52 Ways to Improve Your Life

Do you look the part?

Facilitating change Comments Off

May 282013

A few weeks ago, I quoted Shakespeare’s famous line that all the world’s a stage and all the men and women merely players. This may not be exactly what the bard meant, but I think there’s a great deal in the idea that we are all actors in life’s theatre. Essentially, the audience knows only what we tell them (verbally or non-verbally) and, unless or until they have overwhelming evidence to the contrary, they will accept the character we present to them as who we really are. The downside to this is that it can be difficult to reinvent ourselves amongst people we’ve known for a long time – they have to be enlisted to support the change we want to make – but the upside is that every time we meet new people we have the opportunity to start again, to create the impression we want to give, to be the character we want to be.

To carry off a convincing portrayal of the you you want to be, you have got to look the part. Do not underestimate the extent to which we all make decisions (conscious or unconscious) about each other based on visual image and body language. Your clothes, shoes, accessories, hair and nails speak volumes about you, as do the way you walk, the way you sit, the way you look at people and a thousand other nuances of your self-presentation.

If you’re wanting to reinvent yourself, I recommend you have a good, long, critical look at yourself in the mirror. If you were someone else presented with the image in front of you, what assumptions would you make? Are the messages you’re giving off the ones you want the world to receive?

The great thing about dressing and behaving in the manner of the new you is that it will reinforce the change you want to make – twofold. Looking and acting like the new you will help you to inhabit that character and make it more and more genuine. And the fact that people are now relating and reacting to the new instead of the old you will keep you in that zone. What begins as roleplay will become the real you.

How do you see yourself?

Seeing the truth, Sense of self Comments Off

May 212013

We all have a mental image of ourselves, though we may not all be aware of it. When you picture yourself in your mind’s eye, what do you see?

How accurate would you say your vision of yourself is? How closely does it correspond with how you feel? If your image is positive and you’re happy, that’s a match and things are authentically good. However, if your image and feelings are out of synch, you will probably find it helpful to examine this picture of yourself and bring it up to date.

In my early twenties, I went a bit wild (delayed teenage rebellion) and my mental self-portrait was of someone energetic, reasonably athletic, attractive, slightly manic but the life and soul of the party. I suppose this was more or less who I was for a few years but it’s strange how long this view persisted after I had slumped into depression and ceased to be any of those things. Having a self-image that’s more positive than reality invites all sorts of trouble and I have no doubt that my depression was worsened by the fact that I was so slow on the uptake as far as my image was concerned. My fantasy was diverging further and further from actuality, without my even realising it was a fantasy. This led to a lot of disappointing and upsetting reactions and some bewildering cognitive dissonance.

Finally, my self-image caught up with reality and I developed a vision of a stout, frumpy wallflower. This is who I was for many years but it’s equally strange how long I retained this view of myself after I had made all sorts of progress on the road to autonomy, health and happiness. Again, the delay in updating my self-image was bad for me, this time impeding my recovery by endlessly reflecting back to me the incarnation of my depression. Below the level of conscious thought, I decided I couldn’t be making the progress I thought I was.

Now that I have finally succeeded in creating a mental picture that represents the happy, confident me I usually am these days, image and reality are aligned, each reinforcing the other.

If you’re not living up to your positive self-image, it’s time to have a long, hard look at the truth. You have to face up to reality before you can change it. On the other hand, if your self-image is negative, working on it can lead the way to improvements in your actual wellbeing. Continually visualising yourself as you want to be is a crucial factor in genuinely becoming the you you want to be.

What are you waiting for?

Setting and achieving goals Comments Off

May 142013

When you visualise your destination, the life you want, and you contemplate the path that will take you there, do you find yourself dragging your feet? If so, why do you think this is?

Two weeks ago I suggested that an underlying fear may be preventing you from doing what needs to be done to achieve your goals. Another angle on this is that you’re waiting for some mythical condition to be fulfilled before you feel it’s OK – or safe – for you to have what you want. If this resonates with you, if you recognise a sense of putting off creating the life you’re supposedly aiming at until…, I offer you the following thoughts.

Are you waiting for everything to be perfectly in place before you implement whatever changes you’re contemplating? I’ve noticed this can work in two ways: small improvements can be put on hold for big events and big changes can be put on hold for a series of smaller conditions – sometimes simultaneously. What I mean is, for example, a single person might say it’s not worth looking after himself properly, eating well, keeping the living space clean and tidy, and so on, until he is in a relationship. A mother might say she’s not even going to keep in touch with her former interests or career until her children are at secondary school. A workaholic might say she can’t slow down until she has earned £X thousand, got the umpteenth promotion, or whatever. A couple wanting to start a family might say they can’t until they’ve got enough money, moved into the ideal house, etc.

Obviously, I’m not advocating rushing headlong into major life changes without any planning or preparation. However, if you find yourself consistently procrastinating something you really want, it could be that you’re afraid of the consequences of having what you want (the workaholic’s parents may have gone bankrupt, leaving the offspring with a terror of insolvency and an ingrained sense they can never let up; the couple may feel insecure about what sort of parents they’ll be or the extent to which being parents will curtail their lifestyle). In this case, being honest with yourself about what it is that’s actually holding you back will help you to process and sort out your worries, so you can make an informed decision, rather than just going on postponing life and existing in a kind of limbo.

It could also be an issue of self-esteem. If you’ve got children, of course they take priority, but that doesn’t mean your own needs have to be completely abandoned or ignored. If you’re single, this does not diminish your value in any way; you are absolutely worth the care and attention you would give another person.

A further possibility is that you’re waiting for someone to notice what a bad state you’re in and offer some support. This is a mistake I made, which caused me to waste many important years, and I urge you to drop this as a strategy forthwith! It doesn’t work, you’ll be waiting forever. Forget about what anyone else thinks; identify what you want and go for it.

Whatever it is you’re waiting for, think carefully about whether it is in reality a smokescreen, providing spurious justification for your inaction. The road to the life you want may be a long one but you’re never going to get there if you don’t make a start. To encourage you, here is a quotation from Publilius Syrus that I have recently discovered and find inspiring: Valour grows by daring, fear by holding back.

Are you fighting on too many fronts?

Overcoming procrastination, Setting and achieving goals Comments Off

May 072013

When it comes to achieving goals, there is a great deal to be said for single-mindedness. Having just one priority, to which everything else is subordinated, is an efficient and effective way to accomplish whatever it is. But it’s not always practical and, in any case, we may not have a single objective that eclipses all others. I feel this issue goes to the heart of not only productivity but also fulfilment and is therefore worth examining.

It may be that you have several priorities at the same level of urgency and importance. Choosing to move forward in a variety of areas at the same time is a perfectly valid approach, which can be just as successful as the single-minded one, though it will produce a slightly different result. As long as you’re aware of what you’re doing and have adjusted your expectations accordingly, all is rosy. For example, if you’ve decided that this year you’re going to learn to play the saxophone, speak Portuguese and build websites, the odds are you won’t get as good at any of them as you would if you concentrated on only one of these skills. However, by pursuing all three at once, you’ll end the year with a grounding in all of them. There is no right or wrong to this; there are pros and cons to both broad-but-shallow and narrow-but-deep. All that matters is that you’re realistic in your expectations and don’t set yourself up for disappointment.

The main advantage of single-mindedness is that it carries a big and satisfying pay-off. The other huge benefit is that focusing our energy and resources along one channel keeps leakage to a minimum. I see this a bit like filling a bucket with water from a hose: point the hose into one bucket and it fills up quickly and efficiently. Try filling three buckets at the same time and inevitably some water is lost as you swing the hose from one to the other.

For me, the difficulty with juggling too many priorities is that I waste a lot of time deciding which one to pursue at any given moment, rather actually achieving anything. And, to exacerbate the problem, into this gap in my productivity rush all sorts of procrastinatory activities, such as checking my email, having a look on Facebook, wondering if I ought to clean the oven…

The solution, I suggest, for those of us who don’t have a single, overriding objective, is to allocate a period of time to each activity – a week or a month where that goal takes precedence and the others are left on hold until their turn comes. This way, the level in one bucket rises significantly before the hose moves away and far less water goes over the side.

The benefit of self-defeating habits

Self-defeating behaviour, Setting and achieving goals 2 Responses »

Apr 302013

How are you getting on with the goals you set yourself at the beginning of the year? Are you moving steadily towards them or are you still fighting to take the first step? If you’re making progress, well done you! Keep up the good work and enjoy the process. If you’re struggling, it’s possible you’re not giving yourself a fair chance. This issue has been on my mind recently and today I thought it would be useful to have a look at self-defeating behaviour, how we can identify it and how we can transform it.

It’s a strange phenomenon that psychological mechanisms that are designed to protect us can sometimes do us far more harm than good. I’ve got a friend who hates making presentations but nevertheless is required by her boss to make them fairly regularly. The prospect of it scares her and she turns away and hides her eyes. She knows that if she prepared well in advance it would all be much less stressful but she can never make herself do that and every time it’s a last-minute panic and very little sleep the night before – which, of course, makes it hard for her to give her best performance. She feels she’s let herself down, she hates the whole thing… and so the cycle goes on. The function of fear is to keep us safe: we know the fire is hot and can burn us, the idea of putting our hands in it frightens us, so we don’t do it. Fear of fire protects us from its danger. Why is it that the only two responses we seem to have at our disposal, when the chips are down, are fight or flight? Where is the instinct to negotiate or to think things through? In the modern world, where the dangers are so much more sophisticated than they were in cave times, how come we haven’t evolved more nuanced reactions?

I have another friend who longs to find a partner and settle down but every time a man gets close to her and it looks as if things might work out, it scares her and she pushes him away. And another who hates the shape of her body and seeks solace in food. There are so many ways we can sabotage our own happiness and wellbeing.

What is the impulse to behave in a manner that brings about exactly the result we most desire to avoid? More importantly, how can we override it?

I guess it boils down to the fact that there’s something we fear even more than the situation we’re perpetuating. By asking a series of What if? questions, we can strip away the layers and get to the root of what it’s all about. It’ll take some thought, some soul-searching and some brutal honesty but it’ll be pivotal in helping you change your self-defeating habits. Once you can identify what it is you’re really afraid of, the deeper fear that’s causing you to make your own life so difficult, you can start working on overcoming it.

For example:

Q: What if you started preparing your presentation a week before it’s due?
A: I’d have no excuse if it wasn’t very good. At least by preparing in a rush I can say I didn’t have time to do my best.

Q: What if you allowed a man to get close to you?
A: He’d see the real me, he wouldn’t like the real me… he’d leave me.

Q: What if you ate healthily, looked after yourself and became the shape you want to be?
A: I’d feel sexy and I don’t know what I’d do with that.

Until you confront the primary-level fears, there’s no point in trying to change the surface behaviour. Find out what the real issue is; then you can start looking for ways of dealing with it, of allaying your base fears. Once you can slay those demons, the habits you developed to protect yourself will melt away.

A positive spin on all this would be that our self-defeating behaviour is actually a signpost, leading us to discover the fear that’s sponsoring it. Pay attention to the habits you don’t like, that sabotage you, and tune into what they’re covering up. Once you’ve named the fear at the bottom of it all, that’s already half the battle won.

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