Being Point

Tag: Change

  • What Could You Learn That Could Transform Your World?

    What could you learn that would transform your life experience? Nelson Mandela said, “Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world.”

    You may be out of a formal educational structure, but learning continues to be the best way to create positive change.

    As our world grows ever more quickly to connect more of us to each other – AND as more knowledge becomes available on the web – both the opportunities and the requirements for learning will also grow.

    What learning do you have planned for the balance of 2010 that could transform your personal and / or professional lives? How can you create a learning plan for yourself that predicts that you will successfully engage positive change?

  • Transformation In Professional Situations

    Transformation is often not much fun in the moment. Consider the necessity of changing a professional situation that isn’t working. You might have been giving and giving – to the point of imbalance – in a business or client relationship. The giving wasn’t reciprocated, and after you’ve tried all kinds of ways to change it, you have to take decisive action.

    The others involved may resist – they may even attack you because you’ve changed what you’re willing to do and be.

    Gail Sheehy says, “Transformation also means looking for ways to stop pushing yourself so hard professionally or inviting so much stress.”

    Have you had the experience of needing to pull back from stress and imbalance as a means of transforming a business dynamic? What have been the consequences? Did you experience support or resistance from the others involved? What did you learn about getting yourself into that situation and how it could potentially be avoided in the future?

  • “The Happiness Of A Man In This Life Does Not Consist In The Absence But In The Mastery Of His Passions.” – Tennyson

    Do ALL humans have a driving desire to transform something in their lives? In my profession, by definition, everyone with whom I come in contact is seeking positive change – but I don’t assume that that applies equally to all of us.

    How strong is your desire to transform? What are the burning issues that you know would alter your life for the better if you were able to transform your relationship to them? “Everyday” examples like health, diet, exercise, work-life balance, finances, romance, career, family . . . these are the primary places where most of us strive to make progress.

    What is your number one, absolutely most important area of transformation? Most likely, that’s an area where you not only desire transformation, but mastery.

    Alfred Lord Tennyson wrote:

    “The happiness of a man in this life does not consist in the absence but in the mastery of his passions.”

    What does your primary area of desired transformation have to do with mastering your passions? Assuming that you agree with Tennyson, which of your passions are most relevant to your intention to transform?

  • “The End Of The World As We Know It” Shifts To “The World We’d Like To Know”

    Thank you for your responses to the question about “the end of the world as we know it” – and, in particular, how the “end of the world” feeling can be transformed into “the end of the world as we know it,” and then into “a new world that actually has a chance of being great.”

    One reader, a dear friend, wrote:

    “Finding out in September of 1987 that I was HIV positive. It changed my whole perspective, re-woke me up to my spiritual side. This is when I began to walk again that path. Living this lesson has been crucial in forming me as I am now… one vital facet of this rainbow soul. Though I was unaware of it at this time, this is how I was affected by the harmonic convergence.”

    And this forward from the angelic Deborah Davis, written by D.K. Brainard ( http://www.wordsforthepeople.com/ )

    “It is our lack of creativity that causes us to become passive consumers. Rather than reacting to this catastrophe (the ‘end of the oceans’ BP oil spill) from a place of guilt, shame, resentment or grim determination, maybe we should align ourselves with the nature of the Universe and choose to respond with love and joy. Where in your life do you long to create? Where do you long to reach out from your heart and play, joyfully, with Nature, with the children of the Earth, with other creators?”

    “Use this incredible energy to recommit to living creatively. Because we won’t heal the planet by projecting our own Shadows onto the ‘evildoers’ or the ‘oil-guzzlers’ or the other ‘bad people.’ We will only heal the planet by healing ourselves — consciously releasing the guilt, shame, fear and other negative emotions, and intentionally reclaiming our creative birthright.”

    Food for thought. Let’s create the world we’d like to know – regardless of the world as we once knew it!

  • New, Improved World Is A Possibility From The End Of The World As We Know It

    “The end of the world as we know it” doesn’t necessarily mean the end of the world. How possible is it to have a new, improved, better world take the place of the world as you knew it?

    Mail this week from our readers suggests that redemption through learning from change – including difficulty – allows for a potentially better world. One person mentioned his father’s heart attack and how it inspired him to take better care of himself. Others mentioned seeing what seems and feels like an unusually high amount of turmoil in the world and believing that it is growing pains for a move into a higher state of being for humankind. Many wrote with hope that things were changing – albeit painfully – for the better.

    What “ends of the world as you knew it” have rocked your world by ending the way things have been, but changed for the better? If it were within your power, what changes in the world as you know it would you engineer? Are you ever influenced by “end of the world” thinking? What kinds of protections, if any, do you deploy when “end of the world” is mentioned?

  • Worry Falls Into Two Basic Categories

    Worry is irrational, when you think about it, because worry falls into two basic categories: things we can’t do anything about and things that we can.

    For the things we can’t do anything about, worry is needless suffering. When we can do something about what worries us, we can take action. Of course, this is a simple approach – but it makes sense. Sometimes, the hardest thing has been to do what makes the most sense.

    Worrying is a habit that we most likely were taught by powerful role models in our lives. Like most habits, it can be changed with focus and attention.

    What have you been worrying about that you can’t change? Can you give up at least that worrying?

    What have you worrying about that you can change? What actions can you take to address those issues?

  • How Is Your Friendship Between Ambition And Uncertainty?

    What do you do – and how do you become – someone who deliberately engages the uncertainty of whether or not you can accomplish something amazing and fantastic?

    Is it like seeing a cliff as you’re floating in the river, and you see a cliff, and you’re inspired to swim to it and jump? Or is it more deliberate and measured like deciding to climb a frozen, distant peak – and acquiring all manner of ice picks and gear to make the trek?

    No matter your personal style – and there are, obviously, infinite variations – your intending to engage greatness, as you alone define it, necessarily engages uncertainty because nothing is certain except change.

    Making friends with uncertainty and allowing it to co-exist with you is a strategic skill that is well worth cultivating. How is your friendship between ambition and uncertainty? Are they on talking terms? What can be done to have them be best friends forever?

  • What Is Your Relationship To Your Potential?

    What’s your potential?  Are you living up to it?  How do you know when you are or you aren’t?  What can you do about it . . . either way? Do you use your potential only as a means of motivating you, or have you used it in the past as a way of punishing yourself when you’ve focused on not living up to it? Is your perception of your potential a moving target that has mirage-like qualities?

    Potential means “the inherent capacity for coming into being.” Potential from an engineering perspective roughly means the capacity – or the ability – of a structure to bear a specific load.

    For human beings, our potential is probably less a fixed number than a range of possibilities that can be impacted – positively or negatively – by a tremendous range of variables.

    How much do you access or consult the idea of your potential with the intention of being motivated and inspired by it?  Less pleasantly, how frequently have you consulted your potential – and the difference between where you are and where you could be – as a means of beating yourself up?  What is the optimal relationship to potential?

  • How Well Are You Able To Maintain Balance In Your Life?

    How are you at maintaining balance in your life?  Everyone in our culture seems to be busier and more rushed than ever before, and balance is a much-needed issue for improvement for many people.  In our practice, we ask our clients to focus weekly on balance of mind, body and spirit.

    Greek Philosopher Euripedes said: “The best and safest thing is to keep a balance in your life, to acknowledge the great powers around us and in us. If you can do that, and live that way, you are really a wise man.”

    Generally, what seems to work well on a daily basis to balance the demands of our professional lives is time – however small – for: exercise, healthy eating, family and friends, romance, service and quiet reflection to connect to nature or spirit as you choose.

    What changes can you make in your daily life to experience greater degrees of balance?  What are your secrets to balance? How able are you to shift to being balanced when you realize that you need to do so?

  • “Yes Man” Is A Great Example of Shifting Self-Talk

    In the movie, “Yes Man,” Jim Carrey is challenged to change his self-talk of habitually saying “no” to almost everything to, “Yes, I will do that.” It’s a great premise in a movie that received mixed reviews, and Carrie’s performance illustrates the huge changes that can result from shifting one’s perceptions.

    Because his character, Carl Allen, tells himself that he will say “yes” to everything, there are some admittedly wacky results, but also many poignant moments that reveal themselves.

    When our self-talk permits us to think freely from an open mind to consider possibilities other than what we have been conditioned to hold as “the answer,” surprising growth and evolution can occur.

    How has your self-talk been about an automatic and reflexive “no” – perhaps learned from a parent who modeled that behavior when you were growing up? What would happen if your self-talk allowed you to think more creatively? Have you observed anyone who could serve as a role model for you whose behavior indicates openness in her or his self-talk? How can you shift your self-talk to diminish your limitations?