Change Management

Imagine you are steering a boat far out at sea. Below the deck, out of sight, lies a vast horde of demons. These demons have many different forms. 

Some of them are emotions such as guilt, anger, fear or hopelessness. Some are memories of times in which you see yourself performing badly. 

Now, as long as you keep that boat drifting out at sea, the demons will stay below. But as soon as you start steering toward land, they clamber up from below deck. You don't like that very much, so you cut a deal: "If your demons stay out of sight, down below, I'll keep the boat drifting out at sea." The demons agree and everything seems OK - for a while. The problem is, eventually you get fed up of being at sea. 

You get bored, lonely, miserable, resentful and anxious. "What sort of life is this?" you think. " The land over there - that's where I want to be heading". But the demons down below aren't particularly interested in what you want. They want to stay out at sea. So the moment you start heading for land, they swam up onto the deck and start threatening you again.

As soon as we start to do something new, our mind will start warning us "You might fail"; "You might get rejected". And all too often we let these warnings stop us from taking our lives in the direction we really want. Rather than sail for shore, we drift at sea.  

Depending on the nature of your current situation, - you may choose to start a new relationship, pursue a new career, make some new friends, improve your physical fitness, or taking a course - but whatever meaningful changes you start to make in your life, these demons will rear their ugly heads and try to discourage you.

However, if you keep steering your boat toward shore (no matter how much the demons threaten you), many of them will realise they are having no effect and will give up and leave you alone. And more importantly, you'll find that you will not just have demons; you'll soon encounter angels and dolphins.

PADALAR IN THE C OF LIFE
(CHANGE MANAGEMENT TIPS)

Purpose
Knowing what is most valuable to you gives you direction in life. You can focus the majority of your time and energy on these values.

Identify your highest priorities

Close your eyes, take a few deep breaths and relax. Imagine yourself in a favourite place where you can take a few minutes to think. The time is many years from now. You have lived a long and full life. Reflect your life from this point. What did you most enjoy experience and doing? What did you most appreciate accomplishing or having? Write your answers.

Turn your highest priorities to goals

Goals are objectives you want to achieve. The difference between goals and simply dreams is that you really like to put money and time to accomplish your goals. If you want to live to a ripe old age to travel the world with old friends, your short term and medium goals can be taking care of your health, cultivating friendship and making money.

Action
To achieve each of your short/medium/long time goals you need to identify the specific steps that you need to take in order to achieve each of them.

Developing an Action Plan

Imagine that you have already achieved your goal. How would you feel, look, behave, sound? How would people around you respond to you? Now begin to work backwards from fantasized image. Ask yourself what steps you must have taken to achieve your objective.
Did you need to develop new skills?
How much time it will take?
How did you deal with obstacles such as fear?
How did you motivate yourself to keep doing?

Discipline
Discipline is a set of rules that you put on yourself to reach your goals.

How many times have you started to do something, only to quit after a short while? How many times have you felt too weak, lazy, shy or bored to do something you promised yourself to do? With so many distractions around you, what does it take to stay focused on your goals and dreams, and what does it take to succeed? 


The answer is self-discipline or self-control. Anyone can develop a self-discipline. It takes time to develop, but the more you practice using self-discipline the stronger it will become. The more disciplined you become, the easier life gets. Learn here some strategies and techniques on how to develop self-discipline.

Attitude
You carry your attitude around with you, like a pair of glasses that tints your perception of the world.

Your experience, education and personality shape your attitude to everything around you. Depending on how you perceive the world, you will interpret and react differently to situations than someone who has a different view. Your tinted glasses (your attitude) will affect how you think, how you behave and even how you feel.

Love
Love has been defined as a "strong positive emotion", a feeling of "warm affection", and "exclusive devotion". Things can be loved, such as hobbies, places or ideas.

Love is a very powerful emotion, capable of bringing out the best in people and the worst in people. The emotion of love is what makes a person deliriously happy or constantly heartsick.

Achieve

Responsibility

Resources:
Your Life - Your Responsibility. Ken B Marslew AM
The Happiness Trap: Stop Struggling, Start Living. Dr Russ Harris

Enough is Enough thanks the girls who participated in our Dreamtime Divas Project and for their beautiful self portraits taken during their time at Enough is Enough .

Seven Faces of Intention by Dr. Dyer

"There is a universal source of energy that is called the “power of intention.” This source – whether you call it God, the divine, or something else – is always available to us and is infinite in its possibilities. - Dr Wayne Dyer

Seven Faces of Intention: Creativity, Kindness, Love, Beauty, Expansion, Unlimited Abundance, and Receptivity -  are the keys to unlocking the power of intention in your life. 

1. Creativity

 – Realize that there is creativity within you, and learn to recognize and appreciate your creative impulses. You don’t have to be an artist or a writer – creativity is just as important to the business person looking for the next big idea.

“If you’ve ever felt inspired by a purpose or calling, you know the feeling of Spirit working through you. Inspired is our word for in-spirited.”

Learn to recognize this state of being in-spirited, and you’ll unlock your inner creativity.

2. Kindness

 –Whether you call it karma, the law of reciprocity or the power of positive thinking, work from the belief that you’ll be rewarded for good intentions.
Dr. Dyer shares the science behind kindness in The Power of Intention. When you do something kind for someone else, their brain releases serotonin – and so does yours! Serotonin is a hormone that makes us feel good. So, every act of kindness makes two happier people in the world.

“If you want others to be happy, practice compassion. If you want to be happy, practice compassion.”

3. Love

 - Think of this power of intention as the face of kindness exponentiation with the emotion of love.

Love means a lack of judgment, a lack of anger or resentment. It means recognizing God in others.

4. Beauty

 – The face of beauty is the face of intention. 

Learn to appreciate the beauty of everything around you.

The face of beauty is truth, honesty and a knowing that what "is" -- is exactly as it should be. You can use this power by re-framing any negative thoughts you have towards others and replace them with an appreciate (a thankfulness attitude) towards them.

5. Expansion

 – Expand your awareness of what is possible. 

Don’t set limits on yourself; instead, learn to listen to your intuition. 

If you see the world as a negative and hurtful place, then you’re only ever going to experience it that way. Instead, learn to recognize your true nobility.
“True nobility isn’t about being better than someone else, it’s about being better than you used to be.”

6.Unlimited Abundance

 – Realizing your unlimited abundance means facing down your fears and limitations. Dr. Dyer has a simple three-word suggestion for how to put this into action: 

Act “as if”. This means acting as if the thing you want has already happened.

You were probably taught all of your life about limitations and about what is "not possible." Fortunately, this came from well-meaning people who believed in limitation and not abundance. This law does not require you to be intellectually perfect in order to receive the benefits. Believing in unlimited abundance has no downside, so why not take another look at your business life after you answer this question, "What if I could have it all?"

7. Receptivity 

– This means being open without judgment. Being aware enough and engaged enough to see possibilities where others don’t. And most importantly, it means simply relaxing and letting the Power of Intention do its work.

Resources:
http://www.selfgrowth.com

Finding Inspiration

Without inspiration, musicians struggle to compose, writers are blocked, painters languish before an empty canvas, & actors betray their characters. Feeling inspired rivets your attention, warms your heart, and draws you in. It creates the urge to do your best so that you can reach your own higher ground. It’s a form of positivity  that pulls us out of our shell of self-absorption.

The word inspiration suggests that something has been ‘taken inside’ the individual. Philosopher Ignacio Gotz called it “one of the most mysterious moments in anyone’s life, the instant when things ‘click’ and fall neatly in place, or a new idea flashes in the dark.” He explained it as follows: The mysterious instant goes by many names: inspiration, enlightenment, illumination, intuition, insight, vision, revelation, and discovery... Religious mystics speak of ecstasy and satori; poets, painters, musicians, dancers, and historians invoke their Muses; while scientists and mathematicians, parsimonious and prosaic, claim only hunches and intuitions.

Individuals find inspiration in many ways. For example, when psychologist Robert Ornstein tried to research this topic, he found that there were nearly as many sources of inspiration as people in his study. Australian health researchers Debbie Kralik and Kerry Telford asked individuals who were suffering from various chronic illnesses where they turned for inspiration. The responses were diverse, encompassing religion and loving relationships as well as the sound of birds in the morning, friends, and one’s own endurance. In addition, a number of people cited an inspiring role model who had shown great courage in similar or even worse circumstances.

All sources of inspiration can be captured in two basic strategies: inside out or outside in.

Kids Drawings as Photographic Inspiration:
Korean Photographer Yeondoo Jung uses children's artwork as inspiration for his photos. His exhibit Wonderland has shown in Beijing China, Barcelona Spain and New York.

You can try an inside –out approach to discover inspiration from within, or you can adopt an outside-in technique to draw inspiration from the external world.

If you seek inspiration from within, you can begin by using a simple but powerful technique recommended by many self-help gurus, including the late Dale Carnegie. Challenge yourself with empowering questions. For example, you might try the following: ‘I work hard. I have skills and talent. Why can’t I be just as successful as my co-worker?”

If you are interested in finding inspiration from the external world, read widely, make contact with nature, visit new places, or watch inspirational films. Researchers have found that music can be a powerful source of inspiration. You can select songs to fit your particular needs.

If you are facing a difficult challenge, try to reframe it as a growth opportunity, or part of a larger life lesson. Committing oneself to some form or action can unleash previously dormant, powerful inner forces. You may benefit from a combination of approaches. Many of those who have persevered, despite years of pain and adversity, have been able to combine a will to act with the belief that they are pursuing a higher calling.

Try IT!!

Perhaps you have tried some of the above suggestions but still feel mired in the hopeless grind of an uninspired life. The following guidelines are adapted from psyhchologist John Suler’s Internet posting.

For a period of at least four hours, leave your home and go out somewhere. Don’t plan ahead. Just follow your instincts and go where your intuition leads you. Do this alone. If you encounter a friend or acquaintance, limit your time with them to just a few minutes.

As you move about, reflect on one or more big questions that you would like to answer such as “Who am I?”, “What is important for me?” and “What do I want from life?”. 


Try to balance thinking and reflecting with moments of unfocused drifting.

Frequently remind yourself that you are on a quest, a search mission. Expect to find something and trust that insights will occur. Stay open to any sign or symbol that might provide you with inspiration. It could be something that happens to you or something you see or hear. Bring a notebook and a pen. Every half hour or so, sit down and write. Note your reactions, including your thoughts, your feelings, and your insights. If you’re feeling anxious, frustrated, or bored, ask yourself why and write about this aspect of your experience. If nothing important has happened, you should reflect and write about this as well.

For some, the call to mastery will reflect a universal tune such as the impulse to be a good parent, teacher, artist, plumber, farmer, or business owner. For others, it may consist of a more personal “mission in life”. In addressing your particular needs, you must look deep within, far ahead, and everywhere around. Only you can evaluate your success in life.

The Power of Hope by Anthony Scioli, PH.D and Henry B. Biller, PH.D

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Building Hopeful Resiliency – Trust Lessons

According to The Oxford English Dictionary, resiliency consists of the following: a tendency to rebound, an ability to return to a natural physical state, and the power of recovery. Hopeful resiliency involves a capacity for sustaining hope in times of stress and uncertainty. An individual who is resilient has the ability to bounce back from a crisis as well as a tendency to maintain emotional equilibrium in the midst of chaos.

There are many types of survival. Physical survival has been a preoccupation for most of human history. However, in this age of anxiety, you may be finding yourself far more focused on emotional survival. If you are older, have struggled with substance abuse, or have battled a mental illness, you may be most concerned with sustaining a sound mind. Perhaps you are especially worried about maintaining a particular lifestyle (social or economic survival). Understanding your particular needs is crucial.

Beyond individual needs and styles, there are significant coping differences that result from cultural factors. In the West, there is a greater focus on direct problem solving, or primary control processes. In the East, there is a preference for secondary control processes, which involve making subtle changes in behaviour to indirectly impact the outcome of events. For many individuals, spiritual beliefs play a major role in daily confrontations with stressful events.

One of the important parts of hopeful resilience is a survival –based trust. Individuals who believe others can and will help them are more likely to solicit and receive comfort and support. By survival-based trust, we mean a particular form of trust – a belief in the willingness and capacity of others to provide help during stressful times.

The first five or six years of life can be critical for the development of survival-based trust. Maybe you felt abandoned or betrayed as a child and now find it difficult to trust others. Can you really go back and shore up your resiliency?

If your resiliency is being hampered by trust issues, keep the following five Rs in mind:

• Respect
• Research
• Risk
• Receptiveness
• Repetition

First, respect your individuality. Some people are genetically predisposed to be more outgoing and assertive than others. Extroverts may do better with a larger network of relationships that are moderate in emotional intensity. Introverts can make up for their typically smaller circle of friends by cultivating more intense bonds.

You will not look for something unless you believe in its existence. Those who have frequently been let down by others may cease to believe that there is still goodness in the world. If you have had disappointing relationships, do a little social experiment. Consider it your job to research and find examples of what writer Anne Herbert called “random kindness and senseless acts of beauty.” Watch a “feel-good” movie or read a heart warming tale from a compilation such as the Chicken Soup for the Soul books. Another great collection of inspiring personalities can be found in Hope Dies Last by Studs Terkel. If you are religiously or spiritually inclined, consider doing some research on the lives of saints, prophets, or humanists.

Some risk might be necessary to lead a hopeful life. The philosopher Gabriel Marcel wrote that “openness allows hope to spread”. How do you achieve an effective degree of openness? Think of your task in terms of boundary making. The invisible yet palpable emotional barriers that exist between individuals are often referred to as boundaries. Your goals in this area should revolve around the concepts of symmetry and degree of relatedness. To ensure symmetry, match your level of disclosure and commitment to others’ capacities for sharing and intimacy. Meet them halfway, in other words. If you go less than halfway, the person who is more open might experience you as distant. However, if you go more than halfway, the person, who is more reticent, might view you as intrusive.

You must also consider the nature of your relationship with the other person. Are you trying to connect with a friend, a lover, a parent, or a child? Recall the advice of Confucious, who proposed guidelines for maintaining different kinds of relationships. Also consider the wisdom offered in Tolstoy’s War and Peace, when Andrei tells his friend Pierre, “You can’t everywhere and at all times say everything that is on your mind.”

It is important to repeat the research and risk steps. Don’t give up if you are disappointed at the outset. Keep on trying, and you will discover that there are kind and generous individuals in the world who are willing to listen and even provide direct assistance. There are sources of goodness in the world, and the more you look, the more you will find.

Regaining trust takes time. We speak of building and earning trust for a reason: It doesn’t happen overnight. You need patience and perseverance to build hope.

"Never fear shadows. They simply mean there’s a light shining somewhere nearby." – Ruth E. Renkel

The Power of Hope by Anthony Scioli, PH.D and Henry B. Biller, PH.D

Building Resilience - Find Your Islands of Competence

Just as the manner in which we understand and respond to setbacks in an integral part of a resilient mindset so too, is the way we react to successes in our lives. Think about how you understand your achievements. 
Those who are resilient view their accomplishments as based upon their own resources and strengths. This doesn’t mean they fail to acknowledge the support of others. Rather, they don’t dismiss or minimize what they have achieved. 
In contrast, people who are not resilient tend to attribute their success to factors outside their control such as luck or chance or fate. Consequently, they are not as confident or optimistic about being successful in the future. There is another feature of resilient people we wish to highlight. While they do not deny their vulnerabilities, they are able to identify their strengths or what we call their “islands of competence”. 

What would you list as your islands of competence?

How to find your "real" islands of competence? The power to discover it lies in the potential that was bequeathed you at birth. Latent and undeveloped, the seeds of greatness were planted. You were given magnificent “birth-gifts”-talents, capacities, privileges, intelligences, opportunities-that would remain largely unopened except through your own decision and effort. Open these gifts. Learn with Stephen Covey host to open  your islands of competence,  your voice, your calling, your soul’s code. 

"People are internally motivated by their own four needs: to live, to love, to learn, to leave a legacy. When they overlap, you have voice-your calling, your soul’s code." - Stephen R. Covey. Key Message.

Q: How do you define “voice”?

A: Voice is the overlapping of the four parts of our nature: our body, our mind, our heart, and our spirit. These also represent the four intelligences: our IQ for the mind, our EQ for the heart, our SQ for the spirit, and our PQ for the body.

To help you find this, answer these 4 questions.

1. What are you good at? That’s your mind.

2. What do you love doing? That’s your heart.

3. What need can you serve? That’s the body.

4. And finally, what is life asking of you? What gives your life meaning and purpose? What do you feel like you should be doing? In short, what is your conscience directing you to do? That is your spirit.

Q: Is finding your voice an evolving process, or can it happen all at once like a light bulb going on in your head?

A: I think that it can happen all at once, but more so, I think it is an evolving process. As people grow up, they are exposed to different fields of knowledge and different experiences. They don’t yet know what they’re good at or even what they will like doing. Once they have this exposure and education and they start getting involved, they start to find satisfaction, and that leads to success as it begins to give them a sense of their voice or what they really love doing that they do well. For some people, it does comes like a flash of light, but it is usually preceded by someone who really deeply believes in them-sees their strengths and affirms them when they don’t see their own potential themselves. This creates an opportunity for that voice to be developed and expressed. This happened with me.

Q: Is the process of finding your voice the same for an individual as it is for an organization that is trying to find its voice?

A: That’s a very interesting question and I think in a very real sense, it is the same. But because an organization is made up of many different individuals who have different voices and a different sense of what gives them meaning and their life purpose, it takes communication processes where people are genuine and authentic with each other in expressing what they really care about. However, people gradually get a sense of what the organization stands for, what it loves doing and does well, and what it feels like it should be doing. So, there is kind of a collective form of the four intelligences that overlaps and develops in an evolutionary way.

Q: How can we help someone find his or her voice?

A: I think if you care about people genuinely, you listen to them and observe them; because this is more than just hearing them speak, it is observing them-observing where their excitement is, where their enthusiasm is; observing where you sense they have potential.

Sometimes it is very powerful just to say to them in sincerity, “I believe you have great potential in this area. I see real strengths in you that you may not see in yourself, and I would like to create an opportunity for you to use those strengths and to develop this potential. Would you be interested in that?” 

Most people are so flattered by someone who sincerely cares for them and affirms their work and potential that they are moved and inspired by that kind of input. It’s very powerful and it can make all of the difference, particularly with people who grow up with a confused lifestyle, bad modeling, and basic education. Often they have no clue as to what life is about or what they are about until someone becomes a teacher to them-a mentor, a confirmer, and a coach. This kind of mentoring is becoming increasingly important in education, in relationships, and in work environments. It can make all of the difference as to whether a person takes a higher road to his or her own voice or a lower road to where he or she is swallowed up by the priorities and voices of others.

http://www.stephencovey.com/blog/

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Increase your Positivity

When was the last time You felt this feeling?
Where was You?
What was You doing?
What can You do now to cultivate this feeling?

When things are going well, many people think they are actually in control of events. That’s why they feel so defeated and depressed when things turn bad. The most consistently successful people in the world know they can’t control events – but continually work toward greater control over their creative responses to events.

One of the most powerful strategies to support your creative thinking, communications, and actions when events seem to be beyond their control is to Stay Positive & to Increase your Positivity, as well as know “negativity and light cannot occupy the same space at the same time”.

Being Positive is your conscious decision in your life in which thinking daily positive thoughts and taking positive actions, become the habit, priority and the guiding philosophy in life.

We hope that these 6 ways of positivity outlined in this article will support your creative thinking, communications , and actions.

JOY

Joy feels bright and light. Colors seem more vivid. There’s a spring in your step. And your face lights up with a smile and an inner glow. You feel playful – you want to jump in and get involved.

What gives you that feeling?

There are many sources of joy. For some people, the first moments that you held your newborn were perhaps the most joy filled in the life. Or, perhaps, your co-workers have just surprised you with a birthday party. Or you open a letter to find an unexpected bonus.

What brings you joy? When the last time you felt this feeling?

INTEREST

Interest is when something new or different draws your attention, filling you with a sense of passivity or mystery. You’re pulled to explore, to immerse yourself in what you’re just now discovering. It’s when you see a new path in the woods and want to find out where it leads.

It’s when you uncover a new set of challenges that allow you to build your skills, whether in cooking, dancing or education. When you are interested, you feel open and alive. You can literally feel your horizons expanding in real time, and with them your own possibilities. You open new ideas, new tools, new energies, and new resources. As the world changes, opportunities suddenly become available to achieve far more than you ever did in the past.

HOPE

Scientists filled a jar with water, placed it in total darkness and dropped a rat into it. The rat struggled for three munities, gave up and drowned.

Next they plunged another rat into an identical jar, but allowed a ray of light to shine into it. This rat kept swimming for thirty-six hours – more than seven hundred times longer than the one in the dark!

The difference? Hope.

The rat in the dark, having no hope, gave up almost immediately. The rat that could see continued to hope and swam until it ran out of energy. If hope affects laboratory animals that much, how much more can it affect people?

It’s been said that a person can live forty days without food, four days without water, four minutes without air, but only four seconds without hope. Everyone needs hope.

Deep within the core of hope is the belief that things can change. No matter how awful or uncertain they are at the moment, things can turn out better. Possibilities exist. With hope, we become energized to do as much as we can to make a good life for ourselves and for others.

Where is the first place you turn for hope, when you have a need?

GRATITUDE

When times get tough, everyone has to make a fundamental decision: to complain or to be grateful. Complaining only attracts negative thoughts and people. Gratitude, on the other hand, creates the opportunity for the best thinking, actions, and results to emerge. Focus on everything that you are grateful for. We can feel grateful for breathing clean air, having able bodies, or having a safe and comfortable place to rest.

The film and social movement Pay It Forward is a great example of gratitude in action. It started with one boy doing three good deeds for three others. The one request the young benefactor had was that instead of paying the favor back, the recipients should pay it forward, to three new people , in some creative way.

When was the last time you felt grateful – not polite but truly and openly grateful?

PRIDE

Pride is one of the so-called “self-conscious emotions”. We all know its evil cousins, shame and guilt. These painful feelings overcome us when we are to blame for something bad. Pride is the opposite: we are “to blame” for something good.

Pride is clearly a positive emotion. Pride blooms in the wake of an achievement you can take credit for. You invested your effort and skills and succeeded. It’s that good feeling you get when you achieve something in school or at work. Or when you recognize that you made a difference to someone else, through your help, kindness, or guidance.

The mindscape of pride is expansive as well. It kindles dreams of further and larger achievements in similar domains: If I can do this, maybe I can….open my own business……landscape the fount yard……..redesign the living room…………make the Olympic team…….be promoted…..make a difference in the world. In this way, pride fuels the motivation to achieve.

What makes you proud? And what has pride inspired you to do?

LOVE

Love is not a single form of positivity. It’s all of the above, encompassing joy, gratitude, interest, hope, pride and inspiration. What transforms these other forms of positivity into love is their context. When these good feelings stir our hearts within a safe, often close relationship, we call it love.

In the early stages of a relationship, tied up within your initial attraction, you’re deeply interested in anything and everything this new person says and does. You laugh together, share time together, and as your relationship builds and perhaps surpasses your expectations, it brings great joy. You begin to share your hopes and dreams for your future together. You are grateful for the joys your beloved brings into your life, as proud of their achievements as you are of your own. Each of these moments could equally be described as a moment of love. Viewing love in this way can also sharpen your ability to see love as a momentary state – as a surge – and not simply as a description of one of your relationships with your partner, child or parent.

Think of a time when you felt love surge within you.

Resources:
Positivity By Barbara Fredrickson
The Power of Hope By Don Clowers
The “Scary Times” Success Manual By Dan Sullivan

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The Power of One

Just like thoughts and ideas, a single seed has the power to feed; to save lives and change the world.

The power of one - a single starting point.

One seed
One thought
One idea
One vision
One change
One voice
One cry
One moment
One step
One life

The Power of one