From Amanda's very early writing (1990s to early 2000s), shared as it was originally written.
ÞIt's that time of year where everyone and their dog writes about the new year and what resolves we are going to make! We review our lives and decide on what needs to be different. Or we get drunk and forget all about it and probably our names as well!
Despite my frivolity (after all it is still the silly season), it's probably not a bad idea to have a little look at how we are living our lives and if we are happy with the way they are progressing. Or stagnating.
Michael Gerber in his book "The E Myth' suggests that people spend too much time working IN their businesses rather than working ON their businesses. I think the same philosophy applies to our lives. Most of us are so busy running around caught up IN our lives that we don't take time to work ON our lives take time to work ON our lives.
So maybe New Year is a good time to slow down for five seconds and reflect on you and your life and your relationships. How would you like your life to be? What is it like right now? What things can you do that make you feel good or energized or excited? Which of those things do you do on a regular basis? What things do you do that make you feel rotten, or drain your energy.
Think of five activities that make you feel good about yourself. Make a plan ( or an hour or so)
can - or will you - energy? What can you do instead? tooandout
What sort of person are you? Do you like yourself? (This is a 'biggie' question!) What do you like about yourself ? (Sometimes, it take a little while to think about this, but you'll always come up with something! If you really, really try and still can't come up with anything then you need to plan a personality transplant for 1995!) What don't you like about yourself? (This is easier. Humans are funny creatures because we find it incredibly easy to come up with 5,000 things we don't like about ourselves in 30 seconds, yet we search for hours to identify our good characteristics. )
What can you do about changing those aspects you would rather not have.
All this stuff about 'people never change' is garbage! People can (and do) change. It's called growing up and personal growth and development. It takes time, energy and effort to learn new skills; ans under presuure we will probably revert to some of our old patterns of behavior. But that's all they are. Patterns - that we have learned, usually from our parents . So patterns can be unlearned and new ones learned.
One of the best ways of learning new behaviors is to 'model' or copy someone else's behaviors that you admire. Yes, just copy. That's the quickest and most powerful way human beings can learn. Do something the way you would like o be able to do it and bingo! Your subconscious mind immediately has a greasp of how to behave like that. The trick is then to remember to pracitce the new behavior. How do you think elite athletes learn? They watch great performers; they mentally rehearse by imagining - seeing, hearing and feeling themselves perform perfectly - then they go out and physically practice.
So identify behaviors and traits you would like to change; make a committment to do so and then find someone (even if it's on TV) who demonstrates the behaviors that you would rather have; and then copy that persons voice, posture, physical movements and any other 'copyable' characteristic! You'll be amazed at how quickly you start to pick up the different behaviors. Of course, practice and keep practicing if you want these new behaviors to be long lasting.
For those cynics out there who think this is new age mumbo, jumbo - think again! And start researching the latest ways athletes improve their performance. Or how people are learning to play musical instruments; or golf or any other sport. There is a book called the 'Holographic Universe" by Michael Talbot that will set your thinking on fire! Qantum physics is here to stay and set to change the whole way we view life. But more of that later!
Back to you and the new year.
Winston Churchill once said that if you were watching a TV channel and the program was upsetting you, if you turned the TV off, your mind would keep replaying hte gruesome scene you just saw. If you changed the channel yoru mind would be occupied with another thought and soon forget the unpleasant image. Replace activites that drain you rather than just eliminate them - it will make the process easier.
Try this technique for a quick and fairly accurate appraisal of what you need to do for an improved lifestyle. Stand up (or on a safe, solid , stable chair - hanging onto something to keep you balanced - and look down. You 'see' your personal life laid out like a map as if you were in a helicopter. You have tremendous insight because you are now looking and having a sense of working on your life. If there was one thing that you could do that would make a tremendous difference to the quality of your home life, what would that one thing be?
Now, try the process with your work life. Turn 180 degrees and in this place, 'see' your work life. If there was one thing that you could do that would make a dramatic improvement to the quality of your work life what would it be?
The next step, after you have the insight gained from spending uninterrupted time devoted to thinking about you and your life is to make a plan. Yes folks, a plan! WRITE down what you want to do (be as specific as you can) and when you will begin this new behavior/ activity. And then write down how you will know you have achieved this thing you plan to do - what will you look, sound and feel like when you have actually incorporated this new behavior/activity. This last step may sound bizarre but it's really worthwhile. It usually cements the new behavior.
It may seem a little scary to embark on this journey of self exploration but there is a Leunig cartoon that is wonderful and encapsulates the benefits gained from the experience. The man is brilliant and the words to the cartoon are
"In my life I had accumulated many things in my head - too many things! Memories, tunes, facts, fears, visions, loves, etc..etc.. as many as possible. In a fertile mind such things interbreed. Mongrel visions are born..hybrid memories..inbred, idiot love..it gets very confusing. I decided it was time for a good cleanup so I emptied my head and pushed it up in a big heap to sort it out. There it was .. everything that was me, all in a big jumbled heap. I walked around it. What a mess! Then suddenly I saw it in silouette and realized what it was..it was a heap...a simple heap! You don't sort it out...you climb it...you climb it beacuse it is there...Excitedly I clambered to the summit and raised a flag. I was now looking beyond everything that I knew."
What a great way to think for 1995. And the rest of yoru life. Happy New Year!
