Present Moment Thinking
November 28, 2009
I’m sitting on a stretcher in Kauai looking out over the waterfall pond at my resort. This place is just an incredible sanctuary for renewing your thinking and opening yourself up to great possibilities. This week I have been digging into Dr. Wayne Dyer’s book Excuses Begone! This book is one that I highly encourage everyone to go out and buy and read over and over again.
I am very impressed with it and have found its focus of living in the present to be truly mind shifting. He breaks this concept down better than any other thinker I have read or studied. We all have a lot that we want to accomplish and each of us has life challenges. When you look at these big goals and the larger things that you want to change in your life all at once; they can be overwhelming. The mental fear that you build up concerning your goals can completely stop you in your tracks. You’ll procrastinate, make excuses and fail to take measurable steps towards your goals because of the sheer size of effort involved in completely accomplishing them.
Moving yourself to present thinking however will take your mind off of the big end results and focus you on what can be done right now to move you a step closer to your goals. Taken in small chunks, goals are very manageable and achievable. You can choose to eat healthy at this one particular meal if you stop thinking about all 50 of the pounds you want to lose. You can earn an extra $100 this month if you stop thinking of the massive amounts of debt that you have.
The alternative is to think about all of it all at once and do nothing to change it because it looks like too much work. But if you examine your life more closely you’ll see that everything happens this way. You do everything all one step at a time. You don’t have a full breakfast until you cook your eggs, heat your toast and pour your juice. When you are beginning to cook you do not think “Its too hard I will never finish it.” You are thinking of the one action you need to take at that time to have a full breakfast. The same logic should be applied to your goals and the things you want to change in your life.
The debt, the weight, and the other changes you want to make can all be chipped away one action at a time. The why bother it will be too hard thinking will vanish if you shift how you view your goals. In reality no impeding doom or danger is lurking for you in the present moment if you do not lose 50 pounds right now or pay off all your debt by tomorrow. Yes life might be harder than you would like it to be but nothing terrible will happen to you. Many of us live in a bubble of “I have to do this now.” “All my debt needs to go away by next month.” “I need to lose 50 pounds in two months.” If you fail to take action and work yourself out of mental inertia you will be in the same or a worse position a year from now. But if you focus on what you can do now to make your life better and then do it. You will be many steps closer to your goal a year from now.
I think a lot of why people are not able to grasp the idea that they can have great wealth and health in their lives is because they all look at the end result and think its too much work. They fail to appreciate that 2 pounds a week is 104 pounds in a year and that just increasing your income by a small amount adds up to a lot of money over time. If you think constantly that you have to be a millionaire you are going to stump yourself. Your brain is not used to thinking in millionaire terms. Why not give it something it understands and build up from there. Set a goal to earn an extra $100 a month and then increase that amount to $200 and then $400 and so on. The numbers get large very quickly and you’ll be well on your way to having the body you want or your financial freedom well before a year is up.
If you need help getting started or want guidance in how to put these steps into action please let me know. Remember dream big and think small to get to where you want to be. You have all the skills and power you need to accomplish your goals. You might just not recognize they are there.
Christina Helwig
Watch Your Language
November 11, 2009
Tonight at dinner I said something that I was shocked at. I was talking with my boyfriend and told him to be careful or he would fall into a habit and potentially do the thing we were talking about when he was having dinner with someone important. He looked at me and said “You are important.” I am very into personal development and could not believe I had said that. I was shocked and it made me a little teary that I said that.
Pay attention to the language you use. Sometimes you’ll say things about yourself that you would never let a friend say. I had implicitly framed myself as unimportant. That was a big self image slip yet we all do this all the time. When is the last time you thought of yourself as important. Truly you are the most important person on the planet because you are what keeps you alive and here to share your gifts. Without you… there is nothing.
Christina Helwig
Put On Your Own Oxygen Mask First
November 3, 2009
I have what we’ll call a delicate family situation right now. For the last three plus years I have been jumping in and taking care of all their concerns without any regard to how my choices were going to stack up against me. I was so busy saving them, that I stopped caring about myself in the process. Now I have realized the error of my ways and I am pulling back my help.
You see… people need consequences so that they understand what their actions mean. If you constantly rush in and save a person they will never stand up for themselves. They will be dis-empowered and unable to care for themselves. My need to save them transitioned from a little sting to a massive tsunami in my life. You feel this constant guilt and social duty to help your family. Its incredibly difficult to step back and say no.
Its only because I have finally had my “consequences” hit me hard that I have started reaching for my oxygen mask. I have a big hurdle to jump over now to get myself back on track after I let this situation develop. I know that I am RESPONSIBLE for letting myself not take care of me first. You will never be happy if you live for others and not for yourself. You come first… period. Once you are taken care of… you can CHOOSE to help others. Let go of social stigma and feelings of guilt or they will run you into the ground.
A simple question to ask yourself is: if the situation was reversed… would there be anyone there to save me? If the answer is no, its time to blow back up your life raft and let them worry about theirs all by themselves.