I’ve always noticed that how we define ourselves shapes our experience in life. I used to have ADHD years ago and realized that for years I defined myself as having it and needed adderrall to tone me out. The moment I realized how my definitions and thoughts created my experience I decided I could choose to redefine myself and change my life in that way. I then began changing my life from the inside out through redefining how I labeled myself. I believe we all have the power to define ourselves with awareness to who we prefer to be.
The Myth of the Pursuit of Happiness: Perception vs Pursuit. Many of us grew up with the belief that life is a pursuit of happiness. Being in the pursuit of happiness tends to separate us from feeling happy with where we are now due to the externalization of power. Happiness is inside of us and we can decide to be happy right now.
Life is about enjoying the moment and being present with our goal setting and intentions. We are capable of anything and being present and mindful has the power to make sure we are happy in the moment and powerful beyond measure.
One of my favorite quotes and it was a quote that was on my iPad for years was by Aristotle and he said…
“We are what we repeatedly do excellence then is not an act but a habit.”
It’s one of my favorite quotes because it was something that I applied in my own life and I was able to make a big change on how I feel everyday in the things that I do. In explaining this, I want to come at it from a neuroscience point of view and the reason being is because once you understand this concept it becomes very evident to why it’s so important to change your habits. Neuroscience tells us that on average every day we think about 60,000 to 70,000 thoughts per day and that out of those thoughts we about ninety percent of them are recycled from the day before. Which means that on a daily basis we are creating the same type of experiences, we are thinking the same way and we are feeling the same way.
If we are consistently doing the same thing we’re going to get the same result. If we want to have new experiences we need to change the way we think and therefore change the way we feel.
The emotions that we feel come from the neuro-transmitters and hormones in our body (such as vassopressin,serotonin and dopamine) and all these have an effect on how we feel. When we think specific thoughts, depending on how we view those thought through our belief systems produces an emotion. The emotions come as a result of how we are thinking in correlation to our internal references and how we compare ourselves to the thoughts.
In my prior blog post I explain how getting outside of your comfort zone is a powerful step towards learning more about yourself and expanding your realm of influence. This is why my first tip is to get into new enviornments and try new things. This is relevant because if we think on average 60,000 to 70,000 thoughts a day and 90 percent are recycled from the day before, then most of the information our senses are absorbing are consistently the same. Making it much easier to fall into a habitual autopilot mode of doing the same thing and getting the same result.
If we consistently see the same people everyday, have generally the same conversations, do the same things, etc we limit the experiences and connections we could of made if we went to new places, tried new activities, etc. Getting into new environments causes us to pay more attention and turn on learning centers in our brain that lay dormant when we are doing repetitive activities.
For example, if a goal you have is to get more physically in shape and lose weight, then putting yourself in an environment that promotes that would trigger change and learning. You may go to a yoga studio and meet like-minded people who eat how you would like to eat and live an inspiring lifestyle. You could also go the gym and see someone you were good friends with in college and decide to be workout buddies going forward. These are two examples of many opportunities that could happen by changing your environment and making connections with new people.
The second tip to changing habits is to start off small. When most people approach New Years Resolutions they go at with bold ambitions to take on huge levels of change. This is also why most people quit after the second week of the new year. Making big, bold goals tends to be a great idea but normally we lose motivation if the end result looks too far off in the distant. Instead of saying “I’m going to lose 50 lbs” or “run 10 miles a day,” make the goal of doing more physical activities or just running for 5 minutes a day. Even the simple goal to just go to the gym for 20 mins three times a week is a more powerful goal then trying to declare going to the gym for an hour every day of the week. If the goal is more easily seen there is more likely to be follow through and less likely chance of quitting.
The third tip for changing your habits is about accountability. This is a very powerful tool because we must have a process for checking in with ourselves and holding ourselves accountable for our actions and goals. Go over your goals periodically and determine which ones are highest priority. Doing this consistently will ensure that the end result is fresh in your mind. Having an accountability partner is very powerful too because even though sometimes it can be easy to let ourselves down and bend our focus, having someone else to check in with will ensure you don’t let them down too. Even better for accountability is posting your goals and ambitions in a blog or online because normally we will do everything in our power remain consistent with a community of people watching.
The good news is it gets easier as you go. Neuroscience show us that neurons that fire together, wire together. Meaning that the more consistently the thought and actions consciously occur, the easier it will be the next time to thing and do the same thing.
The most powerful habit I have adopted has been meditation. It’s the first 30 minutes and the last 30 minutes of my day and I’ve been doing it for about 3 years now. I read about all the benefits years ago and the correlation between hormones and meditation was enough for me to give it a go. From that point forward my while life changed as my emotions and feelings moved to a higher place and stress was minimized to almost nothing. I literally felt like my senses where enhanced because my awareness was so much more present and I viewed the world through new eyes. I’ll go through this more in a later post and explain more about the tool of meditation and how it can change your life.
What new habits will you form? What process works for you?
I hope to gained some value from todays post and have a great day.
Over the past four years I have been focused on learning as much as I possible can about achieving happiness and personal development. Topics such as figuring out why only three percent of the population possesses 90 percent of the wealth. One of the most motivating patterns I’ve seen since studying successful people is that they all do what they love. Someone like Steve Jobs who innovated the technology industry, and Tony Robbins who inspired millions of people to attain success and believe in themselves. I believe the passion of such individuals is nurtured from a deeper purpose and a passion for growth. A desire to help other people and add value to peoples lives. Many people go through life not necessarily doing what they love, but doing what feels safe.
Imagine if everyone did what brought them excitement and happiness. How different would society look? I see more and more people everyday pursuing their passions and taking action in the direction of their dreams. I believe we are living in a time where more people are claiming their power and not settling with the old paradigm. With technology progressing at a fast rate, it opens up opportunities for jobs that didn’t exist a decade ago. Many people make a living expressing themselves online through YouTube or a blog. People can promote ideas and start movements simply by posting it online. The power of the internet is the most powerful form of technology because it connects everyone to each other instantly.
It’s a beautiful time we live in and the opportunities are endless. Through researching and studying highly successful people who are living their passions, I have found some consistent characteristics that I believe can help people find and live their passions and help you learn how to find your purpose in life.
The First key to figuring out what your passion is to simply ask the question. What do you love to do? What are your dreams and aspirations? What do you read about in your spare time? These questions begin to open up a space within you that contains the answer to what you would love to be doing as a career. It could range from drawing, writing, playing sports, doing outdoor activities, teaching, etc. If what you love to do doesn’t seem like you could do it as a career it’s a good time to redefine that belief. Get creative and find an angle that would allow you to do what you love. You are uniquely special and no one else on Earth can do whatever you do the exact same way as you. I believe we all are born with a burning desire to accomplish our dreams but that gets dulled down when our dreams go out of our awareness and we settle with less. The first step is knowing what that vision is. You must be able to see it and visualize it before it manifests in your life. You can have, do, or be anything that you want in life and you harness unlimited potential. Make the intention to figure it out. Don’t feel guilty if you don’t know right now and put pressure on yourself. As long as you put out the intention and ask the question more you will be bringing the answer into your conscious awareness. Allow it to come.
The Second key is to expand your comfort zone. When you become comfortable with your daily routines and activities you are stuck inside that personal bubble. This is one reason why I am starting this blog. It is my desire to add value to people through creating content that may help people and to also push outside of my comfort zone. Pushing to indulge in new activities expands your realm of experience and increases your confidence. When you do something you haven’t done before, you make the unknown become known. Any inspirational person who’s attained massive success has had to push themselves past their comfort zone in order to grow and create opportunity. Try something new, go somewhere you’ve never gone, and be someone you’ve never been.
The Third key is you gotta be hungry. Have a burning desire to always be learning and growing as a person. It will motivate you go in the direction of your passion and to not give up when challenges present themselves. I’ve learned a powerful tool that helps with this key. It’s the tool of pleasure and pain. The way we are wired is that we will always move in the direction of what we perceive brings us pleasure and move away from what we perceive gives us pain. The best part is, we give the meaning to what that is! Perceptions are objective to the person and can be changed by changing how you relate to the external environment. If you were to change your thoughts or beliefs about what feeling a certain activity gives you, you would get a different feeling from it. For example, when you take a puff of a cigarette you may feel pleasure because you’ve trained yourself to associate pleasure with the act of doing it (along with the effect of Nicotine). However, if you change the association of what the act of smoking cigarettes gives you, perhaps you think about someone close to you who passed away because of it, you can rewire your brain toward feeling pain and sorrow with that memory or thought. This is a technique from an area of Neuroscience I love to study called NLP or Neuro Linguistic Programing (I’ll go more into this in a future post). The power in this is that you can use this tool in any area of your life. I have begun associating pleasure with taking action towards my passions and dreams of being a motivational speaker and author and pain with procrastination and passiveness. This habit has caused me to accomplish many things over the course of the last couple months and my hunger and ambition is growing with every action I take. I encourage you to examine your thoughts and to reframe them in a way that brings you closer toward your desires. Within each of us is unlimited potential and the ability to have, do or be anything we desire.
One of my favorite quotes by Steve Jobs: “Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven’t found it yet, keep looking. Don’t settle. As with all matters of the heart, you’ll know when you find it. And, like any great relationship, it just gets better and better as the years roll on. So keep looking until you find it. Don’t settle.”
Strive to be better everyday and to learn from your experiences. Believe in yourself. Better-yet, know yourself. Know you can achieve your dreams and desires and that you can enjoy the process along the way. Belief is a powerful thing. Before 1954 running a 4-minute mile was considered impossible. Until Roger Bannister did it, and then within 1 year around many people went on to do it too. All that occurred was a shift in personal belief and a determination to achieve it. If you change the thoughts you think and stretch your limitations, eventually the external reality will begin to reflect that. Change begins within and with the choice to start and I encourage you to start taking action toward achieving your dreams.