Giving is one of the greatest sources of joy and satisfaction known to humankind.  Have you ever wondered why that is? For some reason there seems to be an undeniable connection between our own happiness and our willingness to contribute to others?

We are in fact actually hardwired with this connection. Giving on any level just naturally makes us feel good inside. Case in point, have you ever met a philanthropist who was sad or depressed? And why do you suppose that volunteers often seem to enjoy their work more than some who get paid for doing the same thing?

Developing your inner philanthropist

A person who practices philanthropy doesn’t ask “What’s in it for me?” Instead of selfish pursuits, they are more concerned with making a positive difference in someone else’s life. They are happy because happiness is a byproduct of giving from the heart.

If we buy into the idea that happiness can be pursued directly through a selfish “What’s in it for me?” mentality, we will come up short every time. Oh, we may get some pleasure from the things we acquire, but that deep sense of satisfaction we are looking for will continue to elude us.

Cultivate the desire to contribute

Contrary to popular opinion; the rewards of selfish pursuits are extremely limited and empty.  We all have a need to serve a greater cause than ‘self,’ whether we are aware of it or not. Deep down, it is part of our nature to want to help others, to make a positive difference in their lives.

Sometimes, this can be a difficult concept to grasp, especially if we are struggling to meet our own needs.  That’s because struggle and lack obscure our appreciation for the true value of giving. In reality, the ability to make a meaningful contribution to the lives of others does not depend on our financial circumstances. Compulsory giving out of a sense of obligation is not the same as giving from the heart.

Give from your hearts abundance

Something as simple as the gift of a sincere smile can mean a lot to someone who is feeling down. How about helping an elderly person, or a mother trying to manage her children, load their groceries into their car? Think that might make a significant difference in their day? Many children grow up having spent very little one-on-one time with their parents as individuals. Giving of your time is a gift of incomparable value to your children.

The point is, when you are willing to give from the abundance of your heart there is never any shortage of gifts or lack of opportunities. The idea that we are obligated to give at certain times and in certain ways has distorted the whole concept of giving. Which would you rather receive – a gift from the heart or one that came from a sense of obligation and social pressure?

Expand your heart and experience deeper satisfaction

Once we begin to experiment with different ways of helping others we may discover a wide array of surprising benefits.  Helping others is always a worthwhile pursuit all on its own, and that’s how we should view it.  But in reality, most forms of giving also include receiving on some level.

That’s because there is a special kind of satisfaction that comes only through giving.  In fact I don’t believe it is possible to experience a deeply satisfying and fulfilling life without a personal commitment to contributing to others in positive ways.

Happiness is the byproduct of giving from the heart

We can expect to experience a powerful internal transformation once we embrace the role of a contributor.  It automatically initiates a quantum shift in our values and beliefs.  Our perception of what is important in life takes on a new dimension and our concept of reality begins to expand around the desire to help others.

A willingness to contribute should always be fueled by an unselfish desire to give without any thought of getting something in return.  Even so, those you help will often express gratitude.  Once your heart is touched by the grateful appreciation of another, you will be hooked on giving.  The experience of receiving on that level expands your heart and changes your sense of identity. In some very tangible and amazing ways, giving is truly a gift.

Are you in touch with your inner philanthropist?
Has the gift of a smile ever touched your heart?
The lines are open!

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I love simple solutions to seemingly complex issues, don’t you? So often we seem to complicate the daylights out of things by overanalyzing, dissecting and brainstorming. I gravitate toward simple whenever possible.

Asking yourself the right question is one of the simplest ways to direct your thoughts in a positive direction without jumping through a bunch of mental or emotional hoops. What are the right questions? In particular, those that stimulate your mind to consider new possibilities or interrupt our established response patterns.

Why do questions work so well?

As soon as we ask ourselves a question, our mind immediately begins searching for an answer. Our mind thrives on questions because they provide it with incentive, direction and focus. So the right questions give us a simple way to steer our thought processes in a more empowering direction.

In this way questions can be used as simple tools for changing or broadening your perception of the world around you. I regularly use the following three questions with my coaching clients to lead their thinking away from limiting thought patterns and toward thoughts of new possibilities.

1. What else could this mean? We all assign different meaning to everything in life. The meaning is different for each of us because our beliefs about almost everything are based on our personal interpretation of, and our response to, our unique life experience. These beliefs serve as filters through which we view our world and the people in it.

Because we all have a vested emotional interest in our personal belief system, we are constantly looking for evidence that our beliefs are true and accurate. This emotional investment can cause us to cling to a belief even in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary.

How can we override this emotional security system and open our belief system to new possibilities? Simply asking ourselves “What else could this mean?” will switch off the emotional defenses and allow new possibilities to be considered and explored.

2. Who can help me with this? Human nature seems to be such that we always want to figure everything out ourselves. With most people there is a certain amount of resistance to asking for help or assistance. Apparently this is hardwired into us because even very young children will say “I can do it myself.” Don’t get me wrong, I have a great appreciation for self-sufficiency. But insisting that we must do everything ourselves can also stifle our progress in numerous ways.

Let’s face it, we only have so much time and resources, and no one is good at everything. Whatever it is that we want to do, someone else already knows how to do it. How much time and frustration could we save by getting them to either teach us how to do it, or do it for us?

For example, in the world of entrepreneurs, trying to do everything yourself can create huge delays. The quickest path to success is to stick to doing the things you are good at and have others help you with the rest. In fact, realizing the wisdom of this approach is one of the main reasons why so many people now enlist the services of a life or business coach. Want to achieve your goals quicker and easier? Start by asking yourself “Who else can help me with this?

3. What am I grateful for right now? There is probably no other question that will change your attitude as quickly or dramatically. It doesn’t matter what situation or circumstances you find yourself in, you always have something to be grateful for. Being aware of, and focusing on, your blessings regularly will profoundly alter your perception of reality.

The more you focus on gratitude the more reasons you will find to appreciate your life. As a result, the happier and more content you will be. It’s been said that the happiest people are not the ones who have the best of everything; rather they are the ones who are grateful for everything they have. How many other simple strategies do you know that can make such a claim?

This one is so simple and powerful that you can’t afford not to incorporate into your life daily. Why not stop reading for a moment and prove it by simply asking yourself, “What am I grateful for right now?”

Are you ready to amaze yourself?

As you can plainly see, asking the right questions can produce amazing results. The challenge is that most of the time we fail to take conscious control of the questions we ask ourselves. I encourage you to reverse that trend starting right now. In this increasingly complex and confusing world, these three simple questions truly can change your life.

Do you have a favorite question to add?
Have you used any of these questions with success?
The lines are open!

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Do you want to be happy and successful? The answer is obvious, we all want those things. In addition, we would also like to feel loved, appreciated, and valued. We all have the same basic human needs and the desire to feel fulfilled in these areas is a normal part of our emotional makeup.

Most of the articles I write focus on practical strategies for creating positive changes in your life because I want to help you fill those important basic needs so that you can enjoy a higher quality of life. But there is another vital aspect to living a happy, healthy, and successful life that is often overlooked. In fact, this is so vitally important that if you leave out this one thing, those other strategies probably won’t do you much good. Any idea what I am talking about?

You must get permission first

I know it sounds strange, but it really is true. Before you can be truly happy or feel deeply loved and appreciated, you need to get permission. Otherwise, you might end up feeling unsuccessful or unloved even in the presence of love and success.

How could this be?

We all have an internal system of emotional checks and balances. This system is influenced by our response to different life experiences and is calibrated according to what we think we deserve. If our system is calibrated too low, we will start to feel out of balance whenever we begin to experience success in any area of life. This is because internally we will sense that we don’t actually deserve it, and this will cause a very subtle emotional conflict.

Recalibrate your system of emotional checks and balances

Self-sabotaging behavior is one of the ways that internal conflict seeks to right itself and restore balance. Another way is by denying any evidence that we are receiving something that we don’t deserve.

This means that we will either adjust our actions to undermine whatever success we have created, or we will simply refuse to acknowledge it. The only positive way out of this negative feedback loop is to recalibrate the whole system. But remember, this internal system of checks and balances is emotional, not logical. So, how do we bypass the conflicting feelings and dial up what we think we deserve?

Give yourself permission to live an exceptional life

The permission to be happy, healthy, successful, loved, appreciated, and valued can only come from one source. It must come from you! It doesn’t matter what anyone else thinks you are capable of or deserve. It only matters what you can convince yourself to believe.

By giving yourself permission to fill your most basic human needs abundantly, you can completely override your system of checks and balances. You don’t need to feel that you deserve happiness; you just need your own permission to fully experience it. There is no reason to make happiness, love or success conditional. You don’t need to measure up to some self-imposed standard so that you feel like you deserve it. All you need is your own permission!

Replace deserve with willingness to accept

If I offered you a million dollars, what would you do? Would you refuse my gift on the basis that you didn’t do anything to earn it, or would you gladly accept it? I am pretty sure you would accept it whether you felt like you did something to earn it or not.

Why should happiness be any different? You can’t earn happiness, but you can give yourself permission to accept happiness into your life. If you want to feel loved, appreciated, and valued, start by feeling that way about yourself. Then give yourself permission to be willing to accept those feelings from others.

Uphold your standards, but let go of conditional living

I am not saying that we shouldn’t strive to be the best possible version of ourselves because I believe that we should. What I am saying is that we should not withhold the fulfillment of our most basic human needs until we feel like we have earned them.

You already deserve to be happy and successful. You also deserve to feel loved, appreciated, and valued. But you won’t fully experience any of those wonderful feelings until you give yourself permission to accept them into your life.

Have you been trying to earn happiness?
Are you willing to let go of what you think you deserve?
The lines are open!

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Learning how to let go of conditional living and give yourself permission to feel happy, successful, and loved is just one of the ways that one-on-one coaching can help transform the quality of your life. Breakthrough Strategy Coaching

What if I said that conventional thinking is at best only a beginning, and often just leads to a dead end?

Not only that, but what if I also said that it has a way of limiting our beliefs and closing our minds to the possibility of living an extraordinary life of true happiness.

Why would I say such a thing?

Because conventional thinking is based on widely accepted assumptions which may, or may not, be true. Either way, these assumptions are designed to channel you into the vast sea of normality. In fact, conventional thinking is custom tailored to make you normal.

What’s wrong with normal?

Well, there’s nothing wrong with normal if that’s what you want. But before you rally to the defense of normal, let’s stop and consider what normal really means these days. For example: Do you want a normal marriage? If so, then that means you are willing to accept a 50-50 chance that your marriage will end in divorce. That’s normal.

Do you want the normal amount of happiness? Well, that means there is about a one in three chance that you will wind up with depression, anxiety, or some other kind of happiness disorder. Are you okay with those odds?

How about a normal income? Keep in mind that there are plenty of people with a “normal income” who have lost their homes in the last few years because they can’t afford to pay their bills. Do you want to work full time and still not have enough money to live on? Sadly, that’s a pretty normal scenario.

Is that really what you want?

The socially acceptable concept of normal is built entirely on a foundation of conventional thinking. To truly think and live outside the box, we need to recognize who built the box in the first place. We need to acknowledge that doing things, and thinking about things, the same way everybody else does will not lead to happiness or help us achieve our dreams.

I want to encourage you to stop and consider some of the ways that conventional thinking actually limits your life and your happiness. But first, you need to recognize that conventional thinking is based on a certain kind of belief system. And this belief system has been instilled in us from a very young age.

That being the case, it’s perfectly understandable that challenging our accepted conventional wisdom, and the corresponding beliefs, might feel a little uncomfortable at first. After all, our long held beliefs are all tied up with our personal identity. On an emotional level, they are almost sacred. So, here’s what I propose…

Let’s do it anyway!

Regardless of our emotional investment in our current beliefs, and our acceptance of conventional thinking, if they are limiting us, then we need to look elsewhere. If they don’t lead to greater happiness then we need to find out what does. Let’s consider a few foundational myths and see if what we have been taught is really serving us.

Myth #1. The key to happiness is a good education. The implication here is that a good education will lead to a higher income, a more rewarding life experience, and ultimately, greater happiness. Well, it can lead to a higher income in some cases, so that part might be true. And if by “more rewarding life” we mean materially rewarding, then there could be some truth here as well.

We also need to admit that income and material possessions have very little to do with happiness. I have worked with plenty of unhappy rich people, and more money did not lead to greater happiness. In addition, there are tens of thousands of highly educated and qualified people looking for employment these days.

Now here are a couple of real myth busters. Of the truly happy people on earth, most are of modest means, living a simple life, and finding happiness in simple pleasures. On the flip side, the richest people I know are not highly educated in the conventional ways. They are very smart, but their learning took place off campus, in the real world.

Myth #2. Other people can make you happy. This one is instilled in us rather than taught to us, but it finds its way to our core beliefs none the less. I’m not saying that we can’t gain a lot of happiness through meaningful relationships, because we can. But in those situations we make a choice, conscious or otherwise, to find happiness in the value of those relationships. The other people don’t make us happy, we actually do that ourselves.

Believing the childhood fairytale of “grow up, meet the right person, and live happily ever after” creates totally unrealistic expectations. It anchors happiness to an external source and puts it out of our control. Buying into that myth sets us up for massive disappointment and heartache.

If we don’t take responsibility for our own happiness, we will never be truly happy. Instead, we will always be looking for that perfect someone to be responsible for our happiness. Not only is that unrealistic, but it’s also an unfair burden to put on someone else. Especially, someone you truly care about.

Myth #3. You have limits. Getting past this one requires a complete paradigm shift for most people. The concept of “I can’t” is the epitome of conventional thinking and the granddaddy of limiting beliefs. I’m here to tell you that 99% of all your limits are in your mind. We cut our teeth on the “you have limits” myth and it becomes the backbone of our entire core belief system.

Do you want to know why so few people ever realize even a tiny degree of their real potential? Why so many never experience true happiness, or find real meaning in life? Why you hesitate to reach out and grab the life you truly want?

The reason is simple. A very long time ago someone told you that “you can’t,” and you believed it. From that point on, conventional thinking has been reinforcing that belief. Here’s what I say to that.

Yes you can

Repeat after me, Yes I can. Yes, I can be happy. Yes, I can have the life I want. Yes, I can live up to my potential. Yes, I can absolutely accomplish whatever I set out to do.

How did that feel? Was it a little uncomfortable? Was the voice of your limiting beliefs saying “no you can’t” in the background? That’s the voice of conventional thinking calling you to step away from possibility and opportunity. That voice needs to be silenced, and I want to help.

A new focus for Advanced Life Skills

I have decided to adopt a new cause and to shift the focus of this blog slightly. I want to help you think outside the bounds of conventional wisdom. In other words, outside the box. The box was created by conventional wisdom and something more is needed to go beyond it.

Reaching your true potential requires a different kind of wisdom. It means developing a completely different concept about what is possible and a whole new attitude about life in general. It also requires a different set of life skills in order to produce a higher quality of results. That is exactly what I want to explore with you.

How do you feel about breaking the bonds of conventional thinking?
Can you solved a problem using the same logic that created it?
The lines are open!

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When you are busy working toward a long term goal do you find it difficult to maintain your focus? Does it seem like your life requires you to play so many different roles that it is almost impossible to stay focused on any one project for very long?

When our attention gets spread too thin it can be challenging to stay motivated over the long run. Projects that we are passionate about keep getting shoved into the background and end up taking much, much longer that we thought they would.

How can we maintain our enthusiasm and keep our focus with so many distractions? What steps can we take to regain some control of our schedule? How can we bring a greater sense of joy into our daily routine?

11 tips for getting more enjoyment out of every day

1. Value simplicity. The simpler things are the less distracted we will be. This means we need to de-clutter our environment and our minds.  For some reason we seem to accumulate physical, mental, and emotional clutter. So we end up rushing from one demanding situation to another with no real feeling of accomplishment. To quiet our minds and restore a sense of order to our lives we need to value simplicity.

2. Experience your activities. How often are you doing one thing and thinking about another? How can we find enjoyment in anything if our focus is somewhere else? If we never take the time to actually be in the moment then can we say that we are really living our life? Even the most mundane activities can be enjoyable if we stay centered on the actual experience. In this over stimulated, out of balance and hectic world, simple activities fully experienced can be enjoyable if we let them.

3. Savor the little things. The next time you eat a piece of fruit or enjoy a cup of coffee or tea, simply enjoy it. Wrap your senses around it and savor the experience. When we gulp down our food and rush off to whatever comes next, we are actually robbing ourselves of pleasure. Our senses of smell and taste are connected to our brains pleasure center. When you savor what goes into your body you tend to eat less and enjoy it more.

4. Add variety to your routine. Don’t be afraid to try something new. It could be something as simple as taking a different route to get to work or as complex as learning to play a musical instrument. Instead of turning on the television  after dinner, try going for a walk in the evening air. Right now is an excellent time to do something you’ve always wanted to do, but have never gotten around to because someday may never come.

5. Make time for what you love. If all we ever did was work on and attend to our obligations it could become difficult to keep finding joy in our day-to-day experience. It’s important to take care of our responsibilities, but we should also try to balance the “need to do” activities with a few things we really want to do. If we never make the time to do things we are excited about, we could easily start resenting our lives. That’s why it is important to make time every day for the things we really enjoy.

6. Drop unnecessary commitments. Just as we need to make time for doing things we love, we also need to work toward minimizing the things that just consume time and energy with no real payoff. Granted, some things simply aren’t negotiable, but other so-called obligations aren’t really necessary. For each commitment ask yourself if this is something that’s really adding to your life. Is it enhancing your life, or is it just adding more stress? If it doesn’t add any positive benefit, drop it.

7. Focus on what matters. There is productivity and there is busy work. Sometimes it can be difficult to recognize the difference because it varies for each of us. Here’s an example: For someone whose livelihood comes from social media marketing, spending time on sites like Twitter and Facebook might represent productivity. For others however, anything more than 5-10 minutes on those sites might just be a distraction from what really matters. It’s up to each of us to analyze our own situation and apportion our time accordingly.

8. Learn to just let go. When it comes to relaxation the body follows the mind. If your mind is busy obsessing over all the things that didn’t get done today, then you are not relaxed. Your body can only experience relaxation if your mind has let go of anything and everything that causes stress, worry, or anxiety. You will enjoy your life a lot more if you take some time every day to practice letting go.

9. Embrace generosity. There are almost endless opportunities to contribute to the lives of others. Any act of kindness is an act of generosity. Smile at strangers, hold the door open for the person behind you, listen while someone else is talking, and be respectful. These simple acts of kindness don’t cost you anything, but they add enjoyment to your life and the lives of those around you.

10. Do a daily gratitude review. Focusing on gratitude will change your life on every level. It is so easy to get caught up in selfish pursuits and forget how much there is to be grateful for. Gratitude is the antidote for selfishness. If you take a minute every morning and every evening to review your blessings, you will start to notice more and more things to be grateful for. Of all the ways to get more enjoyment out of every day, this is the simplest and the most powerful. If you only put one thing from this list into action in your life, this should be it.

11. Examine your priorities. Life is an ever changing experience and that means that we need to reevaluate our priorities on a regular basis. Make sure you know what is truly important to you, and why. Give your top priorities first place in your life or they will get swallowed up by everything else. Everyone you know probably has an opinion about what should be important to you. Keep in mind that this is your life and you need to set your own priorities. Choose wisely and you too will find enjoyment in your every day life.

Did any of these points resonate with you?
Do you have a special tip for more daily enjoyment?
The lines are open!

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We all have a certain image of ourselves. This mental image is based on our personal assessment of our abilities, looks, intelligence, popularity and any number of other personal qualities. Our emotional evaluation of that image will determine our level of self-esteem.

Even though we tend to think that our self-image is accurate and based on reality, it’s not. People rarely see themselves objectively because we view everything through a complex set of perception filters. We simply can’t help but see ourselves through the window of our beliefs about who we think we are. Life is entirely about perspective and each of us has our own unique perception of reality.

What kind of self-image do you have?

Is your view of yourself empowered by feelings of self-confidence, or is it clouded with limiting thoughts of self-doubt? Have you unknowingly placed invisible boundaries on what you are able to achieve because of hidden limiting beliefs, or do you see a world of limitless possibilities ripe with opportunity? What you see is directly related to the way you respond to your own self-image.

But if self-image is based on perception, then we should be able to change it, right? Well, we can! How would you like to develop a custom made perception of your own abilities? How about a mindset where you know for certain that anything is possible, and where feelings of doubt, resentment, and failure no longer exert their influence on you?

Self-image and your expectations

It all starts with the mental picture you hold of yourself; your internal self-image. In order for you to free up your vast hidden potential, you need to learn to fully appreciate just how unique and valuable you really are. You also need to understand that no matter where you are in life, you have the ability to unleash enormous potential and create unprecedented change.

You are the one who gets to decide what you get out of life. If you are truly convinced that you deserve a life of abundance and joy, you will find a way to create that reality. On the other hand, if you don’t see how such a life is possible, or if you hold the feeling that you don’t deserve “the good life,” your results will probably meet your expectations.

We can all benefit from an updated image

Your self-image can limit you, or empower you, to a much greater degree than most people think possible. If your self-image is an outdated old picture left over from an unhappy or emotionally taxing time, it probably isn’t serving you very well. Not only that, but it doesn’t even represent the person you really are. All it does is hold you back!

Many people carry around deeply ingrained beliefs anchored to undesirable events from the past. Those beliefs are not only limiting, they are also obsolete. Dismantling them and replacing them with new, updated, empowering beliefs will completely change your self-image. As a result, your self-esteem will skyrocket. Remember, self-esteem is based on our emotional evaluation of our self-image.

Change your filters, change your life

We live in a world that can and does overwhelm many people. Learning to maintain a positive mental and emotional perspective is a very valuable skill. It can quite literally change the way we see ourselves and the world around us. But a positive emotional perspective needs to be based on a positive self-image or it won’t be able to hold up under pressure.

To rebuild our self-image and bolster our self-esteem we need to start on a very core level. We need to get in touch with our TRUE SELF and harmonize our beliefs and actions with the person that we really are. We also need to let go of unrealistic negative baggage that isn’t serving us. I know it sounds like a tall order, but remember; this is your quality of life we are talking about.

3 steps to creating a more empowering self-image

1. Figure out who you really are and what you stand for. You are not your job, your friends, or the results you produce. You are someone with core values and standards. To create an empowering self-image you need to get in touch with those values. Once you do, then do your very best to live by them. This will create a sense of inner harmony and purpose.

2. Let go of pride and embrace self-honesty. When we lie to ourselves about who we are it creates internal conflict. You don’t need pretenses to be worthy of your own approval. We all have shortcomings and it is perfectly alright to admit it. Having room for improvement doesn’t make us less of a person, but lying to ourselves does.

3. Always choose the higher path. Don’t cut corners on the journey of life and don’t violate your personal ethics for any reason. Once you figure out what you stand for, then stand firm – your self-image depends on it. This world is full of people who will do anything to gain an advantage. Never ever stoop to that level. Choose the high road and you will discover the unmatched advantage that comes with an empowering self-image and a health self-esteem.

Do you think self-image is really that important?
Have you thought about self-esteem from this angle before?
The lines are open!

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We would all like to think that we make up our own minds as to what is pleasurable and what is painful.  In reality we are constantly being conditioned by our environment to link certain things with pain or pleasure.

Can you think of any environmental influences that are conditioning your feelings about what is pleasurable and what is painful? Learning to recognize these influences is an important step toward seizing control of your personal pleasure and pain paradigms.

6 sources of external pain and pleasure programming

1. Advertisers. The entire advertising industry is based on the idea that they can influence our internal references to pain and pleasure. As a whole this industry spends billions of dollars each year to study human behavior. They do this because their goal is to link their products to our emotions.  Their advertising campaigns are specifically designed to create subconscious emotional associations (anchors) in us without our being aware of it.

2. Friends and associates. The attitude of our close friends and associates also has a powerful influence on our personal pleasure and pain paradigms.  Their opinions can actually precondition us to view things the way that they do.  We may value someone else’s opinion so much that we subconsciously adopt their viewpoint without any personal experience.

3. Experts. So called experts carry incredible weight when it comes to overriding our opinions about a wide variety of things. By positioning themselves as the voice of authority, it psychologically downgrades the validity of our own thoughts and feelings. This positioning is designed so that we will adopt the attitude of “they’re the expert, so who am I to question them.” Is it any wonder that advertisers like pharmaceutical companies love this approach?

5. Groups. Trying to gain the approval of, or fit in with, a group can also shape and reshape our preferences.  In such cases acceptance often hinges on our ability to conform to the group opinion. It’s the old majority rules mentality that has been ingrained in us since childhood. It is hard to avoid slipping into the thought pattern of “If all these people agree then they must be right, so I better get onboard or I’ll look like a fool.” Conformity can cause otherwise rational people to abandon their standards and go with the crowd. Pushed to the extreme it becomes mob mentality.

6. Stereotypes. Forming stereotypes is one of the tools our mind uses so we don’t need to continually reconsider the same thing over and over again. Our minds tend to group similar experiences into general categories. If we encounter a new experience that seems to fit into one of these categories it saves us the time and energy involved in evaluation. So, if something fits into a category that has always resulted in pain, we will naturally assume that this similar something will cause pain as well.

For example, if every time you try to go on vacation you wind up having car trouble, in the future you will probably expect more of the same.  The very thought of vacation may conjure up an image of being stuck on the side of the road, waiting for a tow truck.  As a result, an activity designed to bring you pleasure now represents pain.

Take control of this process

The important point to remember here is that we need to develop the ability to decide for ourselves what we will view as pleasurable and what we will view as painful.  If we don’t take control of this process, then the world around us will take over our internal programming.

If we allow that to happen, then instead of controlling our environment, we will end up being controlled by it.  Because the pain and pleasure dynamic has such a powerful influence on our lives, we owe it to ourselves to take personal responsibility for how we choose to view things.

Your answers create your paradigms

Whenever something happens in your life, your brain will ask two questions. First, “Is this going to bring me pain or pleasure?” Second, “What must I do now to avoid the pain and/or gain the pleasure?”

How you choose to interpret the situation will determine your answers. But more than that, it will also form the foundation for your future expectations. If you want less pain and more pleasure in your life, this is a good place to start.

How strong are these external influences in your life?
Can you see the value of choosing you own paradigms?
The lines are open!

This is part 3 in a 3 part series of articles dealing with pain and pleasure paradigms.  For the rest of the story, check out…
Part 1: The Power of Pain and Pleasure Paradigms
Part 2: More Pleasure – Less Pain

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There are a couple of things that I’d like to clarify regarding our emotional desire to seek pleasure and avoid pain.  It’s not the actual pain or pleasure that drives us, it is really something else. Any idea what that is?

Our desire to avoid pain is really based on fear. What fear? The fear of taking any action that feels like it might lead to pain.

Likewise, it’s not the actual pleasure that motivates us to take action, but our belief that a certain action will lead to a pleasurable experience. So, our movement in either direction is a response to our perception of where that action will lead.

The power of anticipation and anxiety

Have you ever noticed that the anticipation of the pain we think might result from a certain action is generally much worse than the actual experience?  Here’s an example, if you’ve ever done any public speaking it’s usually the 10 or 15 minutes just before you get on stage that creates the greatest anxiety.

You may experience all kinds of symptoms like an increased heart rate, a rise in body temperature and a nauseous feeling in your stomach.  At this point are any of these symptoms the result of actual public speaking? No, they are caused by your estimation of what the experience will be like, not by the actual activity.

Speaking from my own personal experiences and those of other public speakers that I know, everyone agrees that the anxiety that comes before hand generally vanishes as soon as they begin speaking.  Anxiety of course, is a form of fear.

Where does the fear come from?

There are so many different kinds of fear that it is impossible to label them all, but it is possible to identify where they all come from. The reason we can do that is because fear is always related to one or more of these three primary human desires.

1) A desire for approval
2) A desire for control
3) A desire to feel secure

If you examine any fear, whether it’s the fear of rejection, fear of failure, or fear of loss, you will discover that, on an emotional level, it represents a perceived threat to our sense of approval, sense of control, or sense of security.

Fear grows or shrinks with focus

Take the example of our public speaker.  Once he gets on stage and focuses on his topic, he can settle down and enjoy the experience.  But during the 10 to 15 minutes before he gets on stage, he is not thinking about his topic, instead he is focused on himself.  He is wondering if he’ll have the approval of his audience, if he’ll have control of his voice and body language, and the anxiety is making him feel insecure.

The solution is to focus on the outcome, the feeling of satisfaction and approval that will come from a job well done.  By visualizing a pleasurable outcome there is a complete shift the focus.  Excitement replaces anxiety and the expectation of pleasure replaces fear.  Moving toward a pleasurable outcome is a pleasurable experience so it is one we can look forward to.

Choosing less pain and more pleasure

Now we can see that one way to avoid pain and move toward pleasure is simply to change our focus.  In our example, a short-term focus created pain in the form of fear and anxiety, while a long-term focus turned the whole experience into a pleasurable one.

Once we understand the relationship between focus and pain or pleasure, we can easily change our perception of any experience.  By controlling your focus you give yourself the ability to decide whether an experience will be painful or pleasurable. Then you can choose pleasure over pain.

Can you think of time when…
~ The anxiety was worse than the reality?
~ The anticipation was better than the reality?
~ The reality never happened and the fear was for nothing?
The lines are open!

This is part 2 in a 3 part series of articles dealing with pain and pleasure paradigms.  If it seems like I started in the middle of the story, check out…
Part 1: The Power of Pain and Pleasure Paradigms
Part 3: Creating Your own Pain and Pleasure Paradigms

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