Humans beings work in very specific ways. One of the things our brain does for us is to consolidate and streamline the habits we practice into the fewest number of groups possible.

This is a metaphor as our habits aren’t stored in paper files or cabinets, and most habitual behaviors are not localized in the brain. The “sorting”, if you want to call it that, seems to occur on the basis of matching features in external phenomena or internal “mental representations” (another metaphor but we will have to leave it for later discussion) Continue reading this post

We’re going to take a little more time today with this one as it is both big and important, while curiously at the same time being straightforward and practical to shift.

What is fascinating is, by nature, binding. What we are fascinated by binds our attention and energy.

With the bombardment of images and values that we experience, — Continue reading this post

Your Snag List…

…is a list you create of all the things that:

• you’re meaning to do “someday”
• dreams and fantasies from the past that keep “popping up” or “hanging around”
• issues that you really are planning to sort out… some day… but — Continue reading this post

This is a perpetual list exercise. Please start it now, and keep doing it.

It’s a magic key to changing your sense of resourcefulness, and a few other things, for the better, permanently.

List out every (or as many as you can remember at a specific time):

• Course or workshop you’ve ever attended and what you learned from it.
• “College” is a bit vague – break it down e.g. Prof. Rappoport’s ‘Introduction to Philosophical Enquiry’, etc.
• “NLP courses”… again, break it down
• Lecture or talk you’ve ever attended and what you learned from it.
• Every book that’s touched your heart, influenced you or had an impact, and what that was.
• Every teacher or person who has had a positive impact on your life.
• Hobbies or interests and what you got from them.
• Any experience that might qualify as a resource

Keep going to exhaustion on each occasion (if time permits). This is one time where exhaustion is good thing to pursue. You might find it impossible to reach the end of your experiences…

At first, do this regularly – every day works for some, every few days for others, but keep the periods regular and frequent enough that your brain can connect the activity up as something you will keep doing.

You are building a filtering and retrieval strategy on resources and focusing your success system on what you have and can use.

After the initial period of weeks or months, set the list aside and come back to after a break.

Over time, occasionally re-draft your list, considering and performing different arrangements of the items – not merely by category or type of experience but by the lessons learned, or how you applied or used what you learned.

Allow your mind to find new arrangements and insights.

Over a period of years as you add to and refine your arrangements; you will discover many things that you had forgotten; but more importantly, your memory will become pliant to your desires for retrieval of resource information and greater utility in application of what you learned.

You are teaching your brain to re-think and re-view and use what you have – the picture of resourcefulness.

Success in this exercise invariably creates a sense of non-problematical strength (not a bigger ego but a calmer ego); and a sense of greater ease in the face of challenges.

You will have “done it enough” when your sense of resourcefulness becomes unquestionably stronger and resilient – you don’t stop at “don’t know” EVER; you never collapse into self-pity; you are able to assess resource requirements for your projects easily, and not having what you need immediately to hand causes no stress or concern.

This is a “choose one; work many” piece that is also “the easy way” – a rare combination and worth pursuing.

One of the secrets of fast mastery and quicker systemic change is to CHOOSE ONE; WORK MANY.

What this means is that there are certain parts or components of a skills set that are also parts in a range of other behaviors – whether for good or ill.

By selecting one of these KEY or CRITICAL components of several — Continue reading this post