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.

The key to recognizing when depression is sneaking up is to develop a habit of analyzing your own reasoning.  In order to do this, you need to learn to listen to  your inner dialog. Once you have become versed in paying attention to your thought, you will be able to notice patterns in the way you are thinking.  If you start noticing a lot of thoughts prefixed with things like "I don’t want to", "I don’t feel like", "I’m too tired to", or anything like that, you are probably at least slightly depressed.  Generally you are looking for those negative thoughts that cause you to be depressed.  Using this method of introspection now gives you the ability to begin to cope with the depression.

There are many methods you can use to combat the depression.  Maybe you’ll find that simply realizing the depressed thoughts you were having will change them and the depression may be gone. If not, you may want to try to determine what has been happening lately that has been causing it.  If those factors can be removed from your life, that may be help. If they aren’t easily dealt with, the next best thing would be to work with your inner dialog to discover new possibilities that are better for you.

I owe my power to my first job, I not only endured far too much stress, but learned a few things about life that I probably would have missed otherwise.  At a point, just a few months before I left that job, I was stressed far past my breaking point, drank way more than I should have, and learned the most important lesson.  Nothing that keeps you from living your life really matters.

See, up to this point, I had bent over backwards for everyone, including those who didn’t deserve it, and now I was paying dearly for neglecting myself.  I now realized it was time for me to do for me, and let everyone else fend for themselves. Now there are 2 things that are important to me:  The happiness of me and my daughter.

The true key to letting go is being able to change your focus from the negative to the positive. I have noticed that when I do this many people interpret this as if I don’t care about the negative impact of things.  In reality I don’t, and neither do I because most of this negativity is anchored to the past, and can’t be changed even while there are things that can be changed now that will have a positive effect in the future.  If you focus your care an attention on the horror of these negative things anchored to the past, you can’t focus fully on these positive things in the present that can allow you to at least somewhat recover from those negative things.

One example that I experience a lot and I’m sure many of you can relate to is a project that is about to miss its deadline.  It might be a week or 2 days before, and there are people running around screaming "There’s no way we’ll have it done in time! It’s impossible".  While this is happening, I’m calmly walking to get coffee before settling back in at my desk to get as much done as I can.  I don’t concern myself with the deadline at all. 

Why doesn’t the deadline bother me?  To put it quite simply, from my perspective, it doesn’t matter.  It was set in the past, and no matter much mental anguish I devote to it, its not going to change.  If I get all worked up and out of shape I won’t be able to focus, and I’ll get even less done in time. 

Let me explain how I determine whether or not I should worry about something.  The first question I ask myself every single time is "Can I change it now?"  If the answer is no, I put it completely out of my mind. Next, I ask myself "does it make sense to change it?" If the answer is yes I find a way to get rid of any negativity, and focus my attention on only the positive things.

Taking the project deadline as an example.  Since I can’t change the deadline, I don’t worry about the deadline at all anymore.  Instead I look at what I can change.  I can work on the project, and get as much done as possible.  But knowing that this would be a huge feat to accomplish in so little time (a negativity) I change my focus yet again.  Now I focus only on the task I am working on at this moment which I know I can complete within the next 15 minutes or hour.  When that’s done, I refocus on the next task.

I’m sorry this mainly explains how I use this technique at work.  This happened because this is the situation where I use it the most, and can most easily explain it.   This can, however,  be applied to any stressful situation to help you focus your attention on the important things.  Take this example for instance.

You are sitting, watching TV, when you hear your child fall in the other room. When you enter the room you discover him laying there on the floor hurt.  Many people would scream at the top of their lungs, and panic in this situation.  What does panicking accomplish? Nothing.  Can you change the fact that the child fell?  No.  Can you change what others might think tomorrow?  No.  None of that matters because it doesn’t help right now. So if you refocus your attention on actually helping the child, you’ll find yourself much more calm and collected as you do so.  As much as you may not like thinking about this example, I used it for a very important reason.  Especially when you’re dealing with children, your reaction to a situation can have a drastic effect on their reaction to the same and similar situations now and in the future.  If you’re calm and collected, they will be more calm as well.

Before quitting I had heard from others that if you could make it 3 days without a cigarette, you’d be in the clear.  That wasn’t true for me.  As soon as I began quitting I started to notice a couple problems.  Nearly all of them, probably thanks to the patches were related to my mental addiction.  Perhaps my biggest problem was that I couldn’t focus because my routine had been broken.  I felt the constant urge to have a cigarette in my mouth.  Before long I had to cheat.  My productivity fell, and with it my confidence did as well.

At that point I began to "Cheat".  At first I snuck way too many cigarettes, but within a few days, I realized what I was doing, and forced myself back to one or two a day.  Since then I have managed to maintain this while still reducing the levels of the patches.  Within the last 2 weeks, there have been a few days that I didn’t smoke, and never thought about it.  With this, I have noticed a few things that lead to me "sneaking" cigarettes.

1. Going into the office is a huge trigger for me.  On days I’m not in the office, I can avoid having a cigarette until 7 or 8pm even if I’m around other people smoking. This doesn’t really surprise me because I really started smoking more than 1 or 2 a day at work, when I was working with other people.  As a result, the more I stay away from the office, the better. I also discovered that moving down a level in patches on a day that I will be in the office is a BAD idea.
2. Adopting better eating habits also helps.  I’m less likely to sneak a smoke on days where I eat breakfast, lunch and dinner.  If I’m hungry, I want a smoke. If I eat, the craving goes away.  It is important to not that I’m not eating more because I’m not smoking, but just redistributing my caloric intake more evenly throughout the day.
3. When I don’t smoke, I get tired.  When this happens it helps to take a nap rather than lighting a cigarette.  A 25 minute nap is usually all that it takes to snap me out of it, and get me moving again.

With all of this said, I’m sure some of you are wondering how I manage to stay dedicated to quitting despite all of this apparent "failure."  Its simple.  I don’t consider it failure when I sneak a smoke, but instead consider it progress because I am smoking less this week than I was last week.  I’m still managing to break my old habits and forge new, better habits at the same time.   Doing so allows me to focus on my success, and remain motivated and excited about quitting.  

Now don’t even bother with the excuses you might have for not exercising.  Whatever reasons you may have are just self-limiting beliefs, unless your doctor has told you otherwise. If that is the case, you should be asking your doctor what you can do.  The only excuse that I want to hear is that you already go to the gym 3 days a week. 

Now before you do start getting more exercise it is important that you do approach your doctor to make sure that what you are going to do is ok.  There may be certain reasons why you shouldn’t do certain exercises that are specific to your situation, and I don’t want to hear of anyone getting injured. 

Before you clear it with your doctor, you’ll want to decide what you are going to do.  I decided to start out doing pushups because a number of people I know where doing the 100 Push up Challenge.  Joining in on a challenge such as this is a great way to keep yourself motivated to continue.  If you do so with a group of people a bit of competition always tends to ensue.  For me, this has been very helpful in motivating me to push forward.

You’re probably wondering what kinds of effects you can expect once you start exercising.  Physically you can’t expect too much right away.  you might gain a little muscle right away, but you shouldn’t expect to have the physique of an athlete right away. If that’s what you want, that will take a lot of work.  If you keep at it you should notice some small changes within a month.  What’s more important are the mental changes you’ll notice.

Just knowing that you are doing something good for yourself should give you a small but immediate confidence boost.  When you’re sore the day after working out, you can feel empowered, knowing that that little bit of pain means you made progress toward being stronger and healthier.  The next time you do whatever it is you’re doing, you’ll feel good when you realize you can handle a little bit more than you could the last.  Eventually, exercising may become a habitual part of your life constantly giving you that helpful little boost every day.

It took me about 3 weeks to really start to see and feel results. One day I was walking down the hall toward the bathroom at work when I realized that my shirt felt different than normal on my body. When I got to the bathroom, I couldn’t see a difference in the mirror, but I felt the difference throughout my body.  I was more relaxed, standing straighter, breathing better, and I felt more alive.  Now after 4 weeks I’m starting to see more physical changes.  I have put on 4 pounds, which, being the scrawny twig that I am, is actually a good thing.  I also have quite a bit more muscle in my chest than I did before.  With all of this I’m definitely more confident in myself, and I know that if you take up some sort of an exercise routine, you will be too. 

Then and Now

I used to rely on others for quite a bit.  I never had to do my own laundry, pay my own bills, clean my house, go grocery shopping.  I thought those were the things that I needed my ex-wife for because I had to go to work 40 hours a week, and bring home the money.  That’s not to say I didn’t do anything, but instead I heavily relied on her for those things because I didn’t know how to do them in the time that I had.

Now I live with my 8 year old daughter, work 40 hours a week, get her ready for school, take her to school, pick her up, take care of the house, cook dinner, do laundry, get her to bed, spend time with her, and yet still manage to find more time than ever before to have a social life.  The truth is, I was capable of doing this all along, I just had to learn how to balance it all on my shoulders. This isn’t to say I’m perfect at everything, because I still have a long way to go, but the point is, I now know I can do it, and that I don’t have to rely on others.

Why is Self-Sufficiency Important?

Before I answer this question, I want to ask you, "Why are you here?"  If the word "need" appeared anywhere in that answer. Maybe you "Need" to find a boyfriend or girlfriend. Maybe you "Need" to be more confident.  No matter what it is, if you need it, you are most likely implying that you expect someone else to give it to you.  When you believe you "need" things, others will feel put out.  However if you want something, knowing fully well that you can do it yourself, and someone decides to help you, you will be fully appreciative for that help.

In any relationship, romantic or not, this goes a little deeper.  A needy person in a relationship leaves the other feeling trapped.  These feelings are generated by the fact that the other person is relying on them to do something that the needy person doesn’t thing he can do himself.  Once you understand that you don’t really need anything, and you want, things become easier.

How Do I Become More Self-Sufficient?

As much as I’d like to wave a magic want and cure you of your neediness, I don’t believe there is a "fast" way to become more self-sufficient.  This is a process of changing old habits and building new ones.  Personally, I have always had a difficult time making changes to my habits, and those I have managed to change have sometimes taken months to be comfortable with.

My recommendation to you is to realize now that you don’t "need" anything.  You only "want."  From there you can slowly begin to separate yourself from your reliance on others, slowing taking on more and more of your own responsibility.  If you’re getting divorced, or going through a drastic change you may have more than you can handle forced upon you all at once.  If this is the case, don’t be afraid to ask for help and be grateful for any help you do receive.  If you’re not in that position, you’re very lucky because you hopefully have the opportunity to become self-sufficient before you do end up in this position.

My Life as an Example

When I was divorced, I thought I had to run right out, find a girlfriend, and fill all of the holes that seemed to be left in my life.  I was in such a hurry that I didn’t even pay enough attention to who I was dating to notice that the girl I was with was more needy than me.  I quickly justified all of her faults to myself and before long we were living together.

This turned out to possibly be the most helpful thing in my growth.  Before long I was seeing things from the other side of the fence.  Suddenly I was the one being continuously relied upon, feeling trapped and needing out, but I still had my holes that needed filled, and I definitely didn’t want to be "alone."  So, on it went for over a year before I couldn’t take it anymore, and broke up with her. 

After this I had 2 more short relationships before I realized, I was cured.  I don’t need a girlfriend or a wife.  I want a relationship with someone who wants to spend time with me, not someone who needs me for almost everything.  I want someone who can take care of herself as I can.   Most importantly, I want to be me.

I have seen the law of attraction described in many different ways, by many different people.  Have you ever had someone tell you that "If you put your mind to it, you can do anything?"  This utterance is essentially the basis of "The Law of Attraction."

What Do I Believe?

While I can’t say that I believe much of what has been said, I do believe that the law of attraction can have very positive effects on peoples lives.  If I didn’t, I wouldn’t bother wasting time writing about it.  While I’d like to believe that somehow my energy might attract the things I want to spontaneously vaporize in reality, I find it hard to do so.

I believe that if I believe in myself, and completely believe that I will accomplish everything I set out to do, I will accomplish everything.  It might take a few tries at some things, but eventually I will accomplish it.  I can go one step further and explain why I believe this works without anything mystical or magical.  If one truly believes he can do something, his internal dialog will be supportive in doing that rather resistive and negative as it might be otherwise.   This makes all of the hard work needed to get from point A to point B much more enjoyable and fun.

What If I’m Wrong?

It doesn’t matter how you believe that believing can attract the things that you want.  Take this example.  When you switch on a light and see light, it doesn’t matter what causes that light to be emitted.  The electricity that powers the light bulb doesn’t care what you believe it is. The law of attraction is much the same.  It doesn’t matter if you believe that some obscure quantum principles or you yourself cause the results to appear.  When you believe, they will appear.

Tonight, an online friend of mine mentioned that he was contemplating taking tae kwon do classes again.  Right away I found myself wondering why this person would take tae kwon do.  He wasn’t the type.  Then I realized I’ve always wanted to get into martial arts, but I haven’t.  I haven’t because I’ve never believed that I was the type. 

At this point, I began to notice how my own beliefs conflict with each other. How could I believe that on one hand I can do anything I put my mind to, yet on the other that I’m not the type to be involved with martial arts?  If I deconstruct this a little further we notice that I have an enabling belief: "I can do anything I put my mind to."   At the same time, I have a self limiting belief: "I’m not the type to be involved with martial arts."

Realizing this, and seeing how much this belief has limited me really opened my eyes. For a while I had thought that I had gotten rid of most of my self-limiting beliefs.  Yet this, a very powerful belief, still remained.  This leads me to wonder what other beliefs continue to hold me back. 

As a result of this I have decided to take a few steps to begin to free myself of these beliefs.

Identify What Is Important

I am going to start to create list of the things that are important to me.  It is extremely important that this list contain everything that I can think of including the things I do, the things want to do, and the things I wish I could do.  This will become important as I begin to identify my limiting beliefs.

Locate the Limiting Beliefs

For each item on my list I will then go back and ask myself if I do it enough.  If I don’t do it, or if I don’t do it enough, I will ask myself why.  The answers to many of these questions are likely to be my self-limiting beliefs. For instance, if I were to ask myself why I’m not involved in martial arts, the answer would be because I don’t think I’m the type of them.

Cope With the Limiting Beliefs

Once I have a list of all of the things I want to do, and the reasons why I don’t, I’ll look though my answers and find the things I don’t do because of limiting beliefs.  There may be very solid reasons for doing some things.  Perhaps they’re illegal, or bad for my health. I will begin to change my attitude toward everything else on the list.  One thing at a time, I will begin to overcome these beliefs and life the life that I want.