Treating Yourself as an Equal

Today I want to talk about something which is very important and that is Equality.  What I mean by that is how we see OURSELVES in relation to other people. 

I know it’s natural for us to compare ourselves with others, and I’ve certainly been guilty of that in the past myself.   We worry that we are not as good as others, and occasionally can find comfort in the thought that we might at least be better than some other people.

The reality is that we should never allow ourselves to feel inferior or superior to anyone else.  We should treat everyone the same, no matter who they are.  The most important person to treat equally is ourselves.

Have you ever been in a situation where you found yourself tolerating a situation that you would NEVER tolerate if it were happening to someone else.  Too many times we deny ourselves the respect and the self-love that we deserve.  We feel somehow less important and less deserving than others.

You often find this in the work place.  You see a friend or colleague being mistreated, and you immediately stand up for them and show them your support in saying this is WRONG!  And yet if you find yourself in that exact same situation the tendency is to just let things be and say, well I don’t want to make a fuss. 

But in this instance, you REALLY NEED to MAKE A FUSS!  You NEED to show yourself that you love and respect yourself enough to say this is WRONG!  This is the case whether it is in the workplace or with friends or anything for that matter.

When I look back on my Corporate Career, I have to admit that early on I fell victim to just putting up with things that were not right, just for the sake of not rocking the boat.  I used to justify this by saying well this is just temporary and will help me build my career.  In the end I lost out big time when the owner of a multi-million dollar business that I had helped to create, suffered a mental break down and in simple terms went NUTS!!!  His destructive downward spiral sent the business that we’d both worked so hard to create bust in a matter of months.   All of the promises that had been made, if I stayed loyal, came to nothing and I had nothing to show for all the hard work and sacrifices that I’d made.  All up, I lost almost $250,000 in the process!  Talk about learning the hard way!

From that moment on, I’ve always jealously guarded my own personal brand and doing so has served me well.   Even in times when I’ve found myself having to make tough decisions. 

I’ve been a Corporate Whistle Blower, lifting the lid on illegal things that were going on at one organisation I worked for.  I’ve also had to make the tough decision to walk away from companies that weren’t aligned with my values and integrity.  And ALWAYS, whenever I’ve made a tough decision, I’ve always picked up something better.

I’ve found this also applies to friendships.  I just LOVE people, I like learning all I can from people, hearing their stories, their hopes and dreams and what makes them tick.  You might say I have an insatiable curiosity for LIFE!  I’m the type of person who’ll be ‘friends’ with anyone, but I’m careful and selective about who I allow into my CLOSE Circle of Friends.  Close friendships are something you should cherish.

The thing that really got me into helping people with Life Coaching originally was that I was able to help so many of my friends.  I’m the kind of person that would do anything for my friends and I’m always there to help them, but with some friends I’ve kind of got the impression in the past that I was just an alternative to scotch or rum!   They would come running to me when they were down, the same way others turn to drugs or alcohol when they’re feeling down.  I’d pick them up, dust them off and make them feel good about themselves again, and as soon as they’re feeling good again, they’d feel like they didn’t need my any more.  So they’d discard me, go on their merry way until the next time that they needed me again and then the process would start all over again!

You are too valuable and too important to allow others to treat you this way.  It’s very important that you imbed into your brain that you are no better or worse than anyone else.  Some people would never want to feel that they are superior to anyone else, but they allow themselves to feel inferior to some people because they feel that person is somehow better than them. 

It’s important that you realise that if you ever allow yourself to feel inferior to ANYONE you’ll also feel superior to someone else in another situation, and vice versa.  You can’t have one without the other.

Treat others with the love and respect that you deserve for yourself and never allow anyone else to treat you any less than this.  If you treat yourself with the love and respect that you deserve, then Life will also treat you with the love and respect that you deserve.  Once you do this, you will find opportunities coming your way because YOU believe that you are worthy of them.

Here’s your homework, ask yourself if there are any times when you have found yourself in a situation where you were accepting less than you deserve.  Are there any situations in your life NOW where you’re accepting being treated less than you deserve?  Ask yourself, how could your life improve by refusing to accept anything less than ALL of the love and respect that you deserve from others and from life?

Let me know in the comments below…

Allowing Yourself To Just BE

Whilst travelling to work the other morning, our train was delayed for a short time at a signal.  As we were stopped not far from Sydney’s Central Station, many of the other passengers had already begun to get ready to hop off.  The longer we waiting the more anxious and frustrated people started to become.  Some started to complain about being late for work and so on.

All except for me!  I was just sitting there, chilled out and calm, admiring the view.  And to me, the view that I was admiring was pretty beautiful.  You see whilst everyone else was complaining and getting frustrated, I was admiring some tall grass capturing the morning Sun, making it glow a golden colour.

You see for me it’s important to notice the little things that can brighten your day.  Too many people just trudge through life only concerned about what is in front of them right at that moment.  

This becomes a problem when you consider that most people prioritise overcoming problems, and therefore their focus is mainly on the problems that they encounter because they want to SOLVE that problem.  Without realising it, they begin to develop a negative mindset.  Because people give priority to solving problems, they’re always on the lookout for problems to solve.  And it’s a case of seek and you will find!  Because people are LOOKING for problems, they find them!

If you were to sit back at the end of your day and do a ‘Day in Review’ of just going through, in chronological order, all of the things that have happened throughout the day, you may be surprised to notice that a lot of the things that you recall were problems or negative thoughts in one form or another.

For example, a typical analysis of the everyday events that the average person might remember at the end of their day may go something like this:

• Traffic jam on the way to work made me late.
  
• Some idiot cut me off in traffic.
  
• The barista forgot to sir my coffee.
  
• Tried to turn on the computer at work, had to reset my password AGAIN which took AGES!
  
• STILL haven’t heard back about the Zigadlo Account, they were supposed to get back to me LAST TUESDAY!
  
• Had our Monthly meeting and Michael from Finance tried to hijack the agenda again.  Seriously, I don’t even know why we need him in these meetings anyway.
  
• Boss complaining about the way I handled the Robinson Account.  I mean I’m doing the best I can with such limited resources.
  
• Tried to stop off at the supermarket to grab a couple of things for Dinner on the way home and they had like hardly NO checkouts open, so everyone was going through the Express Checkout and it took me forever to get served !

In your typical day there are also a lot of GOOD things that happen too but we don’t tend to focus on the good, so we only remember the bad.

If that’s the effect that 1 day can have on you, imagine the combined effect that a whole year, years and decades of that way of thinking can have on you.  It creates a negative mindset where we just start to see everything as being bad which creates the expectation that everything in life WILL be bad.  Our life just becomes a negative self-fulfilling prophecy.   

There is a book I really love called “The Hidden Messages In Water” by Masaru Emoto which deals with the effects that negative thinking can have on our bodies.

For me personally, I prefer to do the opposite.  I make a point of stopping and REALLY taking in and appreciating all the little things that can bring joy to our day.  It can be something as simple as the grass that I mentioned.  The real secret is that you have to savour the experience for just a LITTLE longer than normal for that to really take hold.

Scientists have now discovered that it takes around 20-30 seconds for a thought to really take hold in our minds.  When something bad happens, let’s say for example someone cutting in front of you in traffic, the event is really quick but you keep thinking about it for perhaps a matter of minutes and that is enough to embed it into your brain and so at the end of your day you’ll remember it as being a bad experience.

Likewise we experience a lot of good things each day that are equally as brief.  The problem is that we don’t take the time to just be conscious in that moment and so the FEELING doesn’t get embedded into our brains.  I make it a practice of consciously being on the lookout for every experience that could put me in a good vibrational frequency, such as the grass, and when I do notice those things I just allow myself to linger a little longer in that moment for at least 20 seconds to allow that FEELING to sink in.  And guess what, those are the type of experiences that I recall at the end of my day!

The combined effect of all of these ‘little’ positive experiences means that my natural mood is also positive.  I see the world in a good way and I’m more grateful for the life that I have.

My challenge for you today is when you get home at the end of your day, stop for a while and make a list of all the things that you can remember happening in your day from the very begging.  Just write them all down as they come to you without any prejudice or judgement.  When you’re finished, now go back through your list and for each one, ask yourself if this is a negative of positive experience?  Then just look down your list and see how many POSITIVE experiences you’re having on a daily basis as opposed to how many NEGATIVE experiences you have.

This will allow you to see if your thoughts over the course of a day are predominantly positive or negative.  Then you may want to extend this over the course of a week!   If you find that you’re predominant thoughts are negative, what effect do you think this may be having on your psychology and ultimately on your life?

Leave me a message in the comments below to let me know, firstly what you found.  And then secondly, if you found that your thoughts are predominantly positive, let us all know what thoughts you have that put you in this positive frame of mind.  If your thoughts are predominantly negative, what are you going to do to change this?

Re-Charge

Today I want to talk about the topic of Re-Charge!  Lately I’ve had an amazing re-charge experience in terms of getting better sleep and it got me thinking about how many other ways we can re-charge our lives at any time.

But first let me talk about sleep.  Years ago, I used to have massive trouble getting to sleep, it would take me ages and then I would keep waking up at multiple times throughout the night.  I’ve since been able to overcome this problem and for many years now I’ve enjoyed a good night’s sleep, or so I thought?

You see, I was always careful to make sure I got enough sleep because I was aware of all the problems than can stem from sleep deprivation.   I made sure I got a decent amount of sleep each night.  But you see I’ve always been a fairly entrepreneurial sort of person, not the type to let grass grow under my feet.  So I would typically burn the midnight oil working on one project or another.

It’s only recently that I uncovered research on why it is important to get to bed earlier rather than later.  What the researchers discovered is that our sleep patterns have evolved from the cave men days.  In the cave man days of old, people would gather around a campfire at the end of the day to eat, then following their meal they would stay up and tell stories.   By around 10pm they were all storied out and would start to go off to bed (or the animal skins or whatever they used to sleep on).   So by around 11pm at night, everyone would be sound asleep.

However, there were a few rare exceptions to this rule in the cave man days.   There were basically 2 reasons why a Clan or Tribe of people would not be in bed by 10pm.  These are movement or conflict.  So there may be rare occasions where a Clan would move by night.  There’s a lot of reasons why this was a bad idea at night time, most notably because this is the time when most predators are most active.  It’s dangerous to be out and about in cave men days this late, and you need to keep your wits about you.

The second reason could be some kind of conflict.  Either you were launching an attack on a rival Clan or a rival Clan launched an attack on you, or perhaps you were under attack from predators.  Again, you need to keep your wits about you. 

So your body clock expects you to also be in bed by 11pm.  That’s why around 10pm we generally start to get sleeping.  It’s our body’s way of giving us a gentle reminder that it’s time to get to bed.  The closer to 11pm it gets, the sleepier you get.  But if you’re still awake at 11pm, then the body automatically assumes that you must be either moving or in conflict and you need maximum mental capacity.  Your body then fires up your energy level to give you the energy that you’re body needs to deal with travel or threats and also supplies energy to your brain so that you can stay sharp and alert.

Have you ever noticed yourself feeling sleepy around 10pm and by 11pm you’re wide awake.  Now you know why!  When I discovered this, it all made sense.  I changed my sleeping patterns to make sure I was in bed by 11pm and something amazing happened. 

I thought that I was already getting a good night’s sleep, but when I started going to bed earlier it totally transformed my night’s sleep.  I found that by going to bed earlier, I could actually sleep less and awake feeling more refreshed.

It got me thinking about the topic of re-charge.  Because as a result of getting such an awesome night’s sleep, I really felt re-charged each day.  It did however require a massive psychological adjustment on my part.

I was used to burning the midnight oil and being very productive at night.  By going to bed early it cut between 2-3 hours productive time out of each night.  However it gave me at least that much or more productive time first thing of a morning because I was able to get up so much earlier and feel vital and alert.  I now find that I can be far more productive in 3 hours of a morning than I could be in 3 hours at night, plus I need to sleep less, I sleep even better than before and awake more refreshed.

It did require a period of adjustment however.  I mean, from the time we go to school, we’re taught to get up in the morning and go to school.  We come home in the afternoon and we have play time after school.  When we start work, we get up of a morning and go to work.  When we get home, we chill out.  So we’re used to the process of waking up, getting strait into our routine of getting out the door to head off to school or work or wherever.   We don’t generally DO stuff at home of a morning before we head out.

For me personally that was a big mind shift, because I was used to not getting out of bed of a morning until I needed to get ready to go to the office.  So initially I found that I lost a lot of productive time because I was losing hours of an evening and then simply not getting up early to take advantage of the extra time of a morning.

But like anything, it just required a period of adjustment.  Once I got into the habit of actually getting out of bed and taking advantage of the extra hours, I’ve found that I have been so much more productive.  Now I’m really loving it.

It has caused me to take a step back and ask myself, if I can give myself this re-charge by simply swapping my productive hours from evening to morning, how many other areas of my life could I re-vitalise myself in simply by having a look at HOW I’m doing things and asking the question, is there a better or more efficient way that I could be doing this?

Today I have 2 challenges for you.  First of all, look at your sleep patterns.  Are you getting enough sleep?  Are you getting to bed early enough?  If you’re not in bed by 11pm (and it’s possible for you to do so) then try getting to bed early and see what a difference it can make for you.

My second challenge is to look at other areas of your life and ask yourself the question, are there any other areas where you could make a change that could re-charge your life.

Tell me about your experiences in the comments below…