Changes
Page 6
There is a real advantage and opportunity in checking the influence of fear or discomfort in your decision-making.
Just a reminder: we are rarely 100 percent certain of any decision, but that should not cripple us with indecision. Learning to trust our intuition includes accepting a certain degree of uncertainty. (More on this in chapter 19.)
What Is the Impact of This Decision in 5 Years or 20 Years
Weigh the consequences of your decisions. For instance, if this decision won’t make that big of a difference in five years, then perhaps it’s fine to move forward. On the other hand, combining intuition with some logic may be worth exploring if this decision will still impact you in twenty years. Of course, this question is hard to answer with certainty, and that’s okay. The process of exploration may lead to insight. You may come to greater understanding of the potential longer-term repercussions of your decision. You can’t predict the future, so get comfortable with the uncertainty.
If I Don’t Trust this Intuition, will the Result be Regret or Potential Failure?
Remember, logic and reason are important, but so is taking risks. Change occurs at the edge of comfort. Ask yourself if the decision will likely produce fear or regret for not doing something different. A little fear isn’t a bad thing.
Consider this quote by the famous comedienne, Lucille Ball:
“I’d rather regret the things I’ve done than regret the things I haven’t done.”
How has My Intuition Been Accurate in the Past and Where has it Led Me?
Looking at past gains and losses can be advantageous. You know the feeling you get when you look back at something and think, “My gut told me to do ______. I wish I would have listened”? This is what I’m referring to. Hindsight is 20/20, but what you actually do with this hindsight/insight and how you make shifts going forward is what counts. Don’t just look back, shrug it off, and dismiss the learning. We’re bound to make mistakes, but we’re not cursed to keep making the same mistakes.
Making a list of the times intuition has led to positive results may help bolster self-confidence. Exploring what prevented you from following your gut in the first place is also valuable. Take the time, do the work, identify the patterns. This way you can make more appropriate decisions in the future.
CHAPTER 5 ACTIVITY
How has intuition worked for you? Start by tracking instances in which intuition comes into play. This activity offers you a chance to evaluate your decisions in those moments.
Look at the patterns that emerge in your behavior and consider if trusting your more intuitive self has worked out in the past. Recall times you trusted your intuition and times you didn’t. After you have recounted a few memories, see if you notice how, on the whole, trusting your intuition has been more valuable or more detrimental? Remember, the important part is the evaluation. Examining your choices and the results allows you to determine what is driving them, intuition or fear. Sometimes we may think something is intuition, but in actuality it is fear holding the wheel. This evaluation allows you to uncover the patterns.
See the example for assistance:
EXAMPLE 1: TO PURCHASE A CAR AFTER GETTING A NEW JOB
Intuition: Told me to wait six months
Decision: Purchased car right away
Result: I was stressed out for six months due to uncertainty about the job and money I spent
6
The Importance of Gratitude
Here are three important reasons for expressing gratitude.
1. Recognizing all you are thankful for helps to maintain perspective when feeling stressed.
2.Gratitude improves life socially, psychologically, and even physically.
3. Expressing gratitude creates positive chain reactions. It has an emotional effect on others and makes them more likely to express gratitude in turn.
Gratitude is tremendously important for many more reasons than those listed above. If you haven’t yet experienced the power of gratitude, it is my hope that by the end of this chapter you’ll be convinced.
As a quick disclaimer, though, when I use the phrase “gratitude,” I’m referring to both how it registers within one’s self and how it is expressed to others through word and deed. One must not only feel grateful, but express gratitude to get the full benefit of what I will discuss at length in this chapter. The feeling of gratitude and the expression of it are linked. You may even say that they form a virtuous cycle, one reinforcing the other. Expressing gratitude can intensify such feelings. Even if you don’t feel as grateful as you think you ought to, expressing the gratitude that you believe is possible, ironically perhaps, sparks genuine feeling within.
In my work over the years, I have encountered a common misconception about gratitude. Some confuse it as a silver bullet that will magically change your life. Gratitude isn’t about “thinking happy thoughts to change your life.” Rather, it is being appreciative of one’s circumstances, recognizing all that we have and acting accordingly. Identifying ways to be grateful may change how you think and feel over time, but identification without action may not produce the change you’re seeking. It is the application of gratitude that moves the needle. You need to find the proper expressions of gratitude. There is opportunity to take action and express gratitude every day. Think of the coworker who pitched in extra time on your project; your spouse, who helps you in various ways throughout the week; or the barista who was extra friendly one morning. We all know how meaningful it is when our efforts are acknowledged. The important part about practicing gratitude is to express it with specificity and sincerity.
That said, you have lots to be grateful for. I promise.
If you are reading this book, you most likely have some disposable income. Let me put the term in perspective. According to the website, The Global Rich List, if you made $32,400 (USD) in 2016, you qualified as the top one percent of the global society, i.e. every human being on the planet.18 Granted, this is in context of global wealth disparity, but you get the point. The unfortunate piece of this puzzle is that there are those who will never see $32,400 in a lifetime—the majority of the global population, in fact.
Curious what the top one percent looks like within U.S. borders? The numbers rise exponentially. According to Kiplinger, in recent years, it takes about $430,000 of adjusted gross income to reach the top one percent of U.S. income earners.19
Let me be clear about this. I don’t bring up these numbers to show you that gratitude is exclusive to the haves and that misery is exclusive to the have-nots. Often, it is the exact opposite. I bring money to your attention because it is conveniently quantifiable. It is only one facet of your existence, but one on which you can gain some perspective. There are many other areas in our lives to be grateful for: relationships, family, work, health, mind, and all the many freedoms we have. Also, donuts.
Three more Reasons Why Expressing Gratitude May Be Beneficial to You
1. According to Robert Emmons, a leading researcher on gratitude, there are several benefits to expressing gratitude on a regular basis, including a stronger immune system, higher levels of positive emotions, a more forgiving attitude, and fewer feelings of isolation.20 In a study published by the Journal of the Society for Psychotherapy Research, it was found that routinely journaling about what one is grateful for had a positive impact on mental health as reported by participants.21
2. Expressing gratitude has an impact on your relationships. According to Dr. John Gottman, a leading expert in marital relationships, it is very important for a couple to maintain a ratio of more positive interactions than negative for the marriage to be successful.22 For example, if you can focus more on your gratitude for your partner instead of how they didn’t take out the garbage (again), it’s likely to bode well for your future together.
3. Gratitude has an impact on others around you. If you want to make a difference in how you interact with others, consider adding an element of gratitude. This shift in interaction style may have a significant imp
act on your relationships and the quality of your communication. Experiment with this. Consider all the qualities of individuals or situations that you appreciate when you come across them. This can happen at work, during or after challenging experiences, and with family, friends, and even people who you swear exist just to make you miserable. Assume that they have appeared in your life for a reason and that you get to choose what they are teaching you.
Consider asking yourself the following questions:
What am I willing to learn from this person/situation?
What have I learned about myself through the time spent with this person/situation?
What am I now able to do as a result of my interaction with this person/situation?
On a more general level, what do I have access to on a daily basis that I take for granted?
If I were forced to let go of three things that are most important to me, what would they be, how would the loss affect me, and, based on this realization, how can I offer more gratitude for them now, when I still have them?
Sometimes gratitude isn’t immediate. In times of true chaos, considering what you’re grateful for may be the last thing on your mind. I know that during particularly challenging times in my life, it was always difficult to identify the gratitude amidst it all.
In my early thirties, I experienced one of the toughest experiences of my life. I went through a separation with a woman, who I was certain would be my lifelong partner. This break was so devastating that my view of my entire future shifted. I had to reassess my desires, my philosophies on life, and the direction I was heading. This experience was a game-changer. At the time, I had difficulty seeing beyond the pain, but like with most things, time offers perspective.
We had been living in a small town in western North Carolina. After the separation, I left the home we’d been sharing and moved back to where I grew up, in south east Wisconsin. I worked on my family’s farm for six months while I tried to figure out what to do next.
Looking back, I think I had been assuming things would work out with this person in the future and that our issues would eventually resolve themselves. In less than six months, however, she was pregnant and engaged to someone else. It was another shock, which amplified the heartbreak and self-loathing. In retrospect, I think I had put more stock in our potential reconnection than I was willing to admit.
Finding gratitude at the time seemed like a total joke. As I was consumed with anger, resentment, and confusion, accessing gratitude felt near-impossible. There were a few things that pulled me through the experience: perspective, faith, work, and distraction. Even though my capacity for gratitude at the time was limited, it was my daily contemplation on all that I had that proved most significant in restoring peace of mind in the end.
The truth was, I had supportive friends and family in my life, a strong education, an extensive network to draw on for opportunity, my health, and all basic needs met. Even just being grateful for the most basic of things can be a daily dose of relief. When we whittle down all that we have to all that we really need, most of us are richer than we think. Gratitude helps us to focus on what is right in front of us.
Certainly during a time when we are immersed in pain, gratitude may be difficult to access. But when we are able to look back on things, it becomes easier and more comprehensive. If we allow it to, that is. Today, years after the breakup, I deeply appreciate all the lessons learned from this person and the experience. I believe I can say that without trivializing the pain of the experience, as it has taken a long time to arrive at this perspective. You could say we are always arriving.
I spent a long time with anger, regret, disbelief, heartache, and fear. But now I am able to see the silver lining in the process. I can now look back with appreciation and see how I was pushed toward greater motivation, life purpose, resiliency, and compassion. Through gratitude, insight, and choice, I was able to use the pain to fuel an important transformation.
Now, as time has passed, I see how the path I chose led to opportunity and connection. My move back to where I grew up led to a great work opportunity, which set me on course for exploring my current career and starting my own business. More than that, though, the experience compelled me to ask myself some important questions. I had the opportunity to evaluate what was meaningful to me: what kind of future I wanted, what kind of partner I wanted, and what professional and personal goals I sought to put in place.
Some of the toughest questions highlighted my own culpability in the decay of the relationship. I took a long, hard look at my own selfishness and lack of communication and realized that I hadn’t acted with as much empathy as I had assumed. With a greater understanding of my faults, I was able to work on being a better partner in the future.
I will remain grateful to my ex-girlfriend for these lessons. But let’s remember, I was only able to adopt this perspective after moving away from the mode of victim and into the mode of master (see Chapter 1).
Being patient with ourselves is important. Often, resolution just takes time. (We’ll take a closer look at timing and pacing in Chapter 8.) I do believe practice speeds things up, though. Asking “What am I grateful for?” may be an easier or harder question to answer, depending on the day. However, just like everything else, with practice, it becomes easier. Intention leads to practice, which leads to habit, which eventually leads to sustainable change.
CHAPTER 6 ACTIVITY
Follow these steps to begin showing more gratitude. You’ll have the opportunity to work through your own gratitude list and share your learning with others. Want to see how gratitude really works? Don’t keep it a secret.
1. Think of someone or something you are grateful for right now and why.
2. Express this gratitude by writing a small thank you message. This message could be a handwritten letter, a text, or an email or it could be delivered over social media. If you share it over social media, tag your recipient and express how they have impacted you.
3. Share your gratitude experiment on social media and explain why you are doing it. You can even tag someone in a “gratitude invitation” to apply the same experiment. Your motivation for working on this skill may be unique to you. But your joy and gratitude will have a ripple effect, causing others to consider their own reasons to be grateful.
4. Move through the day with ease.
SECTION THREE: ACTION
“I fear not the man who has practiced 10,000 kicks once, but I fear the man who has practiced one kick 10,000 times.”
—Bruce Lee
We all have habits, routines, predispositions, and behaviors that we engage in every day. Some of these are helpful, some are harmful. Taking the time to evaluate our actions is a crucial step in change creation. But understanding alone doesn’t create sustainable shifts. It is application of our insight that moves us to new heights.
“I fear not the man who has practiced 10,000 kicks once, but I fear the man who has practiced one kick 10,000 times.”
I often find myself repeating a version of this statement. When meeting with individual coaching clients or consulting with organizations, the idea of translating knowledge to action always comes up.
Taking action is paramount. Creating shifts in our thinking is an excellent first step. Changing how we think can lead to significant change in our life. Only by applying our insight to creating new habits, however, do we truly integrate our new paradigm. When we practice what we understand, we bring that understanding to life.
In this section, we’ll explore how to translate your new insight into practice.
7
Knowing Isn’t Enough
Happy Holidays!
I’m glad you’re here. In the spirit of the time of year, I want to offer a gift and a challenge. This idea comes from Will Bowen of A Complaint Free World. The reason for this gift is that there continues to be more and more evidence for the value of how we connect our thoughts, statements, actions, and feelings to our overall experience of the world. Thi
s challenge offers the opportunity to consider the things we say, if only for three weeks. Basically, no complaining. One strategy in tackling this seemingly insurmountable task is practicing gratitude. We all have much to be thankful for. Okay, I’ll start. In this card, you’ll find a few reasons why I am grateful to have you in my life. I hope you find this gift intriguing and interesting enough to experiment with.
Love,
Michael
This was the beginning of a Christmas card I passed around to friends and family a few years ago. I wanted to show some gratitude and give my loved ones a chance to put some intention into action for the New Year. I discovered this idea through Will Bowen’s Complaint Free® challenge.23
The basic idea is that you try to make it through a full three weeks without complaining. The No Complaining Challenge starts with putting on a rubber bracelet. Every time you complain, you switch the bracelet to the other wrist, and the count starts over. According to the website, with all the starting over, this experiment typically takes participants 4 to 10 months to complete.24 It’s a true challenge that requires real dedication, but it also offers a valuable exercise in improving our outlook.
We often hear updated research about how to change our mindset, be more grateful, be more positive, etc. While I am totally on board with new insights, I believe it’s just as important to find useful applications of these insights (like the examples in this chapter). This translation helps raise the likelihood of success in any change process. Whenever we adopt a new way of thinking or feeling, we also need to incorporate into our lives the practical counterpart: a new way of doing, acting, or behaving.