I have had a fascination with changing habits and creating
motivation for over ten years now. I have spent countless hours reading and
researching different ideologies of creating life changes. Focused Life,
ultimately, is a program that I have assembled borrowing from several sources
and I intend to use this program to help individuals who are recovering from
addiction to increase their odds. I understand the importance of traditional
rehabilitation and ideally a target client of this program would have already
detoxed and spent at least a month in a traditional rehab. The Focused Life
program is meant to supplement traditional rehabs and transition an individual
in recovery from concentrating on drugs and not doing them to focusing on more
general life change practices.
I am going to share some of the basic, universally accepted
methods and tactics that are necessary in meeting your life change objectives.
The following concepts work independently of one another. They are tactics to
employ in your overall strategy to make the changes in your life that you
desire.
If you have anything to add, disagree or just wanna say
something, please feel free to comment below.
So, here are my top five fundamentals for making a lasting
change.
1 Perception
Your perception is the lens of
personal biases that every individual has, through which they view their
environment and the world.
Perception is under your control. You may
have been raised to be a racist or violent, and your schema of the world will
adhere to what you already think you know to be true. The subsequent behavior,
attitudes and actions that are produced are entirely under your control. You
get to choose whether or not you’ll continue to be a violent person.
The truth is that the notions which you
believe in most, are usually not even your notions. They are a product of your
experiences. You have been conditioned to think a certain way and that is why
we have cultures in society; groups of people that act, think, believe and
behave similarly. Ones thoughts stem from ones beliefs, and beliefs are
completely constructed by your perceptions. If a view of the world around you
no longer serves you, you can easily change it. You are in charge of what goes
on in your head, and so often we give that control to others. Question
everything that is deeply ingrained in your beliefs and you will find unchecked
motives for action, irrational thoughts and baseless reasoning.
To be yourself, to be true to who you are
it is imperative that you inventory your beliefs. If it makes sense, keep it.
If not, you are not subject to any concept. Toss it.
If I were reading this, I’d be reeling to
think of what my beliefs are. If you’re like me, in that respect, here is a bit
of advice on rooting out illogical beliefs to allow your perception the space
to make more sound assumptions and bring yourself closer to a place where you
are not in constant conflict with the real world around you.
Don’t even try to list and label your
beliefs while you inventory them. It’s an internal process that requires making
a practice introverted observations. Instead, file this idea away, but keep it
at the surface of your thoughts. Next time you are witnessing an event and you
notice that you are judging right and wrong, turn that high powered perception
of yours inward and assess the reasons that you are coming to the conclusions
that are fresh in your mind. Be honest with yourself. That should go without
saying, but we are odd creatures sometimes. Now, are the motivations that cause
you to side with A or B born out of something you are knowledgeable about? Have
you experienced, in your life, an event that would lead you to side with
either.
To give you an example of how this
conditioning has happened throughout your life, how you are going to handle it
now and how to reverse the process; I’ll give you a classic and common scenario.
If you hear some politician saying that
something is happening and this is why it’s an atrocity. You are listening to
100% spin. This is a professional influencer, negotiator and persuader that is
speaking, so it’s often easy to identify with what that person is saying. She
knows that 99.61% of viewers hold democracy as an unquestionable belief, but many
don’t really even understand what it is or why it’s better than an alternative;
or even what an alternative to democracy is. She is going to try to make her
point synonymous with that ideal.
(I am not referring to any particular person because I
used the pronoun, “she”. I always interchange gender specific pronouns, and I
always start with female pronouns. I just realized this could be mistaken for a
reference to only a couple of politicians currently in the nation’s spotlight.)
This has been going on your entire life. The media,
ads, your family, your friends all have a level of influence over you, or not.
It’s your choice.
2. Positivity
Being optimistic is the fundamental building
block of creating change and even having a better life. Positive thinking goes
hand and hand with perception. It is perception. While this blog post is not
intended for a centerpiece to your epic battle with depression, it works
wonders for people who use complaining and pessimism as a social tool.
Complaining is often a great way to strike up a conversation, but it is doing
more damage than you know. Because of the nature of this post, I am going to
leave my opinions, formed from my experiences, out of this. However, positive thinking
is important for a number of reasons that aren’t just opinions.
Positive thinking is a part of every
process, I’ve seen, to make major lasting changes to your life. Lucky you, it’s
the easiest thing in the world to change. Actually, you can do this right now.
But, first, let me tell you why it’s important.
There is a semi-recent popularization of a
meta-science known as the Law of Attraction. This doctrine teaches that for
some unknown reason, we can manifest whatever it is we focus on in our lives.
We can create a wondrous life or a dismal existence, through happy thoughts. I
personally believe in many aspects of Attraction, but it’s still a meta-science
and I won’t feed you theory that no one even understands.
Optimism is superior to pessimism
obviously, right? This is always where someone interjects on how they have
transcended this dichotomy, and are The Realist. Like I mentioned, don’t lie to
yourself. I said it twice. We all get. Now, we’re all realists. But on the
spectrum of optimism and pessimism, if it changes nothing else in your life, it
changes your perception, which changes your beliefs and in this case changes
moods, feelings and emotions. And those things change everything. Mastering
those three things is the goal. Keep that goal in mind.
3. Feelings and Emotions
For the purpose of this, and future, blog
posts, we will look at emotions as a spectrum. Feelings are like notes, or keys
on a piano. They can be mixed in harmony or dissonance. On one end of the emotion
spectrum we have the desired emotion, which is Love and at the other end, the worst,
fear. The reason that it is love and fear, is because we are envisioning a
spectrum for life change, thus for motivation. Hate would be the natural
opposite of love, in most schools of thought, but hate is a highly motivating
feeling.
It’s such a shame that this has to be
included in a self-mastery post. Emotional control is your God-given birthright.
At some point, though, we all lose it. We give it to others. We give others the
power to control us like puppets, by not owning our emotions. I can call your
mother fat and in most cases own your behavior. I can at least get a rise out
of you, by saying something offensive. I’m never more impressed than when I see
someone defy the rules of humanity and behaving unpredictably well in
situations that would ruin the next guys night. Getting offended at disrespect
is human nature, right? I don’t think so.
Stephen R. Covey said that we are in
control of our reactions. He had a clever play on the word responsibility. He
taught that there is a gap between an action and an individual’s reaction.
Inside this gap is where the maturity and responsibility of a person can be
measured. You choose from the infinite possibilities what your response to
stimuli might be. Mr. Covey said that a responsible person would be
able-to-respond maturely and effectively. Take back your birthright. Be above
the circumstances.
Change the thoughts you entertain and you change your
perspective. Change your perspective and you change your beliefs. Change your
beliefs and you get to change your destiny.
