Browse published articles attributed to Cris Baker, with full-archive search.
Your Approach to Life But what's the alte ative to being gullible or being cynical? Ask yourself if an idea, or their suggestions, are plausible. Become a skeptic, be skeptical! There's a lot of misunderstanding about skeptics and cynics. Although many don't comprehend the difference, they are not at all the same.
Commitment can be seen as a muscle, a mental muscle. And just like physical muscles, the secret of success is to keep your mental muscles fit and toned. Keep fit Physically Physically, exercise keeps your muscles strong. Yes, I know that physical workout can be a pain. I've stopped asking my body if it wants to go to the gym, it always says no! But it gets easier once I tell myself that since I'm here I might as well work out properly. The shower afterwards is generally the most enjoyable part!
Why Make the Effort? Why spend the time to come up with bad mood strategies to get yourself into a good mood in the first place? You're busy doing what you're doing and such pre-emptive planning can take a significant amount of time and energy.
Be Logical Our society teaches that it's right to be logical and, when dealing with the outside world, being logical is indeed very valuable. There's always at least one opposite, and logic deals very well with the opposite. You can change your life by investigating the possibilities and choosing the one that makes the most sense.
What is the Goal? How effective are you in reaching your goals? If you're not as effective as you'd like to be, these life strategies are for you. Have you decided what your goals and dreams are, how will their achievement look to you? If you haven't decided on your goal, how can you determine whether or not your actions will get you there? Some but not all actions are effective. Yet all actions have consequences, and some consequences are more desirable than others. The secret of success is clarity on your goal so you can recognize it once you've achieved it.
As you saw previously in this Inner Motivation series, everybody has both a negative and a positive side to their character. The Cherokee Indians say you have a black wolf strenuously promoting the negative, and your white wolf gently advocating the positive. Following the black wolf has arduous consequences, while the white wolf brings you more desirable circumstances. If Only ... In the past, how much time have you spent saying: "If only..."? As in: "If only this had happened," or: "If only I had done that?"
The first article explained how Portia Nelson's outstanding poem, Autobiography in Five Short Chapters, identifies some of the difficulties to overcoming challenges in life, which she calls holes in the sidewalk. Each situation you encounter can help you gain the inner power to overcome future challenges. The secret of success is to realize that life doesn't just give you personal power without effort, instead it brings you situations in which you can develop the personal power you need. And you can also decline and stay where you are.
The way you see things, you know you are right. And that's true, you are indeed right from your perspective. But when someone disagrees with you, they see things differently, and from their viewpoint they are also right. But how can two contradictory things both be right? Simple! Here's how to change your life... Business Card Take a business card printed on one side only. Show the blank side to the person sitting opposite you. Ask them to describe exactly what they see, rather than what they know, and they'll say the card is blank.
Making the right choices is a crucial secret of success in life. But how do you make the decisions you make? How do You Make your Choices? Some people muddle through without a viable strategy to give them the results they want. Then they're surprised when those results don't show up in their life. Is there a viable strategy for making a choice which helps you achieve your goals? If so, what is it? What a valuable investigation!
Life is difficult. What an awesome start to psychiatrist Dr. Scott Peck's seminal book, The Road Less Travelled. So Much to Learn! Life is also complex, so much to learn and so many rules to follow. There are so many laws and regulations on the books in America it's been said that, reading eight hours a day every day without a break for your whole life, it's impossible to read them all!
Do you disagree with other people much of the time? This is not to ask if you're generally disagreeable, that's a separate question for some other point in time. The Negativity of Disagreements Whenever you find yourself disagreeing with what someone else is saying, or with one of their beliefs, you have several choices.
This Personal Power series started by simplifying the complexity of life and seeing that there's no free lunch. Just as you don't benefit by delegating your exercise, you can't change your life by delegating your thinking. Personal power is crucial, it enables you to produce desirable results with less time and effort. You find it easier to manage your internal world. Yet the self sabotage mechanism loses influence when you increase your ability to overcome its deceit and manipulation. So the way to decrease your self sabotage is to increase your inner power.
You argue when you both decide the other person is wrong. Two people are needed to argue, yet stopping an argument actually only requires one. You both insist you are right, which causes the argument. And from the viewpoint you each have on the issue, both of you are right. But are you effective? Remember, you may be very sincere, but your opinion can also be sincerely wrong! Explore Their Perspective
Embracing change can be difficult. Along with everyone else, you like being right and you think that change means you must have been wrong. Are You Wrong? But is this true? Are the only choices right and wrong? What is an improvement, becoming more right? Recognize the secret of success - you can't improve anything without changing it. A wise man once said: "To grow is to progress is to change."