Stop Wasting Your Life & Do Something (4 page)

My guess is that you’d be a lot happier!

Chapter 9

Decision Making

Indecision can cause you stress. Often, when people are finding it difficult to decide between two courses of action, it can send them into a state of panic, or worry. Making a decision (cutting off the alternative course of action) immediately helps. Sometimes we make the wrong decision, but this happens to all of us and there are no guarantees in life unfortunately.

There are a lot of different models for the decision making process, but as with most things in life, I like to break things down to their simplest form.

All of our decisions will come in two categories. Conscious decision making, and unconscious decision making.

Conscious Vs Unconscious Decision Making

Conscious decision making is where we really think about the available options and then decide. A good example here is when you are in a restaurant. You look through the menu, and make a decision on what you’ll choose to eat by looking at the different meals.

Your decision may be made up by a variety of contributing factors:

How hungry you are

How much money you have

How many calories each meal contains

Whether you have any special dietary requirements (e.g. vegetarian)

Whether you’ll be eating again later that day or not

Whether you’re a “Savoury Person” or a “Sweet Person”

Whether you’re eating alone or with company

Your brain takes all of this information and then you decide on what you are going to eat.

Another example could be when purchasing a new car. You look at the make, the model, the mileage, the economy of the car, and the price. You may look at the colour, the interior, the accessories etc. You then decide which car to buy.

These are the type of decisions I would call our conscious decisions.

However, even though we’re making these decisions consciously, and we think we’re making them rationally, based on logic, many of our decisions are actually unconscious and emotional and have nothing to do with logic.

Our unconscious mind is much more powerful than our conscious mind, and will normally override our conscious. For example, when choosing your meal, your conscious mind KNOWS that you should have something light and healthy. However, your unconscious mind wants something high-calorie, tasty, and not too good for your waistline. This is why many people’s diets don’t work. They aren’t making CONSCIOUS decisions and their unconscious is overriding their conscious mind.

Even though this can seem quite annoying, especially when you’re trying to work towards a goal, it’s a good job we do have the unconscious mind to make decisions for us. If we didn’t, we’d have to make hundreds more conscious little decisions every day.

Driving to work, you’d have to consciously decide every turning to make, rather than letting your unconscious decide for you. When eating your dinner, you’d have to consciously decide which piece of pie to cut up and eat first rather than just eat your dinner.

How can you move from unconscious decision making to conscious decision making?

Here are a few tips:

One – Pre-decide and commit

Let’s say you’re going to a restaurant, and you know that once you’re in the restaurant and you’re smelling the food, and enjoying the atmosphere, you will crumble and order the big tasty steak, with cheesy fries, and the cheesecake for dessert. To avoid this, phone the restaurant before you leave and pre order. If you can’t do this, decide what you’re going to have before you leave, write it down and take it with you. DON’T deviate from it.

If you’re going shopping and you know you have a tendency to stack your trolley with stuff you don’t need, then write a shopping list out and again DON’T deviate. Follow it.

If you’re giving something up and you know you’re going to be in an environment where you’ll struggle with your self-discipline, then picture in your mind before you leave, how you will attack the unconscious urge in the moment.

Two – Take immediate action

If you’re looking to buy a new car (because your unconscious mind can just imagine you behind the wheel, driving around town) but you know you don’t actually NEED a new car, you just feel like you want a change, then your conscious mind could be saying to you “Don’t get this car. You will have to buy it on credit, and it will cost you a lot of money”. Your unconscious mind still wants it however, so you may be fluctuating between buy it, don’t buy it, buy it, and don’t buy it.

If this is happening then you need to take action during the “Don’t buy it” phase. If you’ve been test-driving cars, phone the dealer straight away and tell them you’ve changed your mind and will not be purchasing the car.

Once you’ve done this, you’ll breathe a sigh of relief, as you’ll know you’ve made the right decision and just saved yourself a fortune.

Three – Weigh up the pro’s and con’s

If you’re having a job deciding on something and you don’t just want to leave yourself open to your unconscious mind choosing for you, then take a blank sheet of paper and draw a vertical line down the centre of the page. One the left hand side, make a list of the pro’s, and on the right hand side, make a list of the con’s. When you’ve done this, your decision may be obvious. If not, you can score each of the pro’s and con’s out of ten. Score the pro’s for how positive they are, and the con’s how negative they are.

You will then have a pro/con score which will help your decision.

Four – Pause your thinking

If you just stop thinking for a moment by focussing on your breathing, you will find that your unconscious mind shuts up. This is a good opportunity for you to take stock and make a decision from a place of calmness, rather than a place of excitement or apprehension.

Does it feel right?

When you’ve made your decision, you should ask yourself the above question. Does it feel right? If it doesn’t, then there may be flaw in your decision. If you know that logically it is right, then it could just be your emotions taking over, but I always listen to my gut when making important decisions. Your intuition is often a good judge.

Indecisiveness can cause you to waste a lot of time. It can cause you to toss and turn at night. It can cause you stress and it can send your head in a spin. Making a decision causes you to move forward.

Chapter 10

Knowledge & Choices

One of the presuppositions of NLP is that it is better to have choice than not to have choice.

Let’s say that you lose your job. Would it better to have no other job vacancies in your area, or to have a lot of vacancies for you to choose from? The answer is obvious.

If you were to find yourself in a difficult situation at home, would it be better to have more choices and strategies to overcome the problem or less? Again the answer is obvious.

So how do you give yourself more choices in all areas of your life?

The answer is to educate yourself. Never rely on others to do it for you. It won’t happen.

In many ways I owe everything I now have to books. Books taught me how to manage my money. They taught me how to communicate with people more effectively. Books taught me how to manage my mind. Books opened up the pathways to knowledge and choices. They led me to seminars, business meetings, and self-action. I would not be writing this book today if it weren’t for books.

Here are just a few things you can learn from books:

How to be a better parent

How to be happy

How to become wealthy

How to have a great relationship with your partner

How to get a promotion

How to start a business

How to learn a foreign language

How to get fit

How to control a disease

How to network

How to take apart an engine

How to communicate more effectively

In fact, there isn’t much that you CAN’T learn from books. Yet people don’t read them. I find that very strange. When someone I know and care about is struggling with their life, I recommend a book to them. Do they normally read it? No. Jim Rohn used to call the fact that people don’t read these books “Mysteries of the mind” and I agree.

Some people don’t like to read (as you’re reading this, I’m assuming you’re not one of them). No problem. Get an audio book. You can listen to it in the car.

If you’re just starting out on your ‘Library Building’, here are a few ideas that may help you.

Decide what’s important to you and buy books in that genre. For example, let’s say you sit down and make a list of the 6 key areas in your life that are the most important to you, and you come up with the following list: parenting, career, health, relationships, self development and increasing your net worth.

Get yourself a bookshelf, and put a sticker with each of these headings on the edge of your shelves. Just buy (or borrow from the library as it’s free) one book from each of these categories. Want to know what books to get? Have a look on Amazon. What sort of reviews do the books have? Look online at book recommendations and reviews. People all over the world write up on how good these books are, so you shouldn’t have any trouble finding a good book for each of your categories.

The next step is to actually read them. I would recommend reading for at least 30 minutes per day. Read in the bath, on your lunch break, on the train. If you struggle for time, get the audio-book and listen to it when it’s convenient.

If you listen to or read for 30 minutes per day, this will equate to 182.5 hours of reading a year. You can read a lot of books in 182.5 hours.

Doing this will give you two things. Knowledge and choices. Knowledge for the sake of it isn’t necessarily beneficial, but knowledge in an area that’s important to you is invaluable. The next time a problem comes up, you have a lot more references to draw from and use to help you solve it.

The next time someone you know needs some help, you’re in a better position to give it to them as you have more references. You cannot believe what this will do for your life!

Chapter 11

Curiosity

Curiosity is a blessing. To be able to find all things interesting makes life a joy. When you’re fascinated by everything that’s going on around you, there’s no time to be bored, and there’s no time to feel down.

Have you ever wondered what makes a planet stay in space? What makes a snowflake have six points? Why there are so many circles and spheres in nature?

Ever been curious as to how they get fresh lettuce into your sandwich when you live in the middle of a big city? Ever wonder why some creatures can live in sub-zero temperatures, and others can live in scorching deserts?

Have you ever asked yourself how you can think a thought, and think ABOUT that thought at the same time?

Why is everyone so different? Why do some people like oranges and some people hate them? Why do people like such different styles of music, and dress, and food, and sex?

Why is two plus two always four? How come zero never existed before it was invented, but every other number did?

There are so many interesting things out there in the world, and there are so many questions, and so many mysteries. How could anybody ever be bored? There will never be a time when you can’t find something else to be fascinated by.

Become curious. Become inquisitive. Become interested. If you’re interested, people find you interesting…

People sometimes tell me that I’m really interesting, but I’m actually not. I’m just
interested
in everything. I want to find out all the stuff of the world. If something comes up and I find it interesting, I want a book, or a course, or a video, or a story about it. I want to know.

I’m lucky, because I have a natural curiosity, but anybody can cultivate his or her curiosity. Make a list of ten things you’ve always wondered about and go and find out some of the answers. If you don’t understand some of them, it doesn’t matter, as you’ll understand some of the others.

Who do you know that does interesting things? Why not go over for a coffee and find out about it. I bet they’d love to tell you about it.

I remember when I was young and I was really into heavy metal music. Nobody ever asked me about it (my family all hated it), but one night my cousin came over and was genuinely interested in why I liked it. She asked about the bands, the lyrics, the music, and I had a great time sharing it with her. Her curiosity made me enthusiastic. How could your curiosity bring out another’s enthusiasm?

Being curious is fun.

Try it!

Chapter 12

Self Growth – Development & Learning

When Abraham Maslow came up with his hierarchy of needs pyramid back in the 1940’s, his top spot was “Self Actualisation”. This is where you reach a place of harmony and understanding, and you are engaged in reaching your full potential. Notice that this isn’t the same as reaching your full potential, as you can always do a little bit more, but being engaged in reaching it will make you feel great.

In order to continue to reach for your full potential though, you will need to bring out the best of what you have. This can only be done by developing yourself mentally, physically, emotionally, and spiritually (if you believe in spirituality).