Tag Archives: useful thinking

BUILDING UP YOUR ENERGY RESERVES

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We may pay attention to our physical fitness, or be aware of our mental health, but we don’t usually take great care of the foundational building blocks for both of these – our energy reserves.

This is something we can have control over, because we all know what increases our energy and what depletes it.

Energy is our life force. It feeds us physically, mentally and emotionally. And building it in ourselves is literally vital.

The ways we increase our energy is quite individual. We probably all benefit from a good night’s sleep, and healthy food, but then it needs to be tailor-made. Some feel better after an invigorating shower, others after a long soak in the bath. Some thrive on a session in the gym, others on a stroll in the park. The company of some people enlivens you, the company of others drains you. And we all have the things we love doing that makes us feel good, and those things that we have to push ourselves to do.

What we can all do is to become more aware of what increases our energy reserves and what leaves us with an energy deficit. If we feed into our lives as many things as possible to enhance our energy, it is easier to handle the times when we’re being somewhat drained – we have spare capacity, rather than running on empty.

And it doesn’t have to be difficult, complicated or time-consuming. It can be just five minutes sitting quietly, or watching something that makes us laugh (laughter is a great energy-giver), or treating yourself to the right piece of cake at the right time, or watching the birds at the bird feeder for a minute or two.

If we get in the habit of allowing ourselves to enjoy those little things that boost our energy, we automatically help ourselves to stay healthier, in every sense, and improve our lives.

So boost your energy in some simple ways today – and every day!

BALANCE

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It’s a new year. When we look back over the previous year, it gives us a starting point for the new one.

What did you spend too much time on, and what was neglected as a consequence? What made you anxious, and how can you alleviate that? What stressed you and how can you reduce that stress? What made you feel good and how can you have more of that? How did you care for yourself and how can you give yourself even more of that?

These types of questions prompt us into noticing how we can improve our lives for this year and shift the balance towards a happier, more comfortable time. They take us towards small easy steps we can take to make life better for ourselves.

Of course, there will always be unavoidable ups and owns in our lives, good days and bad days. I don’t believe anyone has a perfect life, or a perfect attitude towards whatever happens.

But we can all appreciate more the good days we have (and normally add a few more with a shift in attitude!), and we can all think of better ways to handle those days that feel tough, or at least offset the toughness with more kindness towards ourselves.

When we find more balance, more equilibrium in our lives, we not only feel better, we are also nicer people to be around, and we receive more of the friendship and support that we all need – it’s a virtuous circle.

So come on, let’s find some more balance in our lives, and make it easier for ourselves as we do so. We deserve it!

Happy New Year..

THE GOOD SIDE OF PREJUDICE

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Being prejudiced is always seen as a bad thing. We think of people who are racist or sexist or homophobic etc. when we talk of people who are prejudiced.

Yet the word simply means making a judgement in advance and we all use prejudice all the time.

We ‘know’ if we are going to be bored in the meeting, or if we’re going to find something difficult to handle. We equally ‘know’ if we’re going to enjoy an event we’re attending or if we’re going to find something easy.

Our prejudices help us to navigate the world without having to start every experience from scratch and are based on previous experiences and things we’ve been told.

What we’re not aware of is the effect our prejudices have on how we approach whatever it is. If I think it’s going to be hard or unpleasant, I go into it with that mindset, looking for the evidence that I was right, and sometimes actually creating the proof I am looking for.

The opposite is equally true. If I expect it to be fun, easy, pleasant, that’s what I look for and help create. We tend to get what we expect to get – our prejudice.

So let’s approach as much as we can with useful prejudices: it will be interesting, enjoyable, easy; most people are friendly and helpful; I can usually work things out.

If we use positive prejudices to make our lives easier, we will get the best out of most situations.

GIVE IN BUT DON’T GIVE UP

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It was hard to hear, last week, that Trump had decisively won the American election. Not only does it make you wonder about the values of half the American population, but also it will have an impact on the world.

But Kamala Harris’s concession speech reminded me of a principle we can all work to: ‘We concede the victory, but do not admit defeat.’

There are times when we all have to concede that we have failed to achieve what we set out to do, with the best of intentions. Bemoaning the fact that we failed, or blaming others for it, does not change that. We have to accept that it happened and give in to the loss.

However, that doesn’t mean that we have to give up completely. Rather than wasting energy on recrimination or regrets, we can accept how it is, and then use our energy to work out what we can do differently or instead, to achieve our intention.

This then becomes a creative endeavour, where we learn from what went wrong or didn’t work, and look for other possibilities. This works at a macro-level, – a major defeat in politics – but also at a micro-level – I upset a friend unintentionally, or I didn’t finish those tasks I set myself.

It is a waste of energy to allow a defeat of some kind to send you into despair. All that does is make you more likely to fail at even more and give up.

Instead, give in to the one failure and use your energy to make things work better next time.

YOU ARE PERFECT JUST AS YOU ARE

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Being human is a tough job. It means we have to learn to accept our own foibles, quirks and flaws, as well as our strengths, and most of us are really bad at doing both.

We learn to be modest about what we are good at, because otherwise it’s ‘boasting’ and ‘pride comes before a fall’. This tendency is exacerbated if what we’re good at seems ordinary rather than exceptional or highly valued by society. If you can make a tasty meal out of bits and pieces, if you find it easy to start a conversation with a stranger, or can out together a flat pack of something, you take it for granted, and assume others can as well. And of course, most things that we find easy, we tend to dismiss as being normal, or trivial.

Then there is that long list of things we’re not good at. I don’t remember the details of things; I can’t change a tyre; I’m terrible at drawing; I’m useless when it comes to arranging a bunch of flowers – the list goes on and on. We learn to feel bad about all the things we can’t do well, and to feel we’re not good enough.

What we don’t tend to notice is that everyone else has their own weaknesses – it’s part of being human. No-one is good at everything, and we all develop our own set of strengths. Each of us is unique.

We are all neurodivergent, with minds and bodies that work in their own individual way, easily absorbing some things and failing to take on others. And that’s okay. It makes us special.

So don’t worry or feel bad about your weaknesses. Find someone who’s good at whatever it is if you need to, and ask for help. We all like using our strengths.

And use your own strengths well. That way you can make your unique contribution to the world.

You’re a perfect huma being, just as you are.

‘OUR LIFE IS WHAT OUR THOUGHTS MAKE OF IT’

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Marcus Aurelius said this, centuries ago – the wisdom has always been there.

I was reminded of this recently when my back was playing up. I was sitting in my conservatory being miserable when I looked out and noticed my first zinnia flowering in my garden – a lovely red and yellow bloom. That drew my attention to all the other lovely flowers making a cheery display. Was I going to be miserable because of my back or cheered up by the beauty in my garden? My choice…

We all have our ups and downs, but often forget that we always have a choice about what we pay attention to. There is almost always a reason to be happy and a reason to be pissed off. Once we’ve decided to be pissed off, we set a mood that finds even more things wrong. It knocks any probability of enjoyment or motivation out of our minds.

But once we decide to be happy about something, however small, it resets our mind to be more constructive, to deal with problems, to find ways of cheering ourselves up. It only requires that initial choice.

Don’t let your thoughts get you down. They are only thoughts and you can choose which ones to follow and which ones to discard. Remember that, as a child, you might fall over and hurt yourself, but were quickly distracted by a toy or a hug. You are still the same person. Distract yourself from being miserable and life will soon feel better again.

INTELLECT OR INTELLIGENCE?

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Last week they gave our students their A level results. Some were delighted, some were disappointed. It made me think about the distinction between intellect and intelligence.

In the western world we have a tendency to admire the clever people – those who have attained several degrees and can do complicated things within their own field. But without intelligence, intellect is not particularly useful in living your life.

Intelligence is about the ability to learn as we go, cross-relating ideas or skills from one area to another, recognising what is useful and what isn’t, reviewing and learning from mistakes and successes. It is the pathway to wisdom.

This ability is not driven by academic learning – in fact academia often limits it. We talk about people being street-wise, i.e. they have learnt how to navigate their lives well, even if they are ‘uneducated’.

It is time we recognised intelligence as the most important skill we can have, in its fullest sense. This is not the same as having what they call a high intelligence quotient (IQ). That only measures a limited segment of intelligence. It is about recognising the full range of intelligence: intellectual, logical, emotional, creative, spatial, etc.

None of us have it all, but we can all aim to enhance what we do have. And we can learn from those who have a form of intelligence we are lacking in, regardless of their academic ability.

Our system of education had become more of a system of induction, teaching people to conform. Education originally means to lead out of people their natural abilities – let’s genuinely educate ourselves.

BEING HAPPY

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“If you choose to be happy today, nothing can stop you”.

I first saw this as a sign on the door of a little café in India and it made me smile. Now I use it as a reminder that happiness does not depend on circumstances, everything being perfect, it is a state of mind we choose.

We can be aware of everything that is wrong or not good, without being drowned in the tide of pessimism which can come with that. It is a question of perspective, which we can find by asking ourselves some questions: Is this all there is? Is it forever? What can I find that makes me feel good right now? What are the gifts in my life?

This isn’t about having rose-tinted spectacles; it is a more useful way to be in the world. When we are happy, we find our way through problems or difficulties more easily. When we are happy, other people respond more positively to us. When we are happy, we remember the good things in our lives.

Our frame of mind affects everything we do. Being miserable or fed up turns everything grey or black, creates more reasons to stay in the same state of mind.

Let’s remember the good bits and colour our world more cheerfully. No-one and nothing can stop you, if you choose to be happy.

THE BEATEN PATH

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How much of your everyday life is just following the beaten path: the automatic pilot of habit, where we are not even aware of our own behaviour? I was made to ask this question by reading a book recently called ‘How We Are’ by Vincent Deary, where he talks about how and why we are creatures of habit. He also talks about how it can be hard to change, until we form a new habit and go back to automatic pilot again on a new beaten path.

It is not that it is wrong to function like this, but sometimes it is worth noticing that the beaten path you are walking is not really a useful one. For example, we may ignore signs of hunger in ourselves until it is becoming urgent and then snack because we can’t wait to make ourselves a proper meal.

Or we may always try to finish a task even though we know really that we need a break – and then we become clumsy or mess it up and it takes even longer.

We do know if we have a habit that’s not useful to us because we will say to ourselves: ‘Damn, I always do that!’, telling ourselves off after the event with the wisdom of hindsight!

And we can pick them off, one by one, (most of us have lots of them), by consciously choosing to deliberately change the habit to something more useful, forming a new beaten path.

It would be impossible to live our lives if we had to think through every action and behaviour – we’d never get anything done! But the more beaten paths we have that are useful to us, the more we free ourselves for a better life.

WHAT DO YOU REALLY WANT?

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Most people have some form of wish list, covering all sorts of things from the trivial to the fundamental. What we often are not aware of is the driver behind this wish list.

We all have a basic desire to feel good, to be happy, to be valued in our lives. The wish list is intended to bring us that good feeling. However, there is a big difference between the temporary feeling of pleasure when we get what we thought we wanted and the more solid sense of feeling good and happy most of the time.

Buying ‘stuff’, getting likes on social media, may fill a gap for us for a little while, but it will never provide us with what we really want. Even being successful in your career, having lots of money, will not give you that feeling of contentment with your everyday life, despite what our culture seems to suggest.

So we need to stop and consider that fundamental question of what we really want our lives to be like. This requires not just thought, but also imagination: what would it be like if I had what I want?

For example, if I geta new job, how will it affect my life? Will it enable me to spend more or less time with family and friends? Will I come home pleased with my day or stressed and exhausted? By imagining how your everyday life will be affected, positively and adversely, by adding or subtracting something from your life, you have a fuller picture of whether you really want whatever it is.

And it is important to realise that we can often make small changes to improve our everyday lives and feel happier, more content. Small changes can add up to a big difference in how good you feel. Whether it be going for a walk in the fresh air, or having a proper breakfast, or arranging to see a good friend more often, we can improve how we feel about our life with little effort and for free.

So next time you tell yourself you want something, just check it out: will it give you a momentary pleasure? (And that’s okay so long as you realise it). will it enhance your everyday life, or will it bring more negative than you want?

Appreciate what you already have  and look to continue to make life better – isn’t that what we’re here for?