Posted on 10 Mar, 2010 -
Thank You
* 3 major keys to breaking ANY habit or changing unhelpful habits of behaviour
* 3 reasons why I’m REALLY HAPPY this week
* 3 things I want YOU to tell me about YOU
(Please send me in your answers to the 3 questions below)
I am in a very good mood at the moment which has inspired me (among other things) to write and thank you all for all the support you’ve given me as readers over the years.
I love writing this Life is a Bag of Revels email but I don’t know if I’d have kept up the motivation to keep going if it wasn’t for all the times I’ve received your personal and heart-felt emails thanking me for the help, advice or blast of optimism or cheer I’ve given you.
Even those of you who haven’t written in have helped me just by being there. It’s almost as if I’m with you as you drive your car to work in the morning, sit down for a sandwich or pick up the phone to call somebody!
So what is making me so happy?
Three things really. First of all there’s the Spring and the SUNSHINE (although it will probably be cold and snowing again by the time you get this email).
More specifically, perhaps, I had a real William Wordsworth moment yesterday when I discovered a wonderful host of vivid purple crocuses at the bottom of my allotment.
I had gone up to make sure the new cherry tree I’d planted 10 days ago hadn’t been blown over in wind and to get some fresh air and sun. And there they were..
Dozens and dozens and dozens of them glowing their bright orange stamen hearts out. Almost singing to me in the sun. And as I knelt down to admire them and absorb the thrill of all that colour and raw life, I spotted a huge happy bumble bee, climbing industriously in and out of every flower, sucking up the nectar and getting his big fat bottom and head covered all over in yellow pollen in the process.
And at that moment I really felt as if my own vitality and colour button had been turned up to full volume too. Life suddenly seemed to be over-flowing with meaning just by being so wonderful!
This is what I have been working for for the past 15 years!
The second thing that has been making me very happy is that a project I’ve been working on for more than 10 years now is going to print THIS WEEK!
In many ways this feels like my life’s work - something I have felt totally driven to be able to provide to people since the amazing discoveries I made during my time in China, the years I spent researching human happiness in the British Library and my subsequent studies of psychotherapy and counselling.
For the whole of my adult life, in fact, I have been obsessed with the idea of finding techniques and understandings of the human mind and condition that could enable us to function so much better emotionally and find greater peace, contentment, happiness and freedom from all the negative thinking, anxiety and counter-productive living that seem to plague human beings.
So much of what I found has has such an enormous impact in the way I live my own life that I wanted to be able to pass it on. But I didn’t just want to do this in a book form.
Like a year’s worth of ‘life therapy’ sent to you through the post
I wanted to create an interactive programme of ‘lessons’ that people would be able to work through in order to actually apply the methods, findings and techniques I had discovered.
I wanted this to be almost like a course of ‘therapy’ even, that - in a very positive way - would help people investigate and explore their own past, their own personality and hang-ups and restrictions… and make really life-empowering, self-empowering changes.
And it’s finally happening. In just a few more weeks my wonderful publishers will be presenting me with the very first copy! Hallelujah!
BUT what I really wanted to talk about this week was YOU
But I am digressing. Because what I really wanted to do today is to thank you - but also try to find out more about you.
What are your interests? What are your hobbies? Are you toast or cereal? Jam or marmite? A dog or a cat person?
Apart from wanting to get a bigger picture in my head of who I’m writing to (there’s normally between about 20,000 and 25,000 of you so that isn’t easy!), it would really help me in deciding what to write about.
So please, if you could spare a minute, it would be great if you could send me an email by clicking on the address below with ‘ABOUT ME’ as the subject line and tell me:
1) Your Age
2) Male or female
3) Let me know maybe 4 or 5 topics that you’re interested in.
It would also be great if you could send me any problems you currently have that you’d like to get some advice/tips on. And I’ll promise to try and cover as many of them as possible over the coming months.
I had a woman write in this week, for example, asking me if I had any advice for putting an end to a long-term habit of nail biting.
This week’s topic, therefore is on how to break any habit or change life-diminishing behaviour
The first thing to note about any kind of habit is that when a behaviour becomes habitual, it is the fact that it is automatic, that we do it without thinking, that makes it so hard to break. If this habit is something that we do automatically without thinking, one key to changing it, therefore is to PUT SOME THINKING BACK IN.
It is also important to realise that the process of change will probably be a slow one and will involve several stages. There will be a stage where you might try denying to yourself that you need to change known as the Pre-Contemplative stage followed by the Contemplative stage where you spend time thinking about and researching the issue. Following this there is a stage of Planning or Preparation followed by a stage of Action and Maintenance.
In many cases, in fact, people find that they may need to go through several cycles of these stages before they are finally successful.
Three major keys here:
1. Whenever you catch yourself about to ‘indulge’ in the activity, or starting to do so, ask yourself why you want to do it. What thoughts or events have lead you to do this? What reasons or excuses have you used in order to justify this behaviour to yourself? It is not necessary to stop yourself from doing the thing at this stage while you are just gathering information to help you understand what leads you to indulge in the habit.
Once you have gathered your information and knowledge about your habit you will be in a position to move forward to the preparation stage where you start planning how you will cope in the situations that normally lead to your habitual behaviour.
2. It is very difficult for anyone to change unless they are totally convinced that they really want to do this. You must feel sure, therefore, that the benefits of changing outweigh the negatives. One very useful exercise to help you here is write two lists, one entitled Benefits, one Drawbacks or similar, and then start making notes under each heading. Doing research and serious thinking about both sides here will be crucial at this stage.
3. In many cases it can be essential to replace the habit with a similar physical activity. If eating is involved in your habit, for example, chewing gum or crunching carrot sticks can be useful. If the habit is over-worrying then perhaps try replacing it with something like doing a crossword puzzle or sudoko - although I actually believe that walking is the closest activity because it still involves your brain in the same lulled way but generally with much healthier results.
And at that, I think I’d better leave you to get on with your day!
Best wishes and thank you in advance for all your responses to my three questions
