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Writing Tips: Stop Waiting for Your Muse and Get to Work

by Marelisa · 6 comments

A while ago Elizabeth Gilbert—author of the runaway bestseller “Eat, Pray, Love”—gave a TED.com talk in which she describes how American poet Ruth Stone found inspiration for her poetry. Stone explained to Gilbert that growing up in rural Virginia, she would be working in the fields when, suddenly, she would hear a poem coming at her from over the landscape.

Stone would then begin to run as fast as she could toward the house in order to grab a pen and a piece of paper. As she ran, the poem would chase after her. If Rose wasn’t fast enough getting to the house, the poem would pass by her and go off in search of another poet. However, if she got to the house fast enough, as the poem thundered through her she would get it all down on paper.

What’s described above is the “waiting for inspiration” or “waiting for your muse” theory of creativity. However, most of us will never have a poem, a short story, or a novel chasing after us (not even a bad haiku). Therefore, in order to create, we need to get to work, whether we feel inspired or not. As Picasso was fond of saying, inspiration does exist, but it has to find you working. Here, then, is a collection of tips, from writers, on creativity not as inspiration, but as work.

  •  ”To be a writer is to sit down at one’s desk in the chill portion of every day, and to write; not waiting for the little jet of the blue flame of genius to start from the breastbone—just plain going at it.” – John Hersey
  • “People on the outside think there‘s something magical about writing, that you go up in the attic at midnight and cast the bones and come down in the morning with a story, but it isn’t like that. You sit in back of the typewriter and you work, and that‘s all there is to it.” – Harlan Ellison
  •  ”The art of writing is the art of applying the seat of the pants to the seat of the chair.” — Mary Heaton Vorse
  •  ”I tried, not always successfully, to start each day with some discrete goal I wanted to accomplish: write 200 words, or get through a certain amount of research, or conduct two interviews, or whatever. If I set out to spend a day ‘writing’, that would be so overwhelming I’d end up just farting around online all day instead of starting to climb the mountain.” – Seth Mnookin
  • “To the young writers, I would merely say, ‘Try to develop actual work habits, and even though you have a busy life, try to reserve an hour say—or more—a day to write.’ Some very good things have been written on an hour a day. . . . So, take it seriously, you know, just set a quota.” – John Updike
  •  ”I worked in the Hallmark public relations department for a man named Conrad Knickerbocker, the public relations manager, who had already begun publishing book reviews and fiction. After I got to know Knick a little, I asked him timidly how you become a writer. . . . He said, ‘Rhodes, you apply ass to chair’. I call that solid gold advice the Knickerbocker Rule.” – Richard Rhodes
  • “I set myself 600 words a day as a minimum output, regardless of the weather, my state of mind or if I’m sick or well.” – Arthur Hailey
  •  ”All through my career I’ve written 1,000 words a day–even if I’ve got a hangover. You’ve got to discipline yourself if you’re professional. There’s no other way.” – J.G. Ballard
  •  ”Serious writers write, inspired or not. Over time they discover that routine is a better friend to them than inspiration.” – Ralph Keyes
  •  ”Find your best time of the day for writing and write. Don’t let anything else interfere. Afterwards it won’t matter to you that the kitchen is a mess.” – Esther Freud
  •  ”Over the years, I‘ve found one rule. It is the only one I give on those occasions when I talk about writing. A simple rule. If you tell yourself you are going to be at your desk tomorrow, you are by that declaration asking your unconscious to prepare the material. You are, in effect, contracting to pick up such valuables at a given time. Count on me, you are saying to a few forces below: I will be there to write.” – Norman Mailer
  •  ”It is by sitting down to write every morning that one becomes a writer.” – Gerald Brenan
  • “Write a little bit every day. It’s too easy to say ‘I’ll write when I’m inspired.’  Writing is like exercising: the more you do it, the easier it becomes. Thinking about your story doesn’t count. Try to write at least 1 page. If–the next day–you decide you hate it, you can always tear it up and start over.” – Vivian Vande Velde
  • “Treat writing as a job. Be disciplined. Lots of writers get a bit OCD-ish about this. Graham Greene famously wrote 500 words a day. Jean Plaidy managed 5,000 before lunch, then spent the afternoon answering fan mail. My minimum is 1,000 words a day – which is sometimes easy to achieve, and is sometimes, frankly, like shitting a brick, but I will make myself stay at my desk until I’ve got there, because I know that by doing that I am inching the book forward. Those 1,000 words might well be rubbish – they often are. But then, it is always easier to return to rubbish words at a later date and make them better.” – Sarah Waters
  • “There’s no ‘magic secret’; writing is like everything else; ten percent inspiration or talent, and ninety percent hard work. Persistence; keeping at it till you get there. As Agnes de Mille said, it means working every day—bored, tired, weary, or with a fever of a hundred and two.” – Marion Zimmer Bradley
  •  ”The best advice I was ever given about writing is, simply, WRITE! Anywhere, anyplace, anyhow. A room of one’s own is all very well but in this day and age writing has to be a movable feast. In the kitchen, in the bedroom, in the living room, in the car, in the park, in the crowded cafe – wherever and whenever you can throw your laptop down and shut out the world for half an hour.” – Evelyn Cosgrave
  • “Writing is like training to be an athlete. There is a lot of training and work that nobody sees in order to compete. The writer needs to write every day, just as the athlete needs to train. Much of the writing will never be used, but it is essential to do it.” – Isabel Allende

Conclusion

Stop waiting to be inspired. Instead, pick up a pen and paper, and get to work. For more great writing tips, take a look at my ebook “250 Tips for Writers, From Writers”. In addition, you’ll find lots of tools and techniques to make your creativity skyrocket in “How to Be More Creative – A Handbook for Alchemists”.

(Grandpa Thomas’ Ink is courtesy of Luigi Crespo Photography)

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“How to Be More Creative – A Handbook for Alchemists” explains that creativity is not the sole domain of the arts but is important in any field. Whatever you do, creativity helps you do it better. Discover practical advice on how to be more creative in every life endeavor by reading my ebook.

What important task or project have you been procrastinating on? Whether it’s starting a blog, writing a novel, going back to school, decluttering your home, or starting an exercise program, my ebook, “Make It Happen! A Workbook for Overcoming Procrastination and Getting the Right Things Done”, will help you get started and see the task or project through to completion.

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The Tao of Abundance

by Marelisa · 10 comments

In his book, “The Tao of Abundance”, author and Eastern philosopher Laurence Boldt urges everyone to explore how much of their life is being dictated by a misdirected desire to gain peace of mind through acquiring material wealth. He explains that money is, of course, a factor in our experience of abundance. However, the true expression of abundance is much more than material wealth.

Ask yourself if you’re lacking in the following:

  • Do you lack the time to just be and relax, to learn and grow, and to be with friends and family?
  • Do you feel a lack of ease? Are you under constant stress and pressure? Do you feel like you’re always struggling?
  • Do you lack purpose or a sense of direction in your life?
  • Do you lack peace of mind? Do you feel frustrated, restless, and dissatisfied?
  • Do you have a vague sense that something is missing?
  • Do you feel a lack of physical, mental, or emotional energy?
  • Do you feel that you’re not fully expressing the love, talent, and creativity that you know lies within?

If you want to create a sense of real abundance in your life, addressing the lacks above is every bit as important as addressing a lack of dollars or material goods. In fact, the pursuit of money can often interfere with fulfilling needs such as having enough leisure time, having a sense of purpose, and feeling at ease.

Boldt explains that when it comes to money, there are two important questions that you should ask yourself:

  1. How much do I need?
  2. How much is it going to cost me to get it?

That is, when you’re thinking of how much money you need in order to feel secure and to live comfortably, keep asking yourself how much it’s going to cost you to get that money. It’s important to keep in mind that even if you start making more money, your sense of abundance could diminish if you start to lose touch with non-material sources of abundance.

Take a look at the following:

  • Money should not cost you your soul.
  • Money should not cost you your relationships.
  • Money should not cost you your dignity.
  • Money should not cost you your health.
  • Money should not cost you your intelligence.
  • Money should not cost you your joy.

If making more money is costing you you’re happiness, then it’s having a negative impact on your abundance. To quote Boldt: “In a life of getting and spending . . . we miss the wonder and bliss of what it is to be alive.”

Following the principles of Taoism, below you’ll discover four ways of bringing more abundance into your life.

Regain a Sense of Mystery and Wonder

When people feel a sense of lack in their lives, they tend to think that it’s because there’s some material comfort that’s missing. That is, they think that they feel lack because they don’t have a summer house by the lake, or a BMW 5 Series. Boldt explains that we feel lack because many of us have lost a connection to the spiritual in our daily lives.

He adds that the spiritual dimension—the experience of an eternal transcendent consciousness that we all move in–is fundamental to human life. You can regain a sense of the spiritual in your life by doing the following:

  • Begin a practice of prayer, meditation, yoga, or Tai Chi.
  • Spend more time in nature.
  • Allow your intuition to guide you back to a connection with the spiritual.

Have Increased Abundance Through Frugality

Lao Tzu– considered the founder of philosophical Taoism—once said, “Being frugal one has abundance.” If we trace the origin of the word “frugality”, we find that it is derived from the Latin frux, or fruit. To be frugal is to be fruitful. Being frugal doesn’t mean to go without the things are important to you, and which are aligned with your values. Instead, being frugal means the following:

  • Forget retail therapy; find ways to nourish yourself that don’t involve money.
  • Conserve and repair.
  • Think quality instead of quantity.
  • Do without what is unneeded.
  • Spend mindfully; for example, when you’re going to buy something, ask yourself whether you really want it, or if you’re just buying it because of what you hope it will say about you to others.

Some examples of frugal abundance include the following:

  • Choosing to live in a small apartment and using the money that you save to travel.
  • Choosing to cut back on how much you spend on clothes and shoes so that you can spend more on your true passion: fine wines and gourmet food.
  • Choosing to spend less money on going out drinking with your buddies so that you can buy more books or art supplies.

Think of the following quote: “The richest man is not he who has the most, but he who needs the least.”

Follow Your Nature

Following your nature is simply a matter of doing what you’re naturally good at. As Boldt explains, we are happiest when we are fully exercising our natural abilities; our nature is our strength. To deny it is to rob yourself of your own power.

If you’re suppressing your own nature in your every day work, you’re dulling your senses and switching off your innate intuitive intelligence. This makes you feel heavy, and it leads you to doubt yourself. Don’t do the following:

  • Choose your career to please your parents.
  • Choose your career based on how much money you’re going to make.
  • Choose your career based on social acceptance and prestige.

Denying your talents, gifts, and abilities, is like placing leg-irons around your ankles and complaining that you can’t run fast enough. On the other hand, when you respect your gifts and you express your inmost nature in the outer world, you attract to yourself the people, circumstances, and resources you will need to fulfill your destiny. Ease, joy, and power are natural by-products of following your nature. Following your nature puts you in the flow of the Tao.

Cultivate Time Abundance

As Boldt points out, in our collective struggle to end material poverty, we’ve created time poverty. He explains that we’ve made great strides in increasing productivity in the workplace. However, productivity gains have not been translated into increased leisure; instead it’s going into increased consumption.

Boldt refers to the book “The Overworked American” in which Juliet Schor notes that if Americans today enjoyed the same standard of living they had in 1948, they could work every other year or take six months off. However, instead of taking half a year off, we work harder in order to be able to buy more things. Ask yourself if material comforts are worth six months of the year, or half of the time in your life.

If we started working less, it’s clear that we would be able to afford a lot less than we do now. But what would we gain? Here are some interesting questions to consider:

  • Would marital relationships be stronger?
  • Would our children be better cared for and feel more secure?
  • Would we have more opportunities to express ourselves creatively?
  • Would communities profit from increased participation in their social, cultural, and political life?
  • Would we feel relaxed and enjoy the simple things of life more fully?
  • Would we be healthier in body, mind, and spirit?”

Conclusion

Boldt does a great job of pointing out that having abundance is a lot more than simply about money. It’s about feeling a connection to something bigger than ourselves; doing work that we enjoy and that allows us to express who we are, instead of just settling for a job that pays the bills; taking the time to decide what we really want and need, instead of just spending our money indiscriminately; and having more time for leisure, creativity, and building closer bonds with others.

Here’s a quote from “The Tao of Abundance”:

“In a world that defines abundance in terms of scarce resources and economic abstractions, the Taoist philosophy defines abundance in human terms and sees the world as a naturally abundant place. In a do-oriented society that puts its faith in future progress, it reminds us to be, and that here and now is the only place we live. In a world caught up in glamour and obsessed with consumption, the Taoist perspective offers an appreciation of leisure and beauty in the simple things in life. In a society that values the cerebral and abstract, the Taoists remind us to trust our intuitions and to recognize the power of the unconscious intelligence. In an increasingly narcissistic and artificial society, Taoist philosophy values humility, naturalness, and spontaneity.”

What does abundance mean for you? Please share in the comments section.

(Ying and Yang Gold and Blue Mosaic is courtesy of MAMJODH)

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37 Tidbits of Higher Consciousness

by Marelisa · 5 comments

The following 37 tidbits of  higher consciousness were derived from the perennial bestseller, “Handbook to Higher Consciousness”, written in 1972 by Ken Keyes. This book has helped countless people experience dramatic changes in their lives, and in their ability to experience happiness. It’s a reference book for being at peace with whatever happens in your life.

Here, then, are 37 tidbits of higher consciousness:

1. The only real problem in your life is how you’re using your mind.

2. You always have enough to be happy. It’s the patterns in your head that make you unhappy.

3. View others as unfolding beings in their journey toward higher consciousness.

4. Think of the world as a loving place that is designed to give you everything that you need.

5. You add to the suffering in the world when you take offense, just as much as you do when you give offense.

6. Happiness does not lie in getting people and things outside of you lined up exactly to suit your desires.

7. An addiction is any emotion-backed demand that you may have. It’s any desire that makes you upset or unhappy if it is not satisfied. Your addictions are your attachments, demands, expectations, emotional programming, and models of how life should treat you.

As an example, if you get angry when someone cuts you off in traffic as you drive to work, it’s because you’re “addicted” to having a smooth and completely hassle free trip to work. If you get upset when you ask a friend for help and they respond that they can’t help you because they’re busy, it’s because you’re “addicted” to having people acquiesce to your requests.

8. Life is warning you to get rid of an addiction every time you are emotionally uncomfortable in any way.

9. Upgrade your addictions to the status of preferences. Here’s the distinction between an addiction and a preference:

  • When an addiction is satisfied, you feel momentary pleasure, relief, or indifference. If an addiction is not satisfied, you feel emotional distress.
  • When a preference is not satisfied, you are simply indifferent — it was only a preference after all. But when it is satisfied, it adds to the texture and beauty of your life.

10. Allow yourself emotion-backed demands only for physical necessities such as air to breathe, food if starving, and shelter if freezing.

11. If your washing machine stops working and you’re addicted to appliances that work, you’ll get upset and you will suffer. If you prefer that your appliances work well, then when your washing machine breaks down you won’t compound the problem by superimposing your uncomfortable emotions on the situation.

12. There is nothing that you can do to change the present moment. It simply is. You may be able to change the situation one second, one minute, one hour, or one day from now, but there’s absolutely nothing you can do to change the way things are right here and now. By not getting irritated you will be more effective in doing what needs to be done to change the situation for the next moment.

13. When a tire blows, you simply accept that this is the here and now reality of your life. You’ve lost the tire, but that doesn’t mean that you have to lose your peace and serenity. Now, serenely, begin to take the necessary steps in order the change the tire.

14. Giving up an addiction means re-programming that part of your brain that makes you restless and unhappy if a desire is not realized.

15. Keep in mind that you don’t need to be addicted to money in order to acquire it. You can prefer to have money; you will then be able to enjoy whatever money you receive, but your happiness will not be contingent on the size of your bank account.

16. We see things not as they are, but as we are. Your addictions distort how you process the enormous flow of information that is constantly flooding in through all of your sensory inputs.

17. By tuning in to your minute-to-minute stream of consciousness, you discover the addictions that make you worried, anxious, resentful, uptight, afraid, angry, bored, etc. You thus use every uncomfortable emotion as an opportunity for consciousness growth. Even though you may still be feeling emotional and uptight, you begin to get at the roots of your ups and downs — your brief bits of pleasure and your long periods of unhappiness.

18. All there is in your life is the eternal now moment — and your experience of this moment is created by the programming in your head.

19. Watch your own body and mind, and the people and things surrounding you, from the deep, calm place inside of you. When you do that you’ll have insights as to what you need to do in order to flow with the river of life around you.

20. You can make really effective changes when your consciousness is free of emotional turmoil.

21. By fully tuning in to the now moment in your life, you will discover that you always have enough to enjoy every moment of your life. The only reason you have not been happy every instant is that you have been dominating your consciousness with thoughts about something you don’t have– or trying to hold on to something that you do have but which is no longer appropriate in the present flow of your life.

22. Whenever you’re unhappy, your emotions are telling you that the people or things around you are not conforming to your vision of the world, or the way you think things should be.

23. You stop viewing yourself as being “pushed around” by the world when you realize that only you can “push” yourself. To quote Buddha: “Nothing is upsetting you. You get upset because you are upsettable.”

24. If you want those around you to act in a more loving and conscious manner, act in a way that helps them to do so.

25. Acceptance doesn’t mean that you’ve resigned yourself to live the rest of your life with a particular person, or in a particular situation. It just means that you won’t cause yourself emotional discomfort because of the way things are in this moment.

26. The outside conditions of your life do not make you feel either secure or insecure. One person may feel secure with practically no money at all, while another may feel insecure with a million dollars in the bank. Your feelings of security or insecurity are due to your emotional programming.

27. Lots of people look for happiness through sensations, whether it’s through sex, the taste of food, the sound of music, the sensations of movies and plays, creating a certain environment in their home, and so on. Looking for happiness through sensations keeps you constantly searching for the next “fix” and for more varied sensations. Sensations become addictions, and nothing is ever enough.

Once again, when you upgrade sensations from an addiction to a preference, you can enjoy things such as gourmet food and music, without having your happiness depend on them.

28. Some people look for happiness by wielding power. They look for happiness in the following:

  • Having more money, not for security, but so that they can manipulate others.
  • Having more prestige (they surround themselves with status symbols).
  • Having knowledge and lots of hobbies (so that other people perceive them as being interesting and a high achiever).

None of the above items create what we are all truly looking for: peace, serenity, and a feeling of oneness with others.

29. No one is suggesting that you renounce worldly activities: the world is there for you to enjoy it. The idea is to renounce the emotion-backed demands which keep you from enjoying the bountiful life which has always been around you.

30. We are not the personalities that our egos are so valiantly defending. Our personalities are simply the result of our current programming.

31. You are the awareness of your consciousness. If you visualize a television screen in the middle of your head where all of your thoughts, images, and emotions are being projected, you are what is watching the screen. As Ram Dass puts it, “Observe your scene from a quiet corner of your mind in which there is nothing to do but ‘see.’”

32 . As the watcher of the screen, you are perfect. The movie that is playing on the screen might be horrendous, but you are not the movie. You are what is watching the movie.

33. By tuning in to the ocean of loving energy around you, you can have far more security, enjoyable sensations, effectiveness, and love than you would ever need in order to live a continuously beautiful life.

34. Whenever you feel upset, take full responsibility for the emotions that you are experiencing. Get to work as quickly as possible identifying the programming, or the addiction, that is leading you to reject what other people are saying or doing.

By taking full responsibility, you give your ego and rational mind an entirely different direction in which to operate. They begin to work on helping you to reprogram yourself, instead of egging you on to manipulate and fight the people in your life.

Here’s the process to follow, in a nutshell:

  • Explore the suffering.
  • Pinpoint the addiction.
  • Reprogram the addiction.
  • The suffering stops.

35. Ask yourself the following questions in order to determine which addiction is causing you to feel alienated from the here and now:

  • What is happening right now? (Just state the facts; the what, when, where, who, and how.)
  • What specific emotion am I experiencing?
  • What am I telling myself right now?
  • What pains or tensions are being evoked in my body at this moment?
  • What do my posture and face look like?
  • What dance is my rational brain doing in order to prove me right and everyone else wrong?
  • What am I trying to change in the outside world instead of doing the inner work to change my response to it?
  • What phony front is my ego trying to maintain? What mask am I wearing?
  • What happened to me in the past that makes me upset whenever anything similar happens?
  • Do I want to be free from this automatic response?
  • What am I rejecting in the here and now?
  • What am I rejecting about myself?
  • What am I rejecting about the situation?
  • What threat does this person or situation represent to me?
  • What’s the worst that could happen?
  • What am I demanding in order to be happy?
  • Could I accept this and still be happy?
  • What is the model I have of the way I should be, must be, or have to be?
  • What is the model I have of the way I should be treated?

36. Once you have pinpointed the addiction, your next step is to reprogram it into a preference. When you reprogram, you use your will and determination to give yourself clear, firm operating instructions. You tell your brain that you want it to function in a different way in processing incoming data in the future.

Here are some sample reprogramming instructions you can use:

  • Life is my teacher.
  • I am not my addictive programming.
  • I am lovable.
  • I am the master of my life.
  • I don’t need to control people.
  • I can accept what is.
  • I don’t need other people’s approval.
  • It’s okay to make mistakes.
  • It’s okay to be me.
  • I can let go and just be.
  • I love myself.
  • I am enough.
  • It’s OK to be right where I am.
  • I am getting free.
  • I don’t have to get caught up in his/her programming.
  • I can accept him/her just the way he/she is.
  • I don’t need outside acceptance.

37. With persistence and determination, you can reprogram all of your addictions — no matter how long-standing or how strong they are. Keep telling yourself that you programmed yourself many years ago and that you can reprogram that which you programmed.

(Wet is courtesy of Dirigentens)

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Imagine waking up each morning to a life that’s centered around your life goals, instead of trying to fit what’s most important to you into the nooks and crannies. “How To Live Your Best Life- The Essential Guide for Creating and Achieving Your Life List” will show you how.

“How to Be More Creative – A Handbook for Alchemists” explains that creativity is not the sole domain of the arts but is important in any field. Whatever you do, creativity helps you do it better. Discover practical advice on how to be more creative in every life endeavor by reading my ebook.

What important task or project have you been procrastinating on? Whether it’s starting a blog, writing a novel, going back to school, decluttering your home, or starting an exercise program, my ebook, “Make It Happen! A Workbook for Overcoming Procrastination and Getting the Right Things Done”, will help you get started and see the task or project through to completion.

{ 5 comments }

Be More Creative by Stealing, Re-conceptualizing, and Recombining Ideas That Already Exist

by Marelisa · 1 comment

How many times have you heard the following: “There’s nothing new under the sun.” It turns out that this is true; sort of. If you think that creative people pull new ideas out of nothing, and that the definition of creativity is “being original”, you’re wrong. The most creative people steal ideas from different sources with impunity, they re-conceptualize existing ideas, and they recombine what is already out there.

In this article you’ll discover how to be more creative by stealing, re-conceptualizing, and recombining ideas that already exist.

Creativity As a Lego Set Collection

My seven year-old nephew loves Legos. Whenever anyone asks him what he wants for his birthday, for Christmas, or for any other special occasion, he’s quick to point out the Lego set that he wants. Although he keeps each set separate, at least for a while, eventually all the Legos end up mixed together in a huge plastic bin.

When I’m at my sister’s house and I let my nephew know that I’m there to play with him, he runs into the playroom and returns dragging the Lego bin behind him. He then dumps all of the Legos on the living room floor. The floor ends up covered in Legos of every imaginable size, shape, and color. Once his stash is laid out before him, he starts riffling through the pieces; here’s his process:

  • Sometimes he knows exactly what piece he’s looking for, and he starts calling out for everyone to help him find it (“It’s black, kind-of-like this one, it has a little round piece at the end”).
  • Other times he picks up random pieces, looks each one over, and decides whether to discard it or add it to the pile he’s going to use to create his newest masterpiece.
  • He sticks seemingly unrelated pieces together, as well as pieces that look like they belong together.
  • He uses his teeth to pry loose pieces that are still stuck together from the previous play session.
  • He combines pieces from different Lego sets.

In the end, he picks, combines, and discards pieces, until a spaceship, a warship, an airplane, or a flying saucer emerges from the rubble. I’m always amazed at what he comes up with. Each creation is different from the one before. In addition, as new Lego pieces are added to his collection, his creations become even larger and more complex.

It turns out that creativity is like that bin of Legos, and the more Legos you have, the more creative you can be. Maria Popova from the blog Brainpickings.org explains in her article titled “Networked Knowledge and Combinatorial Creativity” that nothing is entirely original; everything builds on what came before. We create by gathering bits and pieces of inspiration and knowledge throughout our lives and recombining them to create something new.

Here are some of the main points that Popova makes:

  • All creativity builds upon something that existed before.
  • Every work of art is essentially a derivative work.
  • New ideas emerge from the cross-pollination of existing ideas.

In addition, you can become more creative by dabbling in very different fields. Popova uses Einstein and Nabokov as examples:

  • Einstein attributed some of his greatest physics breakthroughs to his violin breaks, which he believed connected different parts of his brain in new ways.
  • Vladimir Nabokov was a lepidopterist — he collected and studied butterflies. He believed that this helped him to develop his deep passion for detail and precision, which is what made his writing so crisp and vivid.

Therefore, if you want to be more creative, be constantly collecting bits and pieces of information, scraps of knowledge, fragments of different skills, and morsels of insight. Then, dump it all into your mind and allow all of the pieces to mix around, bump into each other, get stuck together, break into different pieces, and so on. Add your own life experience and insight to the pile, and come up with a creative idea.

Use Re-Conceptualization to Apply Ideas to Different Areas

In this article in Men’s Health Magazine, the author explains that you can unlock your creative side by using a process called re-conceptualization. The author adds that University of Oklahoma psychologists found that people are more creative when asked to re-conceive ideas in as many ways as possible. Here are two examples:

  • The book “Switch: How to Change Things When Change Is Hard”—which I wrote about in this blog post—explains that one way to make changes in your life is by setting up your environment in a way that will support the change. Baker, from the blog Man v. Debt, took that idea and applied it, or re-conceptualized it, to setting up your environment in a way that will help you to get out of debt (in this blog post).
  • The book “Made To Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive While Others Die” talks about how to make your ideas propagate or go viral, and how to get people to act based on your ideas. I applied the ideas in that book and re-conceptualized them so that they would apply to blogging (in this post).

Whenever you hear about or read an interesting idea, get into the habit of asking yourself how you can re-conceptualize it so that it applies to your business niche, or to your life.

Steal Like An Artist

Austin Kleon is a writer and an artist; he’s the author of “Steal Like an Artist”. He explains that when he’s asked where he gets his ideas, he answers that he steals them. Kleon adds that every idea is just a mashup or a remix of a previous idea.

Here are some of the things he points out:

  • You are a remix of your mother and father.
  • You are a mashup of what you choose to let into your life: the people you choose to hang out with, the books you choose to read, the music you choose to listen to, and so on.
  • Artists collect things they really love. They tear things out of magazines and paste them in scrapbooks. They store ideas to be used at some later time.

Kleon tells the story of Igor Stravinsky, who was composing a ballet. However, instead of starting from scratch he took the scores of famous ballets and started correcting them as if they were his own work. He wrote a ballet based on all of these corrections. When the ballet came out, the critics were outraged: “How dare he do that to the classics!” Stravinsky answered as follows: “You respect, but I love.”

In addition, Kleon narrates that about five years ago he got a really bad case of writer’s block. So he took out a stack of newspapers and he started drawing boxes around different sections of the newspaper that caught his attention. Then he blacked out the words in those sections that he didn’t need. He called it “newspaper blackout poetry” and he started posting them on his blog.

Then he started doing research–based on comments he was getting on his blog saying that his idea wasn’t original–, and he was able to trace the idea back to the 1700′s, to one of Benjamin Franklin’s neighbors who would read the newspaper horizontally and come up with funny combinations. That is, there was a 250 year-old history of people finding poetry in the newspaper. However, Kleon explains that he was fine with this, because he knows that nothing is completely original.

Take what you like from the world around you, steal it, and then transform it into something that is uniquely your own. And that, is to steal like an artist.

If you’re interested in newspaper blackout poetry, here’s how to do it (if you’re reading this by email, click over to the blog to watch the video):

Conclusion

You don’t have to wait to become more creative: start stealing, re-conceptualizing, and recombining ideas right away. Here’s a quote from Jim Jarmusch that captures this idea perfectly:

“Nothing is original. Steal from anywhere that resonates with inspiration or fuels your imagination. Devour old films, new films, music, books, paintings, photographs, poems, dreams, random conversations, architecture, bridges, street signs, trees, clouds, bodies of water, light and shadows. Select only things to steal from that speak directly to your soul. If you do this, your work (and theft) will be authentic. Authenticity is invaluable; originality is nonexistent. And don’t bother concealing your thievery—celebrate it if you feel like it. In any case, always remember what Jean-Luc Godard said: ‘It’s not where you take things from—it’s where you take them to.’”

You’ll find lots of tools and techniques to make your creativity skyrocket in “How to Be More Creative – A Handbook for Alchemists”.

(Scott the Robber is courtesy of Matt from London)

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Imagine waking up each morning to a life that’s centered around your life goals, instead of trying to fit what’s most important to you into the nooks and crannies. “How To Live Your Best Life- The Essential Guide for Creating and Achieving Your Life List” will show you how.

“How to Be More Creative – A Handbook for Alchemists” explains that creativity is not the sole domain of the arts but is important in any field. Whatever you do, creativity helps you do it better. Discover practical advice on how to be more creative in every life endeavor by reading my ebook.

What important task or project have you been procrastinating on? Whether it’s starting a blog, writing a novel, going back to school, decluttering your home, or starting an exercise program, my ebook, “Make It Happen! A Workbook for Overcoming Procrastination and Getting the Right Things Done”, will help you get started and see the task or project through to completion.

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Make 2012 the Year You Change Your Life

by Marelisa · 1 comment

How would you like to make 2012 the year that you finally change your life for the better?

One of the best ways to achieve what you want in life is to find a mentor; someone who’s been there and done that. It’s one of the blessings of this day and age that you can gain the knowledge and expertise of others through your computer. That is, through the eBooks that they’ve written and the multi-media programs that they’ve created, which contain step-by-step instructions so that you, too, can achieve what they’ve accomplished.

Now, with The Best Empowering Tools Package, you have a chance to get over $1000 worth of the best self-development and human potential programs out there, for just $97. You’ll be getting over 30 of the most sought-after eBooks and courses, for a tiny fraction of the price that you would pay if you purchased each of them separately.

I’m proud to say that my “How to Live Your Best Life- The Essential Guide to Creating and Achieving Your Life List” program was one of the products chosen to be a part of this fabulous package.

What do you want to do in 2012?

  • Lose weight?
  • Get fit?
  • Get motivated?
  • Become more confident?
  • Create a life list and get started right away crossing off items?
  • Discover your passion?
  • Strengthen your marriage?
  • Simplify your life?
  • Quit your day job and reclaim your dreams?
  • Kick your inner gremlin to the curve?
  • Become more productive?

The Best Empowering Tools Package contains everything that you’ll need to achieve all of the above, and more. But you need to hurry, because it’s only available for three days: from 9:00 a.m. on January 16th, to 9:00 a.m. on January 19th. Head on over to The Best Empowering Tools Package site, and have a look. There’s a 30-Day money-back guarantee, so there’s absolutely no risk to you.

Go ahead and make 2012 the year you change your life.

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Three Ways to Stop Dawdling and Get a Move On

by Marelisa · 6 comments

If you’re making little to no progress on your New Year’s Resolutions—or on any goal that you’ve set for yourself–, there are lots of things you can do in order to stop dawdling and get a move on. This post will share three of these things with you. They are the following:

  • Uncover Your Hidden Commitments
  • Eat That Frog
  • Overcome Perfectionism

There’s more on each of these below.

Uncover Your Hidden Commitments

Anyone who has ever tried to make a change knows that the status quo is a potent force. Robert Kegan and Lisa Lahey explain why this is so in their book, “Immunity to Change: How to Unlock the Potential in Yourself and Your Organization”. It turns out that the culprit is your mindset, or your belief system. The authors explain that we’ve each created an inner map of how the world works, and of what we need to do in order to be safe. That is, we have hidden commitments.

You can set a goal, resolution, or commitment such as “lose weight” or “begin to work on projects as soon as they’re assigned”. However, if that visible commitment conflicts with one of your hidden commitments, you won’t be able to make a change. It’s like having one foot on the pedal and the other foot on the brake. Therefore, what you need to do is identify how you keep sabotaging your efforts to achieve a particular goal, and then uncover the hidden commitment that’s behind the sabotage.

When you uncover your hidden commitments, behavior that seemed to be irrational and ineffectual suddenly becomes very sensible and even brilliant. After all, it’s exactly what needs to be done in order to achieve a goal that you didn’t even realize that you had. Here are two examples:

  • A woman who keeps sabotaging her weight loss efforts discovers that she has a hidden commitment to remain overweight because she dislikes the overtly sexual way in which men respond to her when she’s thin.
  • A manager who’s dragging his feet on a certain project discovers that he has a hidden commitment to stall the project; he’s afraid of future, more ambitious projects, in which he might fail.

There’s a process that you can follow in order to uncover the hidden commitments that are getting in the way of the change that you’re trying to make. Take out a piece of paper and divide it into four columns. Then, do the following:

1. In the first column, write down your goal.

2. In the second column, write down how you keep sabotaging yourself (write down what you do, or fail to do, that prevents you from reaching that goal).

3. In the third column, you’re going to identify the commitment that you’re looking to further by taking the action which you identified in the second column. This is your hidden commitment. One way to uncover these hidden commitments is to ask yourself questions such as the following:

  • If you imagine doing the opposite of the undermining behavior, do you detect in yourself any discomfort, worry, or vague fear?
  • By engaging in this undermining behavior, what worrisome outcome are you committed to preventing?

4. In the fourth column, identify the big assumption—that is, one of your assumptions of how the world works—which led you to make that hidden commitment. For example, one CEO who wanted to delegate more work to his subordinates, but who kept disempowering his staff, realized that he was sabotaging his goal because he was afraid of losing his sense of self as “the super problem solver”. The CEO’s big assumption was the following: “If I want something done right, I have to do it myself.”

Just knowing why you’re behaving in a seemingly irrational way is not enough. As a last step you need to question your big assumptions. And you do this by conducting tests and experiments. In the end, even if you discover that there is some truth to your big assumptions, once you’ve brought these big assumptions to the surface you can look for ways to deal with them in a more effective manner.

Eat That Frog – The Law of Three

Brian Tracy explains in his book ““Eat That Frog! 21 Great Ways to Stop Procrastinating and Get More Done in Less Time”, that the reason why people don’t achieve their goals is because they waste their time on nonessential tasks instead of doing what’s important. In order to put an end to this, Tracy recommends that you follow the “law of three.”

Tracy explains that if you make a list of everything that you need to do in order to achieve a particular goal, you’ll discover that there are three items on that list that will make the biggest impact toward helping you to achieve that goal. Everything else on the list can probably be eliminated, automated, delegated, or outsourced. The problem is that those three items are big, hairy, ugly frogs (full of warts). That is, they require the following:

  • Hard work.
  • Lots of focus and concentration.
  • Stepping out of your comfort zone.
  • Taking risks.

Therefore, you do everything you can to avoid those tasks. However, you won’t reach your goals unless you start eating those frogs.

Go ahead and make a list of the things that you need to do in order to achieve an important goal. Now ask yourself the following three questions:

  • Which of these tasks would have the biggest impact toward the successful completion of your goal?
  • If you could only do two things on the list, what’s the second thing that you would do in order to ensure the successful completion of your goal?
  • If you could only do three things on the list, what’s the third thing you would do in order to ensure the successful completion of your goal?

Those are the three tasks that you’re going to concentrate on.

Next, remember that if you have to eat a frog it’s not a good idea to look at it for very long. Just do it and get it over with. By using your time to work on those tasks which will make the biggest contribution toward the completion of your goal, you’ll find yourself achieving your goal in no time.

Overcome Perfectionism

Hillary Rettig explains in her book, “The Seven Secrets of the Prolific”, that there are seven key behaviors which separate those who are highly productive from those who get very little done. The first of these is overcoming perfectionism. Rettig explains that, to begin with, perfectionists define success very narrowly, while they define failure broadly. This makes it almost inevitable that they will fail, which leads to a lot of foot dragging.

Here are some other things which perfectionists tend to do:

  • They over-identify with their work, so that if they fail at something it’s a huge blow to their ego.
  • They’re grandiose, so they expect to be able to do everything—even difficult tasks–quickly and easily. When this doesn’t turn out to be the case they get frustrated.
  • They place more emphasis on the finished product than they do on the process.
  • They put too much emphasis on external rewards and measures of success.

The usual scenario for a perfectionist is that they get to work and then their inner perfectionist begins to criticize and belittle everything that they do, as follows:

  • That’s awful. You’re not performing up to standard.
  • You should have gotten started on this two days ago. Why are you so lazy?
  • If you’re not going to do things flawlessly, you might as well not do them at all.

You end up procrastinating in order to escape from this merciless litany. One of the techniques which Rettig recommends is that you enter into dialogue with your inner perfectionist through journaling. During this dialogue, take the position of a compassionate adult who reassures your inner perfectionist that you learn by doing, that making mistakes is part of the process of creating something new, and that even if you fail, everything will be fine.

Conclusion

You may recall Sisyphus from Greek mythology: he was the one who was condemned to eternity with the task of pushing a boulder up a hill each day, only to have it roll back down as soon as he reached the top. Sometimes trying to achieve our goals feels pretty much like that. Fortunately, there are ways to make the boulder lighter, and to make sure that it doesn’t roll back down.

You’re not lazy, and you’re not weak. You just have hidden commitments that need to be addressed, you need to concentrate on the difficult tasks that create the biggest returns, and you need to get over your perfectionism. Use the tips above to stop procrastinating–or dawdling–and get a move on.

Is 2012 the year your life changes forever? Empower yourself.

(Effort is courtesy of Krikit)

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Imagine waking up each morning to a life that’s centered around your life goals, instead of trying to fit what’s most important to you into the nooks and crannies. “How To Live Your Best Life- The Essential Guide for Creating and Achieving Your Life List” will show you how.

“How to Be More Creative – A Handbook for Alchemists” explains that creativity is not the sole domain of the arts but is important in any field. Whatever you do, creativity helps you do it better. Discover practical advice on how to be more creative in every life endeavor by reading my ebook.

What important task or project have you been procrastinating on? Whether it’s starting a blog, writing a novel, going back to school, decluttering your home, or starting an exercise program, my ebook, “Make It Happen! A Workbook for Overcoming Procrastination and Getting the Right Things Done”, will help you get started and see the task or project through to completion.

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How to Make Changes in Your Life

by Marelisa · 1 comment

Anyone who has ever tried to make a change in their life knows just how difficult it can be. For example, we make a firm resolution to start getting up at 6:00 a.m. each morning–so that we can get a jog in before work–, but when the alarm goes off in the morning we hit the snooze button and go right back to sleep. As a second illustration, we might swear off sweets for a couple of months so that we can be slim in time for swimsuit season, and then we break down at the first sight of a Triple Double Oreo. Why is making changes so difficult? And what can we do to make it easier?

Brothers Chip and Dan Heath, authors of the critically acclaimed bestseller “Made to Stick”, tackle the subject of change in their book, “Switch: How to Change Things When Change Is Hard”. The Heath brothers explain that change is difficult because of a conflict that’s built into our brains. The conflict exists because we have two minds:

  • A Rational Mind
  • An Emotional Mind

These two minds are constantly competing for control.

In “Switch”, the Heath brothers refer to the rational mind as the Rider, and they refer to the emotional mind as the Elephant. They explain that if you want to start acting differently, you need to follow a three-part framework:

  1. Direct the Rider
  2. Motivate the Elephant
  3. Shape the Path You Want to Travel On

In this post you’ll discover more about the Rider and Elephant analogy. In addition, you’ll learn one strategy for directing the rider, one strategy for motivating the elephant, and one strategy for shaping the path you want to be traveling on. You’ll then have everything that you’ll need in order to choose one change that you want to make in your life and get started with it.

The Rider and The Elephant

As was stated in the introduction, the Heath brothers use the analogy of a Rider and an Elephant in order to explain the tension that exists between the rational mind and the emotional mind. Perched atop the Elephant, the Rider holds the reins and appears to be the one in control. However, the Rider is very small compared to the Elephant, so his control is tenuous at best. Whenever the Rider and the Elephant disagree on which way to go, the six-ton Elephant usually wins out.

The Elephant wants instant gratification, while the Rider wants to sacrifice short-term gains in order to acquire an even larger reward in the future. That is, the Elephant wants to go out dancing, while the Rider wants to stay in and get work done in order to create a passive source of income. Usually, the Rider can keep the Elephant on the right path for a while through the use of willpower.

The problem is that willpower is limited. More often than not, the Rider’s willpower is depleted while the goal is still nowhere in sight. At that point, the Rider loses control and the Elephant wanders off the path. That’s why you make plans to spend the night hard at work, but you end up boogying the night away at a nightclub (silently cursing the Elephant).

In order to make a change you need to enlist both your rational and your emotional minds–in other words, get the Rider and the Elephant to agree on where to go. In addition, you need to make sure that the path that leads to the change that you’re trying to make is easy to travel on. There’s more on each of these below.

Direct the Rider – Make It Clear What Needs to Be Done

The truth is that not all of the problems related to change stem from the Elephant. Sometimes, the Rider appears to be resisting change. However, the Heath brothers point out that what looks like resistance from the Rider is actually a lack of clarity. That is, the Rider isn’t sure what needs to be done in order to create the desired change. Therefore, he ends up leading the Elephant in circles.

Dan and Chip explain that there were two professors at West Virginia University who wanted to persuade people to eat a healthier diet. Their problem was that telling people to “eat a healthier diet” is very unclear. People will not act to make the desired change because they don’t know what to do.

  • Is there any particular diet they should go on?
  • Should they stop eating meat? Should they limit eating meat to the weekends?
  • What if they just try portion control?

The number of possibilities for eating healthier is limitless, and so the Rider does a lot of thinking and analyzing, but nothing gets done. It turns out that these two professors had data showing that most Americans drink milk. In addition, milk contains very high levels of saturated fat. Just by switching from whole milk to 1% milk, the average diet would immediately attain the USDA recommended levels of saturated fat.

Therefore, the vague instructions of “eat a healthier diet” turned into the following: “switch from whole milk to 1% milk”. That’s much clearer and easier to act on. But they didn’t stop there. Most people will drink whatever milk is in their refrigerator. The key decision is to select the 1% milk, instead of the whole milk, at the supermarket. In the end, the instructions were something like the following:

“When you’re at the grocery store, purchase 1% milk instead of whole milk”.

These instructions are crystal clear. The Rider knows what to do, and can confidently direct the Elephant.

Motivate the Elephant – Make an Emotional Appeal

When you want to make a change, it’s vital that you get the Elephant on board. After all, the Elephant is the one that’s going to be doing the work. In addition, you need the Elephant’s energy and passion. However, you can’t convince the Elephant with logic and facts. The Elephant can “know” that something is good for you, and still not be motivated to start walking down the path toward the change that you want to make. In order to motivate the Elephant you need to make an emotional appeal.

One way to appeal to the Elephant’s emotions is to make the change visual. For example, if you’re trying to lose weight put a photograph of yourself at your ideal weight up on your refrigerator. Think of how good you felt when you were at that weight, and imagine feeling that way again. Look for stories of people who have succeeded in making the change that you’re trying to make, and let those stories inspire you.

Shape the Path – Craft Your Environment to Support Change

Imagine the following scenario: the Rider is trying to get the Elephant to climb up a steep, rocky path. Even if you’ve appealed to the Elephant’s emotions, for how long do you think the Elephant will remain on that difficult path? Obviously, not for long.

Now think of a path that’s on a downward slope which has been cleared of all debris. Better yet, think of a path that’s been slicked with oil; the Elephant just has to slide down the path. Isn’t it much more likely that the Elephant will stay on that path? Of course it is.

You need to set up your environment in a way that will allow you to succeed. As an illustration, if you’re trying to modify your eating habits, make sure that you don’t see a chocolate cake every time that you open the refrigerator door. Instead, place fruits and vegetables where you’ll be able to have easy access to them.

You’ll find more examples of how to shape your environment in a way that will help you to achieve your goals in my post, “Extend Your Willpower with Chutes and Ladders”. In addition, if you make sure that everything that you’ll need in order to carry out the change is in place before hand–which is the concept of mise en place–, this will make it much easier for the Elephant to walk down the right path.

Conclusion

Think of a change that you want to make in your life, whether it’s modifying your eating habits, getting out of debt, becoming an early riser, and so on. Now do the following:

  • Make your goal very specific and script it. What will you do, when, and where? Make sure that you give yourself very clear instructions.
  • How can you make your goal emotionally appealing?
  • How can you set up your environment to help you?

What change will you make first? Please share in the comments section.

Is 2012 the year your life changes forever? Empower yourself.

(Temple Elephant and Rider is courtesy of  Adam Jones, Ph.D.)

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Imagine waking up each morning to a life that’s centered around your life goals, instead of trying to fit what’s most important to you into the nooks and crannies. “How To Live Your Best Life- The Essential Guide for Creating and Achieving Your Life List” will show you how.

“How to Be More Creative – A Handbook for Alchemists” explains that creativity is not the sole domain of the arts but is important in any field. Whatever you do, creativity helps you do it better. Discover practical advice on how to be more creative in every life endeavor by reading my ebook.

What important task or project have you been procrastinating on? Whether it’s starting a blog, writing a novel, going back to school, decluttering your home, or starting an exercise program, my ebook, “Make It Happen! A Workbook for Overcoming Procrastination and Getting the Right Things Done”, will help you get started and see the task or project through to completion.

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A Powerful Tool For Your Happiness Arsenal: REBT

by Marelisa · 0 comments

Many of us have established “being happy” as one of our main goals in life. However, our own self-talk often interferes with our ability to achieve this goal.

We express our beliefs through our self-talk, and these beliefs can be rational or irrational. While rational beliefs are realistic, irrational beliefs are those that don’t accurately represent the world. There are several categories of irrational beliefs, and we’ve all been guilty of having thoughts that fall into one or more of these categories at some point or another.

One of the best ways to increase our happiness is to replace “irrational” self-talk with more realistic and adaptive self-talk. This post will explain a great tool for doing this; it’s called Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy.

Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy (REBT) In a Nutshell

“Men are disturbed not by things, but by the views which they take of them.” – Epictetus

In the mid-1950s, Albert Ellis–an American psychologist– developed a form of psychotherapy which today is known as Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy (REBT). Dr. Ellis continued to develop REBT, which is a form of cognitive behavior therapy, until his death in 2007. The philosophical basis of REBT is the principle that a person is not affected emotionally by the events that take place in his or her life, but rather by his or her interpretation of these outside events. In short, our thoughts cause our emotions.

Keep reading to discover how you can begin to apply REBT in your own life in order to increase your happiness.

The ABC Model

Albert Ellis created the ABC Model to demonstrate the link between our beliefs, and our feelings and behaviors. Here’s how the ABC Model works:

  • A – Activating Event (Something happens which is the activating event, or the trigger).
  • B – Beliefs (You have certain thoughts about the event that occurred; your thoughts are based on your beliefs.)
  • C – Consequences (As a consequence of the thoughts that you have about the event that took place, you feel certain emotions. These emotions lead you to take some action.)

The ABC Model highlights the fact that feeling an emotional disturbance at point “C” only partially stems from the activating event at point “A”. The real cause of any dysfunctional emotions that you may experience–such as anger, sadness, frustration, anxiety, and so on–, are your own irrational beliefs at point “B”.

Here’s an example:

  • A woman that you met recently at a party, Sarah, passes by you as you walk down the street. You call out a greeting, but she just walks on by.
  • You have the following thought: “She’s ignoring me; she must not have liked me. I must not be very likable.”
  • You feel hurt, sad, and resentful, and you go home and sulk.

Of course, the ABC model doesn’t just end there. The next step is to begin to identify your irrational, self-defeating beliefs–which are rigid, extreme, unrealistic, illogical and absolutist–, and then question and dispute them. In our example of Sarah, you could ask yourself questions such as the following:

  • Am I sure that Sarah saw me? Could it be that she was distracted?
  • Sarah was nice to me at the party, so what evidence do I really have that she doesn’t like me?
  • What if she was just having a bad day?
  • Even if it’s true that Sarah doesn’t like me, is that really such a big deal?
  • If Sarah doesn’t like me, does that really mean that nobody likes me?
  • Is it really imperative that everyone like me?

The last step is to replace your irrational beliefs with more rational and self-helping ones. Here are some examples:

  • Sarah must not have seen me.
  • If Sarah did ignore me, that’s a reflection of her need to work on her social skills; it says nothing about me.
  • We all have bad days; I should give Sarah the benefit of the doubt.
  • Not everyone is going to like me, and I’m OK with that. There are plenty of people who do like me.

Basically, you need to develop a more rational and self-constructive philosophy of yourself, others, and the world. By doing this, you can alter your emotional responses to what happens to you and respond to the world around you in a more life-serving and adaptive way. And this will go a long way toward increasing your happiness.

The Three Basic Musts

According to Albert Ellis, the beliefs that upset us are all variations of three common irrational beliefs. These three beliefs are the following:

Belief about yourself: “I absolutely MUST, under practically all conditions and at all times, perform well (or outstandingly well) and win the approval (or complete love) of significant others. If I fail in these important-and sacred-respects, that is awful and I am a bad, incompetent, unworthy person, who will probably always fail and deserves to suffer.”

  • This belief shows a lack of self-acceptance.
  • It places unrealistic expectations on oneself.
  • It shows an over-concern with the opinion of others.
  • It equates self-worth with achievement.

Belief about others: “Other people with whom I relate or associate, absolutely MUST, under practically all conditions and at all times, treat me nicely, considerately and fairly. Otherwise, it is terrible and they are rotten, bad, unworthy people who will always treat me badly and do not deserve a good life and should be severely punished for acting so abominably to me.”

  • This belief is non-accepting of human fallibility.
  • It assumes that you are at the center of the universe and everyone else must cater to your needs.
  • It assumes that you have the final decision on what’s right and what’s wrong.

Belief about the world: “The conditions under which I live absolutely MUST, at practically all times, be favorable, safe, hassle-free, and quickly and easily enjoyable, and if they are not that way it’s awful and horrible and I can’t bear it. I can’t ever enjoy myself at all. My life is impossible and hardly worth living.”

  • This belief is inflexible and unrealistic.
  • It underestimates your ability to cope with adversity.
  • The underlying premise is that having a trouble-free life is your right.

These three beliefs sound ludicrous and completely nonsensical. However, the next time you find yourself feeling upset, monitor your own thinking and see if you can detect any of these rigid and extreme beliefs lurking in the back of your thoughts. You’ll probably be surprised by what you discover.

Ten Types of Irrational Beliefs

The three musts explained above can be fleshed out into the following ten types of irrational beliefs:

1. All-Or-Nothing Thinking – You see things in black-and-white. If your performance falls short of perfect, you see yourself as a total failure. As an illustration, an “A” student gets a “B” on an exam, and she tells herself that this is proof that she’s not all that smart after all.

2. Overgeneralization – You see a single negative event as a never-ending pattern of defeat. If your girlfriend breaks up with you, you tell yourself that you’ll be alone for the rest of your life.

3. Mental Filter – You pick out a single negative defeat and dwell on it exclusively so that your vision of reality becomes distorted.

4. Disqualifying the positive – You dismiss positive experiences by insisting they “don’t count” for some reason or other.

5. Jumping to conclusions – You make a negative interpretation even though there are no definite facts that convincingly support your conclusion. In turn, this can lead to two different errors in thinking: mind reading and the fortune teller error.

  • Mind Reading. You arbitrarily assign intent to the actions of others, as if you always know why others do what they do.
  • The Fortune Teller Error. You anticipate that things will turn out badly, and you’re convinced that your prediction will come to pass.

6. Magnification (Catastrophizing) or Minimization- You exaggerate the importance of things (such as someone else’s achievement), or you inappropriately shrink things until they appear tiny (such as your own desirable qualities).

7. Emotional Reasoning – You assume that your negative emotions necessarily reflect the way things really are: “I feel it, therefore it must be true.”

8. Should Statements – Should statements don’t cut anyone any slack. It doesn’t matter what you do, or what others do, there’s always more that should be done.

9. Labeling and Mislabeling – This is an extreme form of overgeneralization. Instead of describing your error, you attach a negative label to yourself: “I made a mistake in the presentation, which means that I’m a loser.” When you’re unhappy with someone else’s behavior, you attach a negative label to him or her: “He didn’t return my phone call; he’s an unfeeling jerk.”

10. Personalization – You see yourself as the cause of some negative external event which in fact you were not primarily responsible for.

Questions to Ask Yourself

Whenever you feel upset and you want to determine whether an irrational belief is at fault, ask yourself the following questions:

  • Is this really true?
  • Am I jumping to conclusions?
  • What evidence am I basing my conclusions on?
  • Am I exaggerating or over-emphasizing a negative aspect of the situation?
  • Am I catastrophizing? Am I making things to be a lot worse than they really are?
  • How do I know it will happen?
  • So what if it happens?
  • Is it to my advantage to continue looking at things in this way?
  • Is there another way to look at this situation?

Conclusion

If there’s a situation that’s upsetting you, apply REBT by following these steps:

  • Write down what the situation is.
  • Go through the 10 patterns of distorted thinking listed above and see if you’re applying any of them.
  • If so, ask yourself if there’s a better way to look at the situation.
  • As a fourth step, ask yourself if there’s an even better way to look at it. Then, write down your new interpretation of the event. Keep repeating this new interpretation to yourself in order to fully integrate it into your subconscious.

REBT is a great tool for increasing your happiness; and all you need to do in order to apply it is to modify your own thinking.

Is 2012 the year your life changes forever? Empower yourself.

(Happiness is courtesy of Dawn Ashley)

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