Reflections

Well here we are we have made it to the 100^th post. It is definitely a mile stone of sorts and a rather surprising achievement in how quickly it seems to have snuck up on me. I am going to take this opportunity to muse about the blog and its effect on my life so far.

Since I have committed to writing these five days a week the blog has been a source of structure in my life. It gives me a place to start each day and rededicate my commitment to my own growth. Even when the topics I choose to talk about do not seem to be personnel in nature the very act of writing them is a meditation for me. As I am writing this I feel the gears shifting as all this reflection on the blog makes me give some thought to reflection in general.

Why is it that it takes nice round numbers or obviously important incidents to make us reflect on our lives? Reflection is part of the growth process were we take the time to look back and see how we have changed and the struggles we have overcome. It is that top of the mountain moment were we look out at our lives and see all we have accomplished as well as looking at what comes next.

This is not looking back and dredging up old horrors, or dwelling on failures. Instead it should be an affirmation of accomplishments and a search for lessons in our recent actions. Whether we succeed or fail in what we set out to do it is important we understand why things happened the way they did and use that information to guide our journey back to the path we wish it to take.

Taking time to reflect on should be part of our daily lives and is something I need to work on. I think I will set aside a few minutes at the end of each day to take stock and reflect on what I could do better as well as what I did well. I will let you know how this goes. What are your thoughts on reflection? Let me know and have a great day.

Myths and symbols

Have you taped in to the power of your personnel mythology to transform your life? Does this question make me sound like a new age fruit cake? What the hell is personal mythology any way? Why is Quinn asking so many questions today? Why would I want to use personnel mythology in my life any way?

Personal mythology is simply the stories we tell our selves and the symbols that are important to us in our daily lives. We crate myths of why we are success full and why we fail. These myths are built of the excuses and the limiting factors that a lot of times hold us back as well as the fictions that help us succeed. The mythology also holds for us the symbols that represent success and achievement in our minds.

We can use our mythology in a number of ways first of all we need to debunk it, then we need to reinforce it and then we need to look for it.

Debunk and reinforce

These two go hand in hand as we find parts of our mythology that detract from our lives we must debunk them and throw them out. On the other hand we also need to reinforce the stories and ideas that help us to succeed. Let's look at some examples.

You are part of a team working hard on a difficult task and manage to not only get it completed but do it well. In this situation we might tell ourselves that the success was not real yours it was the teams we could have not done it alone.

This sort of myth devalues our selves, erodes confidence and downplays our contribution to the goal. We need to be thankful for the help others have given us but we need to recognize that we were a vital part of the team as well. This is debunking, removing the poisons parts of stories that hold us back.

Another example: You are working on a project and become stuck so you desired to take a shower and relax for a bit. While you are in the shower an idea comes to you that unlock the problem you were facing.

The mythology here is that the shower provides inspiration, while this may or may not be true we can reinforce this by repeating the situation when we get stuck. This creates an environment where we are prepared by our mythology to be receptive to inspiration.

These are just a few examples of how we can edit out our negative misconceptions and use the power of stories to create a fertile environment for success.

Symbols

Even more powerful then the stories we tell ourselves is the symbol set we create in our lives. Symbols as we are talking about them here are objects, ideas, words, numbers, colors that we attach personnel meaning to. The power of symbols is that they cut to the very core of our being like a bolt of lightning. Part of the problem is when we are asked or ask ourselves what is my symbol set we often don't know.

For me a potent symbol is my engagement ring, I know when I am down I can look at it and it will remind me I am loved, but it does more. When I am in a hard place and not wanting it to go on it tells me that what I am doing is not just for me. And these are just a few of the associations I have with this simple band of mettle and bit of carbon.

This is the power of symbols they can pick us up when we are down. They can guide our cores, effecting our decision making process by guiding us toward positive symbols and away from negative ones. The problem with this is that it is a largely subconscious process; by taking time to understand our mythology and the symbols that it creates we can have a more conscious understanding for decision making process. We can also create spaces with our positive symbols to reminded us of our purpose and reenergize us when life gets rough.

So take the time to listen to the stories you tell yourself, edit them and use them. Taking control of this mythology will give you more control over your actions today and your mindset for the rest of your life. Understanding the symbols that guide you, energize you and drain the energy from you will likewise give you more control over that energy and help you to map the course of your life.

So do you still think I am talking like a new age fruit cake? Figured out why I am asking so many questions? (If you have let me know in the comments I have been trying to understand my propensity for leading with a question for a few weeks now). All right folks have a great day and if you find this interesting or helpful share it with your friends.

Fear and nervousness outside the comfort zone

Conventional wisdom states that we only grow when we step outside our comfort zone this is different than facing our fears however. Our comfort zone is filled with all the things we are used to doing, the things we understand, and the things that are easy for us. When we step outside in to the wilds of discomfort we start to feel uneasy, and nervous. Why? Because there is a chance we might fail, and it might happen publicly. But as you spend time in the wilds you start to clear the land build a camp site, in other words make that territory yours and as the new skill becomes easier the wilds become part of your comfort zone.

In our society fear and nervousness are often confused. Nervousness is that quivering in our stomach that says I don't like this and happens when we think that something might harm us. Fear, real fear is a powerful instinctive force that we cannot resist without help and training. Fear shows up when we stop knowing that something can hurt us and know that it will unless we act. Stepping outside our comfort zone should not make us afraid but does often make us nervous.

When we try something new, when we reach for our goals we often feel nervous and anxious. We worry that we will fail that we will be laughed at or that people will mock us. What we must realize is that if we want to create a better life for our self first true failure is stagnation. The entire concept of creating a better life for ourselves is rutted in the principle that we are not satisfied with were we are today. I would rather try and fail publicly then to sit and stagnate. Why? I can walk away from the mocking voice of others; the voice inside my own head that tells me I am not achieving what I could is something I can not escape.

What are your thoughts? Let me know I n the comments and stay safe but keep growing and as always have a great day.

The empowerment of limitations

Our potential is vast. The world is vast. This vast world is filled with approximately 7 billion other people all with vast potential all with a vastly different set of life experiences. The amount of data we take in every day is vast. Our world is huge and it is easy to find our self lost in it. That is the power and beauty of limitations and boundaries. It is interesting to note that while the two words have at their root the same meaning (limitation comes from the Latin limitem which means a "a boundary, embankment between fields, border,") that a limitation has a negative connotation while boundaries does not.

Limitations help us define what is important to us and help us to give our vast and wonderful world structure. One way we can start to take control of our life is to set limitations on how we use our time and energy. Limitations can also be used to help us be more creative, more efficient and generally have a greater level of focus in our lives. Limitations, and our relationship to them, are like a surfer in the tube of a crashing wave. He only has one way to go surrounded on all sides by the incredible power of the ocean. If he were to turn away and fight against this limitation he would be flung from his bored and tossed about like a rag doll. Instead he decides to move in line with his limitations working within the binderies to find the spot where he has the power of the wave to guide him in a controlled manor. His reward for this is that he gains the wonderful otherworldly experience of being in a place few will ever experience.

The same is true for us as we move about our daily lives, when we struggle or ignore the limitations set by circumstance, by ourselves or by law we will find ourselves tossed about by the power of the world. We come away bruised and battered and often worse off than when we started. I am not saying that we should not strive to change, strive to overcome but that we should do it with full knowlage and in the context of our limiting factors. I will also go to say we never overcome a limitation but instead we overcome obstacles. Limitations are boundaries, the line in the sand that says this is one thing this is another. Rather than overcome them we expand them, making the area of things that are possible and permissible larger. With this idea of limitations in place we can now address how to draw power from them.

Limitations increase focus.

We only have a disceet amount of energy we can expend each and every day limiting our time to certain activities increases our ability to those things we want to do well. When we want to put effoert in to something we will usually shut out the distractions, maybe turn off the phone, defiantly turn off the TV and if you are like me put on some music that is conducive to thought. These actions do not just set the mood for productivity they also limit the information we are having to posses to that which deals with the task at hand.

Limitations define our tools.

When we want to be creative whether it is in problem solving or an artistic endeavor we need to limit the field we are going to work in. As artists we choose our media weather it is pastels, oils or clay. Each of these choices limits what can and will be created. The same is true with personnel growth. When we decide I want ot be better ant this thing, say for example I want to be a better speller this begins to define the tools we will use to achieve the goal. In the case of spelling I may start reading the dictionary every day, or self correcting words instead of letting the spell checker do it for me. However I will not stair at a picture of an apple to learn how to spell apple.

The power of limitations is that they allow us to define what we want to accomplish and how we want to accomplish it. Without defining the binderies of our effort we can easily become bogged down in all the possibilities that we are presented with every day. Do you set limitations for yourself? Let me know in the comments and as always have a great day.

Our war torn inner landscape

A wounded and shell shocked solder wanders through the smoking wreckage of a battle field. Fires burn and his stare is focused some were in the distance. His clothes are torn, his body bloodied, he walks because he can't sit still, he can't pull his eyes away from the horror that is all around him. In the distance the sounds of battle still echo the boom of artiliary the chatter of wepon fire and the rumble of the heavery cavelry and still the solder walks on like a ghost touching this broken building or that ruined vehicle.

That dazed solder is us my friends when we let or mind fill up with clutter. The battel field is our thought prosses, not the decisions we make but the very way we make those destinations. Whether the clutter is physical, metal, spiritual, social or emotional it disrupts how we think and act. What we must do is learn how to clear the battle field and turn it in to something else, perhaps a park. Then once this transformation is complete we need to return the solder to civilian life and give him a new job, in keeping with the park theme lets say a gardener.
Transforming the battlefield

We need to let go. We acumulate stuff that fills our home, old cell phones kitchen gadgets and toys come to mind quickly Similurly we hold on to emotional hurts, inpractical ideas, memorys of insults or mabey guilt over long forgiven sins. We need to get rid of this clutter or make a space for it were it does not get in the way of our daily existence. In the proses of turning the battlefield in to a park this akin to opening a sculpture garden or perhaps a playground.

For example for years I have had the idea for a novel about a man and a taling cat on the great American road trip but every time I try to write it it feels wrong. For the time being it has been moved to the playground of my mental park. It is a thought that I still like to play with and look at when I have time but now it is not a distraction to me every day.

In contrast the the feelings of inadicuisy that I left my last relationship with have wound up in the dumpster. They are something i do not need or want in my house any more. They are the crumbling building that needs to be torn down and replaced with a nice picnic spot.

Another thing we can do to help the transformation from battlefield to park is to reclaim or rededicate our mental space to a new purpose. I have mentioned before about how it can be helpful to refight old battles in order to put defeats out of our mind. Another techiques is a simple rededication. By making a clear an conscious decision that things are going to be different from now on we can set the ground work for the clean up prosses.

Rehabilitating the solder.

Once we have cleaned up the battlefield the next proses we need to consider is how do we keep the armies of our daily struggles from overrunning the calm, clean park we have built. The answerer is one of those things that is simple to stay but difficult to actually achieve: we must retrain our solder for a pursuit other then violence. Let us say that he will now be a gardener tasked with keeping our park neat and tidy. he must learn how to pick the weeds from the grass, keep the play area clean and clear of broken glass and other things which may be dangerous to us.

How do we become that gardener instead of the shell shocked veteran? How do we stop the clutter from building up? The only answers I have for these questions are constant vigilance for things that could be clutter. Constant reevaluation of the condition of our environment and the willingness to put things away both physically and mentally when we are done with them.

If you have thoughts on decluttering life and keeping that way I would love to hear your thoughts on the subject. I would be remiss in not mentioning that this post was inspired by some excellent thoughts from both Gretchen Ruben and Anshu. So before I tell you to have a great day don't forget to comment and follow the feed. that said have a great day!