My problem is my house. Honestly, it’s a mess.  Since my divorce in 2006, it has alternated between clean and messy.  Interestingly it was clean when I had the least to lose. It has been clean when it least holds me back.  The mess is the, yeah I’m really going to say it, one thing that gives me an excuse to hold myself back. This is the next thing I must take care of. This is the one thing I can no longer give myself excuses to avoid.  Damn.. I really feel bad for the mess now

The lesson learned?  It’s pretty easy to sabotage yourself even when you’re trying very hard not to. 

Lesson learned.

1. Speak Up

If you’ve ever mumbled the famous words “I’m too nice and people always take advantage of that” to yourself or others, this tip is for you.  These words have left my mouth more than once.  I’ve discovered that this isn’t usually true.  Instead I have let people take advantage of me because I didn’t feel like voicing my opinion.  In fact I’ve learned that I can still be a nice guy, and people really respect that more when I do interject my opinions.

Too often we assume that people understand how we feel about things.  Of course this leads to us feeling let down or angry when they seem to deliberately step on “our feelings” when in reality they were looking at the situation in a completely different way.  So make sure share what you are thinking.

2. Look At Things From Other Perspectives

Just as someone others rarely think of things in exactly the same way as you, you probably don’t look at things in the same way as they do.  Each and every person’s beliefs are based on what they have experienced throughout their life.  This gives each of us a very unique way of looking at anything that happens, and in some ways creates a different reality for everyone. So the next time someone says something that upsets you, gives you a gift that seems thoughtless, or disagrees with you try something different.

Instead of looking at the situation from your unique perspective, attempt to see it from their unique perspective.  Exactly what is it that makes them believe that they are right?  Why do they have the tendency to act the way they are?  The more you work at seeing things from the perspective of other people, the better you will become at communicating with other people without conflict. With enough practice you be able to meet them at their perspective and lead them to understanding yours, thus getting what you want.

3. Know Your Goals

Notice I did not say “Know what you’re goals are.”  This is because each of us already knows what our goals are.  We might want good jobs, a certain car, or something specific in a partner, but these are just superficial representations of our goals.  If we really want to get what we want, we need to really know our goals.  Analyze each of your goals and make sure you understand why you want them, how they fit into your dreams, what you will get from them, and who will appreciate the results with you.  All of this will help you to visualize your goals and eventually help drive you to achieve them.

4. Stop Waiting

Tomorrow will always be tomorrow, and there will always be a next week.  Stop planning to do thing later Now.  The only way you will ever accomplish your goals is if you quit putting them in the future and choose to start achieving them now.  While you may not be able to do everything today, you can always take small steps toward achieving what you want.

5. Be Positive

You’ve probably heard this a million times, and you’re going to hear it again now.  Learn to keep your thoughts positive.  You may have grown up learning to look at things from a negative point of view, but it doesn’t have to be that way. Looking at everything from a positive point of view will make it much easier to learn from your mistakes and continue pounding away until you succeed.

6. There is No Such Thing As Failure

Goals are rarely ever accomplished on the first attempt.  The difference between a person who appears to be successful and a person who doesn’t appear to be successful is that the successful person has failed many many more times than the unsuccessful person.  The lesson here?  With the right mindset, you can never fail.  Each unsuccessful attempt at your goals is an experience that you can learn from before you try again.  This is how we become experts at anything.  Keep going and you’re sure to eventually succeed.

7. Confidence is Key

Learning to be confident in yourself is the key to many things.  Confidence is the difference between those that follow and those that lead.  To succeed, we need to lead.  One of the best ways I’ve found to boost my confidence is to learn to alter my image from one of uncertainty to one of confidence.  Just by removing the phrases “I think” and “maybe” from my speech, I started to notice a difference in the way people reacted to what I said.  People went from considering me uncertain at work to looking at me as the authority.  Try it and see what happens.

8. Trust Yourself

While this could fall under the category of confidence, I thought it was important enough to break it out on its own.  If you want others to trust and follow you, you must trust yourself.  Your unconscious non-verbal communication is usually more important than the words that come from your mouth.  If you don’t have faith in yourself, your non-verbal communication will make it very obvious to everyone around you.

9. Surround Yourself With Success

Whether you realize it or not, we spend our lives learning to do new things by mimicking what others have done.  As babies we learn to speak by mimicking sounds that others make. We learn to play baseball by learning to mimic the motions that others have made.  We learn to write by mimicking the symbols that others have drawn.  Throughout life, learning is a process of repeating the things that work to accomplish a task.  With that in mind consider the difference between surrounding yourself with positive or negative role models.  It definitely makes sense to be surrounded by people who are actively achieving the same goals you wish to achieve. 

10. Be The Best You Every Day

I don’t know how many times I’ve heard people say “Just be yourself.”  While this statement is true, it is frequently misunderstood even by those saying it.  If you want to be successful it won’t be enough to “just be yourself.”  In order to achieve all that you can you will need to always be your best self.  Your best self will vary from day to day, but always try to find the motivation to push yourself to new levels.  If you allow yourself to “just be” you probably won’t be able to find the motivation to move forward with your goals at all.

If you take the time to open your mind, and look at this day a little differently, you might see it instead as a day full of opportunity.  So many of us loath this day for a single reason that really has nothing to do with the day at all.  After all, we’re single.  We don’t have another person to celebrate it with.  What could this day provide us that we don’t already have?

If you said motivation, you are right.   Fear and pain are two of the best motivators that exist.  What better day could there possibly be to motivate us to make the changes we need to make in our lives?

So, when Sunday rolls around, try to look at differently.  When you see that couple holding hands in the store and catch yourself thinking about how envious you are of them, think about how you’re going to make whatever changes you need to make to be the one holding hands next year.  While you’re locked inside your house and notice that you’re moping around because you don’t want to go out, write down a list of the things that are holding you back.  When you catch yourself getting angry because Valentines day shoves all of this in your face, remember that it’s your situation that you don’t like, not the day, and reinforce your commitment to changing your situation.

With that said, I wish all of you a Happy Valentines Day, and hope that by this time next year, each and every one of you will have found the relationships you are seeking.

A year ago I wrote that I wasn’t sure how much I would have to share as there were two major events I needed to take care of.  Three months later, I had conquered both of those, but still I found my ability to share new material with you difficult as I had a difficult time finding new material for myself.  Tonight, however, I come to you with a full report on my progress over the last year, the things I have learned, as well as my resolutions for the next year.

Over this past year, I have overcome 2 major issues of my own, only to find myself confronted by additional issues which I have been striving to beat down. Perhaps one of the largest issues I have dealt with is depression. Despite all of the gains I have made, the overall change in me has been small, and at times I have allowed that to get to me and hinder my progress.  Up until last weekend, I still found it very difficult to talk to strangers unless they first talked to me.  Last weekend, I had a little party, got way too drunk, ended up at a bar with a friend, and spontaneously become the life of the party.  Somehow, after that, everything has seemed a bit easier for me, though not as easy as I would like.  I did come to a very important conclusion though.

That night showed me that subconsciously I know how to use everything that I have learned over these past few years.  My self-esteem is probably the highest it’s ever been in my entire life, and much better than most people I know.  However something still holds me back.  That something is uncertainty.  I still fear what I don’t know and perhaps this is a good thing, or maybe bad. Certainly when I am working, it is good.  Without my fear of it, I wouldn’t seek as hard as I do to clear it up and find true answers.  When it comes to my life however, it limits me, and the one way I have found to clear it up is through practice.

So now I know I must practice what I already know how to do in order to become comfortable using it.  This will take time as my opportunity to use it is few and far between, but I will persevere.  So this brings us to my resolutions for this wonderful new year.

My first resolution is to start making better use of my idle time.  There are many things that I “never have the time to do” yet I spend many hours doing things that are not productive in any way.  Some of this is unavoidable due to other responsibilities, but I am going to work to better organize my life such that I get the most out of my time.

Secondly I’ve resolved to not only date more this year, but to find myself potential wives. I’ve taken note of everything I want and among those things is another child. I don’t want that child to face the same hardships my daughter does with my ex and I divorced, so I’ll be very discriminating  and settle for nothing less than what will make me happy.  This I will seek with every bit of energy I have.

Lastly I will do everything in my power to become the best person that I am.  Is that a little confusing?  Probably, but what I mean is that I know who I am, but often find myself afraid to be me.  This year I will overcome that and be who I know I am.  I’m going to be me for the first time in my life and that started today.

Now that I’ve shared my resolutions with you, I’d like to encourage you to share your resolutions with me and everybody else.  Far more of you regularly read my blog than comment, and now I’d like to invite you to join in and motivate each other.  What are you’re resolutions?  How do you plan to accomplish them?  Please share and help each other through this next year.

The problem in my case is starting conversations with strangers.  Up until now I haven’t been able to do it and until last night, I had no idea why.  I tried every technique I knew and found that either they didn’t work or I just couldn’t do them. So last night I was talking to a friend about this and she asked me one very important question “How do you feel when it happens”, and I answered “I don’t.”  That’s right.  I have no anxiety at all in that situation.  I simply do what I do a lot in situations I’m not used to; space out and get distracted.  This is actually something that I consider a positive attribute.  Usually when this happens I’m brainstorming, or relating huge amounts of seemingly unrelated information, but in this case I’m struggling to find a relation to help me start the conversation, and by the time I do, the opportunity has passed.  So my current problem isn’t social anxiety at all.  Instead it’s inexperience and over thinking.

Now I just need to tackle the problem, and here is how I plan on doing it.  I’m going to start by walking up to people and asking them for advice. Whether it’s where to find something in the store, where to find a particular type of store, or just what they think of the shirt I’m wearing, this is something I can do.  It may not be seem all that exciting or groundbreaking, but I still do over think when I do this, so in theory the more I do it, the easier it will get.  Once I have done that I’ll move on to some of the things that are a little harder for me like the weather, sports, and current events. If I’m right, during the process of doing this a couple hundred times it will become automatic and that searching that happens now will be gone.

My point here has been that I was so focused on my anxiety that I refused to believe that I had conquered it when I in fact had.  That’s not to say that I don’t feel anxiety at all anymore, but just that the anxiety that I do get no longer prevents me from moving forward.  I was so focused on anxiety that I didn’t see my real problem, and ended up stuck running in circles for month trying to cure a problem I didn’t have.  So when you get stuck, don’t forget to look for other explanations outside of your anxiety.

Later that night, I took some time to sit down with him and teach him and help him to understand how he was the one “playing games.”  See, over the last few months, he and I have been occasionally going to clubs together on Saturday nights, and I have had the opportunity to see him in action first hand.  When texted me that day, I wasn’t the slightest bit surprised.  I knew exactly why he was experiencing the problems he was experiencing. I knew what he didn’t: He wasn’t being congruent and his body language was betraying him.

Congruency is a subject that I have discussed many times in the past.  Basically, when you are congruent, All of your communication, both verbal and non-verbal says the same thing.  In this case you need to be portraying self-confidence, yet my friend alternates between confidence and insecurity.  As soon as he gets into a situation where he is insecure about his decisions, you can watch his muscles tighten, the rate of his breathing increases, sweat beads on his forehead, and his voice trembles.  His body and mind quickly give his feelings away without him having any idea that this is happening.  Females, as it turns out are very sensitive to these non-verbal clues, and while they may not know why, they get uncomfortable when faced with someone displaying incongruence.  They may get the feeling that you’re a creep, or that everything you say is a bunch of crap, and really they aren’t far off.

So the solution seems simple.  You can just learn to control your non-verbal communication so that you’ll always seem confident and the “Games” will go away, right?  Unfortunately, it’s not that simple.  When women pick up on your incongruence, they are right, you are lying.  If you don’t realize this, you are lying to yourself.  Chances are, if you did attempt to fake it you would find it very difficult to function.  This is just to much to constantly think about.  Why would you even want to?

Take a few minutes to consider this.  If unsure about what you want, there is a pretty good chance that when you do get whatever it is, you will be unhappy with it.  Perhaps you are already unhappy and think that accomplishing this will make you happy.  I’m pretty sure that if that is the case you can probably think of many other times where you thought the same thing and the happiness didn’t last.  This time will be no different.

Instead, take the time to find yourself.  Figure out what it is that you really want to a point where no longer question yourself.  Pay attention to the thoughts in your head and make sure that you take care of the valid problems.  If you do this, the problem of incongruence will take care of itself.  You will actually be that confident person that you were attempting to fake before. 

I realize that I wrote this blog from the male perspective, but these concepts apply to anyone, both male and female.  If you find yourself looking for ways to become more confident, you may want to take the time to read back through some of my previous posts, especially those about incongruence, self-limiting beliefs and irrational fears.

Two decisions, one made a month ago and another made a few days ago, would lead me to a conclusion that I never would have expected.  Firstly I decided that I would dress up.  Secondly, I decided that I would do so along with my daughter before we left the house today.  This morning when after we awoke, that’s exactly what we did.

As we were walking into restaurant to meet some family, my daughter said to me, “Daddy, I’m embarrassed.  We’re the only people dressed in costumes.”  At this point, I was still failing to put 2 and 2 together.  She was right, it was a bit embarrassing, but hey, it was Halloween.  Next we went to the Mall where they were having a costume contest for the kids.  She continued talking about being embarrassed on the way there, and this is where the epiphany hit me.  I had accidently stumbled on a great opportunity for systematic desensitization.

As the day went on, I observed myself.  At times I did get somewhat anxious, but at the same time I kept my head clear enough that I was able to observe myself and correct myself.  As the day went on, it got easier and easier until finally we ended up at a Halloween party for the kids at a local ice arena.  This is where I was eventually shocked into realizing how much of a difference the day had made.

After spending the night walking my one and a half year old nephew up to peoples doors along with my daughter, I unconsciously did something that opened my eyes to the ease I was having doing all of this.  As my daughter and I were standing in line for her to play a game, I noticed that I knew the guy in front of us from high school, yet hadn’t seen him since.  Suddenly, my mouth opened, moved, and words came out seemingly without thought. After my daughter finished playing the game I finished up the conversation, and continued on my way to the next game where I realized what had happened.

Yesterday, this wouldn’t have happened.  I would have stood there thinking about saying”hi,” but would have failed to do it because by the time my mind had cleared it would have been too late.  Tonight things were very different, I thought “Hey, I know him.”  and acted before I had a chance to get lost in my mind.  I don’t know yet how this new ability will play out past tonight, but I’ll remain optimistic, and we’ll see!

I have no idea where this quote came from, but I have read, and heard this many, many times over the past few months.  Whomever originally said this definitely had a point and is a complete genius in my mind.  From the time we are born, our lives are filled with change.  Change is not a choice, but a mere fact of nature that happens constantly all around us no matter what we do.  We grow older, learn, teach, have fun and with each second that passes we change.

So if change is not a choice, how can we ever become who we want to be?  The other day, I found myself asking this very question.  As I stood relaxing in the warm sun, I stared down at my feet and took a step forward and then a step back.  I watched as my foot glided through space and time changing with each millisecond that passed.  The position of my foot changed by choice.  So you see, even though we are always changing, we can choose to influence the change in the ways we want. So what is the key to making the changes we want?

At first this may really sound silly, but if you take time to think about it, it really makes sense.  The key to making real live-moving changes is to stop doing things the way you have always done them.  If for instance you want to make more money you may find yourself saying “Well, the things I’ve do have gotten me this far, I don’t see why they won’t work to get me farther.”  In that statement, you would be precisely correct.  The things you have done have gotten you to exactly where you are today.  If you continue to do things exactly the same, very little will change.

One of my goals, as many of you know, has been to become a more social person.  Over the past few years, I have worked very hard at this, and made some change – some progress.  Looking back though, the change has been very small.  Sure there have been huge changes, but in the overall context of my goal, they have had minimal effect.  So I’ve been re-evaluating myself, my habits, and my life attempting to determine how I can achieve the change that I want for myself.  With my introspection, I came to the conclusion that I need to actually take steps toward this change.

So here is what I’ve laid out for myself.  First of all, I am going to change my style quite a bit.  Gone are the days of tee-shirts and jeans.  It is about time that I start dressing like the professional, successful person that I am. I am also going to put more energy into paying attention to things that are important to me.  In the past I have been horrible at not paying attention to the details – a habit that I now regret. What I have learned is that making the change means being the change.

You will never be something that your aren’t so in order to be the person that you want to be, you have to be that person. You need to become yourself, be yourself, and be the you that you want to be.  It’s that simple, but still one of the hardest things to actually do.

Everything belief that we have is generated from our experiences and what we have learned from the experiences of others.  It is from these believes that we generate the standards by which we judge ourselves and others.  What I have always know, but only recently become aware of is that it doesn’t always make sense to change these beliefs.

Shortly after I wrote that story, I really thought about it, and had the feeling that those two things were just excuses.  In many other cases when dealing with social anxiety, others would have said the same.  In reality I have found that these things I needed to take care of truly needed to be taken care of.  I had been making excuses to put them off for far too long.

So tonight’s lesson is short and sweet.  There are those things in life that bother you and rightfully should.  This is especially true if the problem affects your health or the well-being of your family.  So really, if something is bothering you, it is all in your head, but you really should take the time to question whether it is there for a good reason or now.

At some point a series of events occurred in my life that changed that belief forever.  Within weeks I went from my automatic negative thoughts to thinking positively most of the time.  The best part about this that because I questioned my ability to think positively the entire time, I noticed what led to the changes.

The secret, my friends, is practice. At this point, you probably think I’m crazy, how can you practice what you think?  After all we just have thoughts, right?  Yes and no.  First of all you need to realize that the way you think, is nothing more than a habit.  You have learned to think negatively.  Just the same you can learn to think positively.  The trick is catching yourself having the negative thoughts, and then thinking more positive thoughts.

As an example, one recurring negative thought that I used to have was that people would find me boring. Whenever I noticed this, I would think of times when people didn’t find me boring, and think to myself “I am a fun person.”  before long, I noticed I was no longer thinking that people would find me boring.

Now as I mentioned before, becoming a positive thinker requires practice.  This isn’t something you can change in a couple of days.  It will take weeks, months, or maybe even years of practice depending on you and how negative your thoughts are.  Just as you wouldn’t expect to become an expert in a day if you picked up a new musical instrument, you can’t expect to make such a huge, life-changing change so quickly. 

Now if you have read this article carefully, you may now realize that I have given you a very powerful starting place to get you moving along the road to positively.  I have not only told you that this is possible, but I have explained how it is possible and how you can become more positive.  Anyone choosing to do this should start off by reminding themselves that they can become more positive every time they have a thought to the contrary.

I wish you all the best and loads of positivity in the future!

In her post, ‘I’m Thinking of Something and it Starts with the Letter “K”‘ ,  Not a Mean Girl told of a child who had a sudden change in disposition.  She went on to describe the things she noticed that eventually ended in her being able to calm him and perhaps help him.  As I read her post I realized she was describing the incongruence of the child.  She was naturally noticing and noting these subtle differences in his non-verbal communication that indicated that he was torn over something. This allowed her to help him, at least at that moment.  (Beautiful job NAMG!)

As you can see, being able to spot incongruence can be helpful in helping others.  When you spot incongruence you can sometimes help the person to bring their many lines of communication into agreement with each other.  Sometimes this is a nice skill to have, but how does it apply to coping with social anxiety?

Maybe you notice that people seem bored when you talk to them.  Maybe you think people just agree with you to get you to stop talking.  In either of these cases you’re probably picking up on the incongruence of the other person.  You’re picking up on important communication from them, and likely ignoring it and continuing on without change.   Next time this happens, try to notice what they are doing that gives you these feelings and once you do, change something about what you’re doing.  Maybe change the subject, your posture, tone of voice, or even stop talking altogether.  See if there are any changes, and then try something else.  With time and practice, you’ll be able to learn to use incongruence to pace your conversations and appear much less socially awkward.

At the beginning of this year, I had just started a new job.   While it was a bit frightening it was exciting none the less.  I spent quite a bit of time continuing my research into the anxieties that I faced and how to conquer them.

At some point, I discovered that the anxiety I suffered from was known as Social Anxiety Disorder.  It was at this point that I realized that there wasn’t nearly enough information openly available to sufferers online, and decided to create this blog in order to help others.  From that point forward, I continued working on myself, and writing about every technique that I found that worked for me.

Finally October rolled around, and my posts screeched to a halt.  Suddenly I found myself without new techniques to contribute, and decided that rather than clutter the site meaningless summaries of what I’d already covered, I’d hold off until I had something new.  That time hasn’t come yet, but some amazing things have happened with me.

Right around this same time, I suddenly found that my anxiety had drastically decreased.  From then thru today, I’ve been continuing with systematic desensitization and self-hypnosis. If I take a moment to think back to where I started, or even just 6 months ago, I hardly recognize the person I was.  I have more fun now.  I’m a better father.  I’m much more assertive.  Most importantly I’m much happier than I was then.

So what does all of this mean for SociallyDistressed.com in the year to come?  Relax, despite my lack of new content recently, I’m not abandoning you guys.  Personally I’m at a point where I’m probably going to stay for a few months.  So I probably won’t be writing about any new techniques for a while.  On the other hand, I’m always willing to help you out.  Just comment if you have questions, and I’ll answer maybe even write an entire post if your question spawns enough thought.  Once I have taken care of the things I have to do, I’m sure you’ll start to see new techniques and ideas appear again.

With that said, I wish you all a great and prosperous 2009!  Happy New Years!

Before I even begin to explain how our verbal and non-verbal actions affect others, I have to introduce you to reality.  You must understand that each of us lives in our own reality which is created around the things we have learned and have observed.  No two peoples realities are identical because no two people could possibly have seen, heard, read, and learned the exact same things.

Another very important thing to understand is that our actions and reactions are based completely out of our reality.  In other words we will respond in the way we have learned to respond to something.  In NLP the things that cause our responses are referred to as triggers.  When we hear a word, it is attached to some representation within our mind.  So the word is a trigger to retrieve its meaning within our reality. 

If you look at two separate cultures, it is much easier to see how our realities differ.  For instance one culture may eat bugs while another finds the idea repulsive.  It may be the case that eating the bugs is perfectly healthy, yet for some reason or another, the other culture developed a belief that it is repulsive.  From generation to generation, this belief is taught the offspring. 

In a less obvious example, one person might interpret a smile as being a very positive gesture while another, even though she knows the gesture is meant to be positive, might have a negative reaction to it.  This negative reaction is because somehow a smile became a trigger for negative feelings.  Perhaps the smile stirs up a reminder of a previous bad experience where someone had a smile on their face.

Both of these concepts are extremely important to understand because without them we can’t even begin to understand how to gain good rapport with people.  If we understand these concepts we can begin to observe peoples reactions to things, and adjust our own actions to get the reactions we would like to see.

So the answer to her question more completely, those reactions are not a reflection of her non-verbal communications.  They are instead a glimpse at the reality of the other person triggered by her non-verbal communication.

If this is the case, you may wonder why having very confident non-verbal communication is so important.  To answer that, look back the at example I gave above about two separate cultures.  Culture creates the basis for our reality, and in most, if not all cultures around the world, confidence is considered a positive attribute.  In addition, our signs of nervousness are similar – sweaty hands, fast breathing, shakiness, etc… So it makes sense that being confident and radiating confidence through both our verbal and non-verbal communication will make it easier to build rapport with people.  At the same time it is possible that some people will have associated certain aspects of our confident actions with negative representations, so it is also important that we be able to recognize this and adapt.

I think I’ve done about the best I can to explain this.  This is just a very topical explaination however, so if you really want to understand how all of this works, I recommend reading the works of John Grinder and Richard Bandler. I believe that “Patterns of the Hypnotic Techniques of Milton H. Erickson, M.D.” volumes I and II and “Frogs into Princes” do a very good job of explaining these concepts.  

What I would like to propose is that you look in a mirror.  Take a few minutes to study that person you see as if you are looking at a different person.  Notice the feelings you get from this person, and attempt to figure out what it is that gives you these feelings.  In this exercise you are looking at yourself through the eyes of another person, reacting to your own non-verbal communication, and attempting to determine the source of it.

Now you can try imagine other situations and look at yourself as if you were watching another person in that situation.  Take a few minutes, close your eyes if you need to, and really imagine yourself being in that situation.  Now look at that “other” person in the mirror as if that person is in that situation.  Notice the feelings you have now, and try to notice the non-verbal communication.  Is the person smiling or frowning? How is he/she standing? Now try to figure out why once again.

You should repeat this many times with different situations and circumstances both positive and negative. This is also an exercise you will want to repeat occasionally, and perhaps get in the habit of doing regularly.  Not only can it help you to identify your confidence issues, but it will also help you to become more conscious of the non-verbal communication of other people.

Personally, I use this technique discreetly many times a day.  When I notice I’m feeling a particular way, I simply look at my reflection somewhere.  It doesn’t matter if it’s a mirror or a window as long as I can see my reflection just long enough to notice how those feelings are being reflected non-verbally.

Before I really got to work on myself, I had no awareness of this.  To me things were just the way they were, and I didn’t see any relation.  Once I started learning about myself I discovered that I had two different sets of skills.  At work I had a ton of relevant knowledge, skill, and resources to pull from.  At home I had a little bit of skill and few resources.  Seeing this, I decided to figure out if I could bridge some of my skills from my professional life into my personal life.

One problem I had in my personal life was my speaking abilities.   When I spoke, I mumbled rather than projecting. In the office, however, I was almost to loud and outspoken.  In reality I could do this in my personal life, I just had never realized it because I was in the habit of being quiet.  A couple days later, in the middle of a conversation with some friends, this thought crossed my mind once again.  I realized I was mumbling, and started projecting. Not only were my friends surprised, but after having this happen a few times, I started to notice that I was projecting my voice all of the time. And so I managed to bridge my speaking capabilities from my professional life to my personal life.

The next thing I decided to attempt to tackle was my confidence.  This one hasn’t been so easy because there are many factors that contribute to confidence. In reality many factors have contributed to my improved confidence, I did bridge some of my confidence building skills from my professional life.  I discovered that when I’m not confident about something at work, I learn more about it.  In my personal life when I didn’t know something, I’d just be quiet.  Once again once I realized I already had the tools to use to build my confidence, it was just the matter of getting into the habit of using those tools in my personal life. Before I would just sit around and listen to other people talk about sports and movies or whatever.  I was interested, but never bothered to commit any of it to memory because I previously saw no use for it.  Now though I use my learning skills to commit some of this to memory and I now have more to talk about, which in turn gives me a bit of a confidence boost.

Now you may or many not have the same problems I had.  The examples I have laid out are only examples of how I applied this technique to myself in my unique circumstances.  You may find that you have no skills that need to be bridged between different parts of your life, or that those that should be bridged are different than mine.  My whole point is that it is worth analyzing your talents in different situations, and attempting to find ways to apply them to different parts of your life.

Before I continue my little store it is important to note that over the past few months, I’ve been working very hard at learning to pay attention to the non-verbal communication of other people.  The theory is that the words we say is only a small amount of our actual communication.  Our non-verbal communication is much more important and telling.  This may seem strange because you normally this communication is completely subconscious.  If you’ve ever been asked why you didn’t like someone and relied with something like “I don’t know, he just gave me a bad feeling” you’ve actually come close to realizing this. That is your subconscious using that non-verbal communication to communicate a message to you kinesthetically (through feelings).

So anyway, while I was out getting my lunch, I stopped at the coffee shop.  Ordinarily I’d just go though the drive thru and head home, but my subconscious though it would be better if I went in today and gave me a feeling.  So I got out of the car, and confidently walked to the door with my back straight, shoulders back and head up.  I walked to the register slowly and deliberately.  The girl was off to the side making someone cleaning something when I reached the counter.

Months ago, I would have stood there patiently, as I was willing to today, while she finished cleaning whatever it was, but not today.  As soon as she saw me, she looked up, smiled, fumbled with what she was cleaning, put it down, and practically ran over the register to greet me.  Her non-verbal communication was crystal clear.  She was excited, nervous, and perhaps a bit intimidated.   I ordered and paid, while she was smiling, and giving off very positive body language the whole time.  I told her to have a good day and walked over to where I had to pick up my drink.  Another girl was out changing the garbage bag.  I tell he “Hi” and get the same body language from her.

The third girl, the one who made my coffee, was the best.  She’s rushing to make it, paying more attention to me than the coffee.  She goes to put the whipped cream on top, and ends up putting on too much and making a mess.  I almost laughed, but managed to just smile instead.  She brought it over nervous and apologizing.  I just thanked her and told her to have a great day and left just as confidently as I had first entered.

As I returned to my car, I wanted to jump up and down with excitement.  While I didn’t carry on a spectacular verbal conversation with these girls, what I had accomplished was much more important.  I had managed a HUGE non-verbal talk with them.  I had also managed, for the first time, to pay attention to every detail of their non-verbal communication.  In fact, had I tried to carry on a lot of verbal communication, I probably would have messed something up just because I had to dedicate so much of my focus the non-verbal communication.  With more practice I’ll be able to dedicate more of my attention to my verbal communication as well, but right now, this was a huge win!

I hope you will all create accounts and join me in the forums.  Feel free to post your questions, and discuss things between yourselves.  This is your way to tell me what you want to read.

Thanks,

Andy

I can pretty much guess what most of you are probably thinking right now.  Male readers are thinking "Yeah, I’ve noticed that." while the females are thinking "We are not."  Realistically both thoughts are totally wrong.  It isn’t the asshole that attracts the woman, but certain qualities he appears to possess.

The most important quality that women gravitate toward confidence.  While most assholes aren’t confident, they put a lot of into appearing to be strong and confident in order to hide their insecurities.  They are so good at hiding their lack of confidence in their non-verbal communication that women find themselves drawn to them.  Women really have little control over this because the feelings they get are generated internally by their subconscious. 

Now there’s good news for all of us who are "sweet guys" and those women who don’t want to get stuck with assholes.  Most women aren’t really attracted to assholes.  They are attracted to confident, un-needy, self respecting men.  If you aren’t this person today, don’t fret because you can be. 

I have something for the women reading this who might be attracted to assholes as well.   Consider for a moment that you may not really be attracted to the "bad boys."  Instead is it possible that you attracted to a feeling that you get from them?  Is it possible that this feeling comes from something other than the badness?  Perhaps from the confidence they appear to exude?  Do you find yourself unhappy in these relationships later because you’re always having to take care of that person?  Because in the end, he really isn’t self-sufficient and confident, but just putting on an act? 

If you answered yes to any or all of those questions, you may now understand the point that I am trying to get across.  The asshole is just an imposter faking the role of the person you are really looking for.  Its not your fault, you are tricked by your own mind which acts upon instincts that have been evolved throughout the existence of the human race.

I hope this clears things up a little bit for some or all of you.  As always I’m always willing to field questions, so ask away.

In order to tackle these unconscious bad habits, its important to understand how and why they are formed.  A habit is formed when your subconscious deems something to be positive and useful to you. It generalizes the situation, and applies that generalization in the future.  Once a habit has been formed, whatever action it requires is automatically performed outside of your consciousness. In other words, you don’t know it happens.  When it comes to brushing your teeth, this is a good thing because it has to be done.  When it comes to meeting new people, however, you probably don’t need to panic.

Habits can often extend into much larger parts of our lives without us realizing it.  You may have known someone who has been finding jobs and getting fired repetitiously for years.  This person has a pattern, or habit that he keeps repeating over and over again.  He probably has no idea why he keeps getting fired, and may even blame others, but somehow he has developed a pattern that leads him to the same place every time.  In the same way, these habits permeate all of our lives. 

The good news is that there are ways to break these habits.  First and foremost I’d recommend finding an NLP practitioner who can help give you new choices to use rather than repeating that same loop.   If that’s not possible, you try to gain conscious control over the the habit.  If you have ever been a smoker and attempted to quit, you probably know exactly what I mean.  In this situation there will be times when you’ll notice you have a lit cigarette in your hand and not know how it got there.  Other times you may notice that you’re lighting one and stop yourself.  In that first case, the cigarette got there because your unconscious mind ran its program (your habit) for smoking outside of your consciousness.  In the second case, you as soon as you realized you were lighting the cigarette, you had conscious control over it and could stop.

In order to change these unconscious habits, you have to interrupt the unconscious programs.  If there is a specific situation where you have problems, make little changes.  Try sitting or standing differently.  Try talking in a different tone of voice.  If you always watch what’s happening, try listening instead. You can try anything that’s different than what you would normally do in this situation.  I offer so many suggestions because what will work for you depends on you at that specific point in time.

I know that whole practice seems too simple to be true.  It really isn’t as simple as it may seem, yet this is extremely effective.  It can be very difficult to consciously make even small changes in a stressful situation because our conscious minds are focused on the situation, while our unconscious takes care of everything else.  With this in mind, if you do have trouble applying this in highly stressful situations, attempted it on smaller, less stressful bad habits.

Now I’m off to break my bad habit of not doing my laundry when I should.  I wish you all the best!

Most other terms have relatively universal meanings.  For instance if I said I were looking for marriage, pretty much everyone would understand that I wanted to marry someone.  On the opposite end of the spectrum if I were looking for a one night stand, I could assume that pretty much everyone would understand.  Friends with benefits, might be a somewhat sketchy but still most people would understand. When we come to short-term and long-term relationships, things get a bit more vague and the universal understanding crumbles.

These phrases define a whole set of expectations that may be different from person to person.  For instance one person may understand short-term to be a single date, while another may assume this means friends with benefits for 6 months.  Even still, with short-term, there is always a reasonable assumption that there will be an end to the relationship rather quickly.

Long-term tends to get even more complicated.  One may assume that by long term we imply that there will be no end.  Another may assume that there will be a very distant end.  Even two people who believe there may be an end may differ in the length of the term.  Is it 6 months or 6 years? 

In my opinion both of these terms are used as a way to avoid sharing your true feelings about a relationship.  Are you dating with the expectation of eventually getting married to someone?  If so, are you not in fact looking for marriage?  Are you dating with no real intention of getting married?  If so, are you not looking for friends with benefits?

While this may seem like a big rant to some of you, I’ve hidden a greater point within this post.  Most people don’t know how to communicate.  More specifically, most people don’t know that they don’t know how to communicate.  This has recently started to become crystal clear to me as I have been continuing my quest to learn NLP.  You have to assume that another person’s definition of a word doesn’t match your own because they’re definition is based on their experiences just as your definition is based on yours.

As an experiment to help me prove or disprove my point, I’m asking that you leave a comment and explain what you think Long-Term and Short-Term relationships are.  Thank you.