Fear

FEAR's, the terrifying word which could initiate different reactions on every one of  us. Usually , we try to ignore them (e.g. 'I've no fear'),  to run away from them (avoiding things, people, situations and even fearful thoughts and emotions)  or try to control and fight against them.  All will end becoming stuck behind them.  

Reminding the 3D model of comfort zone, fears are like orbital's limiting our freedom.  Fear of failure/success, fear of rejection, fear of the unknown, fear of being hurt, aging, loosing, ... they are all the same!  => limiting our potentials to change

Many people who are in constant fear are  even unable to explain what they are afraid of. For some, it is just a pressure they cannot identify. Unfortunately, you cannot overcome  anything you cannot define. If we want to get rid of our fears, we must know what it is first.  

However, fear is  not bad at all. It is a built-in  evolutionary alarm system (mostly) in the brain of most creatures, including us. Fears have a critical role in fight-flight situations and decision making process.  They are like an alarm system in a machine. They warn us when something is going wrong. The problem is  when you waste all your attention and energy on the alarm system which then entire machine loses its functionality.  That's when you're fully controlled by your fears, instead of take advantage of their magnificent power.

The end results of being in constant fear are  sadness, hate or aggressiveness. Most of the time people are unaware  of the source of such unhelpful  emotions they experience . That's why people call it mind killer.  So, the first step is to overcome, is to know them (self-awareness).  See them and acknowledge them, even not so deep. And let them be as they are, without any self-judgment about our weak points.

Just like hurdles, you need to see them first and then get ready to jump over them. You may not jump easily, you  may fall after the jump. But you'll pass it anyway, not being stuck behind it. You'll be experienced and stronger for the next jump. Also, you may jump too high, and then learn not putting too much pressure and reach your goals with less efforts.

 

That's the way you can transform the negative energy of your fear to the positive on energy of motivation. Motivation to step out of your comfort zone and to change.

Donald Walsh has an interesting quote: "FEAR is: Feeling Excited And Ready!"

Let's look at this video and see you're not alone with your list of fears:

 

Thank You!

 

Before I continue the blog routine,  I would like to thank the readers  around  the world, esp. those who sent me their feedbacks and requests on the subjects.  Not surprisingly, there is more interest on resilience and stress subjects!
I would definitely come back to these important topics which are crucial when we are talking about the transformation. I'll also introduce some different approaches and strategies on stress coping, resilience and happiness (without emphasizing on any specific technique :) ).

I also try to discuss about the subjects in more  transformative and practicable styles  rather than pure informative. And  contributing your valuable experiences and views would be highly appreciated and helpful.

Thank you for your motivation to change.

Resilience - the ability to bend but not break

"More than education, more than experience, more than training, a person's level of resilience determines who succeeds and who fails. That's true in the cancer, it's true in the Olympic, and it's true in the board room." Dean M. Becker

Life is full of up's and downs. It seems that most of the people already know how to deal with up's moment. But there are less who can easily handle the difficult traumas and fewer who are capable to convert such situations into magic moments. These are resilient people. AAP (American Psychological Association) defines resiliency: "Process of adapting well in the face of adversity, trauma, tragedy, threats or even significant source of stress."
Resilience is determined by both in born traits and environment, but it's also a learning and developing skill. You can learn to think to and act resilient.

Like any moment of your life, during the process of change you may face some adversity  and trauma which requires enhancing resilience.  One of the first steps of to enhance your resilience is regulating your emotions. Regulating emotions is neither controlling nor ignoring. Again there are number of techniques which you can employ to regulate your emotions., varies from ancient mindfulness meditations to cognitive restructuring (reappraisal) techniques. The cognitive restructuring or reframing is an alteration in perception which is made through changes in cognition. Cognition is the mental process that includes an assortment of thinking and reasoning skills.

The amazing advantage of such cognitive reframing is experiencing the deeper levels of your current mind set (current frame) and the self-awareness about your beliefs, thoughts and emotions. Therefore you would be able to favorably alter your negative or stress-related perceptions (irrational thoughts) into positive attitudes.

"Everything can be taken from man but one thing - the last human freedom, to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances." Viktor Frankl

By restructuring the negative perceptions which cause toxic thoughts and toxic emotions, you'll have the choice to choose your thoughts!   

Another efficient strategy to enhance your resilience is to become physically fit. You can protect yourself against the negative effects of stress by physical activity. Exercise will boost levels of endorphins as well as neurotransmitters such as dopamine and serotonin that may reduce symptoms of depression and elevate mood. It means that simple workout (like 1.15 hr per week) will help both your physical and mental health.

There are also other strategies to be more resilient such as social network support, role modeling and accepting challenges.

You can see that all the elevating resilience strategies are motivational strategies to the process of change and by going back to the quote by Dean Becker, we can conclude that 'those who succeed are motivated to change'.

Vital Questions - IV

'Success is not the result of spontaneous combustion. You must set yourself on fire.'  Reggie Leach

What will keep me on going (motivation)

Motivation is described as the process of arousing and sustaining goal-oriented behaviours. Motivation creates your power of change, builds your self-esteem and capability and could manage your development and helping others with yours.

There are few popular (but not universally accepted) motivation theories which based on them some therapists, organization-sport counselors, NLP practitioners ,... have made their own motivational techniques. Like the self-awareness techniques I also recommend to find and apply the one that fits you the most but again do not stick to it as the only one.  Here I just want to review the subject from another perspective which may be compatible to most of them and could be universally applicable.

Self-motivation is a combination of different skills to initiate the process of transformation and to maintain the energy through the process of change. This includes risk taking, modelling, visualization, time management, challenging limiting beliefs, feeling purposeful,...

By going back to the previous vital questions, we can  now define the relationship between the four answers and see the difference in conscious and unconscious (auto-pilot) modes:

 

 

When we are not fully aware of what we really 'need' and what exactly we 'want', some pre-defined goals will be setup and our automatic behavioral patterns, belief system and habits make decision on how to move toward them. Since our power of intention plays an important role for 'feeling purposeful' (as a key motivator), in unconscious mode  the intentions may be mixed up or lost  by  the internal/external causes such as fears, failures, social forces,... That's when we lose our courage and energy to finish the job. The unclear/unknown intentions are not capable to maintain enough power for motivation, and therefore the goals may not be fully satisfactory be achieved.

On the other hand, at the conscious mode we are capable to clearly set and choose our goals and intentions + be able to freely monitor  our motivational strategies and emotions rather than become the victim of the outer causes and situations.

Let me share with you an interesting experience I had last week with one of my friends. He is a university prof, who had planned  to quit his job and to start his own business for the first time (which of course would be a great stretch out of his comfort zone). He had very hard time during last two weeks and he got so mind full (instead of mindful!), he  suddenly decided to stop the ongoing project of  his own future business + quit the university and go to work at a coffee shop. When I was trying to ask (or may be push)  him to re-look what he was going into, the reaction was: 'I don't need a life coaching, I only need money. I know my pattern, which I born with. But what can I do?  That's who I am!'.

He was totally right! From his current point of view, he's just a victim of his genes, socio-economical environment, stupid boss at his workplace,... I've doubt even he believes that he deserves the money he's looking for.

"Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results." (may be by Albert Einstein)

And the repeated lesson for me was:  We are unable to PUSH anyone to change. We could just make of your own free will changes, which could motivate the people around us to change!

Vital Questions - III

 

 

"Efforts and courage are not enough without  purpose and direction" John F. Kennedy

 Why I want to do it -Intention

Most of the time people mix up their 'intention' with their 'goals'. Generally goals are the  tangible achievements, while the  intention is an internal experience toward the  goals .

The modern life style pushes all of us to the pre-defined goals,  as the requirements of our survival. And we are automatically following these MUST of life goals without  necessarily  finding our own intention and happiness among them.

The automatic common intention of everyone for these  achievements , is  being normal and acceptable by the others.  To be a good child, a good student, a good co-worker, a good citizen, a good parent,... are the results of our social conformity.

 

"That we have found the tendency to conformity in our society so strong... is a matter of concern. It raises questions about our ways of education and about the values that guide our conduct." Solomon Asch

That's why the more things we achieve the less happier we are. Because we've replaced the society  norms to our own intentions.  And this would become  a tragedy when you are an  under achiever and labelled as a 'looser', from the society point of view.

The separation between our  intention and our goals, is the separation between the  meanings  and what we do. Finding  again  the meaning and intention in our actions will cause  the harmony between what we do and what we are. Such self-awareness may not necessarily change the direction of what we do, it just turns off the auto-pilot and let you choose to guide, to the same destination or somewhere else. This is a shift from reacting to choosing.

 In unaware auto mode, you become what you do ( people may strongly identified by things they do, that even if you ask them who you are? They may reply I'm a doctor, manager, parent or unemployed!!). But in aware mode you do what you are!

Unlike the goals, which need time consuming series of  (Do's), intentions are instant experiences of inner values and strength (BE's). Goals are the places to reach and intentions are states we choose to be.

You don't need to reach at a certain point to experience what you stand for or what you choose to be.
You can have the experience of courage, abundance , wisdom, peace,  humanity, happiness ,... all through the path to your goals. That will make your achievements valuable and meaningful and will change your fails  to the opportunities to learn and go on.
 

So, the third question we need to answer when we choose to make a change in our life is why?

And the answer is our purpose to achieve the specific (SMART)  goal and goals after.

 

                               "Happiness is finding the meanings not THINGS."

A short break to the power of mind

The placebo effect of the medicines has been tested for more than  centuries. This shows how our mind could trigger our internal power of healing or vice versa  how our mind could make us sick!!

In this video you can find even placebo surgeries could heal our body, when we believe that it works. One can call it power of intention or law of attraction. I call it power of mind. The only tools for making magic happens.

 

Vital Questions - II

 

Where do I want to go

When you ask most of the people about what they want, you may hear 'I don't want' to be sad, to be unhealthy, to be in debt, that relationship, this job,.... and surprisingly they don't clearly explain what they really want. You may say that's just a slip of tongue or the way people used to explain their complains, but I believe there is something more behind these type of resolutions. The fear of having a goal.  If you don't have any clear goal to make or any place to go, you can stay peacefully  at the current (seeming) comfort zone.

There are numerous goal setting theories  which will guide you to different strategies  and action plans for your goals. No matter which one you pick, I suggest to follow the simple rule of making  your goals SMART.

 

For instance  if I want to start a routine exercise, I may setup a goal like:

"Doing Pilates for 20 minutes, three times per week for 6 weeks."

The above goal clearly explains  the type of the exercise I do. I can measure my achievement at  the end of week six (e.g. If I miss three sessions, I would reach only %83.33 of my set goal). According to my daily duties and physical conditions it's achievable and realistic for me, and I have a six weeks time line for that.

Some example of pitfalls:

"Daily workout for three weeks"  --> Not specific nor measureable

"Doing one hour palates everyday with my brother"  --> Not realistic nor time based

"Doing Pilates for 20 minutes, three times per week for one year." --> not achievable

 

The SMART goal could also be stepping out of the comfort zone to make an internal change.  For example If I realize that I have an  introspective shy personality at my workplace which is keeping be away from my professional growth  and I choose to make change at my behavior, I may set the first steps goals such as: "Initiating a conversation with a new person at workplace every week for two months". And it's the same process for changing our unproductive thoughts and emotions.

By setting  new goals and experiencing the new things , we extend  our comfort zones from known places to unknowns. The continues process of such stretch could result the long term changes in our life.

It's now proven that even personality traits are not set in stone and they could be changed overtime. In fact there are two sources of personality changes: outside forces (e.g. diseases, great job achievements/loss, divorce/remarriage, drugs...) and willpower  to change. Of course the second one gives us the choice and control.

So you can make choice between the personality you want to be and the personality which may happen to be.

And a good news is: 'Even small personality shifts could highly change your life satisfaction and well-being'  (Social indicators researches)