bythemethod.com blog

It can be really hard to forgive someone, especially if they have hurt someone you care about. Yet, research shows that forgiving is important for good psychological health.

Take a look at this article if you doubt my word.

Here is a four step plan (taken from the same article):

• Acknowledge the pain and anger felt as a result of someone else’s actions. For forgiveness to occur, the situation needs to be looked at honestly.
• Recognize that healing requires change.
• Find a new way to think about the person who caused the pain. What was happening in that person’s life when the hurt occurred? Sometimes, the motivation or causes for the incident have little to do with those most affected. For some people, this step includes saying, “I forgive you.”
• Begin to experience the emotional relief that comes with forgiveness. It may include increased compassion for others who have experienced similar hurt.

Christians have been advocating the importance of forgiveness since Jesus mentioned the importance of it over 2000 years ago. I encourage you to find some forgiveness for others.

Holidays are great for all kinds of reasons: get to spend time with those you love; get to do things you wouldn’t normally do; get to be lazy for a change. However I think one of the beiggest benefits is that they give you time to think.

We nearly all find it hard to find time to think. If you are always on the go you probably find that the end of the day (the traditional time for doing your thinking) is just the time when you don’t have any energy for thinking. I like to put my feet up like anyone else and I know that the T.V. can take over when things have been tough in the day.

So holidays give you a real chance to stop and do some thinking and this thinking time can be really important.

Here are some things you might like to think about:

• What makes me happy?
• Where do I want to be in five years from now?
• What is my purpose in life?
• How do I want to help others?

Of course you probably have your own things to think about as well.

This thinking phase is very important and I think should be done before you write any goals.

What do you do if you don’t have a holiday coming up – find some time to do some thinking anyway. What about taking a day off and going somewhere quiet (in the past I’ve found churches or monasteries to be excellent places for this)? What about taking a few hours over the weekend to do some thinking? But I’d recommend getting this into your diary to make sure it happens.

When you get up in the morning and pull back your curtains what do you see? Do you notice that there are clouds in the sky and the dark houses the other side of the road? Or do you notice the gaps in the clouds with the sunlight streaming through them? Do you notice the bird flying high in the sky or the cat about to do some business on your front lawn? I could go on but I hope you get the point of what I am trying to say.

If you want to know if you are a pessimist or an optoimist then one of the easiest ways is to take notice of what you see. Do you see the good things that are happening or the bad? Optimists notice the good, of course.

All the time we can either fix our eyes on the bad stuff or we can fix our eyes on the good stuff – it’s our choice. Learning to be content and seeing the good side of things is an important skill to learn. If you want to start being more of an optimist then start to notice the good things.

When you start to do this you will also start to notice the oppotunities that are available to you. This is one of the big benefits of being an optimist – it may not be that better things happen to an optimist but simply that by focusing on opportunities instead of threats the optimist finds more ways to succeed.

I’ve read a fair bit lately about a study into whether positive affirmation statements are in fact bad for you. A study undertaken by Psychologists Joanne V. Wood and John W. Lee from the University of Waterloo, and W.Q. Elaine Perunovic from the University of New Brunswick, has concluded that people with low self esteem get no benefit from repeating unrealistic affirmations about themselves and in fact the so called affirmations had the opposite effect (but only very slightly). They also found that the affirmations only very slightly raised the self esteem of those with high self esteem.

I’m not personally surprised by these results but I’m not convinced that this actually tells us anything we didn’t already know. Affirmations (for those who suggest them as part of a self help regime) are not a quick fix but instead are designed to help people replace the negative things that they believe about themselves. Psychologists (especially sports Psychologists) have used them for a long time and many report very good results.

I’m always amused by those who pick up on these stories and then turn them into rants against self help and positive thinking. The health benefits of positive thinking are well documented as are the benefits of self help that is done properly (just ask anyone who has given up smoking).

Like all ideas there are quacks who abuse the vulnerable but this doesn’t make the idea wrong. We wouldn’t reject medicine because some make sugar pills so why reject self help because some abuse the ideas behind it?

I welcome the study and I’m sure the findings are important but perhaps only in exposing that just going through the motions of anything don’t make it effective.

Affirmations should be done in the right way and not seen as a quick fix for anything.

Path to nowhere

We always seek the path of least resistance to achieve our goals. However this tendency means that we seldom actually achieve our goals. It’s this search for the ultimate path of least resistance that makes us do nothing. You might also call this laziness I guess.

You see when we are faced with a problem to solve or something we want to get we tend to settle for the least amount of effort to get it. Then when we don’t get it we persuade ourselves that we did try but it just didn’t work.

In sports there are plenty of people who play sports who take the easiest path to prepare for the sport. They do the very least amount of exercise and attend the fewest number of practices and then wonder why they don’t win.

This has always been the problem with setting targets. You see when you set targets people automatically work towards the target and put the least amount of effort in to reach them. It’s not that setting targets is bad – it is necessary – but the target needs to be a guide and not a reward.

So how do you avoid this path of least resistance?

I suggest the first step is understanding that it exists. That the next time you set out to do something recognise that you will be tempted to take the easiest route and not necessarily the best or most rewarding route.

Personal development involves learning to seek out the best route and commiting yourself to achieving it. When you set your goals think hard if you will be pushing your limits, if not then set them a little higher.

There is nothing magical about making a new year’s resolution. If there were then we would all be fanstatically rich, extremely healthy and have very deep and wonderful relationships. It would be nice to think there was some cosmic world force that would make things happen for us just be saying we want it.

Sadly there isn’t. Even God doesn’t respond to the trantrums of his spoiled children as they demand wealth and happiness. I believe God does answer prayers but that is a subject for another day – or even another website perhaps.

Anyway if you want something you have to go and get it. One of those life lessons we all have to learn is that no one else is going to do it for us we have to get up off our fat backsides and make it happen. Fortuneately every now and then you will come across people who will want to help but they will only help you to help yourself.

Breaks come because people make them happen.

When you mkae your new year resolutions make sure you intend to do something about making them happen so this time next year you aren’t left wondering what happened.

Your mind has the power to make a big difference in your life. Your imagination has the ability to shape your success. You can use your imagination or let your imagination use you. I come across a lot of people who imagine all kinds of terrible things about themselves – things which are usually not even true. Somehow their imagination has run riot over their self-esteem. They quite often imagine that they are no good for anything or that everything they try is doomed to fail before they begin. This is all rubbish of course it’s just that there mind has made it all up.

Don’t let your imagination do this to you, instead use that power for your own good. Instead of letting your imagination do whatever it wants take control of it and point it in directions where it can help you.

Another word here might be creative, get creative with your mind about the situations you face. When a problem comes along get your creative side working on a solution. When you have an opportunity let your creative side go on planning how you can make the most of the situation.

Your will is so often controlled by what your brain is imagining. Don’t let your imagination bring you down instead force it to help you.

Do you want to be successful? Are you successful now? What are you doing to make yourself more successful? It can take quite a long time for a plan to come together and during that time you need to be persistant. However if you keep doing the same thing over and over again then you will only ever get the same results. If you want something different to happen in your life then you need to do something different.

This is such a simple, yet important, rule that you ought to commit this one to memory.

Let’s say you want to be more successful in life. Well you will only get to be more successful if you do something different.

Let’s say you want a better relationship with someone else. If you always treat that person the same then you will always get the same kind of relationship.

Let’s say you want to get fitter. If you only ever take the same exercise that you always take then you will stay at the same level of fitness.

Let’s say you want to lose weight. If you always eat the same kinds of food that you do now then you will always be the same weight (or greater).

Let’s say you want to win a race. If you do the same things that you do now in a race then you will continue to come in the same position.

People who don’t get this basic rule tend to talk a lot about luck. They will say that they will win or be more successful if they can get lucky. They look at others and comment on how lucky those people are to be successful. Luck has nothing to do with it – they are doing something different.

So when you know what you want to do make sure you have a plan to do it and if that plan does not work then change it. If your new plan is less successful you can always return to the first or try another way again. But if you always do the same thing you will always get the same result.

All of us have some idea of what we think we are capable of. It could be that we think we are not good at running or that we are not good at selling. Maybe we believe that we are ok at some things but rubbish at others. Most of what we believe is based on what others have told us and just a little on life experience.

The bad news is that these beliefs can stop us succeeding but the good news is that we don’t have to settle for thinking this way. There is a way to start to think differently and here it is …

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We have probably all heard about the little voice that speaks inside our head all of the time. Well of course that voice isn’t so little and it isn’t really inside our head. It is our own voice that sounds out our thoughts. But sometimes that voice is just plain stupid. The only way to know if what is being said is stupid is to listen and then think through what is being said. There are some simple things you can do to help you with this.

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