Living an elevated life…

Other people do well at things you would like to do well at yourself. That being the case why not copy them?

Watch them, observe what they do, how they do it… Take note of the attitude they bring to the task….

Work out as much as you can by observation. If you pay attention to detail and make yourself aware of their posture, facial expression, words and behaviours as they do what it is you wish to emulate their approach will start to rub off on you.

Once you have exhausted this approach - which means working hard at it rather than giving up after the first attempt because it requires too much effort - you could actually ask them how they do what they do:

‘You do xyz really well. I’m not so great - how do you manage it?’

Everyone has a strategy. We have strategies for the simplest things. When I’m about to clean my teeth in the morning I wash my toothbrush before applying the toothpaste. As I start cleaning I visualise my mouth being cleaned and my breath freshening. I brush until all areas feel thoroughly brushed then I rinse the brush and clean the paste from my teeth, washing and cleaning as I go along. I know when the job is done because they feel smooth and my mouth tastes of mint.

A person often doesn’t know his strategies for the things he does. And yet we do most things according to some sort of strategy - making friends, cooking dinner, doing calculus. So you can offer some of the observations you’ve made having observed him. These may act as prompts for him to recognise what it is he does. Be careful though; don’t make him realise you’ve been scrutinising him. Stalking makes people feel uncomfortable.

Especially, you need to know how they think when they’re doing xyz. That’ll be a weird sounding question when they hear it:

‘So what goes through your mind when you do xyz? Are you nervous? Excited? Determined? Focussed? Relaxed?’

The answers get you into their shoes. That’s where you want to be. In as far as task xyz is concerned you don’t want to just copy him you want to be him. If he can do it, you can do it by doing whatever it is he does. Modelling works. You did it when you were a baby and that’s how you can talk and walk.

When we consciously and knowingly decide something we create something. A decision - one that is acted on - becomes an almost tangible object in our lives. Have you ever decided something with such conviction that you just knew you would do it? It might have been a decision made in anger or frustration or excitement or joy. But a true decision, when made, can transform.

Decisions can be made about what we will do, what we will expect of ourselves - and others, what we are going to change and how we will behave or speak.

These are the best kinds of decisions because they envisage something better for yourself and then aim you towards it:

• I will improve my education

• I will take the first steps to starting my own business

• I will talk to so and so about this matter that’s disturbing me

• I will find myself a new job

• I will maintain my standards even when others discard theirs

• I will read a book

• I will put others before me

They can also be made with regards to what you will not do, or say, or tolerate:

• I will not accept unacceptable behaviour

• I will not swear in conversation any more

• I will not over-eat

• I will not lie in bed late on the weekends

• I will not spend money I don’t have or should not be spending

• I will not put off tasks I know I should be doing

Note that a decision can be quite ordinary - I will wash the car this Sunday - to life-changing - I will improve my education.

Note also that a combination of decisions - a ‘positive’ (ie a ‘will do’) decision and a ‘negative’ (ie ‘will not do’) decision - can reinforce a change.

To live a healthier lifestyle you may decide that you will walk for thirty minutes every day, drink plenty of water and eat more fruit and you won’t buy sweets and chocolates when out shopping nor will you any longer allow television or less important distraction activities get in the way of important life goals.

The right decisions can profoundly affect your life. That combination of what you absolutely will do and what you absolutely won’t do can almost literally create a new you.

Try it. Make 10 decisions. A couple can be ordinary ones. But ask yourself if there’s any area of life you really want to change. There probably is. Address it and decide what you’re going to do about it. If necessary, make your 10 decisions around that one area.

Take a look at your life areas if you need some inspiration.

What are life areas?

Life areas are those different parts of your life that are fairly easy to recognise as distinct aspects of your overall existence.

Although I believe strongly that all of life is intertwined I agree that for the purpose of planning - especially planning your time - recognising these different areas of interest can be extremely useful. See what you think…

Life areas vary from person to person but here’s an example of mine:

Husband
Father
Son
Friend
Team Member
Athlete
Swimmer
Teacher
Community Member

This is a list of things that I am. In some cases, they describe something I am to somebody else. Your list will be different of course. It might include things like ‘uncle’, ’sister’, ‘chess player’, ‘charity worker’, ‘Sunday team coach’, ‘neighbour’, ‘dog owner’. It’s what’s important to you that makes your list of life areas. The list can change with changing circumstances.

The list also directs one’s thought to the meaning of each area. Exactly what does it mean to be a teacher of some sort? How meaningful is it that I teach well? How do I teach well? How do I teach patiently? Respectfully? Thoroughly? If you are a conscientious teacher you will value such qualities and want to nurture them.

As a husband, am I just the holder of a title or am I something a little more profound? In what ways am I important to my wife? As her husband, am I important only to her? Perhaps I should ask her father that question…

Pondering on each of your life areas can inflate your ego… Whatever you might think, you are not insignificant!

Within each area there can be sub-areas. Some of them can be fun. For example, sub-areas of ‘Husband’ might include ‘Supporter’, ‘Lover’, ‘Protector’, ‘Inspirer’, ‘Comforter’, ‘Comedian’, ‘Teacher’, ‘Chief Spider Catcher’.

Sub-areas of Team Member could include ‘Mentor’, ‘Student’, ‘Report Writer’, ‘Supplier of Friday afternoon Jaffa Cakes’.

Only you know what areas constitute your life and only you know how to break each one down into its component parts. Be relaxed about this; you could even enjoy it. If your child likes you to play horsey horsey with her then ‘being a horse’ is a legitimate sub-area of your parenthood area. Don’t poo-poo it if it’s important to her. Being aware that it’s a sub-area of your being a father or mother means that kids’ cowboy hat you saw in the toyshop the other day is suddenly a nice idea as a surprise gift…

Why identify life areas?

Realising your various roles and identities can help you focus your time on the more important aspects of your life and diminish the extent to which you’re distracted by the less important. When our focus is not on what is important in our lives it’s on what isn’t important. Modern day distractions give us plenty of trash to occupy ourselves with - mindless net surfing, playing with our mobile phones, reading junk magazines or newspapers, watching television, choosing to tidy our desk or engaging in other distraction activity. Most wasted time is lost on junk activity. Most people who complain they don’t have time to do the things they say they want to do actually do have the time - they just fritter it away elsewhere.

Life areas provide you with a clearer framework in which to operate and can assist you in meaningful and beneficial time planning. If you suddenly find yourself with time on your hands a quick reminder as to what is important to you in life will direct your attentions to meaningful and fulfilling activity. Time spent doing things that are in keeping with your deepest values and priorities is time you will never regret.

If you looked at your life areas each morning and chose an activity - or two - from each that would move you forward in even a small way then by the end of one year you would have carried out several thousand actions that you might otherwise not have done. You can choose more actions for one area and fewer - or none - from another if particular areas are in need of attention. Take care not to go off-balance though.

Recall from our discussion on failure and success that small, ongoing actions in the right direction lead to ultimate success in life.

Faced with an afternoon in which you have absolutely nothing to do then, instead of switching on the tv or finding some life-or-death cleaning task you just have to do in the kitchen you could instead pick out an area that you think has got a little out of balance lately and make a plan to improve it. It could be that you do something for a person or maybe an area of your community work or your career or maybe you want to pick up that book on flower arranging that’s been gathering dust for… well, just see how thick the dust is.

Just look at your list, pick an area, and ask: What thing - however small - could I do now to progress in this area? It might be a call, or the writing of a plan, or the reading of something or some research or any simple task.

Knowing what is important in your life is the first step to ensuring you do what’s important in your life.

So what are your life areas?

Hmmm.

What if you were into self-flaggelation? Are you going to - literally - whip people into shape?

The kernel of truth in the above saying is based on its recognition that the basic needs of all humans are pretty much the same; it suggests we consider those needs in others just as we seek to meet them for ourselves.

An updated version of the saying might be this: ‘Treat others as they would like to be treated’.

Which isn’t quite the same thing.

It doesn’t assume that what you like the other person will like. Beyond basic needs it recognises that your requirements differ from those of other people.

I have a friend who, at times, wants the basic facts, delivered plainly and without niceties. He’s in a hurry to collate the salient points and form his mental impression.

My wife likes slow, careful explanation starting at the beginning and working gradually through to the end.

Knowing these two people’s preferences should result in me altering the way I explain something. My explanation of the same thing would sound quite different in each case. Neither approach is exactly how I would like it if they were explaining to me but I know that, at times, I’m speaking to them in exactly the way they want me to speak to them.

Everything you do or say you do or say it for a reason.

Why else would you do it?

To ask yourself…

Why did I do that?

What did I get out of that?

What do I now think about what I did?

…at times of stress or conflict will help you understand yourself.

Of course, it might be easier to ignore the questions. Or fake the answers. But, for the courageous, the answers can transform.

Apply the same questioning to good deeds too.

Well?

We tend to know what we want - ‘more money!’ - and how to get it - ‘win the lottery!’ - but, really, we delude ourselves. Neither of those things are actually what you want.

What do you really, really want?

We’re good at knowing what we don’t want - but what it is we do want can be difficult.

A good job isn’t a ‘want’. It’s a solution to a want. More money or a relationship or a bigger house - none of these are wants. They’re all solutions to wants.

I ‘wanted’ a wife. I now have one. And very happy I am too, dear. But a ‘wife’ isn’t what I wanted. What I wanted was what a wife represented.

Love is what I wanted. Companionship. A safe place. A person I could talk to about plans, ideas, thoughts, feelings. A person who wouldn’t laugh but would, instead, take my ramblings seriously. I wanted somebody to care for, to look after. To protect. And, in the end, somebody who would provide me with children. That’s what I wanted. ‘Wife’ is a shorthand for all this.

Life would be far simpler if we regularly did two things:

1. Describe what we want rather than what we don’t want; describe what we want instead of talking about the problems in our lives.

2. Paid some attention to what underlies the surface desire. Tried to work out what it is that creates the need we describe as a want.

Try this - it looks simple but if you can do it you’re pretty clever actually:

List five of your most pressing wants.

Then, for each, give five reasons why you want them. Be brutally honest.

It’s the ‘why’ that will reveal most….

In order to act in ways more in keeping with whatever we want for our lives we need, in our philosophical armoury, some ideas about how and why we fail and how and why we succeed.

There are many reasons for both success or failure. For this post, I will just offer a basic idea of what we need to do in order to succeed or fail.

Have a think about this and feel free to comment:

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Failure
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Failure, like success, is never an overnight thing. You can’t just get up one day and decide to be a failure.

You have to work at it.

Or, at least, you have to do the right things to achieve failure. And you have to do them consistently.

Life’s failures are generally made up of a series of repeated actions over a reasonably long period of time. Failure can occur in an instant but that’s rare. Even if it seems to have occurred in an instant careful inquiry will reveal that there were a number of actions led to the final catastrophe.

To illustrate: if you are over-weight it’s not the result of that last Mars Bar or fattening food you ate, or the last time you hopped on a bus instead of walking or the most recent excuse you cooked up for not going to the gym…

It was the consistent, day after day consumption of lousy food and sedentary living that slowly built that tyre for you.

The dullness or disconnection or tension in your relationship with a spouse or a child or a friend or a co-worker mostly comes after consistently not doing whatever it is you possibly know you should be doing - picking up the phone more often, making time to chat, showing interest, being there to offer support, being a little more patient or forbearing or being less sensitive or competitive or plain awkward… It’s not the occasional omission that counts it’s the consistent omission that really does the damage.

And so on in every area of our lives. Careers become ruts because we do the easy thing - just carry on until the end of the day - and fail - daily - to do anything to improve or change them. That language you want to learn or instrument you want to play or skill you want to acquire… day by day you do all the right things to ensure that, in fact, you never do.

The most evil thing about failure though is its subtelty. These small omissions seem - and, indeed, often are - so trivial in themselves that they hardly appear to matter. No single act in the gradual road to disappointment screams out to you that it is going to ruin your ambitions or thwart you attempts to live a life of your own choosing. And it is just so easy to not do those things that you need to do and instead opt for the distraction activity - the tv programme, the tabloid paper, the glossy magazine, the computer game, the pub…

It’s the on-going, consistent practice of stuff like this though that erodes the very quality of one’s existence. Carefully, and without us even realising it, the failure to follow through, the failure to make the right decisions, the failure to hold oneself to some sort of a discipline, the failure to step out of our comfort zones, the failure to take the minor discomfort of discipline in place of the eventual agony of disappointment, the failure to simply have a plan of some sort that we basically adhere to… it’s all this carried out day after day, week after week, month after month and year after year that brings us to a place where we wake up one day and think,

Goodness.

Is this it?

And suddenly you’re not so young any more, it’s all gone whizzing by and yet, barring a couple of promotions and a bigger mortgage (maybe) you seem not that much further forward than you were five, maybe ten years ago.

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Success
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Success is the same as failure only in reverse.

Success postpones the instant gratification of a cake or a tv programme or a cheap, glossy magazine and, instead, reads a decent book, enrols in a class, goes for a walk, drinks a glass of water, reaches out to somebody, makes a plan, asks a good question, goes to bed early, tells the truth, praises somebody, refuses to criticise…

Success takes small, positive actions and does them every day. Success knows when it’s eaten or drunk enough. Success does the job - career, the ironing, reading to a child well - rather than just doing the job. Success feeds body and mind with the opposite of what failure feeds it with.

My wife had a bit of fat on her tummy when we met. When we married her job was at an office 15 minutes’ walk from our house. The tummy didn’t disappear but after about three months it was noticably smaller. Her jeans were looser. Small successes - that 15 minute walk - over time reduced her weight and undoubtedly made her healthier.

Now she works at another office and takes the bus from outside our house directly to the train station. There’s no more walking and, gues what? The tummy’s back. She didn’t get it immediately, it sort of crept up on her. Those two brief walks a day were two very small, consistent successes in the fight against being overweight. Those consistent failures to walk to the station led to the tummy.

The tummy’s cute, mind, (in case she’s reading) - gives me more of her to love - but she’s not too pleased with it.

The right thing, done consistently, can transform. There’s no need to build Rome in a day; you can do it brick by brick.

If you decided today to read for 20 minutes every single day from now until the end of your life how many books will that amount to? Dozens? Hundreds? Thousands? What could you learn, how could you improve aspects of your life from reading dozens or hundreds of books?

Do you know how good for you fresh fruit is? If you ate just two pieces of fresh fruit per day you would add vitamins, minerals and fibre to your diet that would, piece by piece, rebuild and rejuvenate parts of your body through the cleansing action of fruit’s anti-oxidants. You may well avoid cancer as a result. Now that’s what I call success…

What if you smiled at everybody you greeted? Or complimented people once a month on their clothes or their work or their effort or their sense of humour or the attitude or…? Or each morning wrote in your diary or set yourself a reminder to do just one useful, meaningful thing - doesn’t have to be a big thing - for your career, or a relationship, or your personal well-being…? What if you did a small thing in an area of your life every day - or nearly every day - for the rest of your life?

What on earth would happen to you then?

But the real beauty of success isn’t that you can do small things which, incrementally, add up to enormous things. Nor is it that you can do something in at least one area of your life every single day from now until you pass away.

The real beauty is that the rewards of success can be instantaneous. A small improvement in your exercise has you feeling good now. A kindly word or two to somebody has them flushed and well-disposed to you now. A 20 minute read of something useful to an important area of your life could yield useful information or a meaningful insight now.

So. Make your choices. Decide. Then seize the day…

When I argue with somebody - which, mercifully, is rarely - I find there’s usually something about the way they argue that annoys, irritates or, at times, infuriates.

Once I knew a chap who’s idea of arguing - or, in our case, discussing political issues which we rarely agreed on - was to simply reply, ‘No it’s not’ or ‘You’re wrong’ - or some similar three worded reply. Or he would shake his head and simply look away, staring off into the distance, saying, ‘No’ as I spoke. It drove me mad and, I have to say, sometimes brought out the worst in me.

I read something one day about ‘triggers’. Triggers are simply things you see or hear or feel or taste or smell that invoke a reaction, a feeling, a mood - good, bad or indifferent.

Many triggers are subtle, barely noticeable and have minimal affect on you - the smell of your office, the sound of a passing lorry, the feel of a freshly ironed short on your back.

Others can be more powerful. A certain tone of voice, used by a parent years ago, and now repeated by some other person can evoke the same feelings as the parent did.

A particular song that was playing when somebody broke off their relationship with you can bring years old memories flooding back.

The state of your home - good or bad - when you walk through the door. Untidiness has been known to cause - to trigger - depression in some people.

The mere thought of a person you are desperate to know better… and the sight of them as they walk towards you.

The sight of a spider. Or a puppy.

The sound of a loved one’s cries/laughs.

A particular street. Or model of car.

The smell of alcohol on somebody’s breath.

A person who’s not speaking to you.

The smell of a particular perfume. Or fresh bread.

The recollection of a wonderful/terrible memory.

An ex-partner.

Another’s look of contempt. Or lust. Or surprise.

All triggers.

My friend’s behaviour annoyed the life out of me. I understood that other people - in what they do or say or in the way they conduct themselves - can have a direct effect - that is, they could be a trigger - on others. I realised that, if I thought of different people I knew - from loved ones to the flimsiest of acquaintances - they were all some kind of a trigger to me. Some were very weak triggers, others quite powerful ones. Some nice, some not so nice. One person was a relaxing, enjoyable trigger; another triggered boredom and a desire to avoid them while another triggered admiration and, even, some envy.

Which led me to a more profound question, one that I had to ask myself: if these people are triggers to me then what kind of trigger are you to them - and to others?

I had watched this chap argue - or discuss with other people - and sometimes his behaviour with others was completely different. And I realised that, even though he is ultimately responsible for his own behaviour, I was a trigger for a certain type of reaction. His fault was in not restraining himself or holding himself to a higher standard. But what caused him to at least feel like acting that way was… me.

That one realisation was transformational.

I suddenly realised that at least some of the reaction I got from people - whether it was positive or negative - or just plain bland - was at least in part due to the effect I had on them.

Those that regarded me as witty, funny and humorous would set eyes on me and smile. A lady I flirted with last week would giggle when I went to her desk this week. A person who had once tried to fob me off and been reprimanded for it by her boss would answer the telephone cheerfully to me - and then, recognising my voice, her own would flatten to clipped words and short sentences with a cold and indifferent tone.

The kind of trigger we become to another person can sometimes be created in an instance but is more usually created over a period of time. It’s the culmination of their experience with us that leads them to associate you with fun or seriousness or wittiness or criticism or bad temper. Once they feel they know you the triggers are created. We inspire reactions. We cause moods. We affect emotions. We provoke feelings. We are triggers ourselves and if we want to change our relationships with people we need to pay close attention to what it is we do and how it is that what we do affects them.

The first thing I did was to notice how other people triggered me. And then I asked myself, what was it about them that trigger that in me? If they were good triggers, why were they good? What have I discovered over time that I like about them? If they were boring or irritating to me what was it about them that triggered such feelings?

Then I started to pay attention to the way people reacted when I met them at the office or in social situations, when I spoke about things, when I asked for a favour, when I offered one… and so on. It is astonishing but once you realise how you affect other people - and what you do specifically to trigger emotions in them - you find you have a host of ideas about how to improve your relationship with them.

How do you find out how you affect others? You’ve been creating the trigger that you are over the days, weeks, months and years that they have known you. How do you ascertain what kind of a trigger you are to the various people you interact with?

You ask yourself questions. (If you’re brave, you could ask the other person). Either way the answers will reveal much:

What is the nature of my interaction with x? (ie do I ask him to do work for me, do I report to her, is he my best friend, does she sell me my morning paper, is he somebody I’ve had a troubled relationship with, is she somebody I go to for help or advice, is he my husband, is she my daughter…?)

How does x react when s/he first sees me? Cheerfully? Dismally?

What is x’s attitude - body language, tone, facial expression - when we’re interacting?

Whatever the answer to the above, just to get the brain going ask yourself this: what would I need to do to illicit the opposite of the reaction I currently get? How, for example, could I - through actions and words over a period of time - make their joy every time we meet turn to trepidation or irritation or misery every time we meet? Or, if they’re usually miserable when they see me what should I do to invoke cheerfulness?

If the reaction to me isn’t the one I want what would I need to start doing to inspire the one I want?

Does somebody else get the reaction I want? Can I learn from them the best way to approach x?

And so on.

You are a trigger. You cause people to feel things, to think things, to do things. You’re not responsible for another’s bad behaviour or rudeness or dismissive attitude but you are, nevertheless, a trigger and you can’t help but be one.

Find out what kind of a trigger you are. It will vary from person to person. If you’re not the kind of trigger you want to be ask yourself why not. Work out what you need to do to be a better trigger and, if it’s possible - and if it’s within your character - make some changes.

With the friend I had the arguments with I realised that he regarded discussion with me as a battle, as something to be won or lost. I don’t hold myself responsible for his sometimes infantile attitude but I am responsible - or, if you like, response-able - with regards to my own behaviour. So I looked fo rways to improve things a little. I made more of an effort to explicitly agree with him - that is, I would actually tell him I agreed with him - where I genuinely agreed with him (previously I would often move the conversation on to the next point when I agreed with him).

Sometimes I would ask him his view on something without engaging in a debate. I’d simply ask him and respect his opinion.

I would be less pedantic and not argue every point.

I would not raise my voice. And I would not demonstrate exasperation in my tone. I would maintain a conversational style instead of speaking quickly and loudly. I would take longer pauses, breathe deeply and make sure I was relaxed.

I would inject humour into the conversation where possible.

And so on.

Did I turn the situation around completely? No. Remember - he had responsibility too and he often failed to act accordingly with regards to our conversation.

Did I improve the situation? Yes, definitely. Over time he calmed down somewhat as the sense that we were in battle together lost its hold. I had to be aware of my mode of conversation with him but it got a lot easier. I accepted I was a trigger, I realised how I was a trigger and I sought to do something about it. It’s a valuable lesson and I occasionally need to relearn it.

I’m always glad when I do.

You always communicate. When you speak to a person or look at a person or do something that they’re aware of you communicate something.

Ever said about someone, “We just can’t communicate”?

Well, that’s not really so. You can’t not communicate. The problem is that we don’t communicate to the other person what it is we’d like them to understand.

Maybe they don’t want to hear.

Maybe you don’t explain it too well.

Maybe, s/he hears, in the way you say and frame things, a different message - unintended, no doubt - that shouts louder than the one you yourself are trying to convey.

The person’s response is your clue as to whether what you intend to communicate is actually getting through. Be sensitive to the reaction and adjust accordingly. There are dozens of signals in their voice, choice of words, facial expression, breathing…

You are not random. Never have been, never will be.

You think you have been random, have done things for no rhyme or reason but you haven’t. Nothing is uncaused.

Everything a human does is done for a reason, to achieve a goal, to secure an aim. Sometimes what we do seems anything but beneficial but there is a reason, a useful intention, behind all actions. Even the worst.

Sulking is not considered to be a constructive act but it is if it works. Because it’s designed to display displeasure or unhappiness, to provoke sympathy, to gain understanding.

Fury offers us something suitably energetic, something that fits our intense need to act whilst being simultaneously bound by helplessness.

And so on.

If you do something, if you say something and you don’t like it don’t try to grit your teeth in order to stop yourself. You’ll succeed occasionally but if the behaviour is achieving something for you - even at a hidden level - you might well continue doing it anyway.

Instead, think about the why that describes your behaviour. It’s there, somewhere. It will take guts because, sometimes, the why requires facing up to less than attractive character traits. Do it anyway. When you find it, think about how better to service that need. Servicing the need in a more constructive way will leave the previous behaviour with nothing to do. So it will wither through underuse and then die.