bythemethod.com blog

There is a tendency at the moment to see the “self” as something bad, after all self is part of the word selfishness and we know what kind of bad things stem from being selfish. Various forms of religions/world views offer us an understanding of what the self is and its importance.

There are three broad strands of thinking in spiritual terms when it comes to thinking about the self.

The first of these is the idea that god is impersonal and so the self does not exist or is essentially something to escape from. We see this idea in many of the ancient faiths of the east and in much of the so called New Age movement. Buddha, for instance, saw his greatest moment of spiritual achievement as being released from the self. As Buddha himself once put it: ““Life is suffering.” This turns the self into something to escape from and so in spiritual terms we need to be released from the self if we are to achieve wholeness. Happiness and enjoyment and success are alien to this way of thinking because they are things that concern the self.

The next is the atheistic approach. We see this in many of the philosophies of the early to mid part of the 20th century. Here the self is whatever we choose it to be. We can decide for ourselves what we want to be or where we find wholeness. In much atheistic literature we read that there are no limits for the self at all. However if we try to find a purpose or meaning in life then we discover ultimately that there is none. This approach truly does lead to selfishness and it can do no other. Ideals of getting benefits from helping others will in the end come down to the benefit to yourself in doing this.

The third approach comes from the Judeo-Christian-Islamic faiths where God is viewed in a personal, even intimate, way. Here the self is a created being who finds purpose and meaning within the purposes of God. God who is working to make right a world gone wrong gives meaning and purpose to those who will help him. Yes the self can become selfish but that is not a part of the approach to spirituality that we talk about but is part of the broken world God is trying to mend. Here we find our purpose and reason for being in following God. Within this view of spirituality the self is important but the self is also part of the whole that works towards the building of a kingdom of God.

It is, of course, up to you where you want to seek your spirituality but it’s the latter of the three approaches that makes the most sense to me.

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.

Everyone likes to feel valued and important. Even those of us who prefer not to be in the limelight really like it when others compliment us on something we have done. The problem is that so many times we put our energy in trying to make ourselves feel important and we miss the point that others have to do this for us – you can’t make yourself important only others can do that.

Perhaps in this age where we seem mad on celebrity we forget that it’s possible to feel valued and important even if you don’t have a crowd of worshippers. In fact these feelings often come from just a few individuals who matter to us: teachers, managers, supervisors, the boss, husband, wife, partner, etc.

Now it wouldn’t be unusual for people who read this to be thinking – that’s all very nice but others don’t make me feel important so why should I bother doing it for others.

Well there is a benefit to making others feel important. Those who make others feel important are often the most liked people on the planet. Think about it for a bit.

When you hear stories about great teachers, what is it that people talk about? They seldom talk about the great facts that they imparted it usually comes down to the teacher noticing and being interested in the student. Or what about when people talk about famous people – they will mention how nice they were to be interested in them for a few moments. It’s the way people were valued – made to feel like they mattered – made to feel important that made the difference. The greatly loved people are those who show an interest – even when they didn’t need to.

It’s one of those strange rules of the universe that the more you give importance to others – the more importance will come to you. You can’t make your self important but you can make others feel important and when you do they will make you feel important.

Of course there are always going to be a few individuals who are arrogant enough to think they deserve your attention just because of who they are (nobody likes these people by the way) but there are an awful lot more who will return the attention you paid to them.

So who are you going to pay more attention to today?

I want to add my own tribute to the people who worked on the moon landings – not just the people who got to walk on the moon but everyone else as well.

This is one of those stories that should fill every person (regardless of nationality) with pride in the achievements of people. Those who made the landings possible were just ordinary men and women who found themselves in the position of being able to work on this incredible adventure.

We would be wrong to assume that they were somehow superhuman and different from ourselves, they were people just like us. They had been to school just like us, had been told off by parents, just like us. No doubt they had fallen in and out of love, been excited and disappointed just like us. They faced big setbacks and made some amazing advances but all with the same brain that we have. They even had the same kinds of tools that we have – in fact we probably have better ones today.

It is amazing what people can achieve when they apply themselves and work hard to overcome all obstacles. I often hear people comment on how amazing the animal kingdom is but I want to say how amazing people are. This is a day to celebrate being a person and then to allow ourselves to dream of what might be possible for us.

Go on have some dreams and then make some plans to bring them about – after all people have been to the moon so is your dream really that impossible?

During the Channel 4 programme “Gerry’s big decision” last night one of Britian’s most successful business gurus stated quite categorically that the relationship between a father and son was more important than their business.

This will come as no surprise to most of us but it is always refreshing to hear it from the mouth of a top business person. I’ve had some bosses in my time who I don’t think got this basic truth – it’s not that they were particularly bad (well one of them was) but it’s just the frowning and struggling that they go through when there is a family situation that means business has to come second.

On the other hand it would be easy for a worker to use their family as an excuse.

I think what is called for is integrity. Workers should stop using family as an excuse to get out of things they would rather not do and employers need to acknowledge that family is more important than business.

It always seems to me that managers should be very glad of workers who take family life seriously – it shows a level of commitment and care than any business should welcome from its employees.

Well done Gerry.

What motivates people? This is a question that has pre-occupied people since some clever person decided to tie a carrot to the end of a stick to get a donkey to move (did anyone actually ever do that?). The truth is that the carrot is different for everyone, but why is this? The simple answer is that everyone values different things.

Many people believe that money is a good motivator – give someone a bonus and they will work hard to earn it. There are all kinds of problems with this – not least that for most people money isn’t a good motivator. Most people want what they believe the money can buy them (security, peace, love, health, freedom, etc) but all of these things can be acquired without money. To try and get this motivator to work we are constantly bombarded with adverts to try and make us greedy – we fall for it for a while but soon become disillusioned when the promised lifestyle doesn’t arrive with the acquisition of money. This is born out time and again by surveys that show that rich people tend to be less happy than the rest of us.

In the end what really motivates us is our values. This is one of the reasons that knowing what you value is so important. In some self help systems you will be told to listen to what your insides tell you about values. I think this is only part of the story. To really understand what motivates us we need to understand what we value – relying on feelings is not always productive.

So to get motivated you need to know your values.

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.

It’s sports day at my children’s school today. The school has put on non-competitive sports in the past but have now returned to a more competitive kind of sports day. Who is right? Should sports be non-competitive? What about those who are no good at sports?

Well my own feelings are that sports day should be competitive and it’s up to the school to do it properly so that those who find sport difficult understand that taking part is still very important.

I think I have quite a unique perspective on all this because I’m someone who struggled with sport at school for quite a while. You see I was always pretty average at sport in the my primary school and I was still very happy just taking part. I hadn’t yet learned that sport was supposed to be all about winning. Then at secondary school (High school) I was ill for quite a while and I ended up rubbish at sport. Sports day became a very bad day for me – struggling to finish races at the back. I stopped trying. It wasn’t until the very end of my school sports career that I managed to pull things back a bit and started to push the winners (although I never actually won).

It is possible to learn a lot from such experiences. It is important to understand what competition is and how to handle it. It’s important for winners and losers.

However, I do believe that children need to be helped to understand what I think is the golden rule of sport.

“It’s not whether you win or lose it’s how you play the game”.

Sport can teach you what it’s like to win and what it’s like to lose but above all of this it can teach you the pride of having done your best. We all need to learn that there are always going to be people who can better us at one thing or another. This doesn’t make us failures as people it tells us that we should be proud of ourselves for everything we achieve.

I admire people who overcome great odds to achieve things – sometimes things that I might take for granted. Those who battle disability to walk or talk, etc. show great determination and effort. It doesn’t matter that in a straight walking race I could probably beat them (I was a race walker for while by the way) but it does matter than they are winners in life because they did their best.

So I say children should learn about competition and especially what it means to compete against yourself. Those who struggle with sport (like those who struggle with anything) should be shown that when they make an effort everyone appreciates them taking part and if no one ever does notice their effort they will at least be able to have some self pride in knowing that it wasn’t winning or losing that mattered but how they played the game.

I hope that all of us have a very long time get before we have to face death and yet it is an important thing to think about from time to time. I guess all of us would like to leave something by which we could be remembered at least for a little while after we are gone. Yet it always seems to me that it is better to leave anywhere with the knowledge that your presence has made that place a better one. Leaving a legacy doesn’t have to just be about when you die – you should leave some kind of legacy wherever you go.

I don’t mean that it will always be a happier place or more fun place but that somehow we have made things there a little better. I think sometimes the only way to make things better it is cause a few upsets but perhaps that is a subject for another day.

What are you going to leave today? How are you going to make the places you have been better?

To motivate other people you have to start with yourself. This applies in any situation where you want to motivate others: parents, leaders, managers, supervisors, etc. I’m talking about long term motivation, of course, not just a quick fix. Here is a list of stuff you should get right first so you can then get others motivated.

• Have a clear vision for what you want to achieve – if you don’t really know what you are trying to do how can you expect others to get interested? Don’t just put it in terms of benefitting yourself or the organisation you represent either – most people find it really hard to get excited about working hard to line the pockets of somebody else.
• Work at least as hard as you want everyone else to work – if you seem to be having an easy time while everyone else is working hard they will hate you for it. Most of the time you will need to work harder than anyone else (see the next bit of advice).
• Work as smart as you want everyone else to work – if you want people to be organised then get more organised; if you want people to be more relaxed then be more relaxed; if you want people to be less stressed then make sure you are less stressed yourself. Good managers want the best from their workers and this means that they must show others how to work in the way they work. If you are working very long hours and getting very stressed out then your staff will end up the same.
• Be a leader not a follower – you must take the lead in everything. Don’t expect anyone else to be more motivated than you are.
• Get excited about your vision but not obsessive – people pick up on the excitement of others. You need to get excited about what you are trying to achieve if you hope to motivate others. However, no one likes to be around those who have a one tracked mind (it can get pretty exhausting and annoying). You need to show that you understand how important other things are as well – take an interest in what motivates the people you are trying to motivate.
• Get to know people – you need to know what it is that motivates your people. Each one of us is different and we get motivated by different things. Take some time to get to know the people you are trying to reach.
• Become a good communicator – you need to get your vision across to others and this involves good communication skills. Don’t rely on the inspirational words of others but instead find your own that are relevant to your vision. I’m all for the odd inspirational quote but they won’t inspire people to work hard at what you want them too unless you find good ways of getting your message across – often and in different ways.

Long term motivation is not about high powered speakers or shouting or being dynamic it’s about being a good leader.