SOLVING PROBLEMS:

For you; what is a problem? Is a problem just another noose around your neck,  or is it a blessing in disguise?

I guess the appropriate answer is how you perceive it to be. That perception is  generally determined by the emotion you’re in at that moment.

A change in perception can change the whole view of a problem. Today’s story  illustrates the same principle but calls it an adjustment in attitude.

As a few small problems seem to follow on from each other, is this not a sign  that you’re not fully in control? You’re beginning to drift into the wrong emotion  and no amount of effort will prevent further calamities.

We cannot prevent this shift of emotion, but we can see it for what it is and  correct it. When was the last time you looked at something beautiful and said it  was an effort? All you are doing is SEEING, you’re not involving effort! Instead of  falling into despair as nothing is going right, we can use it as a trigger to remind  us that our state of mind is weak.

So rather than think a noose is being tightened around your neck, you are  actually getting a reminder to change. What more of a blessing could you ask  for?

If you can understand this principle, then I’m sure you’ll introduce it. Instead of  ducking and diving during the day to avoid all the problems, you be shouting,  “Bring them on!”

So it would appear that the total reverse is true, to overcome problems you  must experience them. Rather than avoid them you need to get very good at  solving them; so without the proper practice you’ll never get the skill. Invite  them on! In doing this the fear of problems will disappear. What will eventually  happen is that you’ll be solving 50 problems every day and not realising you had  any.

We need to perceive problems as healthy and not unhealthy.

CHIP DANCING

Not too long ago I had “one of those days.” I was feeling pressure from a writing  deadline. I had company arriving in a couple days and the toilet was clogged.

I went to the bank, and the trainee teller processing my deposit had to start  re-process my money three times. A detour took me by the supermarket to pick  up a few things and the lines I wanted were all sold out; I decided on something  from the freezer. By the time I got home, I was frazzled and sweaty and in a  hurry to get something on the table for dinner.

Deciding on Cream of Mushroom Soup, I grabbed a can opener, cranked open  the can, then remembered I had forgotten to buy milk at the store to double to  portion. Nix the soup idea. Setting the can aside, I went to plan B, which  happened to be leftover baked beans. I grabbed a Tupperware from the fridge,  popped the seal, took a look and groaned. My husband isn’t a picky eater, but  even he won’t eat baked beans that look like caterpillars. Really frustrated, now,  I decided on a menu that promised to be as foolproof as it is nutrition-free: hot  dogs and potato crisps.

Retrieving a brand new bag of crisps from the cupboard, I grabbed the  cellophane and gave a hearty pull. The bag didn’t open. I tried again. Nothing  happened. I took a breath, doubled my muscle, and gave the bag a hearty  wrestle. With a loud pop, the cellophane suddenly gave way, ripping wide from  top to bottom. Crisps flew sky high. I was left holding the bag, and it was  empty. It was the final straw. I let out a blood curdling scream. “I can’t take it  anymore!!!”

My husband heard my unorthodox cry for help. Within minutes he was standing  at the doorway to the kitchen, where he surveyed the damage: an opened can  of soup, melting groceries, mouldy baked beans, and one quivering wife standing  ankle deep in potato crisps. My husband did the most helpful thing he could  think of at the moment. He took a flying leap, landing flat-footed in the pile of  crisps. And then he began to stomp and dance and twirl, grinding those crisps  into my linoleum in the process! I stared. I fumed. Pretty soon I was working to  stifle a smile. Eventually I had to laugh.

And finally I decided to join him. I, too, took a leap onto the crisps. And then I  danced. Now I’ll be the first to admit that my husband’s response wasn’t the  one I was looking for. But the truth is it was exactly what I needed. I didn’t  need a cleanup crew as much as I needed an attitude adjustment, and the  laughter from that rather funky moment provided just that.

Now I have a question for you, and it’s simply this: Has anyone ever stomped on  your crisps? I know that, in my life, there have been plenty of times when I’ve  gotten myself into frustrating situations and I’ve cried out for help, all the while  hoping someone would show up with a celestial broom and clean up the mess  I’ve made of things.

What often happens instead is that you get someone who dances on my crisps,  answering my prayer in a completely different manner than I had expected, but  in the manner that is best for me after all.

Do I trust this brave new concept? Even when answering my prayers in a way  that is completely different from my expectations? Even when someone is  dancing and stomping instead of sweeping and mopping? Can I embrace what  they’re offering? Can I let their joy adjust my attitude? Am I going to stand on  the sidelines and sulk, or am I willing to learn the steps of the dance?

I’ll be honest with you: Sometimes I sulk. Sometimes I dance. I’m working on  doing more of the latter than the former.

QUOTE: “The person interested in success has to learn to view failure as a  healthy, inevitable part of the process of getting to the top.”

(Dr. Joyce Brothers, Psychologist)

I’m excited to announce The Power of Less New Year’s Challenge — it’s free, and it’ll help you form a new habit in 30 days, in just 10 minutes a day. It’s a great way to start the New Year, and to make 2009 a great year. Forming a new habit is better than making a resolution, because if you use the effective habit-change principles in The Power of Less, the habit will stick with you much longer than the resolution. How It Works Here’s how The Power of Less New Year’s Challenge works: SIGN UP for the Challenge by joining THE POWER OF LESS Challenge forum … it’s free and easy to sign up. Read the FAQ for the forum when you sign up for more info on how to use the forum. PUBLICLY COMMIT . Once you’ve joined the forum, go to the section that asks you to post your new habit. Start a new topic, introduce yourself and tell everyone what your habit will be for the 30 days. This is a public commitment that will hold you accountable and motivate you. FOCUS on the new habit for just 10 minutes a day, EVERY DAY. No exceptions. No excuses. Everyone has 10 minutes a day. You might need to plan your schedule to ensure you’ve set aside the 10 minutes for the day, but do not make exceptions ! Read more: 9 Rules to Form a Habit (pdf format) . REPORT your progress each day on THE POWER OF LESS Challenge forum. It’s simple and takes 2 minutes: log in to the forum, go to the daily progress thread (there’s a new one each day) and That’s it. Just four simple steps: sign up, publicly commit, focus on the goal for just 10 minutes a day, and take 2 minutes each day to report your progress. In 30 days, you’ll have a new habit! See 9 Rules to Form a Habit (pdf format) for strategies that will ensure your success in the Challenge! Go to The Power of Less New Year’s Challenge for more! My New Year’s Challenge: To Become More Present To get things started, I’ll report my New Year’s Challenge: For January I’d like to practice mindfulness — being more present as much as possible. To start small, I’m going to create the new habit of doing Zen meditation for 10 minutes every morning . I actually want to be more present in everything I do — from washing dishes to showering to walking to driving to talking to people — and I’ve been practicing this more and more the last few weeks. But as always, I will start small — if I start with 10 minutes of zazen (sitting meditation) then I can use the progress there and carry it to other parts of my life. My trigger : first thing in the morning, after I have my cup of coffee, before I go on my morning run. To increase accountability : I’m going to tell my friends and family about this and of course post about it here on Zen Habits. I’ll post about it in a couple weeks to let you guys know how things are going, or check out the Challenge to see my daily progress. Wish me luck! And best of luck to everyone participating in the Challenge! Leo

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Make 2009 Great: Join The Power of Less New Year’s Challenge!

Article by Zen Habits contributor Jonathan Mead , follow him on twitter . We all get stuck in ruts from time to time. We get off track and lose sight of the life we meant to live . I know I’m probably not the only one who has wished that I could find a reset button for life. While we can’t exactly travel back in time ( flux capacitor or not), there’s certain ways we can “reboot” our lives. With the New Year right around the corner, it’s a perfect time to get a fresh start on an area of your life you’ve been meaning to overhaul. The New Year is an exciting time. It symbolized transformation and starting new. It’s a time when you can let go of the old, shed your past and begin again. The problem is a lot of the time we get super excited about these new goals, but we lose focus. A few months later December rolls around and we wondered what happened. Where did we go wrong? The most important thing we need to keep in mind is not necessarily being disciplined, but setting the right type of goals. If we’re just setting socially conditioned goals (like making more money or upgrading the things we own), we’ll likely lose interest, because our heart is not in it. So there first step is to set aspirations that come from your heart and what you value most. Then just take it one day at a time. Think small, act big . NOTE: Read the notice at the bottom of this post for info about The Power of Less New Year’s Challenge! Here are some suggestions for ways you can reboot your life: Health: 30 Days to Health . Use the month of January to start new eating habits. Maybe you want to become vegetarian, vegan or completely raw. Or maybe you just want to eliminate processed foods like; frozen food, chips, soft drinks, candy and essential junk foods. Go on the Master Cleanse : a 10 day mono-diet fast that will help you reboot your health and eating habits. I’ve personally done this 3 times. It helps you rejuvenate your body and your mind. When you’re not spending your energy on digestion, your body can use its energy to heal itself. It’s amazing when you’re fasting how much time you realize you spend thinking about eating and making food. Simplicity: Reassess your mess . Go through out all your junk and make 3 piles: toss/recycle, donate, and keep. Throw out or donate or sell anything you haven’t used in over a year. The same rule applies with your closet, garage and wardrobe. For a more detailed guide see here and here . Unwind your mind . We spend a lot of time trying to organize and create more functional living spaces. But we often neglect the most important space we live in: our mind. Take advantage of the New Year to reboot your mind. Drop disempowering beliefs, drop negativity. Cull and remove what’s not working for you. Stop caring so much, kill your (ego-driven) goals and give up . Here’s another great resource: How to Organize Mental Clutter . Relationships: Reconnect . Most of our ambitions for the New Years are centered around ourselves, but they don’t all have to be. Maybe you want to make your resolution to spend more time with your partner or your kids. Maybe you want to create a better relationship with your parents. Or perhaps you just want to dissolve a grudge you’ve been holding against someone.  Now is a good time to forgive and forget. Be more romantic . With all our goals surrounding our careers, productivity, and health, it’s easy to put romance on the back burner. Too easy, if you ask me. A few ways to jump start your ideas for rekindling romance might be: giving your lover love coupons , spending more quality time together and dating your partner more often. Even if it just means going out for coffee or watching a movie on the couch together. Here are some more great ideas to get you started . Finance: Reboot your bank account. During the holidays are spending can spiral out of control. It’s easy to get caught up in wanting to buy really cool gifts (well, except for this gift ) for everyone you love. So after the season ends, it’s a great time to reevaluate where your money is going. Here are a few ideas to get you started: create a debt snowball , create an emergency fund , or develop the habit of being frugal . Cash-in your passion. Here’s a great exercise to start off the new year: Take out a paper and draw a line down the middle. Mark the first side as column a, mark the other side column b. Look over your bank account for the past 30 days and write down all your non-essential purchases in column a. This includes things like unneeded spending on clothes, lattes, junk food, renting movies, entertainment, gadgets, CDs, etc. Don’t include things such as rent/mortgage, utility and phone bills. Now in column b write down all the things you’d like to have money for to pursue things you’re passionate about. This might be thing like dance lessons, tai chi or yoga classes, a pottery workshop, an industry conference, a mountain bike, you get the idea. Try to see what you can remove from column a to make more room for the things in column b. Fitness: Maintain the chain. There are so many fitness goals and programs you can get into. If you live anywhere like I do, the guys from 24 Hour Fitness are on the corner downtown recruiting people like gangbusters. With all these fitness routines and exercises you can find, it’s hard to see through the noise. A simplified resolution is to create an exercise chain and all you need is a calendar. Now for the month of January make a pact to exercise every day. Each day you exercise, you put an X through that day on calendar. Your job is to not break the chain. I’ve personally found this to be an awesome motivator because you can see all the progress you’ve made and it would hurt too much to break the chain. Tap the troupe . It’s easy to fall off the wagon when you’re going it alone. If you join a local fitness group, you’ll have others that will hold you accountable. Meetup.com is a really awesome place to find local meetups in your area. It’s super easy to join and most of the groups are free. Just sign up and search for fitness groups in your neck of the woods. Bonus tips: Automate your answer . A lot of the time we hold ourselves back because we don’t have enough information, or we don’t know where to start. Instead of letting “I don’t know” hold you back, put yourself on the auto-response “I’ll figure it out.” Imagine what you could do if you did this. You might be able to have the guts to start that business you’ve been dreaming about. You could write that novel you’ve been planning. Or could you take that trip around the world you’ve been dying for. Make your resolution to not let not knowing where to start keep your from taking action. Vaporize virtual living. In the age of email, twitter, social media, instant messaging, text messaging and screen to face, it’s hard not to get caught up in living virtually . While there’s nothing necessarily harmful or wrong with these things, it’s easy to forget the value of real live interaction. You know, actually talking to someone in person. Whatever method you choose to connect, a good New Years resolution might be to simply connect more. Not in quantity, but quality. What are your plans for the 09? Do you have any good tips for starting off the New Year right? This article was written by Zen Habits contributor Jonathan Mead of Illuminated Mind . To learn more about how to reclaim your life, grab a subscription to Illuminated MInd . — NOTICE: Tomorrow we will announce THE POWER OF LESS NEW YEAR’S CHALLENGE! It’s a free 30-day challenge where you will form a new habit in just 10 minutes a day. The Challenge will help motivate you and keep you accountable, so you can start the New Year off right! — If you liked this article, please share it on del.icio.us, StumbleUpon or Digg . I’d appreciate it.

Originally posted here:
How to Press the Reset Button On Your Life

ADAPTING TO CHANGE:

Some people think that there is a method of how to appear dominating and in charge.

Imagine for example, a politician, don’t they appear to be totally domineering? What about the President or as we have here in England, a Prime Minister, don’t they appear to be always ‘in charge’ of their behavioural patterns?

Broadcasters, high flying business people, high ranking army officials, high ranking government personnel, these and many more seem to have a charisma of strength and determination. So what is their secret?

Making sure they are fully alert, and you will notice these people never allow themself to comment unless they have studied the facts. Knowledge is power!

If you listen and respond, you will create the same energy and communication skills as these who perfect it professionally.

QUOTE: “When you only ever half listen, you can expect nothing less than only ever being half as effective.”

Always pay full attention. Listen and respond, as a well structured response can change the world; more often than not, the structure isn’t planned it comes from keeping full attention throughout your response. In effect what your heart tells you to say.

If you could ever trust that reaction, you’ll realise its potential.

Try and remember a moment where you spoke without thinking, and the quality of that comment that was spoken; you may have even thought that it had come from someone else’s mouth.

Express this power vocally and physically and you will impress. If you knew how to harness this power you would use it regularly

Adapting to change in this way is simple. Test, try and see; you may well be impressed yourself. So don’t forget to listen and respond from the heart instantly.

You will not know unless you try! Now on to today’s story…

PRESIDENTIAL DEBATE

Today’s example occurred in 1960.

In was an American Presidential debate between Richard Nixon and John F Kennedy. The debate was broadcast both on radio and, for the first time on television. The majority of people who listened to the radio thought Nixon won the debate. But by far the majority watched it on television. Those that did thought Kennedy won.

Why? Kennedy was much better at sending “elect me” messages in a visual way that that of Nixon.

(From a book by Nate Booth).

QUOTE: “Every man carries in his eye the exact indication of his rank.”

(Ralph Waldo Emerson).

ADAPTING TO CHANGE:

Do we really know where our values reside and whether they are values and not a hidden selfishness?

As I read today’s story I was in and out of support for the lady and her tale of emotional turmoil. But why would I swap and be with her one moment then opposing her another?

These are the challenges we face every day. It is a case of structuring a formula that sees the dilemma and resolves it. Wisdom and Philosophy being the structure of course. Rather than work out an explanation and determine the ultimate answer, with the intensity and quality that Wisdom can give you; you act from an inner sense and work out the explanation afterwards.

The story is entitled ‘Change’ but ultimately the lady isn’t going to change, so it could have easily been called ‘Not Changing’. I sense the lady is justifying her decision to go with her thoughts about life, but only she will know if it’s the right decision. The story has an immense value as it appears to explain how we approach every daily dilemma. We see it, we act and then if it doesn’t follow some major vein of truth we justify it. We do this to satisfy our subconscious mind.

Once an action has happened we cannot take it back. We are better for accepting there may have been an error and correct it should the next need arise. This story may not be the full story, and we may find ourselves adding to fill in the gaps, but there is a sense that the bitterness from the emotion involved caused her to pass her view in this manner. Upon reflection, some months later, her view maybe different. The observation however, is that a heightened emotional state of mind confuses our decision making tools.

CHANGE

I walked into the house and dropped my bag on the floor with a barely concealed sigh of relief. My back was a mass of aching misery, and it was a joy to be home. To the computer to check email, and then a nap. As soon as the monitor lights, there is a message. “I hope you kill yourself.”

I sighed. At one point in my life, this would have bothered me. Isn’t it strange when you get used to such mundane things. But at some level, the journal entries, the harassing phone calls, the instant messages, the bad poetry… they all blended together. Into one sort of amalgamous ball of hatred.

It wasn’t a comfortable honour to be named someone’s “unwilling muse” like that. But what else could I do? Talking to her held gave no leeway. She was so egotistic that any attempts at discussion were simply rebuffed because I couldn’t possibly be right because… well… I was me.

Not that I considered myself right, granted. In this situation, there’s not a right. But I’m not ashamed of the choices I made. I tried to stand by someone I cared about. Granted again, it got me emotionally kicked in the face a few dozen times, drove me into full blown manic depression, and left me disconsolate and disbelieving of love… but sometimes you just had to make choices.

Even now, she taunts me. Taunts me that because I’ve managed to lose everything in a matter of months (including her precious boyfriend, who she won’t allow to talk to me) that I was depressed, weak, and filthy. Because the two of us had been involved, I was a “slut”.  My friend Rachel pointed out once that if her criteria for judging sluts was the people that’d slept with her boyfriend, there must not be any mirrors around.

And so, I sort of bumble along. She’s hidden her journal, though I won’t hide mine.  Occasionally a poem pops up, full of loathing and bitterness for the life I continue to ruin  by just being in it. And she always claims how I’ve ruined his life too. Funny, he used to tell me the opposite. Which is why I stayed. But, her little master plan has worked now.  Cut off from all the people who loved him and who he loved in return, he’s got no choice but
to fall back on her now. That’s how they imprint baby animals, you know. And so, I sit here.

Thinking about the times we had, looking at the gifts he gave me, and wondering if he’s ok. Anyone that’d encourage another human being to kill themselves,  taunt them for not having the courage to do it, and then define even thinking of it as a cowardly act scares me on a very deep soul level.

But yeah, that’s my story. There was a boy, and I loved him once. And he moved and got a new girlfriend without telling me. Or her, apparently, that there’d been a me. She found out, she flipped out, and now she hates me because I’ve ruined her life. Sounds like something from a soap opera, don’t it. Some day, I’m going to write a book. And it’s going to make lots of money, because, let’s face it, people eat stuff like that up.

Yet, even so, I resent being called a slut because I loved. I turn off the monitor and head into the bathroom. Tom is coming over in an hour or so, and I’d like to be ready on time for once. Maybe I’m his slut too. Maybe I fall in love too easy. At any rate, I refuse to change.

(Jennifer A. Binkley)

QUOTE: “After all it is those who have a deep and real inner life who are best able to deal with the irritating details of outer life.”

(Evelyn Underhill)