If You Value Your Time – Take Time for What You Value

Does the question ever cross your mind as you run through your very busy days, “How could I possibly bother spending the time trying to improve myself when I’ve got so much to do?”

Does it seem as if your life is so full of just trying to get things done that the ideas of acquiring self help skills, enhancing your spiritual growth, or implementing a new personal development plan seems almost impossible? And yet, is there also a gnawing question that lingers in your mind, “Is this all there is?” “Am I missing out on something even with all these things on my to-do list?”

If any of this sounds familiar, then the next time you’re confronted with the hectic pace of daily life, take a moment and find the time to “bother” with your personal development. Gaining a clearer understanding of ourselves always adds value to our lives and can also increase our sense of significance and purpose in those daily activities.

Finding meaning in our lives starts when we begin investigating who we are and what is going on around us. We are the only one that can say for certain what is deeply important to us, so if we get so very busy that we don’t take the time to stop and look at our life, it may fill up with things that don’t give us the kinds of joy and meaning we truly want.

Is Your Cup Overflowing?

Here’s an old Zen story that speaks to the truth of this:

A university teacher visited Nan-in, a Japanese master. The professor was interested in learning about the Zen philosophy. Nan-in served the professor tea. He poured tea in the professor’s cup until it was full. But he kept on pouring.

The professor watched the tea overflow his cup until he could no longer stop himself. “My cup is overflowing,” he said, “no more will go in!”

“Like this tea cup,” Nan-in replied, “you are full of your own ideas and opinions. How can you learn about Zen unless you first empty your cup?”

To learn anything new, you need some room for it in what you already know. With life’s crazy pace, every once and awhile it’s important to invest the time, energy and attention to let in new ideas and awareness.

That was Zen – This is Now

You can begin emptying your cup by examining what you believe and what you value.

• Do some things just seem “right or wrong”, “good or bad”, or “appropriate or inappropriate”?

• Are your beliefs broader than the set of cultural beliefs permeating our lives on an unconscious level?

• Are you easily able to recognize which beliefs are motivating your actions?

• Do you know the values that are reflected in your beliefs?

• Are you able to recognize when your beliefs are not accurately reflecting your core values?

Unless you occasionally take the time to consciously empty your cup of beliefs that do not fit with your core values, it will fill up with various cultural beliefs that come to you from the outside, which become the unconscious motivations influencing the choices you make and how you live your life.

As you empty your cup, you begin to make room in your life for the question, “Are the beliefs I hold as the truth really my own beliefs?”

Another question to ask is, “Did I knowingly choose these beliefs as my own or did I simply take them on without question?”

You answer these questions by exploring whether your beliefs support what you really value, or if they are just beliefs you learned simply because they have been part of our culture for hundreds or thousands of years.

Bother to Be – Continue to Ask – and Be Willing to Listen

To understand more about how cultural beliefs might be influencing you, look at the principles you live by and rules you follow. Or consider all those little adages you were told growing up such as, life is hard, it’s a dog eat dog world, only the strong survive, etc.

Explore these for yourself. Ask, “Do I truly believe these?”  Do these principles, rules or sayings really support me in living the life I desire, one that is a reflection of what I truly value?

Here are a set of questions you can ask yourself as you go through your day that will help you figure this out for yourself:

• What do I really desire in this area of my life?

• What would I like to experience right here and right now?

• What motivates the action I’m about to take?

• Is what I’m about to do going to get me the results I really want?

• Is what I’m doing now really what want to do?

Take pause and remember that in the process of questioning, there are no hard and fast rules, no good or bad answer, no right or wrong beliefs. The purpose is to begin taking time for your self-improvement and spiritual development, to experience the fact that this is worth “bothering” with.

An Empty Cup Allows Room to Grow

We trust that as you uncover your own personal values, start developing empowering new beliefs that reflect those values, and begin taking actions that are in alignment with them, your discomfort or dissatisfaction with the hectic pace of life with begin to diminish.

You’ll start clearly recognizing which of your daily activities reflect what you value and experience an increased sense of significance and purpose in these. You’ll also start easily pruning away the clutter in your life as you get more clarity about what is important you and what is not.

As your life becomes more meaningful, taking the time for self-improvement will not only be worth bothering with, you will welcome it because you know you have plenty of room for it in your cup!

Baba Brinkman evolving rapping to where no rapper has gone before…

Here is a great article on the same topic by Olivia Judson we thought you’d also enjoy.

By OLIVIA JUDSON

The lights go down. The room fills with music — a pulsating hip-hop rhythm. And then, over the music, you hear the voice of Richard Dawkins reading a passage from “On the Origin of Species” by Charles Darwin: “Whoever is led to believe that species are mutable will do good service by conscientiously expressing his conviction. For only thus can the load of prejudice by which this subject is overwhelmed be removed.”

So begins one of the most astonishing, and brilliant, lectures on evolution I’ve ever seen: “The Rap Guide to Evolution,” by Baba Brinkman.

Read the rest of the article here: Darwin Got It Going On

And Here’s a Selection of Baba Brinkman’s Music (on CBC Radio)

Thoughts?

Balancing Your Needs with the Needs of Others

Are you one of those people who constantly put your own needs at the bottom of the priority list? Do other people’s needs always seem to be more important than your own? Though many of us try to put others first, but neglecting to address our own needs is not good for us or those we are trying to serve.

Can you really get ahead in your career, your relationships, or take care of your responsibilities to family and friends if you don’t take care of your own needs?

Impossible!

Be mindful of getting overly caught up in endless busywork and constantly attending to the needs of others. You need to take care of yourself too, which includes sleeping well, eating properly, exercising, relaxing, and making sure that you maintain a healthy balance in your life.

If you’ve been neglecting yourself lately, now is the time to make some changes that will bring more peace, harmony, and well-being into your life. To do this you must first identify exactly what is most important to you, figure out which of these things may be missing, and then focus your attention on bringing more of that into your life.

Once you move past the constant frenzy of taking care of the needs of others, you will start to find yourself on the path to true happiness.

“Go confidently in the direction of your dreams! Live the life you’ve imagined. As you simplify your life, the laws of the universe will be simpler.” ~ Henry David Thoreau

When we focus our attention on satisfying our own needs, we cannot help but grow. Living a balanced life allows us to be more creative, more successful, and enjoy a life that is full of what we love. Having all of our needs met makes us much more effective in meeting others’ needs too.

Is “Expert Advice” Driving You Crazy?

We received a question from one of our community members.

She’d read Dr. Kevin Leman’s relationship advice that opposes dating after being widowed or divorced until your youngest child is at least 18 years-old, and better yet, when they are 21 or 22 and the nest is empty.

Now, this is a youthful, 50-ish woman with children far from leaving the nest, so this would mean a very long wait for her.

After reading Leman’s opinion she became very discouraged and asked if we agreed that she should wait years before seeking companionship. What is a healthy person supposed to do when they long for companionship and the “expert” says forget about it?

Our Thoughts on the Matter

As soon as we read this we knew this blog post was needed. It’s not uncommon for people to wonder what to do when an expert’s opinion seems so at odds with their own. We’ve run into this before in relation to the advice of other experts–and our answer is always the same.

One saying we love is: The shortest path to a happy life is found through conscious choice. But you can’t make conscious choices–even about what you hear from the experts–unless you’re very clear about what’s deeply important to YOU.

Opinions Are Like Armpits

Why? Everyone has more than one and they tend to stink if you’re not careful with them.

What we mean by being careful with your opinions is that you are conscious of them, how you’ve come to hold them as true for you, and whether or not they serve you and others in your life.

Everyone has lots of opinions, and we all generate new ones all the time. We are opinion generating machines!

Every expert focuses on particular areas that are very important to them–areas they care about deeply. This has them come up with specific strategies to help themselves and others experience what is important to them about these areas.

Dr. Leman must deeply values particular things that caused him to come up with the strategy: Don’t date after the loss of the mate until the youngest child is at least 18.

This strategy may work great for you–or it may not work for you at all. But you can’t know whether it might work for you unless you know what you hope to create in life at a core level, both with your children and with an intimate companion.

Once you understand this, there may be many other strategies that will allow you to experience what’s important to you that don’t prevent you from dating.

So What Is “Our Opinion”?

Our opinion is that you are your own highest authority. You are best served by looking within to discover what you value most about each aspect of this rather complicated situation. One way to do this is to work through one of our free Values Exercise worksheet. You can find it at:

http://www.focusedattention.com/store/thank-you/free_Values_Exercise_registration.htm

In this case we would suggest that you do a separate Values Worksheet for each aspect of the situation that’s important to you: your relationship with each child, what you hope for from an intimate relationship, etc. Then read our special report about creating conscious intentions. To find it go to:
http://www.focusedattention.com/eZine/FAI-eZine0905_Unconscious_Intentions_Running_Your_Life.htm

Then, while keeping all of the various opinions and advice you’ve received in mind, choose which strategies would work best to help you experience what you value most. After doing this, it may turn out that Dr. Leman’s approach would work best for you, or you may come up with strategies that seem more appropriate for what you want to create in your life.

But you can’t know for sure until you hear from the most important expert–YOU!

Trust yourself. You are your own best expert. The rest of us are only here to support, suggest, and offer our ideas and strategies. The rest is up to you–and that’s the good news.

With much love and respect for who you are,
Beth and Neill

If this is the first time you’re playing along, you may want to read our initial explanation. You can find it here:
Is It Really True? Quiz Intro

Please remember that in this quiz there are no right or wrong answers. We simply want to stimulate dialogue about some of our commonly held cultural beliefs.

Consider this statement…

We should praise children when they do a good job.

Do you agree or disagree?

Here’s what we came up with as we thought about the statement.

Why would people praise children when they’ve done a “good job”?

As we said last time, we believe that everything people say or do is intended to meet a need or to help them experience something they value. And when we want something we come up with ideas for getting it–strategies such as “praising children for doing a good job.”

So what is it that people want–the values–that motivate them to choose this strategy?

We guess that people praise children because they value:

• Support: to help the child feel empowered in their ability to accomplish something meaningful, and therefore improve their self-confidence.
• Acknowledgment: so the child understands the contribution they’ve made to you through their action.
• Success: helping the child understand which behaviors will support their success in life.

Can you think of any other needs our values people might want to satisfy by using this strategy?

Why this strategy?

Now the question becomes, why would someone choose this strategy?

Behind every strategy we choose there is a belief that guides our choices and our actions. So what are the cultural beliefs that lead people to choose this strategy instead of some other?

Here are some possible beliefs that may lead to choosing this strategy:

• Children need authorities to help them learn good from bad, right from wrong.
• The best way to motivate children is by using praise.
• Without praise children won’t establish a sense of their value or self-worth.

Can you think of any others beliefs that might lead to using praise as a strategy?

Does this strategy work?

If your goal is to have children look to others for their sense of worth and have their actions motivated out of a desire to be praised and to please others–or the fear of not getting this praise–then we would say this strategy works.

We know many adults who depend on the praise and the approval of others for their happiness. We are not immune from this. We still catch ourselves hoping for praise and reward for what we do. And sometimes find ourselves disappointed and questioning our own worth when we don’t get it.

So, if what you really want is for the child to have a high degree of self-confidence that comes from a sense of empowerment, the ability to know if they are acting in harmony with their own values, an intrinsic sense of their self-worth, and the ability to know for themselves which actions will best support their success in life, then we think the strategy of praise probably does not work very well.

To the degree that we’ve come to depend on praise, not receiving it will lead to one of two scenarios–in children and adults alike. Either we start questioning our value, abilities and our internal guidance, or we end up frustrated and rebelling against the “authority” who failed to provide the praise we want.

What new understanding might make a difference?

There are understandings that can help people choose a different strategy than praise.

We discussed one in the first installment of this series: the difference between intrinsic vs. extrinsic motivation.

This time we are exploring the difference between:

Domestication: Any training process that uses a system of punishments and rewards to accomplish its goals.

and

Internal Authority: Using the principles and values we consciously choose as our guide.

Domestication

If you’ve been brought up in a typical world culture, then you are no stranger to externally imposed consequences such as punishments and rewards–praise being one of them.

From a very young age, authorities in your life teach you what’s right and what’s wrong, what’s good and what’s bad, what’s appropriate and inappropriate.

And you quickly learned that you get scolded or punished for being wrong or bad and praised or rewarded for being good or right.

To paraphrase Don Miguel Ruiz from his book, The Four Agreements: We soon learn to use this system of punishment and reward on ourselves to control our own behavior so we can keep getting the rewards (praise, recognition, a better job, a bigger house, …) and keep avoiding the punishments (ridicule, loss of relationship, loosing our job, …)

It seems that the lesson most people learn from this is:

What other people think is more important than what I think.

Given the amount of time and energy people spend on worrying about what other people think of them, it doesn’t appear that the strategy of praise satisfies the underlying desire to instill people with self-confidence, empowerment, the ability to know and act in harmony with their values, or an intrinsic sense of their self-worth.

What might better satisfy these underlying values?

Internal Authority

Imagine that instead of Praise:

“It was very grown-up of you to help rake your grandmother’s yard.”

“Your such a good boy for cleaning up the crayons.”

“You are so smart to get an A plus on that math test.”

What if we supported children in developing their self-confidence and their sense self-worth by modeling the ability to know what we value and to offer appreciation for how their actions supported us?

Let’s consider these values again. How would we model our value for:

Support:

Our desire to help a child feel empowered in their ability to accomplish something meaningful, and therefore improve their self-confidence.

“I love that you helped rake your grandmother’s yard. I think it helps her understand how much you care for her. Is that why you did it?”

Acknowledgment:

Our desire to help a child understand the contribution they’ve made through their action.

“I really enjoy that you cleaned up the crayons because I like it when it’s clean and tidy and I appreciate your help in keeping it that way. What was important to you about cleaning up the crayons?”

Success:

Our desire to help a child understand which behaviors will support their success in life.

“I’m happy to see you understood all the ideas in your math test because I think this will help you when you grow up the same ways it helps me with our family budget and running our business. What do you like about it?”

How would this be different for the child?

Imagine being raised in a culture where the people in your life understood what they valued and how to express their appreciation for your actions in ways that helped you develop your ability to know what you value.

Imagine that, both at home and in school, you were supported in making your own decisions, with respect for your internal guidance. And that the “authorities” in your life were truly interested in helping you explore what was important to you about your choices.

Do you think people would be as hesitant to rely on their own decisions or as worried about the opinions of other people?

How would it have been different for you?

What occurs to you?

That’s our thinking about this belief statement. Please let us know what occurs to you about any or all of this.

Click Here to make your comment.

We look forward to reading your response.

With great trust and respect for your ability to choose wisely,

Beth and Neill

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