Category: Happiness Tips

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Happiness Tips

Do we see what we see or think we think what we see?

eyeI am often reading about and teaching that we ‘become what we think’. That the external world is often a reflection of what is happening in the internal world. Do you know how our eyes actually work? I am going to be super simplistic here.

A light source shines on an object. The light bounces off that object and since your eyes are facing that direction the eye (a collection of cornea’s, lenses, irus’s and pupils) lets in the light. The signal is then taken to the mind via an optic nerve, where it is ‘interpreted’. And here is the funky bit. The ‘interpretation’ is based on our core beliefs, what we have experienced and what we believe we ‘should’ be seeing. It is not based on everything that is in front of your gaze.

That is why different people see different things. Like three witnesses to an accident can give three very different descriptions of what happened.

It is also why hypnotists and some illicit drugs (that I have obviously not had personal experience with) are able to create incredible external pictures or images for the individual. The visions start in the mind, and then the ‘eyes’ see what the mind tells them to see.

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Happiness Tips

Are you thinking or thoughting??

thikingWould you like to understand how knowing the difference between thoughts and thinking can make a HUGE impact on your life. I am also going to show you how – regardless of the craziness of your thoughts – you can get more of the stuff that you want in life. Because it is not about your weird and crazy thoughts, it is more about your thinking.

 

Let me explain how I describe thoughts and thinking:

Thoughts

The stuff that comes and goes. Generally they come unbidden and quite often they are completely unwanted! Like the thought that ‘I am going to lose all my investments any moment now’ or ‘I bet I will fail at this’ or any number of other pictures that would be best in someone else’s head. 😉

Thinking

This is the stuff that you guide. The stuff that requires the expenditure of energy. The stuff where you have the remote control and laser pointer to make it real clear what you want to watch and then focus on.

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Happiness Tips

An incredible method on how to overcome ‘fear’

fearThe Kaizen Way: “When you improve a little each day, eventually big things occur. When you improve conditioning a little each day, eventually you have a big improvement in conditioning. Not tomorrow, not the next day, but eventually a big gain is made. Don’t look for the big, quick improvement.  Seek the small improvement one day at a time.  That’s the only way it happens-and when it happens, it lasts. ” -John Wooden (American Basketball Hall of Fame as a player and as a Coach)

I just finished reading a fantastically practical book by Robert Maurer Ph.D. (a psychologist and clinical professor at the UCLA School of Medicine) where he talks about how to apply the ‘Kaizen Way’ to people’s lives. How to use the principles to overcome fear, achieve results and find more success in your life. Like me, you have probably heard the term ‘kaizen’ before, but not sure of what context it operates in. So let me first explain it, and then show you how you can use it to change or achieve some amazing results in your own life.

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Goal Setting Tips Happiness Tips Physical Activity

What are you really capable of?

trophyThis is a story. A real story. A story of trials and triumphs. It is even a story with a happy ending. And there are plenty of lessons in it we can all take away. Myself included. It is about someone – a normal every day someone – that realised that you can continue to aim big regardless of where you are in life. Best of all, it shows we are a winner, the moment we make a definite choice and then step off in the direction of that goal. The result we achieve is much less important than the feeling that we gave it ‘our best shot’.

I met Leanne over a year ago now, through a mutual friend of ours, when she was just at the point of deciding to make her ‘comeback’ and decided to use our 30-Day Happiness Challenge as a springboard. She was 39 years old and on the cusp of turning 40. She had a daughter that was just over one year old, another daughter who was six, two young step-sons, the sometimes inherent challenges of step-family life and ex-spouses and a head full of thoughts. Hardly the stage setting, you would think, for the decision to become the number 1 Water Ski Racing champion in the world. In fact most of us would think that she was about to bite off a lot more than she could fully chew…but it was George Bernard Shaw who said “Reasonable people adapt themselves to the world. Unreasonable people attempt to adapt the world to themselves. All progress, therefore, depends on unreasonable people.”

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Happiness Tips

The lesson we all need to learn

lightbulbI am going to tell you a story, which as we know is one of the best ways to learn. In fact all the greatest orators have been great story tellers.

Now I am not implying that I am a great orator. I like to think more of myself as someone who is good at making mistakes and then not being too embarrassed to tell others about what a complete and utter dill I was at the time. Here is one of those stories where I was a bit of a dill, or what psychologists like to call the power of ‘group-think’ (not quite the same result as a ‘think tank’ or ‘mastermind group’). It all started when…

It all started at 11:30pm on 16th of August, 1969 on a pleasantly cool north Queensland night…

Sorry. I will spare you the 27 years of antics that lead us to the current story. It was 1996. I had managed to convince the Australian Army that I needed a year off (to travel the world) and that I would be diligently returning when my travels were done (and to think I tell myself that I am no good at sales pitches). So here I was in March 1996, over in Lake Louise, Canada; getting ready for a kick-arse ski adventure. I had friends whom I could stay with, free lift tickets, half-priced ski gear and I was ready to rock and roll on the slopes.

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Happiness Tips

Find out what is holding you back and what to do about it?

pauseI started writing this ‘note’ on Facebook, but I couldn’t really do it justice by trying to say everything in 420 words or less. You would not get the true benefit of my own personal experience with a limiting and very disempowering belief. What I am going to do it to briefly explain my personal experience and then talk about the methods you can use to overcome or move through the limitations that exist.

So I realised in the last few months that I have a pretty strong disempowering belief that says: “it is bad to interrupt or inconvenience people”. I am pretty sure that I picked up this belief statement during my childhood, innocently enough, when I got a clip around the ear or told to be quiet and not interrupt. Sounds harmless enough and it is pretty harmless when we are 7 years old, but now let’s fast-forward that belief about 35 years…to a time where I am growing and ‘promoting’ my new business.

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