Posted on 06 Jan, 2010 -
How to make 2010 your most successful year ever
Make 2010 an amazing year by starting it today with these two techniques for helping you put your best foot forward
Learn to accept your strengths, your skills and charms and enjoy more success, life and confidence
Use Dr Maltz’s recipe for S.U.C.C.E.S.S - plus the NLP technique of ‘anchoring’ into a more resourceful state
“You are today where your thoughts have brought you.
You will be tomorrow where your thoughts take you.”
James Allen
The 6th of January is quietly one of my favourite days of the year.
I have always loved the idea of ‘Epiphany’ in many ways, in fact. Not only is it a beautiful word with several interesting meanings but it is one final excuse to celebrate and feast.
In Mexico, when I have visited, there are wonderful displays you can go and see in the City with three wise men dressed up in exotic clothes on dozens of competing floats. Mexican children also get another gift on this day, more important than the gift they receive on Christmas day.
Are you waiting for an epiphany to show you the way forward?
I also like the idea of an epiphany where you get a sudden leap of understanding or a sudden idea that allows you to see clearly what you must do to move forward or make the next section of your life complete.
Epiphanies, of course, do happen. I remember reading, however, in Po Bronson’s book, ‘What should I do with my life?’ about people who have done incredible things to change and redirect their lives that few people are actually blessed with that kind of certainty and clarity:
“Do not wait for the kind of clarity that comes with epiphanies. In the nine hundred plus stories I heard in my research, almost nobody was struck with an epiphany… Don’t doubt your desire because it comes to you as a whisper; don’t think “If it were really important to me, I’d feel clearer about this, less conflicted.’ My research didn’t show that to be true. The things we really want to do are usually the ones that scare us most. The things you’ll not feel conflicted about are the choices that leave no one hurt.”
Far more important for a successful and fulfilled life, perhaps, is your attitude, your mood, or your belief in what the future can bring. And what better day than this to make sure you are putting your best foot forward.
We cannot, of course, have control over all the events that occur in our life. We can, however, make sure that we are doing our very best to shine to the full ability of our own uniqueness - rather than cowering from life behind the life-diminishing excuses of regret, fear, negativity, shyness and lack of self belief.
So how can we make sure we put our best foot forward?
One very useful technique from Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP) that I like is called ‘anchoring’ which helps you face your current life in a more resourceful’ state.
As you will be aware, there are times in your life when you’ve felt more confident and sure about yourself: more creative, more powerful, able and resourceful. Then there are other times when you feel less so. The way that you feel, the way that you go about your day, can have an enormous effect on how successful you are, what you achieve, and what you get out of your time.
What you can achieve through the method of ‘anchoring’ is to transfer positive states of mind from the past to the present situation. Here’s a quick summary of the technique from Introducing NLP, a book by Joseph O’Connor and John Seymour.
Here’s what to do
First of all, think of a specific situation in which you would like to feel, act, and respond in a different way than you are currently. Next, choose a particular emotional state that you have experienced in the past that you think would be appropriate and conjure up a particularly strong occasion when you felt that way. It can be any resourceful state - creativity, courage, confidence, resilience etc.
Once you have a strong feeling of the state and instance in your mind, the next step is to choose ‘anchors’ that will bring this resource to mind whenever you need it. You will need three kinds of anchors: a kinesthetic one (touch), an auditory one and a visual one.
For the kinesthetic anchor, “Touching your thumb and finger together or making a fist in a particular way works well” as an example. The auditory anchor “can be a word or phrase that you say to yourself internally”. For the visual anchor you might choose a symbol or you can remember what you were seeing when you felt this state before.
Whenever you need to put yourself into this resourceful state, use the anchors to conjure up that state.
Dr Malts’s recipe for S.U.C.C.E.S.S
In the brilliant book originally written in 1960, Dr Maxwell Maltz gives an effective recipe for a ‘success-type personality’. A plastic surgeon for most of his life, Maltz wrote his self-improvement classic, Psycho-Cybernetics, after seeing so many patients who suffered horribly from lack of self-esteem and irrational beliefs about their own inadequacies and ugliness.
Here’s a summary of his message and recipe:
Sense of direction. Just as a bicycle “maintains its poise and equilibrium only as long as it is going forward” so human beings “are built to conquer environment, solve problems, achieve goals, and we find no real satisfaction or happiness in life without obstacles to conquer and goals to achieve. People who say that life is not worthwhile are really saying that they themselves have no worthwhile personal goals.”
Understanding. A lot of this book is about the importance of self-image. So many of the people who came to Maltz’s practice had hugely negative self images that were totally unjustified. In most cases they had blown slight things completely out of proportion. They see their mistakes or minor weaknesses as who they are and forget about all the positive things. A lot of people also have problems in trying to develop a clear-cut image of themselves in a positive role, or in a new role they have acquired or would like to acquire.
My own interpretation and suggestion for this section is to try and work on a realistic understanding and acceptance of your strengths and positive traits, your skills and your personal charms.
I like this quote from somebody Dr Maltz worked with:
“I’ve become somewhat famous thanks to several very notable astute decisions. But I’ve made a number of incredibly bad ones too. I am neither my best or my worst decisions. I am a successful, capable executive who makes his fair share of blunders, and that’s all there is to it.”
Could you, perhaps, come up with a similar positive statement for yourself?
Courage means having the courage to ACT, “for only by actions can goals, desires and beliefs be translated in to realities.”
“When you systematically strengthen your self-image, and understand that you are not your mistakes, you find it infinitely easier to take risks without undue worry over what others will think or temporarily appearing foolish if you stumble.”
Charity is about having and showing respect for others. Successful personalities have interest in and regard for other people. The more respect you have for others, the more you value their strengths, the more esteem you will have for yourself.
Esteem. “We must simply get it through our heads that holding a low opinion of ourselves in not a virtue, but a vice.”
For is it not on days when we most doubt ourselves that we are the most cranky to others and least useful to the world?
Self-Confidence. The successful personality knows that no matter who you are, no matter what field you are operating in, for each success there are often many, many failures. And he does not allow this to damage their self-esteem.
Self-acceptance. “The Actual Self is not a static but a dynamic thing. It is never completed and final, but always in a state of growth.”
We are not, as Maltz says, our mistakes or our actions. Each day we have the opportunity to be who we want to be, to act how we want to act, and to live ourselves to the full.
