Coping with Life
Coping with Life
I recently wrote an article, ‘Coping with Technology’ and what struck me was the similarity with the human mind and how we cope with our everyday life. So here is a brief overview of my own strategies, which have been quite successful.
Firstly, this is about the mind. Our mind is where it all happens, and so those people who are successful are those who know how to use their mind. In the previous article we had to be very precise with how we tasked our AI with well written unambiguous Prompts. The good news is that the mind is no different and needs precise directions with no wiggle room.
I was fortunate that in one of my earlier jobs, the company sent me on a personal development course, ‘Investment in Excellence’. The central theme was the development of Goals, basically the equivalent of an AI Prompt. I cannot overstate the effectiveness of Goals; they need to be first person, specific, and have a time frame; you can have many Goals covering, both your personal and business life.
My wife and I have worked in ten-year time frames, agreed on our Goals, affirmed the Goals regularly for a couple of months to make sure the subconscious part of our mind has got the message, then put them away. Generally, in winter relaxed around the fire, about ten years later we have opened the draw and reviewed our goals, to find without exception all Goals have been achieved! We have done this for decades with the same result. Once a Goal is achieved you need a new Goal or you become complacent; so, the trick is to generate a new set of Goals and maintain the movement; otherwise, you lose energy.
Well, that is the big picture; how does the mind now make it happen, this is the hard part. This is now about training the mind. We need a still and quiet mind, not a monkey brain buzzing away undirected. Meditation is the first step, learning to quieten the mind and develop the ability to focus your mind; this is not easy and takes time; belly or diaphragm breathing is a key ingredient to total relaxation and focus; taking belly breathes is not normal but easily learned. Once you have mastered this technique, the next step is visualisation while in a meditative state. In this technique you visualise your goals as if they have already occurred. Your subconscious knows no better and moves you in this direction assuming it has already happened.
A brief note here; the mind has two parts; the conscious and subconscious part. The conscious part is the gate that directs the subconscious; the subconscious only knows what the conscious mind tells it. So, you tell it what you want and this gets the train moving in the right direction. A word of caution: the subconscious does not know the difference between good and bad thoughts, so be careful of what you think, it can go the wrong way.
A useful trick is to use a key word as part of your relaxation / meditation training; you say the key word and your subconscious gets directed by your conscious mind to relax.
So, once you have set your Goals, go into a meditative state and visualise each of your Goals as if it has already occurred; action, colour and humour make this process more effective; repeat this process many times, over a period of weeks / months and the results can be truly mind blowing.
Well, that’s the process and it works!
It is not easy, but gets easier with training. There is a lot of material out there on this topic, but the basic principles are as I have described. You cannot be a spectator in this process and it is essential you believe; remember the subconscious believes what you tell it.
Over many years I have studied many books on this subject and the standout reference is ‘The Master Key System’, by Charles Haanel; this a book by someone who knew his craft and practiced it.
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