What if you DIDN’T "know" how it was going to go?

Is there someone in your life that you’d rather avoid? 

Maybe it’s a relative who is always criticizing you, or a co-worker who is demanding and overbearing, or a customer who is never satisfied. Consider this – the feeling you have when you think about that person is based on some event in the past, so you figure you have proof about who they are. Consider that how you feel about that person now has you gearing up, putting on your armor or rehearsing the conversation in your head. Does that sound familiar?

Now consider that your own perception guarantees that the experience will include criticism, demands, and dissatisfaction. It’s what you’re expecting.

Are you willing to try an experiment?

Next time you encounter that person, pretend as though you’ve never met them before. Be sincerely kind and respectful, as you would with someone you just met. You might be really surprised by the response!

And if you’re not – if that person is just as critical, demanding and dissatisfied as they’ve been in the past – you can choose in the moment how to respond. And just maybe that will surprise you, too.

The power of choice

A client asked me recently, "What's the difference between advice and guidance?"

I went to the dictionary first, and found that advice is defined as "an opinion or recommendation offered as a guide to action, conduct, etc." and that guidance is "the act or function of guiding; leadership; direction."

They seem pretty similar, don't they? Maybe there's not really much difference at all.

It's my opinion that advice and guidance are often just that - opinion. And maybe the opinion is based on experience, and maybe not. And maybe that experience is even relevant, and maybe not.

What's useful, when offered advice or guidance, is to remember that we have the power to choose. We can listen to advice, and then determine whether we will follow it or not. We can ask for guidance, and then decide if we are willing to be guided.

For some of us, the best journeys are those of exploration, where there is no guide and we simply experience what's around the next corner in the moment of its unfolding. For others, the journey is best enjoyed when we have some idea what to expect. And neither of these approaches is "better" or "worse" - just different. The gift may be in knowing yourself well enough to follow your own path.

Disappointed by the results of your affirmations? 

Like many of you, I have tried using positive affirmations to change behaviors or beliefs. Initially I got pretty frustrated - I was pretty diligent about the suggested repetitions, but did not feel like I was getting the expected results.

So I quit.

Sound familiar?

Recently I've been listening to the audio book Think and Grow Rich, by Napoleon Hill. If you've never read the book, or listened to the audio version, allow me to recommend it! Especially if, like me, you best absorb information in small chunks, the audio book while driving about town can be particularly effective.

Napoleon Hill wrote this book almost 100 years ago. Amazing. As it happens, right now I'm listening to the segment about affirmations, autosuggestion, visualization, etc. Hill emphasizes that if one does not attach strong visuals and strong emotions to the verbalization of affirmations, they have almost no power. There's now plenty of proof that he was right - if you watched the Winter Olympics, you saw top athletes like Lindsey Vonn, gold medalist in women's downhill skiing, practicing visualization with full-body movement before they ever started the competitive event.

It's the emotion attached to the idea that gives it the juice. Think about it. Maybe even reflect on events or results that you've manifested in the past. When you were creating that desire, that result, were you really excited about it? Inspired by the vision of that beach in Hawaii, or that promotion, or that relationship? When you thought about the end result - the beach, the job, the partner - did your heart beat a little faster?

I'm inspired myself now, to choose a couple of important goals of mine, and to recreate the affirmation of achieving those goals with full XD dimensions where the color pops off the screen of my mental movie theater and the seats are vibrating! How about you?