"Die when I may, I want it said by those who knew me best that I always
plucked a thistle and planted a flower where I thought a flower would grow." "I am not bound to win, but I am bound to be true. I am not bound to
succeed, but I am bound to live by the light that I have. I must stand with
anybody that stands right, and stand with him while he is right, and part
with him when he goes wrong." "With the fearful strain that is on me night and day, if I did not laugh I
should die." What can Abraham Lincoln help us with today? Well, here are 10 powerful and
timeless fundamentals. I hope you'll find something helpful. 1. See the positive in people. "If you look for the bad in people expecting to find it, you surely will." "The way for a young man to rise is to improve himself in every way he can,
never suspecting that anybody wishes to hinder him." What you focus on you will find. In a situation, in a person. There is
always plenty of good things and plenty of bad things to discover. So you need to keep your focus steadily on what you want to find. Don't let
it waver just because you are in a "negative" situation or someone just
said/did something "negative". If your focus gets scattered, try to get it
back into a more useful place as quickly as you can. You can develop whatever view of the world and people that you like. You can
go looking for the negative in people and feel a short burst of good
emotions as find something negative about a person and feel like you are
"right". Or you can develop a habit of looking for the positive. A habit where you
can expect people to treat you in a positive way. Because we do to a large extent teach people how we want to be treated. If
we expect other people to help us and treat us well then they are more
likely to do so than if we are negative and expect to be treated poorly. This may sound a bit weird, but how we expect to be treated can have a big
effect on how the world sees us. 2. Be honest. "No man has a good enough memory to be a successful liar." This is a pretty practical thing. Being honest will for several reasons work
better in the long run. Of course, you don't have to go out of your way to
be honest and hurt people though. You can just as well choose to be silent
if you like. Here are just a few practical reasons to minimize or just stop
lying altogether. * Your words aren't everything. Words are only 7 percent of communication.
The rest are body language and your voice tonality. And it's through those
channels that the real you will shine through. People will in some way sense
that something is wrong, that you aren't being honest and authentic if those
93 percent of how you communicate aren't in alignment with your words. So
lying is just a short term solution. Sooner or later people will pick up on
it.
* Poor self-image and stress. Cultivating a self-image as someone who lies
will make you feel worse about yourself. You'll feel like a fake and your
self-esteem plummets. And if you on the other hand are honest you don't have
to feel like someone that is trapped or on the high-wire all the time.
* People really appreciate authentic communication. What separates people is
to a large extent the walls that they build up between themselves. When you
put aside personas and lies you can build real connections between you and
other people. If you remove these walls of insulation then the people or you
are interacting with are likely to reciprocate. And so your relationships
can improve and are less likely to be damaged by miscommunication. 3. Unite. "A house divided against itself cannot stand." Ego excludes and divides. The ego loves to make someone "the other" to
strengthen its own power. It want's to feel "more" than someone else. More
clever. Prettier. Cooler. Wiser. Or more like a victim. And by making the other even more wrong in your mind the ego grows stronger.
However, the ego boosts of good feelings are just temporary. You have to
reinforce them continually, just like a caffeine habit. Consciousness and intelligence includes and accepts. You don't have to be
seduced by your ego's wish to make people other than you. You can look at
the positive in them and at the things you agree about. And be accepting. Remember, when your thoughts are buzzing around in your head and telling you
to exclude or divide in some way then you are listening to your ego. It may
tell you that paragraphs just above this one are cheesy and stupid. You may
not want to take such thoughts too seriously. You don't have to. The most useful advice I've found so far to get a handle on the need to
divide is to not identify so much with my thoughts or feelings. That doesn't
mean that I stop thinking or feeling. It just means that I realize - and
remember in my everyday life - that the thoughts and emotions are just
things flowing through me. And that I am the consciousness observing them. When you realize and remember this it enables you to control the thoughts
and feelings instead of the other way around. It enables you to not take
your thoughts too seriously and actually laugh at them or ignore them when
you feel that your ego is acting out. When you are not being so identified these things you become more inclined
to include things, thoughts and people instead of excluding them. This
creates a lot of inner and outer freedom and stillness. Instead of fear, a
need to divide your world and a search for conflicts. 4. Create a friend where there is none. "The best way to destroy an enemy is to make him a friend." "I don't like that man. I must get to know him better." This is similar to tip #1 and # 3. But slightly different, seen from a
slightly different perspective. It is a helpful and a bit unusual way of
looking at people who you might perceive as different or other than
yourself. Turning an enemy or someone we don't like into a friend is difficult because
first impressions can be powerful. Our concept of a person can remain intact
if we don't push further and question and explore it. But if you get to know
someone better you can often find out quite a few positive and interesting
things about them. People are often more intriguing than your first
impression of them. Of course, since the ego needs to tell you that you are right and someone
else is wrong then it can be hard to change your opinion of someone. That
opinion of him/her is tied up in your ego and fuels your sense of being
"right". Again, the key and the way out here is to not take your thoughts or
emotions too seriously. To stay on top of them instead of letting them
overwhelm and control you. This can allow you to open your mind to a change in the relationship. Now, how can you make him/her your friend? One suggestion would be to follow
tip # 1 and start looking for the positive in the person. Then to take the
first step and give some kind of value - like help for instance - to that
person. And then to take more steps if s/he is not convinced that you want
to change the relationship. 5. Believe in and go after your own success. "Always bear in mind that your own resolution to succeed is more important
than any one thing." "Things may come to those who wait, but only the things left by those who
hustle." If you think you can succeed then you can. Your belief in your own ability
to succeed is essential and does not only motivate you to keep going. It will also tune your reticular activation system - a system within your
mind that focuses on things in your surroundings based on what you are
thinking - into finding opportunities and solutions in all the those things
that are in the background of your world right now. It can become a little
bit freaky as things that have been there for a long time start to "pop up"
as you change what you are focusing on. You may have heard that you just have to believe that you can achieve
something to do it and that the how you will do it will then present itself
along the way. Well, this is how that works. Whatever you focus on
persistently you will find in your world. So be careful what you focus on.
Remind yourself to keep your focus on what you want. Not the opposite, as is
often popular but ineffective. And don't wait for too long. Procrastination may just leave you with the
crumbs or sometimes nothing really. Taking action is awesome. But taking
action with little delay will increase the probability of you actually
getting what you want before the window of opportunity closes. So develop a Just do it! habit. Learn to do some planning but then to take
action quickly despite what excuses or other negative things your thoughts
and emotions may put up in your way. Know that they may just want to protect
you from uncertainty and risks. But also know that you are in charge of them
and not the other way around. 6. Persist. "Hold on with a bulldog grip, and chew and choke as much as possible." Persistence might not exactly be the sexiest sounding quality. It might not
sell a lot of products to people looking for the magic pill. But it is an
immensely helpful quality to cultivate and put to use. If you fail, what do you do? You dust yourself off and try again. If the
success you are looking for won't come that quickly - a pretty likely
scenario - then you have to persist. Persistence may be one of the most
useful qualities one can have. Not only because you will still be out there
in a less competitive playing field as lot other people have given up and
gone home. But also because developing patience and being persistent will
enable you to get what you want. It may just take a little longer than had
hoped for. 7. Sharpen your ax. "If I had eight hours to chop down a tree, I'd spend six hours sharpening my
ax." Instead of just starting to chop with a blunt blade for hours on end it's a
whole lot smarter to first sharpen the blade and then take on the physically
harder task of bringing the tree down. This goes for everything. If you are prepared then it will often be a whole lot easier to get
something done. Sometimes it can be the thing that separates people that
either keeps chopping until they can't take it anymore and give up and the
people who could get the job done. So success is not just about doing hard work. It's also about sharpening
your ax at regular intervals and learning new and better ways to take down
the trees in your life. And it's about remembering what trees you want to
take down rather than just any tree. However, you don't want to get stuck in
this stage and never take action. As with all things, you have to find a
balance by experimenting. Four suggestions for sharpening your ax are: * Educate yourself. Do some research into the whatever you want to achieve.
Look for the most common mistakes people make. Read books and online. Talk
to people who have already been where you want to go.
* Do. Fail. Learn. Do. Knowledge from external sources is great. But the
best way to really understand is by doing things. And by learning from your
own failures. And then doing again with your new understanding in your mind.
* Manage your energy levels. You don't just have increase your knowledge and
understanding of things. You also have to have the physical energy to get
things done when you find your opportunity. Otherwise you may just fall into
a procrastinating pattern or back down. So workout. Eat enough. Sleep
enough. Basic stuff of course. But if you do it consistently then you'll
increase you chances of succeeding when it's time to start chopping down
your trees. With a high energy level it will be easier to persist until you
are done.
* Remind yourself where you are going. A lot of not so important busy work
can dull your ax. You need to regularly review your plans and remind
yourself of your goals and what you really want. If you don't keep your eyes
on where you want to go you might wind up somewhere completely different. 8. Take a responsibility for your own life. "You have to do your own growing no matter how tall your grandfather was." "You cannot help men permanently by doing for them what they could and
should do for themselves." When we are kids people take care of us. They take responsibility. But to
become an adult - and not just a kid in a grown up's body - one has to take
responsibility for oneself. There is no other way. Sure, letting someone
else take the responsibility may be easier on you. But without taking responsibility for yourself how can you be free?
How can you really live up you own potential and dreams? It can be hard to break out of the comfort zone of having other people
taking responsibility for us. But if you don't then you will be trapped by
other people's standards, expectations and limitations. You have to set your
own rules for your life. And not fall back into old patterns. A bit scary.
But also liberating. 9. Happiness is optional. "Most folks are about as happy as they make their minds up to be. One big upside of taking responsibility for yourself is that it lets you
decide where the standards and limits are set. When you take responsibility
for what you do you will also feel an entitlement to do what you feel is
right for you, in your life. And as you delve into the field of personal development you may start to
realize that your control and responsibility not only goes for what you do
out in the world. But also for your thoughts and emotions. You are to a
large extent in charge here too. When you realise this then you realise that you don't have to play along
with your old patterns of thinking and feeling anymore. You don't have to
play along with is "normal" or common thinking. You don't have to take your
thoughts so seriously. You can choose to not feel insulted when someone says
something. You can choose to not to be angry whilst stuck in traffic. You
can choose to see the positive in people. And you can choose how happy you
will be. Pain is inevitable in life. But how you choose to process or think about
things - and if you let them get stuck in your mind or not - is up to you.
Suffering is therefore to a large extent optional. And so is happiness. 10. Live your life fully. "In the end, it's not the years in your life that count. It's the life in
your years." This one is just beautiful. And I don't really have much to add. But it
might be useful to remind yourself of this saying regularly. Maybe when you
feel like you are veering off track. Or when heading into things like
small-mindedness, laziness or complacency. Perhaps you want to write it down
and put it in a highly visible place so you don't forget about it.
plucked a thistle and planted a flower where I thought a flower would grow." "I am not bound to win, but I am bound to be true. I am not bound to
succeed, but I am bound to live by the light that I have. I must stand with
anybody that stands right, and stand with him while he is right, and part
with him when he goes wrong." "With the fearful strain that is on me night and day, if I did not laugh I
should die." What can Abraham Lincoln help us with today? Well, here are 10 powerful and
timeless fundamentals. I hope you'll find something helpful. 1. See the positive in people. "If you look for the bad in people expecting to find it, you surely will." "The way for a young man to rise is to improve himself in every way he can,
never suspecting that anybody wishes to hinder him." What you focus on you will find. In a situation, in a person. There is
always plenty of good things and plenty of bad things to discover. So you need to keep your focus steadily on what you want to find. Don't let
it waver just because you are in a "negative" situation or someone just
said/did something "negative". If your focus gets scattered, try to get it
back into a more useful place as quickly as you can. You can develop whatever view of the world and people that you like. You can
go looking for the negative in people and feel a short burst of good
emotions as find something negative about a person and feel like you are
"right". Or you can develop a habit of looking for the positive. A habit where you
can expect people to treat you in a positive way. Because we do to a large extent teach people how we want to be treated. If
we expect other people to help us and treat us well then they are more
likely to do so than if we are negative and expect to be treated poorly. This may sound a bit weird, but how we expect to be treated can have a big
effect on how the world sees us. 2. Be honest. "No man has a good enough memory to be a successful liar." This is a pretty practical thing. Being honest will for several reasons work
better in the long run. Of course, you don't have to go out of your way to
be honest and hurt people though. You can just as well choose to be silent
if you like. Here are just a few practical reasons to minimize or just stop
lying altogether. * Your words aren't everything. Words are only 7 percent of communication.
The rest are body language and your voice tonality. And it's through those
channels that the real you will shine through. People will in some way sense
that something is wrong, that you aren't being honest and authentic if those
93 percent of how you communicate aren't in alignment with your words. So
lying is just a short term solution. Sooner or later people will pick up on
it.
* Poor self-image and stress. Cultivating a self-image as someone who lies
will make you feel worse about yourself. You'll feel like a fake and your
self-esteem plummets. And if you on the other hand are honest you don't have
to feel like someone that is trapped or on the high-wire all the time.
* People really appreciate authentic communication. What separates people is
to a large extent the walls that they build up between themselves. When you
put aside personas and lies you can build real connections between you and
other people. If you remove these walls of insulation then the people or you
are interacting with are likely to reciprocate. And so your relationships
can improve and are less likely to be damaged by miscommunication. 3. Unite. "A house divided against itself cannot stand." Ego excludes and divides. The ego loves to make someone "the other" to
strengthen its own power. It want's to feel "more" than someone else. More
clever. Prettier. Cooler. Wiser. Or more like a victim. And by making the other even more wrong in your mind the ego grows stronger.
However, the ego boosts of good feelings are just temporary. You have to
reinforce them continually, just like a caffeine habit. Consciousness and intelligence includes and accepts. You don't have to be
seduced by your ego's wish to make people other than you. You can look at
the positive in them and at the things you agree about. And be accepting. Remember, when your thoughts are buzzing around in your head and telling you
to exclude or divide in some way then you are listening to your ego. It may
tell you that paragraphs just above this one are cheesy and stupid. You may
not want to take such thoughts too seriously. You don't have to. The most useful advice I've found so far to get a handle on the need to
divide is to not identify so much with my thoughts or feelings. That doesn't
mean that I stop thinking or feeling. It just means that I realize - and
remember in my everyday life - that the thoughts and emotions are just
things flowing through me. And that I am the consciousness observing them. When you realize and remember this it enables you to control the thoughts
and feelings instead of the other way around. It enables you to not take
your thoughts too seriously and actually laugh at them or ignore them when
you feel that your ego is acting out. When you are not being so identified these things you become more inclined
to include things, thoughts and people instead of excluding them. This
creates a lot of inner and outer freedom and stillness. Instead of fear, a
need to divide your world and a search for conflicts. 4. Create a friend where there is none. "The best way to destroy an enemy is to make him a friend." "I don't like that man. I must get to know him better." This is similar to tip #1 and # 3. But slightly different, seen from a
slightly different perspective. It is a helpful and a bit unusual way of
looking at people who you might perceive as different or other than
yourself. Turning an enemy or someone we don't like into a friend is difficult because
first impressions can be powerful. Our concept of a person can remain intact
if we don't push further and question and explore it. But if you get to know
someone better you can often find out quite a few positive and interesting
things about them. People are often more intriguing than your first
impression of them. Of course, since the ego needs to tell you that you are right and someone
else is wrong then it can be hard to change your opinion of someone. That
opinion of him/her is tied up in your ego and fuels your sense of being
"right". Again, the key and the way out here is to not take your thoughts or
emotions too seriously. To stay on top of them instead of letting them
overwhelm and control you. This can allow you to open your mind to a change in the relationship. Now, how can you make him/her your friend? One suggestion would be to follow
tip # 1 and start looking for the positive in the person. Then to take the
first step and give some kind of value - like help for instance - to that
person. And then to take more steps if s/he is not convinced that you want
to change the relationship. 5. Believe in and go after your own success. "Always bear in mind that your own resolution to succeed is more important
than any one thing." "Things may come to those who wait, but only the things left by those who
hustle." If you think you can succeed then you can. Your belief in your own ability
to succeed is essential and does not only motivate you to keep going. It will also tune your reticular activation system - a system within your
mind that focuses on things in your surroundings based on what you are
thinking - into finding opportunities and solutions in all the those things
that are in the background of your world right now. It can become a little
bit freaky as things that have been there for a long time start to "pop up"
as you change what you are focusing on. You may have heard that you just have to believe that you can achieve
something to do it and that the how you will do it will then present itself
along the way. Well, this is how that works. Whatever you focus on
persistently you will find in your world. So be careful what you focus on.
Remind yourself to keep your focus on what you want. Not the opposite, as is
often popular but ineffective. And don't wait for too long. Procrastination may just leave you with the
crumbs or sometimes nothing really. Taking action is awesome. But taking
action with little delay will increase the probability of you actually
getting what you want before the window of opportunity closes. So develop a Just do it! habit. Learn to do some planning but then to take
action quickly despite what excuses or other negative things your thoughts
and emotions may put up in your way. Know that they may just want to protect
you from uncertainty and risks. But also know that you are in charge of them
and not the other way around. 6. Persist. "Hold on with a bulldog grip, and chew and choke as much as possible." Persistence might not exactly be the sexiest sounding quality. It might not
sell a lot of products to people looking for the magic pill. But it is an
immensely helpful quality to cultivate and put to use. If you fail, what do you do? You dust yourself off and try again. If the
success you are looking for won't come that quickly - a pretty likely
scenario - then you have to persist. Persistence may be one of the most
useful qualities one can have. Not only because you will still be out there
in a less competitive playing field as lot other people have given up and
gone home. But also because developing patience and being persistent will
enable you to get what you want. It may just take a little longer than had
hoped for. 7. Sharpen your ax. "If I had eight hours to chop down a tree, I'd spend six hours sharpening my
ax." Instead of just starting to chop with a blunt blade for hours on end it's a
whole lot smarter to first sharpen the blade and then take on the physically
harder task of bringing the tree down. This goes for everything. If you are prepared then it will often be a whole lot easier to get
something done. Sometimes it can be the thing that separates people that
either keeps chopping until they can't take it anymore and give up and the
people who could get the job done. So success is not just about doing hard work. It's also about sharpening
your ax at regular intervals and learning new and better ways to take down
the trees in your life. And it's about remembering what trees you want to
take down rather than just any tree. However, you don't want to get stuck in
this stage and never take action. As with all things, you have to find a
balance by experimenting. Four suggestions for sharpening your ax are: * Educate yourself. Do some research into the whatever you want to achieve.
Look for the most common mistakes people make. Read books and online. Talk
to people who have already been where you want to go.
* Do. Fail. Learn. Do. Knowledge from external sources is great. But the
best way to really understand is by doing things. And by learning from your
own failures. And then doing again with your new understanding in your mind.
* Manage your energy levels. You don't just have increase your knowledge and
understanding of things. You also have to have the physical energy to get
things done when you find your opportunity. Otherwise you may just fall into
a procrastinating pattern or back down. So workout. Eat enough. Sleep
enough. Basic stuff of course. But if you do it consistently then you'll
increase you chances of succeeding when it's time to start chopping down
your trees. With a high energy level it will be easier to persist until you
are done.
* Remind yourself where you are going. A lot of not so important busy work
can dull your ax. You need to regularly review your plans and remind
yourself of your goals and what you really want. If you don't keep your eyes
on where you want to go you might wind up somewhere completely different. 8. Take a responsibility for your own life. "You have to do your own growing no matter how tall your grandfather was." "You cannot help men permanently by doing for them what they could and
should do for themselves." When we are kids people take care of us. They take responsibility. But to
become an adult - and not just a kid in a grown up's body - one has to take
responsibility for oneself. There is no other way. Sure, letting someone
else take the responsibility may be easier on you. But without taking responsibility for yourself how can you be free?
How can you really live up you own potential and dreams? It can be hard to break out of the comfort zone of having other people
taking responsibility for us. But if you don't then you will be trapped by
other people's standards, expectations and limitations. You have to set your
own rules for your life. And not fall back into old patterns. A bit scary.
But also liberating. 9. Happiness is optional. "Most folks are about as happy as they make their minds up to be. One big upside of taking responsibility for yourself is that it lets you
decide where the standards and limits are set. When you take responsibility
for what you do you will also feel an entitlement to do what you feel is
right for you, in your life. And as you delve into the field of personal development you may start to
realize that your control and responsibility not only goes for what you do
out in the world. But also for your thoughts and emotions. You are to a
large extent in charge here too. When you realise this then you realise that you don't have to play along
with your old patterns of thinking and feeling anymore. You don't have to
play along with is "normal" or common thinking. You don't have to take your
thoughts so seriously. You can choose to not feel insulted when someone says
something. You can choose to not to be angry whilst stuck in traffic. You
can choose to see the positive in people. And you can choose how happy you
will be. Pain is inevitable in life. But how you choose to process or think about
things - and if you let them get stuck in your mind or not - is up to you.
Suffering is therefore to a large extent optional. And so is happiness. 10. Live your life fully. "In the end, it's not the years in your life that count. It's the life in
your years." This one is just beautiful. And I don't really have much to add. But it
might be useful to remind yourself of this saying regularly. Maybe when you
feel like you are veering off track. Or when heading into things like
small-mindedness, laziness or complacency. Perhaps you want to write it down
and put it in a highly visible place so you don't forget about it.
No comments:
Post a Comment