makes for less stress and better health.

Volunteers at the Common Cold Research Unit in England filled out a questionnaire. The researcher, Sheldon Cohen, discovered that the more positive the volunteers’ attitudes were, the less likely they were to catch a cold. And even when they did catch a cold, the more positive their attitude was, the more mild their symptoms were.

IT WORKS IN BUSINESS

W. Clement Stone became rich selling insurance and then running an insurance company. In one of W. Clement Stone’s books, he wrote that whenever someone came to him with a problem, he would always say, “That’s good!” This puzzled people sometimes. They might be one of his salespeople talking about a serious problem — a problem that cost Stone’s company a lot of money — and Stone would answer back with enthusiasm: "That's good!"

Years ago when I first read this, I thought it was over the top. Too much. But I’ve thought a lot about it over the years and I’ve even tried it, and I’ve decided that maybe there are some things that sound stupid but are really smart.

When anything happens, usually some aspects of it are an advantage and some aspects are a disadvantage. For example, when you buy a new car, it will probably need less repair work than an older car. That’s one advantage. Maybe it gets better gas mileage. There’s another advantage. But it is more likely to get stolen. That’s a disadvantage. And your insurance payments are higher. You get the idea. The point is, almost any event has both good and bad aspects to it.

When you first hear about a problem, your first reaction is probably to see only the disadvantages. This is a natural reaction. You focus all your attention on the bad aspects of the event. This puts you in a bad mood — a state of mind not only unpleasant as an experience, but also one that makes you less effective at dealing with the problem. If you react like this to unexpected or unfortunate events often or habitually, it will cause extra stress so it's bad for your health. The habit would be a good thing to change. I suggest trying Stone’s method. It will take some practice, but it can eventually become a habit.

When a problem lands in your lap, say, “That’s good!” (Note: Don’t necessarily say it out loud. It will make some people mad.) And then immediately start doing two things:

1) look for the advantages that might be wrapped up in this “problem” (which may be difficult at first), and
2) look to see how you can turn it to your advantage, and take steps to make it so.

This approach will make you more effective. You can plainly see why. You don’t waste any time bemoaning what already exists, and your thoughts turn immediately to how you can turn it to your advantage. No suffering is endured getting into a worse mood than is absolutely necessary. Your attitude toward the circumstances is open.

Your point of view — whatever it may be — is not something fixed or permanent. It can be changed fairly easily. And when you change the way you think about something, it changes the way you feel about it. And when you change the way you feel about it, your actions change too — in this case, for the better. Try it.

And remember, if you have trouble at first learning to do this, that’s good!

THE ORIGINAL MISTAKEN ASSUMPTION

The people of Japan and Germany were defeated in World War Two. Many of them probably thought this was a bad thing. But aren’t the majority of the people in those countries far better off than they would have been if they had won the war? Wasn’t that really the best thing that could have happened?

At the time, however, they didn’t know that. And I’m sure many of them were very distressed about this “bad” turn of events.

Haven’t you had a similar experience? Something happened you thought at first was terrible and you got upset about it, but later you were really glad it happened? If you can think of a time when this happened to you, keep that memory in your mind whenever something bad happens.

You don’t know what the future holds. The new "bad" event might be good. I'm not talking about fooling yourself. You're making an assumption anyway. You really don't know if this might turn out to your advantage. You might as well assume it will be, and start making it so.

A mistake might not be a mistake. You might think that you should have done this or shouldn’t have done that. But it would be better to ask what advantages your already-done deeds give you and exploit them in the present.

The architect Bonano erected a freestanding bell tower for a cathedral, but he built it on soft subsoil — a bad mistake which made the tower lean over. That mistake created a large tourist industry and put the town on the map. People came from all over the world to see the leaning tower of Pisa. Galileo conducted his famous gravity experiments from that tower because it was leaning. Of course, an historical example is all fine and well, but what about you? Don’t you have things in your life right now you consider a disadvantage? Aren’t there conditions you “know” are bad? That you wish would go away?

Choose one right now and suspend your negative judgment about it for a moment and ponder this question: Is it possible your disadvantage is an advantage in disguise? Or could you make an advantage out of it?

If you don’t want to ponder this for weeks, you can do a little concentrated pondering. Write this question at the top of a piece of paper, “What is good about this?” And force yourself to come up with 15 answers and write them down.

Then take another piece of paper. At the top write, “How could I turn this into an advantage?” Make yourself come up with 15 more answers.

At the end of this exercise, which will only take you an hour or two, your perspective on the “problem” will be totally altered. The “problem” will have lost most of its power to bring you down. This process can undemoralize you. It can restore lost motivation. It can give you strength and effectiveness and even good feelings.

UNWANTED AND UNLOVED

Irwin Kahn wrote to Dear Abby. When he was ten years old, Irwin's mother sent him to a children’s home. He was very hurt by this. She kept Irwin's younger brother and sister, but got rid of him. Ouch! She said Irwin was too much of a troublemaker.

He was an emotional mess for awhile and developed a severe stuttering problem. But he was assigned a “Big Brother” and the staff of the children’s home were good people, and this combination helped him develop some inner strength and a sense of values.

At age seventeen, he left the home to make his way in the world. “I educated myself,” he said, “overcame my stuttering, became a successful corporate CEO, and now enjoy multimillionaire status. I retired at 52.”

If you think about it, what seemed a terrible disadvantage — being unwanted and unloved — might have been an advantage in disguise. This conclusion seems so much the opposite of what anyone would normally think. But the fact is, he came into the care of people who were devoting their lives to helping others. He came under the influence of a Big Brother who voluntarily and out of genuine kindness spent his time to help a young person. If he hadn't been rejected by his mother, Irwin would not have met these people or been influenced by them. Instead, he would have been raised by a mother who clearly didn’t care about him.

We’ve got to face the facts: Our natural negative bias makes us automatically reject certain kinds of events, but depending on your attitude, those events could really and truly turn out to contain a hidden advantage which you will only see if you look.

When the energy crisis engulfed the world in the 1970s, Brazil was hurt badly. Oil imports were taking half the available foreign currency, and they were heavily in debt. But because of the crisis, Brazilians looked elsewhere for fuel. They had to look no further than their own backyard.

One of the things Brazil had was a huge sugar cane crop. So they used it to make alcohol, and started using alcohol as fuel. Today, 90% of cars sold in Brazil run on alcohol, which burns much more cleanly than gas.

They found advantages in their disadvantage. Because alcohol became their chief fuel, air quality in their cities improved.

The sugar cane is ground to a pulp, and the juice is extracted and fermented. So they had hundreds of thousands of tons of juiceless pulp. They had to pay garbage collectors to take it away.

But you and I have to drill it into our noggins that a disadvantage (like tons of pulp) may be an advantage in disguise if we think that way. Brazilians did. And they found things to do with the pulp. They burn the pulp to generate electricity, relieving the necessity of building new dams on the Amazon river — dams that cause flooding and environmental damage. And burning the pulp adds no permanent carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, because the growing plants absorb as much as is released in the burning.

The pulp is also made into a nutritious feed for cattle.

It is an old positive-thinking maxim that “trouble brings the seeds of good fortune.” It may one of those ideas that makes itself true. If you think you can make an advantage out of a disadvantage, you may try, and if you try, you greatly increase the odds of it happening.

But if you close your mind to the situation — if you make up your mind it is just bad — you are less likely to think of a way to turn it to your advantage.

You have something to gain and nothing to lose by taking this idea — that trouble contains the seeds of good fortune — and burning it into your mind. Make it an automatic part of your thinking. Practice asking the question, "What's good about this?" Make the question come to mind naturally and easily. Have it so ingrained that it is your first thought when trouble comes your way. It will give you power to overcome difficulties and prevent life from sinking you into the quicksand of despair. It will give you a path to better future.

When Henry Ford was running the Ford Motor Company, he had to overcome one problem after another (just like the rest of us). He was unusually good at turning problems into opportunities. For example, on their lunch hour some of his employees used the scrap wood left over from making dashboards and burned it as firewood. They cooked their lunches with it.

The problem was all the charcoal left over. It was starting to accumulate. Ford needed to get rid of it. But how?

His first idea was to make his dealers take it. He said for every traincar load of his cars they bought, they had to take a carload of charred wood with it. How they disposed of it would be their problem. As you can guess, this didn’t go over very well with the dealers.

Eventually, Ford’s “problem” was solved — in a very profitable way. A friend of Ford’s, Mr. E.G. Kingsford, bought the charcoal and packaged it with a little grill and some lighter fluid and sold it in supermarkets. Kingsford briquettes have been earning a healthy profit ever since.

By thinking about it, another problem became an opportunity in disguise. Ford actually profited from his "problem."

The actor Edward James Olmos grew up in East L.A. and his parents divorced when he was seven. He lived with ten other people in a three-room house (including the kitchen) with a dirt floor. Growing up this way is obviously a disadvantage, right? Olmos sees it differently, and that's why he is successful. He said, “Some people say they didn’t have a choice. They’re poor or brown or crippled. They had no parents. Well, you can use any one of those excuses to keep your life from growing. Or you can say, ‘Okay, this is where I am, but I’m not going to let it stop me. Instead, I’m gonna turn it around and make it my strength.’ That’s what I did.”

Sometimes there is a blessing to trouble without any intention to make it that way. You might get in a fender-bender and the cop who shows up asks you out on a date and you end up marrying.

But often, when something bad happens, it’s just bad, or at least it seems that way. There doesn’t seem to be anything redeeming about it. And since we’re usually in a negative state of mind when trouble strikes, we’re in no mood to try to find anything redeeming about it!

Here’s the problem with that: Your mind will tend to see what you expect to see, unless you have strong and clear evidence to the contrary.

If you see the "bad" event as bad, you are not likely to get any clear evidence you're wrong. It happens sometimes, but it isn't very often. Since there is no obvious reality to confirm or contradict your opinion, your mind is free to see what’s bad about the situation, and equally free to ignore what might be good about it. And that’s exactly what your mind will do if you don’t do anything to stop it.

And by seeing what’s bad, sometimes you can actually make the situation worse. If you think it’s bad and you throw in the towel, you might miss what you could have done to solve the problem, or even turn it to your advantage. And by not doing anything, sometimes the problem can get worse.

This question, "What's good about this?" makes you open your eyes and see what opportunities you might be able to cultivate. It turns your attention to the future, to doing something about it. It changes your attitude from one of avoidance and rejection to one of acceptance and alertness. It puts you in a better frame of mind for dealing with the “trouble.”

When something “bad” happens, you can accept that it’s bad, or you can try to concentrate on what is good about it, or you can make something good out of it.

Am I beating this to death? Maybe so. But then tomorrow when someone doesn't call you back or you burn your dinner or you see your child's report card and it's bad, how will you react?

If you take this idea and make it an ingrained part of your thinking, you can take many of the circumstances that in the past would have just been unfortunate, and you can change them into something that creates benefits for you and the people around you. At the very least, it will change your attitude for the better.

There are some things that “everyone knows” are bad: a home burnt to the ground, a divorce, a lost job, a sick child, and there are millions of smaller inconveniences that if you asked 100 people, 99 of them would all agree that yes, those are definitely bad and there is nothing good about them. But what everyone agrees about isn’t necessarily true.

DO NOT STOP YOURSELF FROM THINKING SOMETHING IS BAD

You may already know that "assuming the worst" is bad for your life, but maybe you don’t know how to stop yourself from doing it. The negative assumptions come automatically and once you think that way, it’s difficult to make the thoughts go away.

But now you have a way to do it. Don’t try to stop thinking anything. Trying not to think something negative makes you fixate on the negative. There is a better way.

Simply ask yourself the question, "What's good about this?" Or even, "What MIGHT be good about this?" And keep asking it over and over. Not forcing. Not with any frustration. Not trying to stop yourself from thinking anything else. Just calmly repeat that question to yourself. Keep looking at your life through this question. Ponder it.

Keep doing that when troubles big and small come your way and after awhile — a month, a year — you’ll start thinking that way automatically. You’ll start to trust it. It will become a natural part of your thinking. Trouble will happen and you’ll automatically and naturally start wondering what is good about it or how you can turn it to your advantage.

Can you imagine what that will do to your calm during a crisis? Can you imagine how much better you will be at keeping your wits about you?

Ask the question. All by itself, it can transform the quality of your experience, and through the change in your experience, it will change your attitude, your expressions, your behavior, alter the actions you take, and through those, actually change the world you live in, and it will benefit others. When something "bad" happens, ask the question, "What's good about this?"

Direct Your Mind: How Can I Use This To Accomplish My Goal?

adam@youmeworks.com (Adam Khan) — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 22:33:00 +0000

WHEN I FIRST started speaking in public to promote my book, I got pretty nervous. I had never done much public speaking before. I tried many things to deal with it, but the one that worked the best was using the nervousness to help me accomplish my goal.

Originally, I decided that each adrenaline jolt would be my cue to go over the speech outline in my head. That worked pretty well. I stopped dreading the rushes and stopped trying to avoid having them. An adrenaline rush became a welcome opportunity to make sure I knew exactly what I was going to say. This directly countered my main fear — that I would lose my train of thought in front of the group.

I got the general principle: To use the feeling of anxiety to remind me of something. I tried out several things. The one that worked best was saying to myself, “I will make them get how important this is.” That’s what I wanted to go through my head as I stood in front of an audience. I practiced that thought over and over whenever I experienced an adrenaline rush.

And while I practiced saying this to myself, I imagined saying it to myself while looking at the audience, so the audience became associated with that thought — the audience itself became a trigger for that thought.

I came up with this after doing a few speeches. I noticed the audience listened with the attitude, “this is interesting.” But I wanted them to sit up and pay attention to what I was saying — as if it could help them or someone they loved, as if it would make a difference, as if it were important! I wanted to have a real impact on them. I wanted their lives to be forever better. I didn’t want them to listen to me as a mere form of entertainment. This was something I really wanted. It was a sincere, heartfelt desire. And that was the key.

So every time I got a jolt, I would say to myself, “I will make them get how important this is!” And thanks to the jolt, I said it with extra intensity.

In other words, I used something that seemingly was against my goal, and I used it in service to my goal.

Whatever happens that seems to directly hinder you goal, try this question on it. Ask how you can use your barrier to help you with your goal.

For example, let’s say a man has a goal to become a manager. He works as a clerk. He works a forty hour week. That’s forty hours of not being able to write resumes, take training, or in any way move forward toward his goal. True or false?

He asks himself this question. He is working as a clerk, and he thinks of that as a goal. So he asks how he can use working-as-a-clerk to help him accomplish his goal. The question is: How can I use this to accomplish my goal? For several days he asks this question and so far has only come up with stupid answers. But then today he realizes that he interacts with his manager occasionally throughout the day.

“Maybe I could see what he’s doing right and what I would do differently if I were manager,” he decides. That’s a good idea. Then he realizes that as a clerk he deals with people all the time. Maybe he could improve his general ability to deal with people and that would help him become a better manager.

And now he’s on a roll. He realizes that he casually talks with people all the time. Maybe he might find out about management opportunities.

Maybe he could talk to his manager about managing, asking him, for example, if he had it to do over again, is there anything he would study before he started managing?

He is limited in what he can do while he is at work because he has to do his clerking job. But he could find leads, come up with ideas, and so on that he could pursue on his off-hours. And when he gets home he could make notes, keep a notebook on what he saw that worked and didn’t work about what his manager did.

He could make notes of what it is like as an employee to be on the recieving end of the way his manager deals with him, and that could help him in the future when he’s a manager and has a manager’s point of view and starts to forget the employee’s point of view, etc.

The point of this question is to get you thinking. When something seems to be interfering with your goal, ask yourself if you can somehow use it to help your goal. Sometimes you’ll come up with brilliant ideas.

Autistic Boy Gets His Chance

adam@youmeworks.com (Adam Khan) — Sun, 01 Mar 2009 06:46:00 +0000

The following YouTube video is 2 minutes, 55 seconds long. I'll bet you can't watch it without feeling better. Check it out: