On Creating Changes

"Two basic rules of life are these:
1) Change is inevitable.
2) Everybody resists change.
The only person who likes change is a wet baby."
Roy Blitzer

It is natural to want things to remain the same as changes are almost always challenging.
I recently relocated, changing not only countries but also continents. I know how much energy that change demanded, having to recreate my life, recreate my home, my circle of friends and my work.

Yet, if we remind ourselves that change is the ONLY thing constant in life, if we accept the fact that everything changes, the seasons, our cells, our teeth, our bodies, our looks, our shoe size, we remain open to the changes that are (constantly) coming.

If there is no way of preventing change, then the next best solution is to remain open to it. Changes can be terrifying at first, I agree. Yet, ignoring the fact that some things have to change is just a way of postponing pain - which will almost certainly make the pain more significant.

So, if you are currently facing changes in your life and dreading it, relax! How do you do that? A good way is to remind yourself of the HERE and NOW of your situation. What is happening in your life TODAY? Who are you speaking to? Who or what do you see in this moment? How do you feel? Is there a possibility (even if you don't want to acknowledge it at this moment) that change can bring something positive?

If you decide change is necessary and you are dreading it, don't worry! Accept and love yourself because you are only being human. The first step to creating change in your life is acknowledging the fact that you might be scared out of your wits.

What can your second step be?

Can you feel the fear? Then risk it!

Every day our thoughts are guided by our fears. Let me speak for myself!
Everyday, MY thoughts are guided by my fears. Have you ever wondered, if your "fear" and your "thoughts" were little kids, who would be the leader in the relationship? In my mind's relationship, fear was Bart Simpson, always finding a way to do and get whatever he wanted; and in a very loud way, no less.

Sometimes my fears became so big and twisted that it was hard to make clear if my thoughts and my fears were one and the same.  These were the times when I had to remind myself that my thoughts are my thoughts, I will always have them. On the other hand, fear is fear, I can CHOOSE to have it rule my thoughts or not.

Sometimes I hear my clients say "I don't choose to have fearful thoughts, they just come up." Yes, that's true, thoughts come up just like that. This happens to people like us, who have legs and arms and a heart and a stomach. It's perfectly human to have the most different types of thoughts. Yes, sometimes these thoughts can be fearful. It happens to mothers, it happens to entrepreneurs, and to CEOs alike. This is where self awareness and self observance come in. The more you observe yourself, the more you become aware that you are having fearful thoughts. Only when you observe yourself and realize you are behaving in a certain manner do you have the opportunity to decide to change it - if you so desire.

The same doesn't happen to children though! Has anyone asked a little kid what he wants to become when he grows up? Has anyone ever heard "Oh, I don't know, I want to be a rock star but I'm scared that no one will like my style!" NO! Because children have no fear in relation to their dreams. They have no previous memories of defeats or rejections. They have inspiring and challenging dreams - all fearless.

I just completed my NLP Practitioner training course with the Society of NLP's Brazilian trainer Claudio Lara. Among the countless enriching techniques and infomration we received, we were taught how to model behavior, which is  what Richard Bandler, ond of NLP's creators, says is one secret formula to success. That secret is to model the behavior of someone who already is or does as you want to become and do.

If we take the behavior of children and model it in order to live a fearless life, let's take the situation where the child thinks about what he wants to become when he grows up. He sees in his mind's eye, himself jamming with his band and what clothes he is wearing. He hears what he is singing. He sees the fans shouting under him and can hear them shouting "You rock, you rock!". He allows himself to envision what he wants, freely and precisely, without thinking if it's possible to get there or what others will think about his decision.

In life, we are always faced with having to confront risks. If we think about it, even the most mundane tasks in life are risky. Do I cross the street now that no cars are coming or do I wait for the pedestrian light to turn green? Do I take the elevator even though an earthquake may occur and I can get stuck in it? Should I drive my vehicle to work even though there is a probability that I might get in a car accident?  Risks are all around us.

The important thing is to view risks as opportunities for achieving whatever it is you want. For example, if you were a survivor in a deserted island, and you had to climb tall trees to get coconuts to cease your hunger, you would do it, wouldn't you? The mere thought of that refreshing coconut milk entering your thirsty system would make you willing to take the risk of climbing the tree.

As author Ambrose Redmoon put it:  "Courage is not the absence of fear, but rather the judgement that something else is more important than fear. The timid presume it is lack of fear that allows the brave to act when the timid do not. But to take action when one is not afraid is easy. To refrain when afraid is also easy. To take action regardless of fear is brave."

First step, identify what it is you really want.  Make a mental image of you achieving/attaining whatever it is you want with a passion. Observe yourself, observe your body: how is your heart pounding, are your hands sweating, is your breathing calm or shallow and quick? How are you feeling these bodily sensations? Are they pleasant or do they carry fear with them? If you find fear creeping up your whole being just by thinking about what you wish you had, relax, you are not alone! Many people fear getting what they really want, because that involves a great deal of risks to be taken.

Second step, remind yourself that what you are visualizing is just that - a visualization, not a contract for something happening or not happening. So be wild, see your wish come true and make it lively, put some vibrant colors on your vision, put some shine on it, make the image bigger! Have fun! That will give the brain the command that it has "seen" what you want, it has lived that situation and the sensation was fantastic! With your brain working in your favor and looking for further ways to feel this same fantastic sensation once again, you will be more equipped for taking the next baby step.

If feeling fear is not an option, you can work with an NLP practitioner and he or she will help you reprogram your mind. More on that later!

Achieving your dreams requires you focus on exactly that - the dream - and leave fear to the side. You don't have to act as if fear doesn't exist if it does. Hiding it under your imaginary carpet doesn't do you any good. Acknowledge it and know that you can take risks even when that creepy fear seems to haunt your every baby step!

Eat your frog early in the morning!

How do you prioritize your "to do" list?

Are you one of these people who wake up in the morning and can't start their day without coffee and social networking?
Do you send your best friend or sister or that classmate you haven't seen in 15 years an email as soon as you sit in front of the computer screen?

You are best off eating your frog instead!

Imagine eating a frog early in the morning! Not many things can be worst than that!  Author Brian Tracy says that your frog is the most important, hardest task you have to do.
If you get yourself to do that hard task early in the morning, while your mind is still free from other distractions, before you get carried away with emails, phone calls, meetings, you will tackle your task in a more focused and effective way.

Also, if you eat your frog early in the morning, it won't be hopping around in your mind, waiting for you to give it some attention!

Watch the video and tomorrow when you wake up, make eating your frog top of your priority list.

http://www.eatthatfrogmovie.com/

Our weapon!

"The most powerful weapon on earth is the human soul on fire" Ferdinand Foch

VIA freefoto.com

The G.O.B.

You know those days when everyone irritates you? Those days when you are feeling judgmental, critical and nothing anybody says can make you feel better! Your significant other is getting on your nerves, your client is driving you up the walls, your mother keeps calling to check if you have food in the fridge and to top it all off, your assistant asks for a raise!

UUUGGGHHH!!!

For days like these, you need to remember the GOB!

I was introduced to the GOB by my own coach, Rich Litvin, and it has saved me a lot of headache and heartache.

To remember the GOB is to remember the Glimpse Of Brilliance that exists in each person. Everybody has it! It can be the way your significant other looks at you with admiration, or the way your mother ends all her speeches with "I will always love you" or the way your assistant is always willing to stay late hours to help you out. It can be any small thing the person in front of you possesses that reminds you of his/her inner beauty, power and brilliance!

For those days when you want to send the person in front of you to where the sun don't shine, remember the GOB. Take time to get in touch with and honor it. You will see that you will immediately start feeling better. You might even catch yourself smiling!

Go ahead, try it out for yourself, it's easy, it just needs practice:

Catch yourself feeling angry
Look at the target of your anger (or think of him/her)
Get in contact with what is radiant and glorious about them
Honor the GOB and...
SMILE!

The beauty in life is that we ALWAYS have the power to choose.
Choose finding the GOB in every person and you will always have a reason to smile!

To life in all its positivity!

Yesterday, my family had the great honor to celebrate my father's 80th birthday!

At times like these, I can't help myself - I get emotional thinking about all that this man has gone through in his life. I hope that sharing his story will serve as an inspiration to you, just as it has served me!

At the tender age of 10, my father lived the horrors of World War II, his father sent to war and his mother left to care for 9 hungry children, who were at one point prohibited by the doctor, to get up from their beds.  Any movement would mean a waste of energy, something scarce and valuable, given that their main staple was potato peel soup.

I will not make this a melodramatic entry, although listening to war stories is always so inspiring to me, as it makes me think about my own life, how fortunate I am and how things could always be worse, so much worse!

What I want to share about this just turned 80 year old, is the example that he has always been to me, my sister and most people who have had the luck of coming in contact with him.

Having survived the war, he immigrated with his family to a country where he didn't speak the language and didn't have two coins to rub together. Him and the remaining 4 children (the other 4 had died during the Second World War) lived in one room with their mother (their father died soon after the war) and worked in the streets, doing odd jobs for a living.

From selling underwear in the streets to wrapping steering wheels with leather, he made his way slowly and steadily to having the biggest shop in a small town and then to owning a factory of over 600 employees in the 70s-80s that was the industry leader in its segment.

As they say, life is harsh, and following an economic crisis, the factory went bankrupt and he was made to start again from scratch, this time with a wife and children to tend to. Start again he did, and again, and yet again just to be faced with the current economic crisis in Greece, where he currently resides.

What is fascinating is that this man, having been thrown to the ground so many time, remains forever positive! He is always smiling and ready to lend a helping hand to someone in need.  When times are tough, he has a way of remaining calm and together.  His positive outlook towards life has been something of a mystery to my sister and I, who have often wondered if he is like this because of nurture or nature.

He has taken hardships as lessons and his positive outlook makes him resilient when times are tough. Another thing that is interesting about my father, is that he always has a project going on. He always has a goal and creates vivid images in his mind of how he will attain it. He is literally, a visionary. I have heard him say time and again "Last night, before I went to sleep I saw the new project I want to work on complete in my mind. I walked through it and talked to the people involved". He is not afraid of DREAMING BIG because he is not afraid of failing big, and that makes all the difference!

To me, my father is a living example that if we remains positive, even when that takes more of us than we can stand; if we have the courage to smile, even when all we want to do is curl up and die, we can gracefully and resourcefully get through the hard lessons this life throws at us.

Remaining positive is not just another fad line. Scientists are proving the impact our beliefs have in our lives. In his revolutionary book called "The Biology of Belief", renowned cell biologist, Dr. Bruce Lipton, shows us how our thoughts and beliefs affect every cell in our body.  Remaining positive might take effort, as some of us might have been programmed to concentrate on hardship and catastrophe. Luckily for us, we have a way around this, as Dr. Lipton states in his book: "Endowed with the ability to be self-reflective, the self-conscious mind is extremely powerful. It can observe any programmed behavior we are engaged in, evaluate the behavior and consciously decide to change the program. We can actively choose how to respond to most environmental signals and whether we even want to respond at all. The conscious mind's capacity to override the subconscious mind's preprogrammed behaviors is the foundation of free will."

Here is to eighty years of smiling in the face of adversity and laughing at life's harshest lessons.
If my father can do it, what stops you and I from doing it too?