Personal Growth & Transformation Archives - Page 46 of 54

The Subconscious Mind: Insights from Viktor Frankl

Viktor Frankl’s short book, Man’s Search for Meaning, has been described as ‘among the most influential works of psychiatric literature since Freud.’ He begins with an account of his experiences in Auschwitz and other concentration camps and then develops the insights from these experiences into a remarkable synthesis.

The book has been the inspiration for many other works, including Stephen Covey’s famous ‘Seven Habits.’ Frankl’s work has a great deal to say about many aspects of life. His insights on the role of the subconscious are particularly interesting.

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Staying Motivated: The Watercourse Way

By Mark Harrison / 22 Comments

‘Giving up smoking is easy. I’ve done it hundreds of times’ ~ Mark Twain

So your goal is to get up at 4am every morning, go for a 5km run and take a cold shower before meditating and writing a chapter of your new novel? I can’t say I’ve ever tried to do anything like this, but I imagine it must be hard to stay motivated.

For me, sticking to a routine like this would involve brute force – a never-ending battle of willpower over the desire to stay in bed. But this would go against my fundamental belief that life is not a battle. To me, life is not like climbing a mountain – it’s more of a downhill thing. Alan Watts, a great proponent of a Taoist view of life, called it ‘the watercourse way.’ Water will always flow downhill, of course, and yet its power is undeniable. So how can we apply the watercourse way to getting things done?

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How to Use Your Subconscious to Change Your Life

By Karl Staib / 294 Comments

“Never go to sleep without a request to your subconscious.” – Thomas Edison

Your subconscious loves to do work while your body performs other tasks that are easy. I can prove this very easily by asking you how many good ideas you have had while driving or in the shower. When you are relaxed yet slightly distracted, your mind is often at its best.

Using subconscious requests will…

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Staying the Course: How to Keep Your Resolutions

By Mark Harrison / 11 Comments

How are your New Year’s resolutions? Are you still going strong or are you flagging already? When we first make a resolution or set a goal, we are naturally motivated to make progress and so we can’t wait to get out there and make things happen. But, of course, resolutions often fall by the wayside – I recently read an anecdotal statistic that 95% of New Year’s resolutions are never followed through.

So is there any point in making them? Obviously, people do succeed in achieving their goals – 5% at least! There are, essentially, two rules for becoming successful. Set goals, and take consistent action towards them. Most people don’t even do the first part, and of the minority of people that do, most will not follow through. There are many reasons for our lack of resolution. Here are some common ones, and some suggestions for overcoming them.

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How To Grow During The Downtimes

By JC Deen / 22 Comments

How in the world does a person grow during the low points in life? How can we take our setbacks and turn them into something great? What can we learn from our perceived failures? If there’s anything I’ve learned in all my 23 years, it’s how to use my darkest hours and lowest points in life to learn a lesson and eventually create a success.

To better understand where I’m coming from today, I want to open up with a quote from the late Randy Pausch:

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Change Happens: What to Do When Circumstances Shift Unexpectedly

By Mark Harrison / 8 Comments

Making plans and following them is important. We need to know where we are going and keep this destination in mind. The psychologist Fitzurgh Dodson echoed many other writers when he said, ‘Without goals and plans to reach them, you are like a ship that has set sail with no destination.’

While this is certainly good advice, we also need to ensure we sail with the wind, not against it, and this requires a sensitivity to the current situation and how it is changing. Sometimes we need to take down the sails to avoid getting blown off course, but at other times, an unexpected wind can take us on wonderful new adventures, and bring success and fulfillment. Some of the most useful things have come about accidentally – penicillin, Viagra, X-rays, brandy, to name but a few. None of these things would have been developed if people had refused to follow a new and unanticipated direction. Indeed, creativity usually requires a willingness to be open to novelty and innovation.

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Stepping Up to the Challenge of Change

By Rande Howell / 8 Comments

Jack was gripped with indecision. His stomach was in knots. Uncertainty pulsed through his veins. A decision had to be made! Now! He could feel the opportunity slipping away. The opportunity of this trade was about to expire. “Do I pull the trigger or not?” came the question in his mind. As a futures trader, he was watching his computer screen trying to make a decision about a trade – to risk or to stay safe. And he had fallen into the one trap that no trader can allow to take over his state of mind – fear of failure.

Thoughts raced through his mind at breakneck speed, “Do it. Do it now! What are you – chicken? How do you expect to make a living if you don’t act?”

Another voice in his mind screamed, “What if it’s wrong? You’re going to lose your retirement. Then what are you going to tell your wife?” The battle raged back and forth in his mind. He pushed it away and tried to pretend he was calm and emotionless. Then the battle in his mind surged into his awareness again.

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The Different Seasons of Creativity: Finding and Following Your Patterns

By Ali Luke / 6 Comments

Wherever we live in the world, we’re used to the pattern of the seasons. We know that some months are good for planting new seeds, others are good for picnics in the park, others involve warm soups and thick blankets. The rhythm of each year is the same, but the seasons turn from hot to cold, from wet to dry. We wouldn’t blame the weather for being unsuitable for harvesting when it’s time to sow, or for being no good for wearing our favorite shorts when kids are out building snowmen.

Our creative abilities follow seasons too – but we’re often unable or reluctant to recognize these. How often have you blamed yourself for not being creative or productive at a particular time? How often have you tried to rush on with something, only to quickly stall?

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Want to Change? Stop Setting Goals.

By Cath Duncan / 20 Comments

One of the most widespread ideas in the world of personal development is SMART goal-setting – it seems to have seeped into every self-help, business development and corporate training program out there. Just in case you’ve somehow managed to avoid attending these workshops – or more likely slept through them – SMART is an acronym for a set of criteria that people are encouraged to use to get really clear on the outcome they’re aiming for when they’re setting goals, because this increase your success in achieving your goals.

The SMART criteria are as follows:

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A Story of Change: The Slothful Genius

By Zoli Cserei / 17 Comments

I was (ok I’ll admit it, still am) a quite disorganized guy. In addition, I have a reputation for outstanding achievements at different competitions in the domains of physics, sociology, languages, chemistry, and so on. Due to this quite bizarre combination I was known as the slothful genius of the school. Now, regarding being a sloth – I admit my bad ways and do my best to improve. Regarding being a genius – oh boy, I don’t like to call myself one. Oscar Wilde, Albert Einstein, Mahatma Gandhi – they are the geniuses. I might earn the title one day, but that’s far from now.

Being a “slothful genius” I was confronted with comments such as “Boy, you are wasting your opportunity!”, “Boy, you are capable of so much, why don’t you make use of what you have?” and “You can’t even imagine how it feels not to understand a math problem, use your brain, don’t be so lazy!” (by the way, the last comment is tommyrot). Except for some really good friends, most of the people who said these things said them because they were happy that I wasn’t doing my best.

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Focusing Your Mind On The Difficult

By Armen Shirvanian / 23 Comments

Competitively, that which is easy gets you very little. If it is easy, anyone can do it, so it is of low value. Tying your shoes in a special way will get you no recognition from anyone except maybe a kindergartener. Doing a couple of simple math problems to review for a placement test won’t help you much. The point of tests and the free market is to separate those that go a bit further.

Doing items at a medium level of difficulty will get you somewhat valuable gains. Running 3 miles to train for a half-marathon will keep you on pace, and will take a good amount of your energy. This will be worth it to you, but it won’t amaze anyone else. While average types of actions don’t necessarily hurt you in any way, sticking at the median level leaves you unable to build up real momentum. Awards, support, and recognition don’t tend to arrive for those who are sticking to doing the average. It isn’t that others don’t want to acknowledge your work, but that someone else’s work shines brighter than yours, moving yours into the invisible category. On the other hand, it is good to keep some of your regular habits in this category.

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