Without a doubt, the number #1 question I get asked by clients is ‘how do I break a bad habit like procrastination, worry, insomnia, negative thinking or smoking’? There are a million examples of ways that each one of us holds our own success back by ‘doing’ unproductive habits. To make lasting change to deeply ingrained bad habits using willpower and positive affirmations alone is not realistic.

Everyone knows that positive thinking is undependable and produces inconsistent results, at best. The self-image on the other hand underpins our level of emotional intelligence (EQ), which is now recognised as being an even more important measurement for success than the IQ. It has been scientifically proven that our brain circuits take engrams or memory traces, and produce neuro connections only if they are bombarded with the information for 21 days in a row. This means that our brain does not accept ‘new’ data (ie break a bad habit) unless they are repeated each day for at least 21 days, without missing a day.

If you want to break bad a habit like refusing to let go of the past, spending all your time worrying about what might go wrong, overeating, biting your nails or spending more than you earn, it can be done but it will require consistent effort on your part, every day for at least 21 days. In order to do it, your success rate will improve significantly if you can replace that old habit you no longer need with a good and productive habit that will support you to achieve your goals and find someone to help keep you accountable.

And remember, no matter where you are in your life right now — the choices you have made or the experiences you have had — you can break a bad habit because it is never too late to become the person you were meant to be!

It is very possible that the concept of forgiveness may be the most misunderstood and underutilized skill in the human experience.   In the Greek language, forgiveness is the same word as release or letting go.  This definition conjures up sensations of liberation, capitulation and freedom. On paper, it reads like a natural and benevolent process – something one freely GIVES to another to release yourself and others from the past. In practice however, it is often misunderstood as something that someone who has done us wrong must ASK of us.

The most precious gift that we have is our breath – without it, we would simply die. We can live for a short time without food, water, love and light but we cannot live for more than a minute or two without air.  Breathing in and exhaling signifies the natural inevitability of the cycle of life: We take into our bodies the oxygen we need to live and we release or let go of carbon dioxide and other by-products that no longer serve us.

Our experience of life bears a striking resemblance to this natural process. We are constantly taking in the world around us and our interactions with others produce a myriad of consequences – some are positive while others are not.  Unfortunately, negative or hurtful experiences are inevitable. As human beings we all have the same capacity to inflict harm through our words, actions and inactions, whether knowingly or unknowingly. But we all know that we cannot hold our breath forever; the release of by products and things that no longer serve us is an instinctive function. By the same token, sooner or later we all must discover our innate capacity to forgive.

Forgiveness, like exhaling, is an act of faith. It can neither be stopped nor compelled. There is no proof that peace will follow or that the release from anger, vengeance or self-righteousness will be immediate.

On our deathbed, I doubt any of us would say ‘I wish I held onto more anger and resentment or took a bit longer to forgive.’ In fact, if you were to look out into the future and imagine the world and all of your relationships from a position where you knew with absolute certainty that they would be gone tomorrow, would you act differently today?

Would you regret not having closure? Would you mourn the years that you kept yourself enslaved by bitterness, blame and indignation? Would you lament the loss of pleasure, love and peace that could have been yours if only you could have found a way to forgive sooner? Does the thing that you are fighting or obsessing about now really even matter in the grand scheme of things?

We all know our own pain – we are intimately familiar with the injustices that we have suffered, the crosses we have had to bear and the countless nights that we have cried ourselves to sleep. What we don’t fully grasp is the depth of another’s pain – the unspoken abuse, neglect, prejudices, anguish, loss, torment or afflictions. At the time, we think we are the only ones who are hurting and we forget that the scars and burdens of others are not always visible on the outside. We can never truly know another’s plight until we have walked a mile in their shoes.  I believe that the first step toward forgiveness is simply the willingness to take one’s own shoes off and put another’s on.  The rest can be surprisingly easy.

To learn more about forgiveness I recommend that you read On The Shoulders of Giants.  In Chapter 28, I explain in detail exactly how I learned to forgive the four boys who were responsible for the murder of my mother several years ago in Canada.  I know first-hand how difficult it can seem to forgive but I also know the awesome release, strength and freedom that can come from the ultimate gift of love – forgiveness of yourself and others.

Haven’t you already waited long enough to be released from those old emotions that no longer serve you?  When is now a good time to change and to move forward toward your bright and compelling future? 

I have been fortunate to discover that there is a reason for all things –  even those that are senseless and incomprehensible – and that we have to learn to trust that there is a bigger picture that perhaps we, as mere human  beings, can never truly understand.

What if you’ve already go the life you deserve?

The most beautiful expression of this idea I’ve ever read was in a children’s  book ‘Little Soul in the Sun’ by Neil Donald Walsh. In the story, Walsh talks of  a Little Soul who wants to be incarnated as a human being to learn  ‘forgiveness’. A Friendly Soul agrees to oblige him by incarnating as a person  to do something to the Little Soul that will help him learn the lesson of  forgiveness. But the Friendly Soul issues a plea of caution and says, ‘at the  very moment that I strike you down, please promise me that you will remember who  I really am, a Friendly and loving Soul, otherwise we will be doomed to repeat  the process over and over again until we get the learnings or until another  Little Soul comes down to help us find the way out.’

In other words everything that happens in our life – the good the bad and the  just plain ugly is the result of an agreement that we have made at some point in  our existence to experience certain things so we can become better human beings  and move on to the next lesson. We are all doing the best that we can with the  resources that we think we have available. Everything is a learning experience  and if viewed from that context, we can become empowered to create a world around us  in the likeness of our dreams and wildest imaginations.

Even the really hard stuff happens for a reason. There is no failure, only  results.

It isn’t about assigning blame or beating yourself up – it’s about  being responsible for your response and deciding how best to move forward and  attract the results that you want.

Blaming others – even if it’s legitimate – robs you of your power. It doesn’t  help you move on – it’s a complete waste of your time and emotion. Put it in the  past and find a way to ensure you never repeat it.

Things don’t change – WE change.

The only way to be the change that you want  to see in the world is to take responsibility for the life that you say you want  to be living. Regardless of the events and circumstances that have occurred, no  answers may be found revelling in excuses.

You are already living the life you deserve and imagine in your mind every day. If you are not happy and you want  more, you need to step up and BE more. Otherwise, you are destined to repeat the  same experiences over and over until you learn the lesson. Even though it may be  a hard pill to swallow, on some level you agreed to experience everything that  has happened to you – you did this with the understanding that it would help you  to grow and to evolve as a human being.

In fact, you already have the life you deserve (and wanted). It begs the  question though – “when are you going to forgive yourself (and others), get the  “learnings” and move on to the next important lesson that you have chosen for  your evolution?”

Are you really depressed or just plain angry and frustrated?

Many people believe that depression can result from anger turned inwards. Anger and depression are simply states of mind just like sadness, frustration, confusion etc.  Yet many people mistakenly ask the question “is anger a symptom of depression”?

Anger does not cause (nor is it a symptom of depression). In my clinical experience, persistent anger does often co-exist with MANY other negative emotions – frustration, despair etc. However, in assisting clients to release these deeply ingrained patterns of negative emotions, it is often necessary to work with and release anger first as it is a strong, dominant, primary emotion. Often, unless anger is released first, it is impossible to face or address the underlying issue(s).

However, I do not believe anger causes or is a symptom of depression per se.

Depression often presents when a person is constantly worried about problems they perceive they have no control over. It results from a tendency to focus exclusively on the negative – thought, spoken word, physiology etc. Like anger, depression is not something that happens to us – it can be created and exacerbated by our thoughts, words and physiology over time. Over long periods of time, it is possible to develop a habit of being angry all the time and/or a habit of being depressed.

Statistics prove that the majority of us focus more of our attention on what we don’t want (or are afraid of) and we tend to do it with passion! Science has already proven that anything we do with strong emotion and passion creates a deeper engram (impression) on our minds.

Changing deeply ingrained habits or repetitive states of mind (whether they be positive or negative) requires repetitive autosuggestion over a period of at least 21 days. This fact was discovered in the 60’s by a plastic surgeon named Maxwell Maltz.

What this means is that we are always in control of our experience of the world – our emotions, our meanings and the habits we develop over time. No one causes us to feel angry or depressed. It is something that we choose to do ourselves, in response to our life experiences. The good news is that we can take responsibility and “unchoose” the unproductive states of mind or habits….thereby changing forever our results and our destiny.

“The pessimist complains about the wind; the optimist expects it to change;  the realist adjusts the sails.” William Arthur Ward

I was reminded of this brilliant principle last week when I spoke to one of  my business coaching clients. There can be no doubt that we are living in  interesting times…. the global financial crisis has impacted overall spending  and consumer sentiment – and this has hurt many small businesses around the  country. It’s no good hoping that circumstances will change – in order to  survive we all need to dig deep and find creative ways to work smarter not  harder.

Jim Collins, in his book, “Good to Great,” talks about this very interesting  paradox that he calls “The Stockdale Principle”. According to Collins, “you have  to be realistic about your current situation and yet, stay optimistic about the  future”.

General Stockdale was the highest ranking American prisoner of war in Hanoi,  Vietnam. Over the years he began to notice an interesting phenomenon – optimism  could in fact be a liability. His fellow prisoners (who were the eternal  optimists) constantly set themselves up for disappointment. They set huge  milestones – “we will be rescued by Christmas” – but those milestones came and  went year after year and with it… their will to live.

Conversely, the prisoners who looked at the painful day-to-day reality they  were in and channeled their energies to the right places survived. This is not  to say that the second group were pessimists but rather realists that maintained  an unwavering faith in the end game, and a commitment to survive despite the  brutal fact of their incarceration and torture over a period of years.

Here’s how Stockdale put it in his own words:
“I never lost faith in the  end of the story. I never doubted not only that I would get out, but also that I  would prevail in the end and turn the experience into the defining event of my  life, which, in retrospect, I would not trade.”

How many of us would look back on seven years of detention – with regular  torture, dismal living conditions and an uncertain future – as an experience we  would not trade? Do you regard the greatest obstacles or challenges in your life  as the defining moment that shaped who you are today or do you choose to look at  them as an excuse or reason why you have not achieved more?

Have you ever sat back and thought how this distinction between optimism  versus reality could apply to your business/career or your life in general?  Where in your life are you ignoring reality in favour of being optimistic and  missing a crucial opportunity to take action?

Take for example my business coaching client that I mentioned above. She has  an employee who doesn’t take responsibility for her actions, doesn’t pay  attention to details and is often defensive and reluctant to take direction and  feedback. This employee is negatively impacting the entire work environment as  everyone gets caught up in the drama of it all. My client doesn’t want to let  the employee go and is resisting doing what she knows that she must. She hopes  that it will somehow improve without any action on her part – she is now  learning the distinction between reality and optimism. When she sees the  difference for what it is, then and only then, will she become decisive and take  action.

Another area where it’s easy to be blinded by optimism is in the financial  arena. Do you have detailed financial reports, KPIs and cashflow forecasts in  place to drive your decision making or are you simply relying on your optimism  instead of reality? Failure to effectively plan in this area (especially in  these tough times) could lead to a cash crunch and the demise of your  business.

Take a moment today to examine your relationship to optimism, pessimism and  realism. Success belongs to those who operate from both sides of the Stockdale  Paradox. The key is balance – knowing when to accept reality and take  appropriate action AND never losing faith in the end of the story. If you can  walk this delicate line of balance and responsibility, you increase your odds of  making good decisions and this will lead to your inevitable success and  breakthrough results.

In life, we will all experience setbacks, disappointments, loss and  challenges. What separates successful people from the rest is how you deal with  those inevitable struggles. This is a very important distinction and it is what  divides the winners from the losers. You must never confuse faith that you will  prevail in the end – which is something that you can never afford to lose sight  of – with the discipline to confront the brutal facts and reality of your  current situation, whatever that might be.

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