This Blog is about adaptation. When life has got out of balance something needs to change. Studies about change show that adaptable and happy people are those with good connections with their partners, family, colleagues, work, and the organisations around them. We can choose and define these connections and we can choose how we can conduct all our different kinds of relationships, and we can choose how we adapt through operating with these connections. This is where this Blog comes in. A collection of ideas gained from nearly 30 years in psychological practice in Australia and New Zealand giving you insights into what has worked successfully with my clients, and which may work equally well with you.
As individuals we need to be ready with our mind, brain and body well set for the journey we choose and maybe this blog can help with that. We need to be steady so we can take some knowledge and skills on board, and maybe we can give you that too. We need to choose the right pathways at interesting times and so perhaps we can offer some helpful ideas. Then, we need to Shift, to know that we don’t continue to create the same problems over and over, shifting gears to a happier life.
We want you to feel safe being who you are, help you get into the space that might make things work for you, and as we go, offer you hope and possibility by way of thoughts, insights, ideas and techniques. Even though we begin with the Ready phase, the other phases will follow, and there will be plenty along the way to influence your feeling of happiness. Each phase comes in a series of its own manageable sections.
The techniques given here have worked for many people over a fair period of time and have been reviewed and revised, and have transformed the lives of many people. Choose from the palette offered all you find interests and helps you feel, think, and do things differently.
Here is the first section of the Ready phase, with still much more to come.
READY
What’s your attitude?
When something happens, how do you react? If it goes wrong, who or what do you blame? Who or what do you accuse or charge with the wrong doing? What will you feel and think? How will you react? If it goes well, what then? Wonderment, sincerity, superiority, condescention? All forms of reaction are possible depending upon the attitudes we have formed in our lives. An attitude is formed as a set of emotions, thoughts and actions towards objects, people, organisations or events.
Attitudes influence our perceptions, the tone and the language of our responses, the choices of words we use and the rationality of the choices we make in general. Attitudes grow inside us from our life experience and the collective wisdom surrounding us on our life journey. They involve our values beliefs and standards. Our attitudes help us to grow and develop the image we have about ourselves. Positive and good attitudes put us on the right pathway in life, create happiness, respect for others, courage, and flourishing relationships.
Now, check this out
Attitudes influence the way you view the world.
So, now, answer YES or NO to each of the following twenty questions.
- Are there many people in your life who are often annoying you?
- Does the good about the people you know rise above the not so good?
- Is your tolerance level fine and serving you well?
- Do you experience happy and lasting relationships?
- Have others often disappointed you and generally often failed to please you?
- Are you able to manage and keep long standing and close and happy relationships?
- Is there loyalty and respect among your friends and colleagues and you?
- Do others live up to your expectations of them?
- Do you have an employment history which you are happy to declare to others?
- Does your way of life fit with those around you?
- Do you cope well when you make mistakes?
- Do people seem to warm to your personality?
- Are you able to manage comfortably on your own in your own personal company?
- Does love and romance figure prominently in your life?
- Does what you do well outweigh what you do not do well?
- Do you think you are unnecessarily hard on yourself?
- Do you handle other’s expectations of you comfortably?
- Are you a good decision-maker and problem solver who does not avoid tricky situations?
- Do you manage difficult people satisfactorily?
- Do you welcome the feedback that others give you about yourself?
Maybe the answers might give you a clue about how you see both yourself and other people. It is a guide, not a definitive analysis, but it might shine some light on your attitudes.
A few years ago Thomas Harris devised four possible life positions that develop through experience based on conclusions people make about themselves and others which are often based around attitudes formed from their collective wisdom and their experience gained from their own lives. And yet, there are times in our lives when we do find ourselves acting in ways which may be contrary to our attitudes. and perhaps also contrary to our values, beliefs and standards.
Marketers know that trying to get a attitudes to change behaviour can be quite difficult because individuals tend to form defences against the logic of any argument. Marketers also know that effecting changes in behaviour can make the relevant attitude follow along. People generally like their values, beliefs and standards, and their feelings, to be somewhat consistent with one another and with their behaviour. When inconsistencies occur so will dissonance and discomfort and therefore a need for adaptation and change is more likely to occur. Whether it occurs or not will ultimately depend upon the individual having had direct experience of the requirements of the need for change.
Consider the four life positions again. Have you ever found an individual to be hiding behind a facade while being in a relationship with you? Did this facade ever influence your attitude towards that person, among maybe some other things to do with that person? Did this facade determine your attitude towards that person and anything else in relation to that person? Were their true intentions hidden? Which of the four life positions did you find yourself relating with? How did scrutiny of this person influence your attitudes?
Attitude change through behavioural impact works in other ways too. For example, think about your own situation or that of someone else you know, perhaps in a particular work role or situation that may have been theirs or your domain for some time. How long did it take to lose the impact of being in that role or situation once it was left behind? It appears that the roles we play in the work we do and the life we lead can influence our attitudes. Return once more to the four life positions described earlier.
Which of the four life positions related to that role or situation? Also, think about how your work or career has shapes you or someone you know. Is their or your identity influenced by a particular professional or vocational image? Have you noticed how attitude is influenced by the particular types of work and even recreation or lifestyle people engage in? The roles we play can shape our attitudes. If we are aware of the shaping processes on our attitudes and stay true to our positive relationships, where we are okay and others are okay too, we may possibly mediate the impacts of less than optimal behaviours on our attitudes.
Perhaps the maintenance of positive and effective attitudes comes down to the line or the
connection between our Values, Beliefs and Standards, and our own Needs Wants and Desires. You may possibly see ways of mediating your way out of less than optimal life positions and instead see ways of developing positive personal, business and recreational relationships and lifestyles through developing positive winning attitudes and creating the BALANCED life position for yourself, or maybe something close to it.
The BALANCED life position is really the winner’s true position. Such a rich lifestyle requires definite intentions, sound expectations and a clear, powerful and purposeful vision. In all of these ways winning attitudes are created. In addition, such individuals display Faith, Self Confidence and Perseverance. If you wish to get the flavour of these attitudes and attributes you may like to read some really good and interesting biographies.
If we come to see stress as being associated with fear, worry and anger, and you made me …
language, and anxiety as an eternal attachment to the future, to something yet to happen, which may not happen, dominated by what if thinking and also come to see depression as an attachment to the past, to something that cannot be changed, dominated by other modal operators such as must have, couldn’t, should have and so on, then it becomes possible to move to achieving greater adaptation, balance and happiness: I am okay and so are you.
You will be okay if you refute the messages you get from your imagination that say you are not okay. If you agree with the messages, then that’s the way you are likely to go. But what if you say no constantly and with faith, confidence and perseverance to those negative messages? You can experience life with different messages. Adaptation and change becomes possible. Different attitudes can form.
What would that be like for you? How many ways can you reframe these messages so they help you adapt to a point away from your present life experience towards a more positive and happier life? Respond with Faith Confidence and Perseverance. Make your new direction one that has Value for you, one you can Believe in, one that sets your own positive standards. Make it about your own Needs, Wants and especially your own Desires. New attitudes will form.
Fundamentally, accumulating the attitudes of Balance and making a starting point towards achieving the direction, stability and identity you seek begins this way and remains open to the mission of why your life journey exists, its direction and the stakeholders involved, and its purpose and focus. Your attitudes help determine your state of mind and the motivation you require. Realise what your needs wants and desires really are and fix them firmly in your mind. Do the same with your values beliefs and standards.
Analyse what you are prepared to give up to in order to achieve these.
Manage time strategically by producing your own time-line forward towards achievement. Outline your strategy for modifying your behaviour towards obtaining balance. Think about your intentions, your expectations, the particular vision you have of your future. If you can visualise then you can achieve.
Organise your life around your strategies, adjust them accordingly and place your plan somewhere where you see it regularly. It will work if you do too. Enjoy this Light on the Hill stage. Set it up. Come back to it … your balanced state.
Optimise your structure towards achievement. Accept things going astray as feedback not failure. Accept the need for running repairs. Avoid the bait of relapse. Stray away from self chastisements, excuses, reasons, justifications. Success is predicated on modesty and integrity. Adjust your organised state.
Containerise your preferences: Imagine-Believe-Reflect-Transcend. Stay in tune with your needs, wants and desires through self related tasks you can explain and express to yourself readily and which cluster around your dreams and imagination. Believe in your attraction to what you seek to achieve. Reflect on your skills and sensory intuition and the ideas it may produce. Go for expansion and enrichment of your awareness.
Equalise and balance your ascension around your personal Kabbalah of interacting and
interconnected aspects of your personal journey and existence: professional, economic, intellectual, mental, physical, emotional, social and relationships, cultural, environmental and spiritual. These are suggested attributes of yourself expressed as your own personal tree of life. They may mean different things to different people. Personalise them. They represent the revelation of your attitudes and combinations of your needs, wants and desires. They represent success and achievement and their interacting nature helps you pinpoint reversals and remain organised. So that’s it for the first part of this Blog.
Many of the concepts and ideas expressed here will be revisited and expanded in subsequent editions. Remember to rest and re-charge along the way of your journey. Success will depend upon attention to the small things that matter to you. These ideas have worked for me and many of my clients and maybe that will be true for you as well. These are ideas that need your attention in interesting times.