On my Roboform web file manager I have a folder labeled “Happiness” and it’s filling up fast lately.
Just in the last few days I’ve added three more entries. One was for Dr. Robert Holden’s “Happiness Project” one for Lord Richard Layard’s movement for social change “Action for Happiness” and the other was for a guy named Ludwig.
Famous Quotivations # 9 – Jan 28 , 2011 [display_podcast]
“I couldn’t wait for success so I went ahead without it.” –Jonathan Winters
Know what I’ve noticed over the years?
A lot of us have wait problems.
No, I’m not talking about the heavy kind of weight. To be sure, obesity is certainly reaching critical mass here in Canada and in the US, but what I’m talking about is a problem that has gripped almost all of us no matter what the size label says.
The wait problem I’m talking about is metered by the pendulum not the tape measure and it’s probably more virulent than you would think. In fact the number one reason for highway deaths each year is speeding in an attempt to beat the clock.
So, why are we going so fast? We can’t wait to get to where we’re going.
See the wait problem?
We can’t stand to wait for anything so we surround ourselves with things that deliver quickly. Microwave ovens, email, rapid transit, TV and internet with high-speed cable, and, of course, pizza.
Clearly, we hate waiting. We want stuff and we want it now.
Instant gratification has become the new normal. Too bad our immune system, the one that looks after our thinking not the one that takes care of our body, hasn’t kept up to this speed increase. It’s been a mindset immunity massacre.
As a result all the old methods of personal development, the ones that were authored way back in the 30’s and 40’s, don’t work near as well as they once did They we’re never designed to overcome such a high level of uncertainty.
One of the most devastating effects of this bias for all things instant is when it comes to success. When a new entrepreneur doesn’t see their dream unfolding quick enough it tends to kill their motivation to carry on. They loose the ability to muster enough passion and persistence to keep running the business efficiently and learn from their mistakes over the long haul.
The problem with success is that the timeline to it can be long and arduous. Take for example the prolific mystery author Steven King. He wrote every day for nine years before he sold his first novel. Marie Curie spent seven years living in poverty in Paris while studding and researching radio activity. Michael Faraday worked as a lab assistant for seven years before he was even allowed to do his own experiments. And finally, Walt Disney was fired from the Kansas City Star newspaper in 1919 because, his editor said, he “lacked imagination and had no good ideas.” Thirty-six years later on July 18, 1955 Disneyland opened to the public and approximately 50,000 guests attended the Monday opening day.
Studies show that, on average, fifty percent of all start-ups fail during the all-important first five years of being in business. Same for relationships (What’s that? You refuse to make me happy every single day? I’m outta here!)
Sure, you shouldn’t have to wait for success to happen but don’t quit trying new things to make it happen. Consistently working every day toward the end goal is key to getting through the dreaded timeline and the learning curve on the road to success.
It could well be that success in anything is always going to be further than you think. But what if the reward of knowing that you could do it on your own is worth the wait?
It’s Friday. Consider your self quotivated.
PS: Is this about you? Do you have a wait problem? Is success running away from you? Maybe you should check out my new book “The Gut Brain Balm – How to get more of the success and happiness you deserve by learning to love the ugliest brain your world has never known.”
Sometimes we work away at things and it doesn’t seem like we’re getting anywhere. The timeline from start to finish, if there is ever a ‘finish”, can sometimes be a long one.
It’s easy to choose not to make it better and fall into discouragement. It’s easy to quit when it appears that reaching the goal is still far away around a corner or over yet another mountain.
But artists, and we’re all artists in our own right, have always struggled for newness even if that newness was just getting to the next day.
I’m not here to tell you to never quit – your mother told you that. I’m here to ask you a question: Can you continue to keep up the struggle through the timeline for another day another month another year in order to find out what your true calling is?
If you can, I can guarantee you, it will result in you making it way way better.
“God has given you one face, and you make yourself another.” ~William Shakespeare
Shakespeare recognized it. I don’t know if the bard himself had a problem with it or not but, chances are, you probably did. Don’t you remember your mother telling you this:
“Just be yourself.”
It most likely was at a time in your young life when you faced a challenge that triggered some measure of fear. Perhaps you were assigned the task of speaking in front of the class on a project that you cared about. Maybe you were going somewhere socially for the first time and became flustered with worry about how you might be received.
It’s quite common, especially when we’re young, to seek advice about how to handle some new situation from sources outside of yourself. When we become adults we hire life-coaches for that. We go to seminars and read “how to” books, or watch videos on YouTube.
Then we get addicted to that stuff and, because it wears off after a time, we’ve got to go back for more.
But I think the real reason that we have a hard time being our original selves is because deep down we know we’d then have to take responsibility for the outcomes we create.
As Chris says “Being yourself is risky. Something could go wrong, and then whose fault would it be?”
Opps! Something fell of the rails? You landed on your head instead of your feet?
Failures happen. They can hurt like hell but they can also be very instructive and that usually renders a high value sometime in the future.
Bear your scars proudly. It may not be the face you were born with but it’s the best face you’ll ever have.
Consider yourself quotivated.
PS: Want to hit a home run in your own personal development? Register HERE for my free Mindset Immunity Explained webinar this Tuesday at 6PM Pacific and learn how you can become the author of the most important ebook ever written.
Mean is a word that can have some very diverse definitions, even alarming ones.
The first that might come to mind is the one associated with all the vile stuff we hear about on the evening newscast.
But that’s not what I want to talk about today. You get enough of that in other media so here’s a little break from all that.
The word I’m using today is just another way of saying medium. You know. Not too hot and not too cold but just right. Sort like Goldilocks and the 3 bears sort of thing.
This right in the middle thing is sometimes looked at as the “average” on a certain scale.
And while “average” can accurately describe the position of being in the middle there is another derivative of that word meridian.
This has a famous connection to it as in the prime meridian. This is the invisible line that runs north and south and divides the globe into two distinct hemispheres of east and west.
The prime meridian has a historical connection to the Royal Observatory in Greenwich in London. In fact it’s drawn right through the center of it. If you go there you’ll see a line painted on the floor.
This is the same observatory that used to be the keeper of the measuring of time for the rest of the known world. Greenwich “mean time” was the standard for the world’s clocks for many years until it was replaced by Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) for scientific purposes.
But Greenwich mean time is still the time for you and me and is based on the sun’s position at a particular point as it passes over the earth’s meridian.
But what’s all this got to do with my main theme for this blog which is Mindset Immunity?
Glad you asked.
It appears that there is another important mean measurement term that I haven’t yet introduced you to.
I’ll refer to it as the “mood mean” It’s a state of mindset equilibrium. It’s kept nearest it’s middle point thanks to something I call mindset immunity.
Let me describe it this way.
The body maintains its temperature at approximately 98.6 degrees Fahrenheit. Much hotter than that and you probably should stay home and drink plenty of fluids. Colder than that and you’ll be in a chill that could have serious consequences unless you get yourself cozied up by the fire or head off to the nearest hot tub.
It’s well known that a natural state of good physical health is largely maintained by the built-in mechanism provided by the immune system. It automatically works on three levels:
to protect
to heal
to remember
Mindset immunity provides similar protection except it does it for the thinking mindset. In other words it keeps your mood closer to “normal” so that you can function and make good sound decisions even in the face of ever-changing realities.
But there is a problem.
I believe that, the average human today has a mindset immunity that is moving at a snail’s pace. That account’s for why it takes so long for many of us to get over a situation that was not seen as positive.
But I’ve figured out a way to speed things up quickly and permanently. It’s a process that I call H.E.R.O.; an acronym for Honest Examination of Real Occurrences. It entails reverse-searching your past success history in a structured way in real-time in an on-line platform with a live guide to assist you.
Mindset immunity is everyone’s birthright. You have it now. All it needs is to get untied and it will do its magic as it should.
That means it can smooth out all those otherwise rough spots in your thinking so you have more energy to do better at living a quality life.