Category: Attitude Adjustment

Hiker walking uphill
Oct 20

Building Resilience After a Setback

Setbacks are part of life. A job falls through, a relationship ends or a plan you worked hard on comes apart. Some people seem to steady themselves faster than others. The good news is that this ability is not fixed.

Healthdirect, the Australian Government health information service, describes resilience as the ability to bounce back from life’s challenges. It notes that you cannot always stop stressful things from happening. What you can do is build up your capacity to cope with them. That happens mostly through small habits repeated over time.

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Jun 16

Try Not, Do or Do Not

Master Yoda (our little green friend from Star Wars) said something to Luke Skywalker in Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back.

Episode V

He said: “try not, do or do not”. Luke was ‘trying’ to lift his aircraft using his Jedi powers, and he failed.

If you are an NLP Practitioner, you know about the power of words.

The words ‘try’ and ‘do’ have a neurological effect on the brain and to some micro-muscles in our body that impact your performance when you do anything.

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Sep 8

The Only Real Use for Your Critical Voice

Self-awareness is often the first step towards growth. But is there any drawback to being a person who’s keenly aware of his environment, his actions and the people around him?

You betcha.

It’s a tendency to kick himself in the ass for all the mistakes he’s seen himself make throughout the day.

You see, the more aware a person is, the more he’s able to notice when he flubs up.

That’s when his critical voice kicks in; ‘how could you have done that, I can’t believe you said that, you should have known better, yadda yadda yadda now no-one will ever love you and everyone in the universe will know you’re such a total loser!’

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Jul 26

Who Owns You?

Who owns you really?

Is it email? TV? Fame? Money? Is it what you drive? What you have or don’t have? That new toy you just can’t live without? Is it your past? Someone you haven’t seen in years? Is it what people say you are? Is it what others think of you? Is it what you believe? Is it your own voice or the voices of others?

Who owns you? You or somebody else?

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May 4

Why Stop Bitching When it is Therapeutic?

I was facilitating a team-building session when an interestingly hostile participant threw this spanner:

“My leader is obliged to hear me bitch about things at work! It is therapeutic and allows me to work better!”

Being the hard-headed fool that I am, I nodded my head in acknowledgement of her comment. Effectively attracting the spanner to fly my way. She pointed to me and declared with aplomb:

“See, even the coach here agrees with me!”

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Apr 15

Who Leads Your Reality?

What’s the difference between someone who’s led around by the nose and someone who does the leading?

In Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP), we learn about the Law of Prerequisite Variety: the element in any system that has the most flexibility will end up leading the system.

Think of little children, they have incredible flexibility. To get you to do something, they’ll tease, cajole, beg, lie, cry, laugh, use logic, use emotion, jump up and down, be adorable, be funny, and they’ll keep doing it until they get what they want.

Adults seem to have 2 or 3 patterns they keep coming back to 😛

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Jan 10

What Steve Jobs, CEO of Apple, Said On Courage & Death

In 2004, Steve Jobs, CEO of Apple Computer, was diagnosed with pancreas cancer. The doctor told him it was almost certainly incurable and told him he no more than 3 to 6 months to live.

What would you do if you were told today you had less than 3 to 6 months to live?

The reality of death, limited time and chances is a very real one we have to face every single day. We tend to forget, and bask in the glow of our comfort zones, letting each day go by and conveniently forget that one day, this too shall pass.

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Dec 18

Why Go On When Life Is Meaningless?

I was re-watching The Matrix Revolutions the other day during a nice little party with my friends.

We were just finishing the chicken wings when we got to this scene near the end of the movie (spoiler alert if you haven’t already seen it!). I loved it because it highlights the key to the question; why go on if you feel life is meaningless?

Agent Smith: Why, Mr. Anderson, why? Why, why do you do it? Why, why get up? Why keep fighting?

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Oct 19

What Are You Grateful For Today?

After watching The Pianist, the true story of how Vladislav Spelman survived the Holocaust as a Jew living in occupied Poland, I wasn’t only struck by the horrors he endured, but also by how privileged I was living my own life.

One of the most effective ways to stop worrying and boost your personal power is to simply focus on what you can, right now, with what you have.

Another way is to acknowledge what you already have in your life right now that you’re grateful for. The little things that you take for granted in the hustle and bustle of everyday life, that already make your life sparkle if you’d only see them with renewed eyes.

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Oct 4

What To Do When You Make Mistakes

Taking a leaf from Senia’s wonderful quotes posts, and because I seem to have made a few this past week (ouch!), here’s what greatness has had to say about what to do when you make mistakes.

Cicero:

We must not say every mistake is a foolish one.

George Bernard Shaw:

A life spent making mistakes is not only more honorable, but more useful than a life spent doing nothing.

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Aug 15

9 Steps to Transform Stress into Strength

If you’ve noticed I didn’t write much the previous week, it’s because work has been crazy and I’ve been under a lot of stress.

I’m sure you’ve been there too, haven’t you?

So how do we thrive in the midst of stress? How do we transform stress into strength so that when the going gets tough, the tough get going?

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Mar 2

What Are You Doing About It?

One of the quickest ways I’ve found to stop people when they go overdrive into victim mode with their complain stories is to just stop, and ask them in the midst of a ranting session; ‘So what are you doing about it?’

A bit harsh I know, but I only pull it out when there’s desperation involved: they’re desperate to change, in which case they’re committed to hearing whatever it takes, or I’m desperate, because they don’t look like they’re going to stop whining :p
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Feb 17

How To Suck and Still Be On Top

Ahem, disregarding the highly suggestive title of this post…

I’m going to tell you how to suck and still be on top…in a personal development sort of way. Only.

😉

I got this idea from reading Death by risk-aversion on the always good Creating Passionate Users. While Kathy talks about risk aversion in the state of companies, you can also read it through as it applies to you, personally.
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Feb 14

7 Days of Gratitude: Day 7

Today I met up with an old schoolmate of mine, we’ve known each other for nearly 9 years now and he’s one of the best friends I have.

We went to the Esplanade roof-top, a cultural building just besides the river. And as we both laid there on the wooden floor, just lazing and gazing up at the sky, he said; ‘how often do you get to just lie here on a monday afternoon on the roof of the Esplanade, watching the sky and looking at planes flying overhead leaving little cloud trails in their wake?’
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Feb 13

7 Days of Gratitude: Day 6

Oops…apologies again for being late! Been out late again 😉

Yesterday was an interesting day. I got to make a new friend recently and last night we went out for the first time. It was a new opportunity to make a friend and I’m really grateful for that, especially since one of my goals this year is to widen my social circle.

Yay, goal accomplishing! 🙂

What about you? What’s one goal or direction in your life that you’re grateful to have accomplished?

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Feb 12

7 Days of Gratitude: Day 5

I apologize for being 2 hours, 40 minutes behind on the 5th day of gratitude…I’ve been out til late 😉

It was my friend Gabriel’s birthday earlier this week, and I met him today for some coffee and to pass him his birthday gift (one of my favorite books; Veronika Decides to Die). We had a nice chat, had dinner with his girlfriend and friends, and decided to go play LAN games afterwards (DOTA Allstars on Frozen Throne, one of my all-time favorites!).
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Feb 10

7 Days of Gratitude: Day 4

Today is my brother’s birthday, and since I was staying at home, I got to watch my home lovingly prepare a wonderful dinner and cake for him.

I really love my mom.

She works so hard to take care of everything in the house so that the rest of us can do what we do. I don’t care what anyone else says, being a homemaker is as tough a job, and as important a job as they come, and it deserves the ultimate respect.

I’m very grateful to have such a loving person in my life. Today I’m grateful for my mom.

So today’s coach’s challenge to you is this, who is one person that you’re absolutely grateful to have in your life?

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Feb 9

7 Days of Gratitude: Day 3

This 7 Days of Gratitude is going places I never imagined.

I’m typing this as it just happened, a few minutes ago. I was on my way home from the neighbourhood gym when I saw a downed motorcycle at the traffic light. I saw a few people rush over to help and so did I, and when I helped lift the motorcycle up I saw her: a little girl of 8 had been hit and was lying crying on the ground.

The men helped carry her over to the side of the road while I called for an ambulance. I noticed, however, that her mom wasn’t showing the usual high levels of distress or anxiety I’d expect…nevertheless, I made the call, and told her about it.

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Feb 8

7 Days of Gratitude: Day 2

Today has been amazing.

As I was having lunch I bumped into a good friend of mine who happened to be in the area, totally unexpected and out of the blue! It was a good chance meeting, and we had lunch together with his colleague, and afterwards they taught me how to buy the lottery, which I was intending to do but had no idea how (I normally don’t, but it’s a $10 million special draw for the Lunar New Year so I thought why not, keep my fingers crossed!).

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Feb 8

7 Days of Gratitude: Day 1

On the 7 Days of Gratitude Challenge, I wonder if I could cheat a little and start yesterday, because I had such a wonderful day.

My friends and I were meeting at the beach for a nice group dinner, but a couple decided to meet earlier for a seaside jog. I’m not that keen into running, but I love cycling, and volunteered to carry their bags on my bike.

The weather was beautiful. All perfect for an afternoon jog. As the sun went down, I cycled onto a pier and watched the sea, and felt the cool breeze against my skin. I breathed in deep, and felt good to be alive.

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Feb 7

7 days of Gratitude: Intro

Everyone will agree that a positive attitude is one that is essential for peak performance living. One of the key parts to a positive attitude that I outlined in 9 Keys to Overcoming Difficult Times is an attitude that allows us to acknowledge what is already going well in our lives and appreciate them for their value. I’m talking of course, about the attitude of gratitude.

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Feb 4

9 Keys to Overcoming Difficult Times

Lately, I’ve had to deal with a lot of changes happening in my personal life. At first, describing them to my friends, I kept calling them endings, but afterward I began to feel as if it was a process of renewal. There is a Chinese saying that goes ‘if the old doesn’t go, the new cannot come’. Keeping that in mind, I’ve begun to view these difficult events as a shedding of things for me to grow forward, and so I’ve come to call them ‘changes’ instead of ‘endings’.

Difficult as it may, I know a friend who is also going through some tough changes of his own. This post is really for him because I want to share with him some tools I’ve found to be useful for me in managing my emotional state to navigate through the difficult times. I’m prone to worry and depression myself so I’ve had to learn how to pull myself through, and the beliefs and techniques from NLP and Solutions Focused Brief Therapy have helped tremendously.

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Jan 28

A Smile can bring you further than a Mile

It’s been a month since I came back from my Cambodia expedition. But I can still see the smiles of the children vividly and hear them laughing heartily in my ears. Oh gosh, I do miss them a lot.

The smiles they wear on their faces are so different from what I see back here where I lived. It’s not the kind of smile you see from a colleague from another department along the corridor nor is it the kind of smile you get from a distant relative at a family gathering. They are smiles that warm your heart, smiles that brighten your days and smiles that you want to see again and again. (more…)

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Jan 13

A PONDering Moment in Evolution

When was the last time you decide that you have to change something about or around you? How did you decide to change?

There were something that you decided at a certain point that you want to do more of, to have less of, to move away from, to go towards to…you decided that you deserve more, you are going to stay away from…you are sick of it, you are tired, fed up, irritated, frustrated, peeved, and what else not!?

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Dec 30

How has it been a great year?

After reading on somebody’s blog that she had a great year, I started thinking to myself, ‘Did I have a great year?’

Being a somewhat critical person, I realized this was the wrong question to ask because it could only have a ‘yes’ or ‘no’ answer, and my critical voice said ‘no’.

Ok. Restart.

I knew if I wanted a more quality answer I needed to ask a better quality question.

So I applied the ‘What if’ frame and asked myself, ‘What if this has been a great year? What would have made it great?’ Following Paiboon’s post, I came up with 3 highlights for myself: (more…)

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