The first step to working with unproductive thoughts is to become aware of what thoughts you are having. Just as when you are speaking, if you wish to eliminate filler words such as uh, um, or and - the first step is to catch it happening.

Here is exercise to observe your thoughts from the insight meditation center:

During the next week, spend a two-hour period tracking the kinds of things you think about. Find some way to remind yourself every few minutes to notice what you are thinking. Are the thoughts primarily self-referential or primarily about others? Do they tend to be critical or judgmental? What is the frequency of thoughts of “should” or “ought”? Are the thoughts mostly directed to the future, to the past, or toward fantasy? Do you tend more toward optimistic thoughts or pessimistic ones? Do your thoughts tend to be apprehensive or peaceful? Contented or dissatisfied? This is not an exercise in judging what you notice, but in simply noticing.

I think the last sentence is key: don’t be discouraged by your thoughts, just notice what comes out. If you get discouraged, realize you are creating negative thoughts… about having negative thoughts. And then e-mail me. I think it’s really funny, and it will brighten my day.

Categories: Mindfulness
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So much for exploring the journey. I like to write for my empty bucket because it is an excellent way to explore topics of personal transformation, and having a daily post forces me to sit down and think. I didn’t post last week as I got swept away with anxiety and unproductive thoughts.

Or more correctly: thoughts that kept repeating that I was being unproductive.

This is strange because I have been accomplishing a lot. My mental chatter just doesn’t understand - my thoughts keep repeating that I am not being productive. Do these thoughts serve me? No. It wastes a lot of time.

This week I am going to examine my mental chatter.

Categories: Mindfulness
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The course, Creativity & Personal Mastery, taught by Professor Srikumar Rao begins next week at the London Business School. I will be the teaching assistant for the course together with a colleague of mine.

The course is an experiential journey, and I am looking forward to helping the students get the most out of the class.

One of the first assignments is to produce a personal essay. It serves as a short snapshot of where one is right now… a starting point. Later in the course, we turn our focus to our ideal job: something many of us spend a lot of time looking for, but often don’t spend much time attempting to create or describe. The ideal job, or even ideal life is the end point.

What comes between the start and the end is the journey. It is essential to understand where you are and where you want to go to be able to figure out the best way to get there. Defining a path provides direction and clarity about how to act.

This week’s topic is about getting the most from the journey - looking at the starting point, the end point and everything in between.

Categories: Life journey
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We see the world through our belief systems. Often when we seek change, we pretend to believe such a change is possible - but dig deeper and we don’t. It reminds me of a quote from the movie What the Bleep Do We Know?:

“It’s a wonderful idea, positive thinking… but what it usually means is that I have a little smear of positive thinking covering a whole mass of negative thinking.”

If you want to manifest something in your life, you need to not only believe it is possible, but believe it is already coming into being. And truly believe. I can pretend to believe I can fly… but I know physics doesn’t work that way. I can believe I can win the lottery… but I still know the odds are very slim. I can’t truly believe either.

I think manifestation is most effective in small steps. Looking for small changes in your life that are achievable and then focusing on them. When you truly believe, you start acting as appropriately, and you naturally make it happen.

Categories: Beliefs, Manifestation
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Daydreaming is usually considered lazy, unproductive and childish. As adults, we ought to maximize our productivity and the use of our time. Even worse, the multi-tasker is the modern-day business hero - we are encouraged to multi-task, jumping back and forth between multiple tasks and stimuli at an alarming rate.

Stepping back from this insane drive and getting in touch with our dreams can help us to understand what gets us excited. Daydreaming is free, easy, and relaxing… and opens up a new creative realm where we can free our imagination from the daily rules and expectations.

Idiot’s guide to daydreaming:

• Find a quiet space.
• Eliminate all possible distractions. (People, phones, computers, deadlines, etc.)
• Make a commitment to yourself to refrain from thinking about work and what needs to get done.
• Take a moment to breathe deeply into your abdomen. Watch your breath for a minute.
• Watch your thoughts for minute to become even more present. If you have trouble with this, ask yourself, “what is the next thought that is entering my mind?” and observe what comes.
• Let go. Let your mind wander freely.

Any questions? Shoot me an e-mail. I am an expert.

Categories: Creativity, Manifestation, Meditation
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“Become the change you desire.” triggered the thought for the day - thanks to Zen Chill on instant manifestation referring to a Steve Pavlina podcast.

What was the last thing you tried to change in your life? How well did it work? Did it have a lasting effect?

Did you say, “I want to lose ten pounds. I must go on a diet.”
Or, “I want to be productive. I better start working hard.”
Or, “I want to be rich. I need to a better job and to start saving.”

These three have something in common: they require you to force yourself to change behaviors to achieve your goal. They reinforce that you are not what you desire:

• you are overweight (or why would you need a diet?)
• you are unproductive (or why demand the extra effort?)
• you are lacking money (or why would you need more?)

Attempts to change behaviors usually fail. Why? Because they aren’t in line with your belief systems about who you are.

Instead, become the change you desire. Imagine it. Start acting like it. Your behaviors will naturally reflect yourself and bring you goal to you effortlessly.

Effortlessly does not mean without work or action. It means you stop forcing yourself to be something you are not.

Categories: Beliefs, Manifestation
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Manifestation is the art of making your dreams appear in your life. Here is a fun technique for creating miracles. Disclaimer - you may have to temporarily suspend your beliefs.

Creating Miracles

1. Pick something you would like to have enter your life.
2. Visualize what it is going to feel like to have this wish come true.
3. Give thanks to the universe for your wish being fulfilled at some point in the future. Feel gratitude now for receiving your wish (or something even better) in the future.
4. Let it go. The universe is working on it.
5. Keep your eye open for opportunities that could be related to your wish, and for evidence that the universe is acting on your behalf.
6. Take action as you see possible opportunities.
7. Allow your wish to come true when the time is right. Watch out for craving. If you are craving something, then you are pushing it away. Let yourself have complete faith that it will occur exactly as it should, and let it go.

Be careful with this. The point is not to prove that this technique is right or wrong. There is no need to prove whether a magical force exists in the universe that is acting on your behalf. That would seriously be missing the point.

The point is to try it, and see how it makes you feel. Personally, I find it extremely entertaining - it helps me to relax and live in the present moment.

Categories: Manifestation
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An article by Caroline Miller has inspired this week’s topic on manifestation.

“The Secret” would have us believe that all we need are powerful intentions and a positive attitude to get more of what we want in life. […] The problem is that having powerful intentions is only a fraction of what is required to achieve important goals, and it overlooks one of the most important factors: getting what you really want is often just HARD WORK.

I think “The Secret” would respond by saying that if you believe your goal requires hard work, then that is what you will attract in pursuit of your goal. If you haven’t heard of the movie “the secret”, and the controversial law of attraction, the basic premise is that you can attract what you desire into your life by:

• asking the universe for that which you desire
• visualizing it
• feeling appreciation and gratitude for having it
• experiencing the emotions of having it

Caroline makes an important point that there is more to manifesting than lazing about waiting for the universe to fulfill your dreams. Creating positive intentions is the first step. Taking action is the second. Although in my experience, taking action does not equate to hard work. I think of hard work as something you force yourself to do.

When I focus on something I wish to manifest, I give thanks for it coming into my life and let it go - I stop craving it and return to living in the present moment. The moment I accept that my wish is coming naturally into my life, I open myself up to the possibilities present in the world around me. I see new opportunities, and it is an exciting place from which to act. The journey becomes easy and natural, and not an unnecessary burden to reach my final goal.

Categories: Manifestation
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Wikipedia describes perception as the process of acquiring, interpreting, selecting, and organizing sensory information. Organizing is important, especially considering the overload of messages coming to us through advertising and these hyper-communication networks (e-mail, IM, SMSes, blogs, myspace, and now twitter). We have built up a culture of distractions - but what does it achieve?

Anxiety.

An interesting article from 1999, discussing the negative effects of Change and Information Overload concluded:

It seems that the biggest problem facing present-day society is not that there is too little progress, but rather too much of it. Our mind, physiology nor social structures seem fit to cope with such a rate of change and such an amount of new information. Unfortunately, change, complexity and information overload are abstract phenomena, which are difficult to grasp. Therefore, few people have as yet understood that they contribute to the anxiety they feel. When trying to explain their vague feelings of dissatisfaction, they will rather look for more easily recognizable causes, such as unemployment, pollution, crime, corruption or immigration. These phenomena, which have become much more visible because of the attention they get from the media, play the role of scapegoats: they are blamed for the lack of quality of life which people experience, while being only tangentially related to it. This reinforces an atmosphere of gloom and doom.

Categories: Beliefs
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I went to university in Baltimore, Maryland, and used to speak with the local homeless. I remember once, I was riding home on the bus, and got into a conversation with a beggar. He had an interesting request… he wasn’t asking for money, but for an exchange. He wanted to change his quarters for dollar bills.

“Why?” I asked.

“Because, once I get back to the shelter, and the others hear the change jiggling around in my pocket, I will have to share it with them. I am saving up to buy a new pair of boots to help me make it through the winter, and if I can hide away the dollar bills.”

This man had no job to worry about, no demands from society… other than the expectation to share his earnings from the street. All he wanted was that pair of boots, something I could have easily gone out and purchased for myself without thinking. But that didn’t seem to bother him. In fact, he seemed quite at peace with the world. He was working towards a goal, and seemed quite content to work for it one step at a time.

It’s amazing how many big issues I have in my life - problems which seem insurmountable, that keep me stuck and trapped in my day to day life. How many of these problems are necessary? Compared to this man, are they really that threatening?

Categories: Beliefs
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