An Easy Option To Guarantee Rapid Change
Many people think self development is boring, hard-work and seldom leads to lasting beneficial improvements, and they maybe right.
Self development can indeed be boring. I have read enough sleep inducing books on the subject to know that.
But equally I’ve read brilliant self development books that have brutally gripped me by the gonads and refused to let go until I took action.
It can also be hard work, especially when the person in question is battling a belief system that’s screaming “Change is hard!”
But there are plenty of self development hacks (life the one I’m about to explain) that are really easy if you can be bothered to implement them.
And it’s true, self development can fail to come to fruition.
And one of many reasons for that is too many people think there’s just one solution to change, and if that solution doesn’t work for them then they’re unchangeable.
The reality is there are 7 billion different solutions, one for each person on the planet.
If you want to change you have to accept that you’re unique and try out and then adopt techniques and processes that work for you.
And that takes belief, persistence and tenacity, which many people are short on.
It’s Not How Many Books You Read
I have seen many clients gain no benefit after reading literally hundreds of books on self development, attending workshops and seminars and even hiring a Life Coach.
And the reason they gained no benefit is because they didn’t take action and implement the knowledge.
Yet I have seen clients take-off after as little as 2 sessions and really turn their world around for the better without reading a single book.
The difference is the latter group took action – often massive action.
One of the things I do with clients who have children of a certain age (usually between the ages of about 4 or 5 and early teens) is to try and get them to employ the help of their kids.
If they don’t have kids, then work colleagues can be just as useful.
First Things First – Get Your Language Right!
Everything stems from the thoughts you have and the language you construct when having those thoughts.
We know that words and phrases like must, should, have to, need to, got to etc (called modal operators of necessity in NLP) act as stressors.
The two biggest stressors in peoples lives are the lack of choice and the lack of autonomy. Think about the above words and you can see they remove both of those and that leads to stress.
However, just because that stress may be almost indiscernible to you on a case by case basis, that doesn’t mean it’s not there.
So let’s suppose you’re trying to avoid using disempowering language and in its place you want to use modal operators of possibility like, love to, it would be fun to, and I want to etc.
What’s the easiest way to make a change to behavior that will in all likelihood be deeply ingrained in you.
Get Help
You could ask your kids to mention every time you step over the line with an inappropriate ‘must’ a ‘should’ a ‘have to’ or a ‘need’
Offer to pay your kids a quarter every time they spot you doing that and you get 3 huge benefits:
- You will accelerate your own learning exponentially because it’s like having your own mini-Life Coach with you all day holding you accountable
- You teach your kids the correct use of language at an impressionable age when it will stick and help them through their own life
- You help strengthen family ties. Ok so maybe that may not work if you’re $30 down on the first day and the kids are laughing their asses off at you, but you get my drift., they’re having fun
And as I said you can even encourage co-workers to help you. I had a lady one time agree to drop $5 in a charity jar every time she used one of the phrases inappropriately*.
It cost her $80 the first day and almost $200 in the first week, but it worked and she made the changes she wanted to make with very little conscious effort after the first few days.
That’s called taking massive action!
If you think about making changes as being hard then guess what? Correct, it’ll be hard.
But your life is a collection of your thoughts and your thoughts are made up of language, so if you can master your language you master your thoughts and thus your life.
It’s not hard, it’s not technical and anybody can do it without the right attitude and a bit of determination.
Is that you?
* Those words are obviously sometimes necessary and useful and it is ok when using them as a cause and effect such as:
“I need to get my ass out of bed before midday if I’m going to hit all my goals”
Ask The Life Coach
My second Ask The Life Coach is going to be this Thursday at 3.00pm EDT. I will be running it through Google Hangouts again, so if you want to be on the call you need to sign up for Google+.
if you’d rather not be visible to other people, but do have a question on self development, please e-mail me through my contact form and I’ll do my best to answer.
The Cartoons
You may have noticed the lack of a cartoon today.
I know many of you liked them and in time I may even go back to using them.
However, the truth of the matter is, without spending a fortune on having them individually drawn I’m running out of stock options and I’m finding more and more I have to repeat the same ones.
So at least for the next few weeks I’m taking a slightly different tack and using the quotes that I post daily to my Facebook page.
Which do you prefer?
The cartoons were cute, but I’d save the money and use free images instead.
“The difference is the latter group took action – often massive action.”
I am finding that many of the things in life that we wish to achieve require action. And not just action, but consistent action. I find that the more consistent I am in my action, the better my results are. though I’m still struggling with that.
I might have to use this trick with the kids. I have 2 that would jump all over this! :D And I feel I have been using those words a bit more than necessary, particularly with things I feel need to be done with my site.
Thanks for sharing, Tim!
You are bang on Grady, it has to be consistent action.
I prefer the cartoons. I look forward to them almost as much as I look forward to the posts :-)
Fortunately 174 people have e-mailed me saying they prefer the quotes!
Well ok maybe not 174, but one person has.
I will just repeat what others said: with “the money method” the results are guaranteed. My fiance knows something about it ;) We bought a bunch of Lonely planet guides for all the money collected…
Mr. Wayne Dyer would agree, I suppose: (Change your language), Change your thoughts, Change your life.
Buddha specifically is a big mood uplifter for me, but I liked the cartoon style because to me it is in “perfect alignment” with your writing. I vote for cartoons.
I have a feeling most people will vote with you! Thanks for letting me know Lucia.
“But your life is a collection of your thoughts and your thoughts are made up of language, so if you can master your language you master your thoughts and thus your life.”
Now THAT is a powerful quote! I’m posting that one up on my wall (FB wall AND my real physical office wall!)
I’ll admit, it was funny to see one of your e-mails come through without a cartoon — I had to do a double-take to see whose it was. But you know I’m a die-hard fan and will read your stuff no matter what…and I love quotes.
However, if people miss the cartoons…I bet you have a reader out there somewhere who would love exposure for his/her illustrations and would be willing to provide cartoons in exchange for life coaching!
Hm maybe, but I write on the hoof Lynn, meaning when I get an idea I write it down and then it’s my next post. I rarely write in advance.
And although coaching doesn’t technically cost me anything, it really does because I’m rammed at the moment so they’d be fairly expensive cartoons!
I agree; so much of changing your world is by changing what you take in and put out. And most of that starts with the language we use. Thank you for such an insightful post.
You’re welcome!
This post is pure power!
The accountability method is widely used in my studio, and we get to donate it to charity or buy a movie from time to time.
I can tell you, the first week someone new arrives it fills super fast, after that, it remains empty most of the time. Most of the designers that worked with us all agree they have a better view and use of their language now.
Oh and we get some movies, what’s not to like about this technique? :)
Yep that’s very cool and there’;s zero wrong with the money collected going toward a team night out or such like.
Thanks for this post, Tim. One of the reasons I’ve always enjoyed your stuff is because you just plain make sense. I’ve heard the “change your language” thing before, but I think this is the first time I’ve come across it with the rational caveat of “appropriate use.” I don’t have any young children, but maybe my wife wouldn’t mind a little extra pocket change if I ask her to help me out with this one. :-)
No getting snappy with her when you’ve lost your weeks earnings though ;-)
No worries. I can always just borrow it back. Of course, the interest rates may be a bit high.
I agree that the first step to change is proper perspective. The language we use both reflects and reinforces our perspective. So it’s very important to look at how we talk about challenging situations and really examine why we speak about them was we do. And it’s also important to speak about them in ways that embody what is actually going on in the situation.
Yep!