How would it be if every area of your life was progressively, day by day, becoming more positive; scarcity turning to abundance, fear to boldness and daring, sadness and upsets to happiness; and this was happening just by the way you lived your life?
This is an optimum way to live life, making life itself the improvement process. Every minute of every hour of every day, real improvement is happening.
All life is a Process
Although this seems a bold statement, when tested, it is the truth. A process is simply something that brings about an end or result. Using this definition, it can be seen that all areas of life do have an associated end or result, whether positive or negative.
Working at a job is a process. You do work to achieve a result. One positive outcome of doing a job is that a product valuable to the business is produced, for which the worker gets a return in the form of wages.
Having a conversation with someone is a process; an idea travels from person A at the source point to person B at the receipt point across a distance, person B then replies across the distance to person A and finally person A acknowledges the reply back to person B, again across the distance. The process then repeats until the conversation has completed, with the source point alternating between A and B as required.
The magic sequence to handle any area you are connected with and take it to being the best it can be is:
- Maintain Presence
- Focus on the positive
- Find a way to win
- Be friendly
- Make more of
- Work with.
Maintaining Presence
This is the prerequisite to performance and is the first step in performing any task in any area. You can only operate at your full potential in an area when completely present in the time and place where you need to be. This is being at the right place and time or ‘in the Zone’. Anything that reduces your level of presence will immediately take your attention off what you are doing and dramatically affect your performance.
If you are in the process of doing something, such as ironing a shirt, going to the store or doing something in your job and you find yourself veering off, not completing the task and doing another action; then something has ‘triggered’. It has accessed your mind, and is taking your attention off the area. Many times this is what causes individuals to make mistakes and produce incorrect products.
When this happens it is vitally important to de-access by asking yourself ‘what just happened’, ‘was I reminded of something’ or ‘when was it going well’. Until you get an answer to the question you ask yourself, your attention will stay focused on the accessed area caused by the trigger, not the task in hand.
Once you have the area de-accessed and in focus, you can move to the next step. Of course, if you remain fully present, then no de-accessing is required.
Focus on the Positive
Positive processes make life better, negative processes make life worse. Every person runs many, many processes during a day, and these can vary from being highly positive to highly negative.
The way to recognize a positive process is that while it is being performed, mood maintains a high point, increasing as the performance level increases. The reason for this is that being positive is closely associated with truth. The more positive the process being run, the closer to the truth it is.
The real skill is to turn all the processes you are running in life into positive ones, thus maintaining a high mood. Enthusiasm, action and spirit of play, passion are all moods created by processing the positive.
If you find yourself identifying negative in an area, then you need to find something positive about it. For example, you are running late for an appointment and you get stuck behind a slow moving truck. You could run a negative process on this, cursing the truck driver, and getting very angry about it, destroying your mood. However, you could alternatively run a positive process, noticing something good about the truck or the way it is being driven. As you find one positive, many more can come to view. This is because processing the positive makes more positive.
Example questions to ask are:
- What part of this <person/thing/area> is positive?
- What do I like about <person/thing/area >?
- What do I admire about <person/thing/area >?
Try these now on any area in your life you currently have any negative thoughts or ideas about and notice the positive change that takes place in your attitude towards that area.
Find a Way to Win
Winning is defined as setting a target and achieving it. Winning produces happiness.
So the next part of the sequence is to take the area and find the next step you can actually do and produce a result. This generates a win, increasing your mood, putting you closer to the truth. Then you take the next step that you can do and do that. Sometimes a step will require you to study something to gain understanding, or practice to improve a skill. If you have any difficulty just doing a step, this is a good indication that there is some knowledge or skill missing connected to the step. Doing the actions to correct this is then the next logical step.
Most difficulty in this part of the sequence is that it can trigger prior times when steps have been left incomplete. This can result in immobility and reluctance to enter the area. If this is manifesting in any parts of your life, you need to do an ‘empty your head’ exercise.
To do the exercise, take a plain piece of paper and a pen and list everything that is in your head at that exact time. Continue listing until you have nothing left to list and your head is clear. You can then concentrate on completing the items on the list. Every time you feel your head is full, do the exercise again. The trick here is to not just to file or throw the pieces of paper away, but rather; do them now or schedule them.
The effect of doing missed ‘completions’ can be miraculous. All of a sudden, you have all of your horsepower back under your control, not tied up on all the ‘stuff’ you have not completed!
You would be well advised to practice doing a ‘completions’ list on all your current outstanding items to demonstrate to yourself the power of doing this action.
Be friendly
Being friendly is the next part of the sequence. When you are being friendly you are actively assisting in helping yourself or another get what they want.
It may sound a little strange to say you help yourself get what you want, but this is exactly what you need to do. Most people are not as friendly to themselves; they tell themselves that they are not good enough, don’t deserve what they want, etc, etc. Really being a friend to yourself requires you to truly like yourself; in fact it requires love of self.
If a person has been in an abusive environment, then it can be exceedingly difficult for them to even like themselves, always falling back to the opinion they were given by the abuser they were entangled with.
Again, the rule here is to initially find just one area or item that you can like about yourself and build on this until you feel deserving enough to help yourself get want you want. Once you have resolved this, you can be truly friendly with yourself and not go into opposition with your wants and dreams.
A good question to ask is:
- What do I like about myself?
Practice using this now 5 to 10 times and make a list of what comes up.
Make more of
Making more of is a highly positive activity. Even if someone is being negative, the action of making more of it by hugely exaggerating it will result in a complete duplication, causing the negative to turn to positive.
For example, if someone is complaining of how bad the traffic is, you make more of it by saying; “Yes, I know exactly what you mean, just last week I was stuck in traffic on that road for over 2 hours and had to send out for pizza because I was starving and the delivery boy said all the pizza places were doing amazing business because of the traffic…blah, blah, etc, etc”
On the positive side, to make more of you increase the positive. For example, if you reach an objective, make more of it by finding ways you could do it better, faster, more harmoniously, more friendly, etc, etc.
You can do this very effectively when working with others by asking the above questions when anyone reaches an objective. This will enable improved performance, higher mood, more laughter etc.
Take some time and practice making more of during the next day or so and make some notes of what you experienced from doing it. You can do this by using lines similar to the one that follows:
- That really is a great <thing>, how did you come by it?
- I really like your new <item>, where did you get it from?
- Hey, your <action/result> today was great, well done!
Work with
Working with is the way to build true lasting success. This is an attitude and approach that enables any positive activity to succeed.
To work with, you align with and contribute to already existing positive attributes, adding to the positive flow. An example here is working with nature in designing a house. Here you could align the house in a south facing direction to take advantage of the sun. Using natural material for construction, rather than man made would be another way to work with nature. Another example would be working with a wholesale customer to improve delivery times, where the solution may be either the location of inventory, or shipping items direct to the final retail customer.
Working with to its fullest extent requires total truth and honesty, and no hidden agendas, both when working with others and in working with ourselves.
Now you should take some time and list how you could most effectively work with the individuals you currently associate with. Then record the effect doing this exercise has on these relationships.
Conclusion
The above 6 step process if applied to life will take every area to a level of Mastery. It requires total truth and honesty to do this, both to other individuals you associate with and to yourself.
However, it will not happen unless you make it happen; the final result being in your hands. Those of you who pick this up and run with it will experience great positive change. Furthermore, if you take it, adapt it and make it your own, then the possibilities to produce miraculous results will be truly in your hands.
Malcolm Bugler