Self-doubt makes you opt for misery even when joy is available to you. It fills you with emptiness when fulfillment is your birthright. And it fools you into favouring bondage over freedom. And Dr Davis can say this with authority because he’s been there, done that.

Overcoming self-doubt

In a moment of brutal honesty, this ex-convict made a difficult but pro-life choice of going back to study after leaving prison for the second time. It was during his college that he had a transformational realisation that made him begin to believe in his abilities for the first time. That was the turning point. “In 2006 only seven years after I walked off the yards at Corcoran state prison, I walked across the stage, and I was conferred my doctorate in clinical psychology,” he says in this talk at the Sacramento edition of TEDx.

Like Davis, you too can learn to overcome your self-doubt. Watch this hard-hitting talk presented in a gentle manner by a man who will make you believe in yourself.

About B J Davis

Dr. Davis is the Director of Strategies for Change, a substance abuse and mental health treatment agency. He is also the author of the movie “What is Recovery?”

In addition to his doctorate, Davis has a dual BA in philosophy and religion, and masters’ degrees in psychology and counseling. Aside from working at Strategies, he is a Professor in the Forensic and Clinical Psychology Doctoral Program and consultant to the Sacramento Aids Housing Alliance. It is his history that allows Dr. Davis to speak with authority. A recovering drug addict, Davis spent time in State and Federal prisons, until he found people who believed in him, then a reason to believe in himself. Rather than drugs he depended on praise, and used that to become a director, a doctor, and a mentor. He now uses his unique background in addiction, recovery, and counselling to encourage others to believe in themselves.

The post A former felon tells you how to overcome self-doubt appeared first on Complete Wellbeing.

• What are switchwords
• How to use switchwords in everyday life
  1. Negate bad thoughts
  2. Find, retrieve or memorize things
  3. Get out of jams or lose bad habits
• Making a switchword sentence
• How to combine multiple switchwords
• Table: A list of useful switchwords for love, health and work

What are switchwords

James T Mangan dedicated his life to understanding the power of individual words. In his book, The Secret of Perfect Living, published in the 1960s, he coined the term switchwords. Switchwords work because they bypass the conscious thinking minds and reach out to our subconscious minds. They are words that, like switches, help us turn off the blocks in our subconscious and turn on our hidden potential.

Amazingly, these are simple words we use in our day to day lives. However, when we use them with a focused intention, they start creating magic. To categorize them as a manifestation tool, however, is to sell them short. Switchwords are an amazing clearing and cleansing tool.

How to use switchwords in everyday life

You can use switchwords for good health, money, love, weight loss or any other intention you may have. Let’s look at three examples of how switchwords can help you in your everyday life.

1. Negate bad thoughts

I was taught switchwords and how to apply them in a happiness class. Of all the switchwords, the one that particularly caught my fascination was “Cancel”. Every thought carries energy. Using the word ‘Cancel’ clears the energy behind a negative thought. It can therefore prevent a negative intention from manifesting. So for a week I experimented. Every time I had a negative thought, I cancelled it by repeating, “Cancel, Cancel,” in my head a couple of times. Sometimes I even put a red cross across it in my mind.

For almost a week after I began, I found that I was cancelling every other thought. One morning as I woke up, I had the first thought pop into my head: Cancel. It was truly a moment of elation for me. I started experiencing a mind free of negative thoughts. I became aware that the mind is not the content, but rather the stream of awareness where thoughts come and go.

2. Find, retrieve or memorize things

Soon afterwards, I started experimenting with other switchwords. “Reach” a word which is used to find something or solve a problem, became my next favorite word. I couple it with the word “Divine” which means to work miracles. After all if you have lost something, it feels like a miracle when it shows up. I had the habit of misplacing my keys all the time, so “Reach Divine” was a real life saver. Additionally, this phrase can also be used to help you recall or retrieve. During a job interview, I used “Reach Divine” to memorize my technical fundamentals that I had forgotten to brush up and it worked. It is not only recalling, but also memorizing that you need on occasions like a job interview. “Care” helps you to memorize and retain information. I repeated the phrase “Care Divine” after studying a module for an interview. Sure enough, I remembered things a lot faster.

3. Get out of jams or lose bad habits

So much of our life is spent in traffic jams, especially if we live in metro cities. Chanting ‘Divine Order Now’ clears traffic and helps you get out of jams. Adding ‘Halfway’ to this mantra can make a distance seem short. Another handy switchword that my mother used for a long time was ‘Off’, which is used for sleeping or quitting an unwanted habit. She often chanted ‘Off Divine’ before sleeping and started falling asleep faster and better. An acquaintance of mine also used ‘Off Divine’ every time he smoked or had the urge to smoke to help him get rid of his habit.

Chanting ‘Divine Order Now’ clears traffic and helps you get out of jams

Making a switchword sentence

The trick to using switchwords is that the more playfully you apply them, the easier it is to see results. Moreover, there is even a template that allows you to combine different switchwords to help you affirm what you need. It reads something like…

“Bring Together With Divine Love <put your choice of switchword here> Now Done Thanks”.

For example, to manifest your heart’s desires, you may use the switchwords “Find Charm”. You can use these words in the template like this: Bring Together With Divine Love Find Charm Now Done Thanks!

How to combine multiple switchwords

• Don’t crowd all the switchwords into the same phrase or sentence. For example, use one phrase for health, another for prosperity, another for self-esteem and so on. Break down different areas of your life and apply switchwords to them
• Make sure you are not using conflicting switchwords. For example, if you are looking to get publicity—for which you use “Ridiculous”, and at the same time use “Cut”, which is used for moderation or cutting down, the end result may not be as effective as using ‘Ridiculous’ and a word like “Hole”, which means to appear attractive.
• I have found that using maximum four switchwords for one purpose works well, especially if you put these in the above template.

Have fun while you play with switchwords and experientially understand their essence.

This was first published in the October 2015 issue of Complete Wellbeing.

The post Switchwords: Modern Mantras That Can Help You Transform Your Life appeared first on Complete Wellbeing.

“I believe that there is nothing more pivotal in the journey of conscious parenting or conscious living than the understanding, integration and evolution of pain,” she says as she brings home the wisdom that our attempts to escape from pain, and protect ourselves and our loved ones from it, is the root cause of our suffering.

This talk on pain as a portal to consciousness has the power to trigger a deep transformation in your life, provided you really get the essence.

Dr Shefali Tsabary is a clinical psychologist and author of The Conscious Parent.

The post Must watch: Dr Shefali Tsabary on pain as a portal to consciousness appeared first on Complete Wellbeing.

All our beliefs of life itself have been created by two powerful techniques of hypnosis—repetition and overloading. It is interesting to understand that as much as 88 per cent of our mind is unconscious and only 12 per cent is conscious. The unconscious is a huge storehouse of all our conditioning, beliefs and patterns. From here arise our reactions and behaviour. Unfortunately, we have little access to this control room. Metaphorically speaking, a large iron gate called ‘the critical mind’ guards the secrets of this control room. This gate holds us back from simply walking in and pressing the reset button.

Becoming a better ‘you’

We would love to master our own emotions, performance and behaviour. And not being able to do it makes us feel helpless, hopeless and often depressed.

We do not want to get as angry as we do, we do not want to eat and drink as much as we do. We would like to handle difficult situations with poise and confidence. We look at others who are able to do so and feel guilty about being who we are. We make several resolutions which ultimately fail. All this and more because the control room is locked.

Hypnotherapy is a powerful tool to get in beyond this locked door and re-programme the undesirable and non-productive patterns. Hypnosis happens in day-to-day life many times but when we add the word ‘therapy’ to it, the connotation changes. It implies that an expert does a particular procedure in a safe environment for therapeutic reasons with the consent of the individual.

Though the word hypnotherapy conjures up images of a pendulum, concentric circles and a couch, it is much more than that. There is also a myth that the therapist can control the client or patient. Genuine authentic hypnotherapy that is done with sound scientific knowledge and an intention to heal couldn’t be more different and completely debunks that myth.

The basic principle of hypnotherapy is overloading the conscious mind with message units so that the gate—the critical mind—opens, and reconditioning can be carried out with complete consent and cooperation of the client. This is done with the help of methodical techniques. No equipment needs to be used and guided imagery and suggestions are the backbone of this procedure.

Find someone you trust

The charisma of the therapist also plays a vital role. We may have heard stories of an alcoholic joining AA [Alcoholics Anonymous] and instantly be reformed because he was profoundly influenced by a particular guide. Students, whose life course is changed by a teacher, are also examples of the charisma of a guide or leader bringing about informal hypnotherapy.

Rapport and trust between the therapist and client is of prime importance and time must be spent to build an understanding and answer all queries. Once that is done and the client is assured that they will be in complete control at all times during the procedure, the process begins. The client sits comfortably in an easy chair and, through a relaxation process, is brought into a trance-like stage—a state between sleeping and being awake. Now the unconscious opens up and powerful suggestions can be implanted, which are jointly decided by the therapist and client prior to the session. It must be remembered that hypnotherapy is an adjuvant and not a replacement for medical treatment and when dealing with a medical problem, it is imperative that you take consent from the treating physician.

We need a helping hand

The journey into the unconscious is a fascinating one and brings about an alignment of the unconscious and conscious. When this happens, the overall personality starts glowing and energy levels increase. Ultimately, this alignment results in maximizing potential and making the human experience a fulfilled one. Such a person not only makes his own life a joy but obviously contributes to those of others.

A powerful leader moves nations but a true master touches many lives and contributes to evolution. It is all about alignment. He himself is aligned and has the charisma, which brings about natural hypnosis in the people he comes in contact with. However, few are blessed with an inherent knowledge to bring about this alignment. The rest of us can accomplish far more than we are doing now by going to a good therapist and entering our control room.

Remember, till now, you have only scratched the surface of your true potential. The rest of it is just waiting to be tapped into. And once you do, there is no limit to the extent of personal growth you can achieve.

The post Try hypnotherapy for success and happiness appeared first on Complete Wellbeing.

As a result, the small cues, the simple gestures, the random acts of kindness that give life texture and meaning are too often overlooked or ignored. We feel too pressured to notice the nuances of human behaviour, or to bother with the small personal efforts that may, ultimately, win us more attention than our grand acts or intentions. Taking the time to give a compliment, or being attuned to a colleague or customer’s subtle body cues, are not inconsequential actions. They tell a story. They are the details that make or break a relationship, or decide your promotion. It is our smallest behaviours, and not our grandest gestures, that so often define us and create an imprint of who we are. But the fact is, no one gets ahead, wins the promotion or saves the guy or girl, without noticing, sweating over and taking care of the small stuff.

Believing that it is the small things we do that make the greatest difference is not just an ideology, it is also timely and pragmatic advice born out of the economically challenged world we live in today. Saving a large sum for the future is a daunting task, but focussing on saving penny by penny, fen by fen, paisa by paisa, is easily done, no matter where in the world you live.

We often labour over creating long-term life and career goals and plan five- or ten-year strategies to accomplish them. But life rarely works according to such a grand design. It is the tiny victories we accomplish each day, the details we take the time to worry about, that ultimately lead us to future success.

So please, read on. Just by following these “small” suggestions, you will begin to notice the huge impact it will have on your life.

Taking the time to give a compliment, or being attuned to a colleague or customer’s subtle body cues, are not inconsequential actions

1. Little things matter

Larry was a computer programmer stuck in the sales division of a major apparel company. He was someone everyone took for granted, and was largely invisible to everyone around him. Larry would watch the men and women of the sales department who were constantly getting promoted and praised, and would admire their outgoing and confident demeanour. Larry knew he had some great ideas, and secretly thought, “I can get ahead, I want to get ahead, but no one even knows I’m alive!”

Then one day, Larry strolled into Patricia Fripp’s men’s hair salon. Patricia was an immensely talented hair stylist, because she saw the inner ‘amazing’ in each of her customers, and decided to give Larry a new ‘do’, one that was contemporary, sexy, and a bit daring.

The second Larry got back from the salon, all the women took notice. “Lar-ry,” they squealed, “you look awesome!” Even his wife gave him a knowing wink when he came home to dinner that night. That small gesture, a new haircut, had given Larry a totally new lease on life. He bought a new set of clothes, started working out in the local gym and became more socially engaged with his colleagues.

Larry began to walk, talk and behave with a newfound confidence even he didn’t know he possessed. He offered his boss suggestions on how to improve the company, and so impressed his superiors that when he asked to be moved to a regional sales position, he was awarded the job.

A job he executed brilliantly.

Before long, Larry became the best performer the department ever had, and within a few years he became the chief sales executive of the company.

Yes, Larry had brains and talent, but if you ask him what changed his life [and we did ask], he will tell you that he owes his success to one great haircut from Patricia Fripp [who is now a successful life coach!]

Point here: never underestimate how valuable a small change can be. You don’t need to do a massive overhaul to overhaul your life. Sometimes success is just a hairbreadth away.

 no one gets ahead, wins the promotion or saves the guy or girl, without noticing, sweating over and taking care of the small stuff

2. A kernel of kindness goes a long way

Simone and Jake had been dating for two years. In Simone’s mind, they were a perfect couple, and she was convinced Jake was the man she wanted to marry. There was just one problem: Jake was commitment phobic, and terribly fearful of the ‘M’ word.

Over time, Simone began to despair. Nothing seemed to change Jake’s mind—no amount of convincing, pressuring or ultimatum conversations even made a dent in his desire to remain single. So one evening Simone decided that she was going to break up with Jake once and for all. She had to move on with her life.

On their way to dinner at their favourite restaurant, they passed a homeless man, shivering and starving in the cold, wintry night. Simone, who had been wrapped up in thinking about how she was going to break up with Jake, suddenly stopped in her tracks, jarred back to reality by the sight of this desperate stranger.

“I’ll be right back,” she told Jake. Simone dashed across to the deli across the street and next, into a second hand clothing store. When she returned, she draped a warm woollen coat around the man, and offered him hot soup and a home-made sandwich. The stranger smiled, and they continued on to the restaurant.

As they were about to order, Jake suddenly blurted out, “Simone, will you marry me?” Simone was totally overwhelmed and perplexed with Jake’s spontaneous proposal.

“Why now?” she asked. Jake replied, “When I saw you stop to give that homeless man a coat and a warm meal, all I could think was: ‘How could I not spend the rest of my life with someone this kind?’”

Needless to say, Simone said yes, and today they are happily married with three beautiful children.

More than anything else, it is not the huge investments of time and money that truly chart the path our lives will take, it’s those tiny gestures of compassion and empathy that will make the hugest impact.

Especially when it comes to relationships with our loved ones.

According to Howard Markman, a professor of psychology, “Most couples in trouble think that for things to improve, extraordinary changes, if not miracles, have to take place. But the breakthrough comes when we realise that by making even small changes in ourselves, we can effect big, positive changes.” It means paying attention to the smallest details, listening more attentively, and treating those we care about with just a tad more empathy and love.

It’s the tiny gestures of compassion and empathy that make the hugest impact

3. It’s a byte size world

The digital age has condensed planet Earth into a cosy community of seven billion citizens, give or take a few million, and it’s shrinking by the nanosecond. We’re LinkedIn, YouTubed, Facebooked, Tweeted, Instagramed and Googled at all hours of the day and night. Most of us think this is a good thing. But is it?

Living in a byte-sized world also means we are a click away from being totally visible and vulnerable to virtually everyone from Bombay to Bermuda. That’s great if you’re launching your new “how to build a house in three days” app, but not so great if you do something rude, illegal, or just down-right thoughtless.

A few years back, a young woman from South Korea, who will forever be known throughout the world now as “Dog Poop Girl,” took her pet with her on a South Korean subway train. When the woman’s dog decided to relieve himself on the floor of the train, the passengers urged her to clean up after her pooch. The woman haughtily refused, made a rude remark, and happily left the smelly mess behind. But what she also left behind were over two dozen irate riders with myriad cell phone cameras that recorded the unfortunate event. Within minutes, the pictures were posted, and within a short time, the whole world saw the owner and her hound’s heinous gift on Facebook and YouTube.

This woman’s small selfish act will haunt her forever. Yes, she may one day cure cancer, but the first thing that will come up when you Google her name will be the moniker, “Dog Poop Girl.” For pages and pages and pages.

Moral here? Next time you are about to do something thoughtless or mean spirited, think how it will look on the International CNN report that night. Yes, the world is now that small!

Living in a byte-sized world means we are a click away from being totally visible and vulnerable to virtually anyone

4. Everyone matters

In the frenetically paced world of today, we often interact with several people a day, sometimes hundreds a week, and there is a tendency to believe that only a select few of those people are important to us. We tend to ignore or disregard those at the bottom of the corporate rung, or the lower socio-economic strata, because we assume their opinions will not amount to much.

Nothing could be further from the truth.

Several years back, a major restaurant chain was losing a ton of money because its crystal glassware was breaking with alarming frequency. Regional bigwigs and district managers met at one of the restaurants to discuss the problem. Should the glassware be replaced even though it would be a huge expense? Would it keep happening, no matter which brand they switched to?

Suddenly, a busboy, overhearing the discussion, pulled one of the executives aside and took him to the kitchen. There, he demonstrated how the commercial dishwashers the restaurant had installed would vibrate. Repeated exposure to those vibrations, he suggested, might have weakened and ultimately shattered the crystal. The dishwashers were replaced, the breakage stopped, and the restaurant chain saved a fortune. The busboy was given a $150,000 tip. Not bad for a day’s work!

Never judge someone by their pedigree, their diploma, or their job description. Because, that someone—just maybe—could change the course of your company, your future, and your life.

5. Make small talk

We are so pressed for time that we routinely dismiss casual conversation as idle chitchat, a waste of energy. Why bother with polite pleasantries when you have a 45-page PowerPoint presentation to get through? It’s not like a life-or-death decision is being made when you forego a few minutes of small talk.

Well, we would argue, sometimes small talk can be a lifesaver, figuratively and literally.

Annamarie Ausnes loved meeting people and getting to know more about their lives. Every morning she would see her favourite barista, Sandie Anderson, at her local Starbucks and would ask her how her day was going while waiting for her favourite short-drip double-cup of coffee to be brewed. One morning, however, Sandie could tell that Annamarie just wasn’t herself. She seemed extremely tired and depressed.

“Are you feeling okay?” Sandie asked her. Annamarie was reluctant to speak the truth, but because they had exchanged pleasantries for so many months, she blurted out the tragic news. “I was just placed on the national kidney transplant list, and I’m getting ready to go on dialysis.” Her kidneys were failing and, tragically, none of her relatives were a blood match, so it would be years before she might receive a kidney from the organ bank.

Looking across from the counter, Sandie blurted out, “I’m going to get tested for you!” Annamarie was astounded, but Sandie felt that although they did not even know each other’s names, their casual conversations over the years had created a bond between them.

As luck would have it, Sandie was a perfect blood match, and soon after, she successfully donated one of her kidneys to Annamarie, very well saving her life. Needless to say, they are now the best of friends, inexorably tied to each others lives.

Look at it this way: every person you meet is a door that, once opened, can potentially enrich your life in ways you never imagined. And all it takes are a few kind words to turn the knob.

sometimes small talk can be a lifesaver, figuratively and literally

6. Go the extra inch

It’s not the grandest gestures that lead to change, because those opportunities are not often available to us, and involve great sacrifice, time and money.

It’s the smallest steps you take that have the power to catapult your career, your business and your life’s trajectory.

Take the case of celebrated restaurateur Danny Meyer, the owner of several high end restaurants throughout New York, whose little meaningful gestures have made him renowned in his field. But ask Danny and he will readily agree that his success is not attributable to any single brilliant business decision. Rather, he credits his success to the myriad small decisions that make every customer’s experience enjoyable, positive and memorable.

Danny personally hand writes at least two notes a day to people dining in his award-winning establishments, whether it’s to wish them happy birthday or congratulate them on a recent promotion that he has read about.

When booking a reservation, he has his staff ask if there is a special reason for the lunch or dinner. If, for example, a couple will be celebrating their anniversary, he has a special menu printed for them, so when they open it up there is a heartfelt note from him and the staff. And that couple, like all the others his warmth and personal attention have impacted, will now be customers for life.

Remember, climbing Mt. Everest can only be accomplished with a series of steps, each one taking you further up the mountain.

So what small steps can you take to improve your business?

It’s the smallest steps you take that have the power to catapult your career, your business and your life’s trajectory

7. Solve small problems

Hungarian mathematician George Polya believed that the biggest problem we face is that we are trying to solve problems that are too big to solve! He believed that every huge challenge needed to be unbundled into a series of smaller, more doable problems. Just by tackling those, one at a time, the larger questions could eventually be answered. In essence, there was no bridge that could not be crossed, as you shall soon see.

In the late 1800s, Niagara Falls, which separated the United States from Canada, was a natural wonder that both countries were eager to market as a vacation destination. But, lacking a bridge over the falls, one that would give sightseers a magnificent view as well as connect the two countries, made it an undesirable tourist attraction. They knew they had to build a suspension bridge but there was no way for a boat to get a cable wire across the falls in order to begin construction. The engineers were stymied; without a cable to connect the US and Canadian sides, building the bridge was an impossibility.

Ultimately, the winning solution came not from a member of the experienced team of engineers, but a local man. He suggested they have a kite flying contest! Needless to say, the engineers thought he was crazy. Until the man suggested that whoever was able to fly their kite across the river first would have successfully landed a string across the falls. And that string, once secured on the other side, could be attached to thicker and stronger lines, which eventually could become a steel cable.

Several months later, the bridge opened to the public, and today Niagara Falls has become one of the premiere destinations for travellers everywhere. All because someone was suggested that a kite be flown!

Break every roadblock down to bite-sized bits and you’ll see how much easier it is to tackle even the biggest problems that come your way.

The biggest problem we face is that we are trying to solve problems that are too big to solve!

8. Little mistakes spell disaster

Years ago I had a college boyfriend who graduated at the top of his class, excelling in every pre-med course he took. His dream was to become a physician, and his professors assured him he would make every top tier medical school in the world.

To his amazement, he was turned down from every school. As he was about to apply to one last med school, I asked him if he would show me his application. His grades were stellar, but, while reading the personal essay he had written, I realised he had spelled the word “medicine” incorrectly. He had spelled it “medecine” repeatedly throughout his essay. Fortunately, I pointed out the error before he sent out his last application. Needless to say, he was accepted to the med school and went on to become a successful doctor. [Good thing he had not attempted to become an English teacher!]

We are doomed by the smallest mistakes we make. Sending an email to a client and spelling his name incorrectly. Cc’ing someone on a note that you absolutely never intended for them. Not taking the time to proof read even the smallest FB post, or not double-checking your presentation slides, shows a lack of respect for the other person. Think about the last time you received a correspondence that was obviously never spellchecked. That person definitely will go down a rung or two in your book.

We are doomed by the smallest mistakes we make

9. Celebrate small victories

Smaller, more attainable goals will allow you to experience more frequent mini-rewards. And those myriad rewards send a feel good sensation to your brain, a sensation that makes you feel happier and more empowered to work harder on the task ahead. Marathon runner Paula Radcliffe believes that this “thinking small” mantra has been key to her success.

When Paula wakes up at the crack of dawn to train each day, she never thinks, “I have to run 10 miles this morning.” Fixating on the long run ahead would only make her want to hit the snooze button and fall back to sleep. Instead, she concentrates on counting her footfalls. “When I count to a hundred three times, it’s a mile,” she says. “It helps me to focus on the moment and not think about how many miles I have to go.” Paula’s strategy pays off—because she sets small goals, she feels good every time she achieves those goals.

So tomorrow, instead of picturing how much work you have ahead of you, try making a list, and checking off one small item at a time. Your endorphins will be flying high as they experience a whole slew of mini-accomplishments, and you’ll be surprised how much you will end up tackling by the time the day ends.

Smaller, more attainable goals will allow you to experience more frequent mini-rewards

10. Small things can change the world

Never believe, for one instant, that no single individual has the power to improve the world. In fact, world changing ideas are coming more and more from individuals rather than foundations or governments as we become increasingly connected to the plights and misfortunes of others.

While vacationing in Morocco with his wife, Don Schoendorfer watched beggars jeer as a destitute woman dragged herself across the road by her fingernails. He was outraged, but felt powerless to help her. Nonetheless, the vision of this poor crippled woman scrabbling painfully across the Moroccan road stayed with him long after he returned to his comfortable home in California.

A mechanical engineer by profession, Schoendorfer, spent the next several months scouring discount stores and tinkering through the night in his garage, and finally was able to build a low cost, durable wheelchair that people in developing countries could afford to use.

Today, Schoendorfer’s non-profit group, Free Wheelchair Mission, has delivered more than 75,000 chairs to people in over 33 countries, but he’s not stopping until he has built over 20 million chairs.

The truth is, each of us, no matter if we are eight or 80, has the potential to make this world a bit better than the way we found it.

Never believe, for one instant, that no single individual has the power to improve the world

The first small step

As the co-founder of one of America’s fastest growing agencies, which we grew from a small fledging startup to one with over three billion in billings, I can tell you first hand that using the power of small is what made our agency as big as it is today. We built our business day by day, brick by brick, idea by idea. And once we realised the power of thinking small, it became the vital element of our professional and personal lives, nurturing both our careers and our relationships. Focussing on the tiniest details of the work we love, finding magic in even the smallest inspirations, embracing the briefest moments—that’s where the passion is.

And what about you? Why not embrace the power of small in your life? There’s a world that needs fixing, a career waiting to soar, a life ready to be transformed into the extraordinary.

So the next time you are searching for the “next big thing” or trying to see “the bigger picture”, remember it’s the little things that, ultimately, make all the difference.

Take that first small step.

And keep on walking.

The post The Astounding Power of Small appeared first on Complete Wellbeing.

You can answer this question for yourself simply by examining your self-improvement objectives. If your goal is to lose weight, is it because you woke up 5kg overweight this morning? More likely you woke up 15 grams overweight on many mornings [around 333 mornings, to be exact]. Did the overflowing pile on your desk materialise in an instant, or did it creep up one razor-thin paper at a time? Did your relationship sour due to a single, epic argument, or did small gestures of disrespect and discontent slowly creep into your daily interactions? Did you fail to complete a top priority at work because you deliberately ignored it day after day, or did a hundred small distractions keep you from ever gaining traction?

It’s the margins that matter

Once you acknowledge the power of small actions to create a negative effect, it’s easy to understand how just one behavioural change can create a positive trend with lasting results. The truth that I discovered for myself and wrote about in my book Small Move, Big Change is that the real action in personal development happens at the margin of our behaviour, what I sometimes call the vital margin. While it’s heartening to believe that we can transform ourselves from the inside out with a single decree-to-self to become fit, slender, organised, on time, thrifty or clutter free, the real traction in personal development comes from targeting marginal behavioural changes and practising them until they stick. In self-improvement, it’s working the margin that gives you the edge.

Let’s take a simple example of how a small move can lead to a big change in a classic self-improvement area: diet. Dropping pounds weighs in at number one on the global list of New Year’s resolutions, a midnight pledge that often leads to a crash diet which itself crashes after a only a week or two of effort. As an alternative to taking such drastic actions, what might the benefits be of making a microresolution not to eat after dinner?

• Fewer calories consumed
• Better sleep [smaller digestive load]
• Earlier bedtime [because food acts as a stimulant]
• Better hormonal balance [because the key hormones that regulate appetite and satiation require 7.7 hours of sleep]
• Increased appetite for breakfast [the most important meal of the day].

As if that weren’t enough, a new study ^[1] conducted by the Salk Institute for Biological Studies in San Diego, and published in Cell, demonstrates that restricting food consumption to a 12-hour period creates the conditions for maintaining a trim profile. The study found that rats whose eating was limited to 12-hour time span were leaner and healthier than rats fed the same number of calories without time restrictions. Rats that got fat eating around the clock lost weight when they were switched to the restricted hour regime. This is just the latest piece of research demonstrating that when you eat can be as important as what you eat, and that a change at the margin can have a big impact.

New weight loss models reinforce that trimming calories at the margin of your daily diets can have a major impact on weight loss.  For every 100 calories you eliminate [that extra piece of bread, half cup of rice, a cookie], you’ll lose ten pounds over three years, five in the first year. The key to lasting weight loss is identifying routine eating behaviours that can be modified to achieve a sustainable reduction in calories. Do you eat while cooking? While clearing up? Do you accompany every beer with a hefty snack? Just one or two adjustments to your eating routine can reverse an upward weight trend. After years of desperate dieting with no long-term results, I began targeting small behavioural changes through microresolutions and lost 22 pounds in about 14 months [and kept it off]. My very first microresolution: never to eat a conference room cookie again.

When you eat can be as important as what you eat, and that a change at the margin can have a big impact

The role of routine

Understanding the role routine plays in your life is critical for success in self-improvement. Most of your daily activity is managed by a kind of personal autopilot, operating mindlessly in the background while you’re thinking big thoughts, solving problems, and experiencing new things. You don’t have to concentrate to tie your shoes, lock the front door, or navigate to the bus stop—autopilot does that for you. But autopilot also snags that last sweet left by the coffee machine, skips the gym and snaps at a loved one. Learning how to re-engineer an autopilot routine to your advantage is the key to sustainable self-improvement.

Autopilot’s genius is its very mindlessness. Its quiet efficiency ensures that you have adequate mental capacity to meet challenges in professional and personal life. The precious commodity we call willpower is widely misunderstood to be a facet of personality, and we often accuse ourselves of being weak in character when we fail to keep our resolutions. But willpower is actually a neurological function, part of a limited pool of mental resources that also includes decision-making and active initiative. Whenever you exercise willpower, make decisions, or initiate action you are making debits against this scarce resource.

Reforming autopilot means shifting behaviours that are operating mindlessly in the background to the foreground where they require conscious effort. The grander your personal makeover plan, the more behaviours you must move from mindless to mindful, from easy to effortful. Most New Year’s resolutions are so ambitious that they are a virtual declaration of war on autopilot. Dozens of behaviours you would normally pay no attention to must now be consciously managed. The effort of enforcing all this behaviour change is emotionally stressful and mentally expensive. This is why over 90 per cent of New Year’s resolutions end in defeat—willpower is generally no match for autopilot.

But once you understand the dynamics governing personal change, you can leverage them to your advantage. By narrowly targeting a behavioural shift, you can conserve enough willpower to sustain your new routine until it becomes habit. That new behaviour will support you for a lifetime with hardly a conscious thought once it works itself into autopilot. The genius of a microresolution is that it creates mindfulness around a behaviour pattern in order for that behaviour to ultimately become mindless autopilot.

Learning how to re-engineer an autopilot routine to your advantage is the key to sustainable self-improvement

The rules of microresolutions

So, what’s the first step in making a microresolution? Begin by examining a routine in an area of your life that you’d like to improve and zero in on a single behaviour change that you believe will have an impact and be sustainable. Then craft your microresolution according to the rules below, and off you go!

Rule 1 – Don’t make resolutions you can’t keep — A microresolution is easy

A microresolution is a resolution you absolutely have the power to keep—a no excuses resolution. Resist that fatal impulse to go for broke and stretch your commitment to the breaking point; instead focus your microresolution on a reasonable behavioural change you are sure you can sustain.

Let’s take the general goal to be fit as a starting point. If you decide that a good way to increase your fitness level is by walking more and you don’t walk much now, suddenly resolving to walk to work every day wouldn’t be reasonable or realistic. Instead, commit to walking just one day [or walking half the way, or parking your car in the furthest reaches of the lot]. Your microresolution should represent a small change to your routine as it exists today, rather than what you hope your routine will become tomorrow. Your aim should be to master a simple behavioural change that will improve your fitness at the margin.

Feel like walking more than one day this week? Go ahead! A microresolution doesn’t limit what you may do, only what you commit to do. I started out with a microresolution to walk one day a week and now I walk every single day unless something major intervenes. Walking has now become my preference, but I began by forcing myself to walk just once a week. Had I begun with a resolution to walk every day, I would have failed.

One striking example of a limited resolution with big results came from Greta, who was one of the many friends and colleagues who contributed their microresolution success stories to Small Move, Big Change. Greta was a hard worker, very skilled and conscientious, but if she had to work late, was under pressure, had to pick up the slack for an absent employee, or had to miss lunch, she complained about it. Greta wasn’t a person of ill will; her complaints were mostly a misguided attempt to create a kind of camaraderie among co-workers by blowing off steam together.

Your aim should be to master a simple behavioural change that will improve your fitness at the margin

After Greta received feedback that she wasn’t being promoted to a more senior spot because her negative attitude wasn’t right for a leadership position, Greta was shocked. Her first impulse was to feel that she had been unfairly treated, but looking back over her work history, she could see a pattern in her attitude and behaviour and she set about creating a microresolution that would limit her lifelong habit of complaining. Mindful of Rule #1, Greta pledged not to be the first to complain about a work issue, a resolution limited enough that she thought she could maintain it. The very first day after making her resolution, something happened at the office that Greta thought would surely spark complaint. Abiding by her resolution, Greta made no comment and instead waited eagerly for someone else to bitch. She recalls, “I thought to myself, ‘Here it comes, here it comes—wait for it’ and nothing happened. No one said a thing.” It was days before anyone voiced a mild complaint on a different topic. “It was me,” Greta said, “I never realised that I was at the core of the complaining; it seemed to be a shared thing. But when I stopped taking the lead, most of it died off.”

The key to Greta’s success was limiting her resolution; had she pledged never to complain again, she would have failed. By resolving merely “not to be the first” to complain at work, she gave herself a chance to experience a slight difference in behaviour, rather than taking on a complete change of personality. And her targeted resolution turned out to be more revealing than she could have ever anticipated. Four years after her resolution Greta is not complaint-free, but she tells me that, more and more, she sees the glass as half full, rather than half empty, and recently bemoaned the fact that she now works with someone who is a non-stop complainer.

In making your resolution, expect that what you think is easy may turn out to be harder than you think. Any change to autopilot causes stress and a strong impulse to revert to comfortable routines. At this critical moment of taking on your very first microresolution, don’t overreach—prove to yourself that you can succeed by keeping your microresolution limited, reasonable and easy.

A microresolution doesn’t limit what you may do, only what you commit to do

Rule 2 – A Microresolution is an explicit and measurable action

A microresolution is something you commit to do, not something you commit to be. The action of your resolution should be absolute, explicit, and measurable. Resolutions “to exercise more,” “to snack less,” or “to be nicer to my partner” are worthless. These are abstract goals, not actions, and they can’t be measured in real-time. A measurable microresolution is a pledge to take a specific action in a specific circumstance.

Let’s return to walk to work one day a week. Walking one day is reasonable and limited according to Rule #1, but it’s not explicit. Exactly which day are you going to walk to work? Unless a specific day and time are part of your resolution, you’re going to have to decide every day whether or not today is micoresolution day. Got up a bit late? Okay, walk tomorrow. Raining unexpectedly? Okay, walk tomorrow. Stayed up late and feeling weary? Okay, walk tomorrow. This is how we bargain ourselves out of our resolutions, constantly deferring or reformulating our commitments until they dissolve entirely. Every one of these bargaining sessions draws on decision-making, a debit against that scarce mental resource pool that includes the willpower you need to effect change. Making it up as you go along is mentally exhausting—just pick a day and time and stick to it. The magic of this rigour is that you’ll find yourself managing obstacles out of your way rather than looking to excuse yourself. If today’s the day, then today’s the day!

Not every microresolution is cued by a day or time. If you’re working on not being defensive, for example, and you’ve decided to respond to unwanted feedback by saying, “I appreciate you taking the time to tell me this, I’m going to give it some thought,” the cue for your resolution could come at you at any time. And if you are a highly defensive person, you’ll find you have too many cues to process. So be selective in identifying your cue, perhaps narrowing your resolution to respond only to a cue from a parent, a partner, or a boss. If you practise your response relentlessly in one circumstance, over time you’ll find yourself less defensive in every circumstance, but keep your focus tight when you first begin.

A microresolution is something you commit to do, not something you commit to be

Rule 3: A Microresolution pays off upfront

One of the self-defeating aspects of the New Year’s resolution is that it is generally a someday proposition. When you resolve at the New Year “to be organised,” each day that you’re not absolutely organised you’re failing, so your resolution’s payoff is projected into the future— you will be organised, someday. But constantly deprecating what can be realistically achieved today in favour of a fantasy tomorrow only cheats you out of the progress you could make today. A microresolution is focused on a clear benefit that can take root today.

What is the immediate reward of a microresolution not to say I told you so to your partner? Well, if telling your partner I told you so creates friction, then it stands to reason that if you manage to refrain from crowing over your petty victory, you will eliminate that friction. Will it fix everything that is wrong with your relationship? Probably not, but it will deliver a real benefit the very first time you resist the impulse to score points at your partner’s expense.

Likewise, a resolution to hang up my coat when I come home delivers its benefit as soon as the action is complete—your coat is in the closet rather than rebuking you from a chair. Are there longer-term benefits to putting your coat away as soon as you come home? Absolutely! After many weeks of immediately putting your coat in the closet, you might find yourself hanging up your work clothes instead of dropping them onto the bedroom chair, because your coat routine has established a pattern in autopilot that is now organising other behaviours. It might even occur to you that a paper is as easily filed as added to a pile. But when you embark on your microresolution, your focus should be on the immediate benefit you’re going to receive, rather than anticipating rewards in the future.

Rule 4: A Microresolution is personal

A microresolution succeeds because it is designed explicitly by you and for you, based on a personal routine you practise today. One-size-fits-all resolutions such as to be on time ultimately break down into a set of behavioural changes specific to an individual. Are you late because you can’t find your keys? Transit card or gas tank empty? Did your kid forget to print out his homework until the last minute? Missing a button on your shirt? Can’t find directions to your first appointment of day? Each person who struggles with morning lateness will make different microresolutions based on their personal behaviour. Fixing a personal routine is very like debugging a computer program—you need to analyse where the routine is failing to perform and then target behavioural bugs until it runs smoothly.

Brian and Dorrie, parents and academics, were to put it delicately, neatness challenged. Each had their own study, but their studies were so full of books and papers that both often worked in the living and room. At any given moment, books, papers, and laptops littered the couch and coffee table, briefcases were splayed open on the floor, and piles of books mixed with newspapers and colouring books on the floor and side tables. Hosting any social event at home meant a major cleanup, and drop-in visitors provoked scrambling and apologies.

Brian and Dorrie’s first neatness microresolution was a joint one, aimed strictly at containment: zero tolerance for briefcases, books and papers left in the living room. It was okay to read and study in the shared space, but as soon as work was finished or interrupted, the books and papers had to be put back into the studies. This rule was strictly enforced even if the interruption was dinner and study was going to resume afterwards. Dorrie and Brian’s daughter also had to return toys and colouring books to her bedroom as soon as she left the living room. While the studies and bedrooms remained messy, the living room became an oasis of order in an otherwise chaotic household. Best of all, Dorrie and Brian were able to invite people over spontaneously without fear that a guest would have to navigate a minefield of books and toys or get speared by a pair of child’s scissors left on the couch. Unlike the popular resolution, “to keep the house neat,” that fails for most of us, Dorrie and Brian’s microresolution succeeded because it was designed to work for their lifestyle and habits.

A microresolution succeeds because it is designed explicitly by you and for you, based on a personal routine you practise today

It’s amazing what you learn about yourself when you disrupt an autopilot routine. A recent microresolution of mine was to reread my email prior to sending if I was disagreeing with anyone on the thread. I discovered through this microresolution that the dashed-off emails I had thought were tempered and respectful sounded curt or dismissive when I reread them. Making one or two simple changes—such as asking a question rather than making a statement, or saying “we” instead of “I”—made a big difference in the tone of the message and people’s subsequent willingness to engage. My experience with the email resolution made me more aware in general of how a well-intended communication can go awry when one is under pressure. This change in behaviour reinforced for me how every microresolution is an adventure in self-discovery.

How many microresolutions should I make at once?

To ensure success every time you commit to self-improvement, make no more than two microresolutions at a time and keep them for four to six weeks before moving on to new ones. Your microresolution won’t be true autopilot by then [that will take months], but it should feel pretty solid before you queue up the next one. Some microresolutions take hold more slowly because they are modifying a behaviour with very deep roots.

My microresolution to savour my food and drink [reframed from my yucky initial resolution to chew my food slowly] took many weeks, but it created an eating mindfulness in me that proved profound and also exposed my unconscious autopilot attitude that I must “finish first” even when it was counterproductive. Stick with your resolutions until they stick, don’t be in a rush to move on too quickly—practice makes permanent. If you make microresolutions two at a time and keep them for an average of five weeks before taking on new ones, you’ll make 20 permanent behavioural changes a year, and that’s huge.

Stick with your resolutions until they stick, don’t be in a rush to move on too quickly—practice makes permanent

The Magic Rose Geranium

There’s a children’s story called “The Magic Rose Geranium” which was a great favourite of mine as a child; my mother bought it to keep me occupied on a trip to the supermarket. It’s the story of a woman who lives in a cluttered, shabby house with an unkempt yard. The woman is depressed by her surroundings but when she looks around at all there is to do, she feels overwhelmed and never makes a start. One day a friend comes to visit and makes her a gift of a rose geranium plant. The plant looks so bright and cheerful on the kitchen table that it highlights the table’s poor appearance—so the woman paints it. The smart coat of paint on her table sets in relief the stained rug underneath it—so the woman cleans it. Now the woman sees that the centre of the kitchen looks spiffy, but that the cupboards are looming dingily—so she scrubs them clean, and so it goes, until the entire house, yard, and the woman herself are transformed from shabby to ship-shape.

When the woman’s friend comes to visit again, she is shocked by the transformation she encounters and asks her friend what happened. “It’s all due to that magic rose geranium you gifted me!” That’s exactly how microresolutions work. Successfully building a new behaviour creates momentum, can-do energy, and fresh inspiration until you find yourself in a state of continuous self-improvement.

Small is powerful in the modern era

We live in the age of the small and powerful, where micro computer chips, tablets, iPods, smart phones and apps drive productivity at work and at home. Micro-financing is eliminating poverty one family at a time. Nanotechnology is revolutionising medicine. Critical communications arrive in 140-character tweets, hitting global distribution lists in microseconds. These tools are targeted, designed to fill a specific need exactly and deliver value immediately. So it is with microresolutions—each is designed to hit a specific personal-improvement target exactly and deliver benefits immediately.

The fireworks of New Year’s fizzle out, but your season of beginnings is whenever you start afresh. Plant just one small seed of change and discover the difference it can make today, and for many seasons to come.

^{[1] http://www.cell.com/cell-metabolism/abstract/S1550-4131%2814%2900498-7↩}

The post How to break the pattern that’s not serving you anymore appeared first on Complete Wellbeing.

Published by: Rupa Publications

ISBN: 978-8129135759

Pages: 152

Price: INR 200

If only sprouting wisdom teeth indicated wisdom, it would have been enough to simply declare with conviction: “Henceforth, I will always act as I’ve learned.” But you know as well as I do that this is not how life works. Those wisdom teeth are a futile pain and only a fool would call himself forever wise. A man seeking wisdom will always be ‘work-in-progress’, because learning is gathered on the go, much like fruits from a tree—they are there, waiting to be picked. Only, we need to be able to see them around us, in our days of work and play, family and friends, and even strangers who we meet.

But then one wonders, where is the time, or the patience, to just observe the wonders of nature, or a child’s pretend play? By introspecting these minutiae is how [and why] books like Satish Mandora’s Why the Vada Seller Refused a Sale get written.

This collection of short stories helps you look at ordinary happenings with awareness for their life-changing ability. Written in fuss-free language, the book is divided into five sections which, according to the author, are the five crucial aspects of life: Awareness, Energy, Action, Communication and Relationships.

Mandora asks, “How many of you on your deathbed would say, ‘I wish I was in my office’?”; a simple point about how we have lost sight of what truly motivates us to work. He emphasises the importance of inviting enthusiasm into our lives—a ‘great high’ which ‘if you can’t make it, fake it’ till the energy becomes a real part of your everyday, he says. Because we humans are wired to connect, we create the atmosphere where good cheer is as contagious as low spirits are. Then, wouldn’t it be good to be conscious of our moods when we walk into a room full of people? Or, to learn how to make an effort to create positive energy? To this end, he rejects ritualistic regularity and instead suggests embracing actions which speak to us and define us. Being obsessed with being regular because it is the ‘done thing’ dampens life.

‘Leader… do you really need a title?’ tells of his experience with a music shop staff, portraying how the value of a purchase can also be measured in the goodness of people helping you procure it, and that designations don’t count. In ‘The Discipline of Freedom’, the author explains how freedom to do what we want borders on selfishness; instead, freedom that ensures that another’s space is not violated is what is worth celebrating.

In the daily grind, we rarely remember the dream, but it never quite dies. Through slices of his own life, Mandora reminds us of things we have forgotten. A child who calls a crow a singing bird is correct in her own imagination, by her own sense of music, even if marked wrong by the class teacher. Or how important it is to ‘forget’ your phone at home when you go for a family dinner; or to know the difference between ‘eating’ and ‘savouring’. Or even to be aware of the subtle difference between discipline and compliance at work.

It is people who matter little to us who can open our eyes to important truths. From children to old people, family to strangers, waiters to CEOs, the presence and actions of people who surround us lend us with these insights, says Satish. Their ‘foolishness’ is important too, because doing things differently speaks about the creativity of the doer while nurturing tolerance in the onlooker.

As a mother, a most beautiful reminder in the book for me was what the author learnt as a co-participant from another mother in a programme by Dr. Newton Kondavetti – “Whenever she made a mistake in interacting with or understanding her daughter, the lady would apologise to her child and add, ‘I hope you understand that I’ve made a mistake. I, too, am only a 10-year-old mother.’”

‘Why the Vada Seller Refused a Sale’ is a bedside read that you can turn to during idle moments or when taking a break from busy ones. Some instances of ‘preach what you practice’ seem to have been written with very young readers in mind.

The frequent references to the author’s training workshops and their success tend to break the flow of the narrative at times. However, overall the book is replete with constructive suggestions and while some come across as simplistic and idealistic, many seamlessly become a part of the readers’ streams of consciousness.

This book details how wisdom travels, across countries and times, to strike a chord with unknown minds and add to the work-in-progress that we all are.

This was first published in the March 2015 issue of Complete Wellbeing.

The post Book review of “Why the Vada Seller Refused a Sale” By Satish Mandora appeared first on Complete Wellbeing.