​What's your aim in life?
How do you feel about what you do?
About what you want to do?
About what you can do?
About your potential? How do you feel about that? Your own potential?

When you don't come up with an instant answer, don't worry. Neither does any of us.

These aren't facile questions.
What we aim for and what we do, are Life Directional activities. Truly.

Frequently people can only think of what they might like to own materially, or what they want to possess, or get, or have access to as an amenity in their lives.

But these are means to an end. They're things that get collected along the way.
And they're useful in that context.
They can be a measurement of choices available. Or of an affluence. Or influence. Or of a status.
And they can be used like that, reflecting where you are in a social setting, or business achievement, or of personal ability.
It depends on how you choose to interpret them.
But there's another aspect to your aims and goals, your aspirations.

Who do you believe you are? What image have you of yourself as a Human Being?
When I was asked this in the 1960's, I thought the question was irrelevant.
So much so, that I nearly dismissed it.

Of course, then, when I'd thought about it for all of five minutes, I saw that what I was being asked was what I believed, really believed, my life was about. 
What was my purpose?
Was I conscious of one?
Did I believe in it?
Was I up to it?
What was I doing  about it?
How was my life going in relation to it?

These questions came to me over weeks, not minutes. They set me on another road to thinking about what I was, and in my own case, largely wasn't, doing about it. 

They questioned basic thoughts, actions, activities which I'd taken for granted. A lot of what I was doing was because 'that's the way things were'.

That was what we did in life. And mostly because I hadn't questioned why we did it this way, or that way.
So when these questions began to bring up answers I'd never before considered, there was a strong element of surprise, wonder, and mainly of a kind of quiet excitement at the possibilities that began to surface. It didn't mean that life turned upside down and instantly changed into raging success and rabid achievement.

The transformation was more subtle, much more subtle. And much more real.

The fact that we even consider an alternative to what we see as the current existence, opens the mind. 
We don't have to do anything. There's no obligation. 
However, the fact that we know we can do something about where we are, or where we want to go, brings choice into our lives. 
Then we make our own decisions.
And stand or fall by them.

As a matter of interest, in my own case it meant a complete change of life; giving up what was considered a safe, secure and pensionable career, and one at which I was competent, at age 25, to go into an area of work that wasn't even a recognised industry at the time.
My friends tried earnestly, and sincerely, to dissuade me.
My family nearly disowned me; they thought I was getting into the 'Massage Parlour' business.
And frankly, I'd no idea on how it'd turn out.

Was it worth it?
That depends on your definition of success. It's a different criterion for everyone.

But more on this later. Stay posted.

​Writing goals is a beginning.
It’s a start to a process.
A start.
Goals are a means to fulfilling a purpose.
Our purpose could be, for instance, to make the most of our lives in doing something that we see as worthwhile.
A very simple concept, as many a worthwhile purpose is.
The goals we set are a means to that end.

So the goals need to be compatible with our values and with our beliefs.

What we value and what we believe in contribute to our sense of purpose.
Understanding this helps us set goals that agree with our deepest convictions.
This is why we need to write our goals and then re-read them every day, to make alterations as we see fit.
They need to be modified as our thinking progresses.
As it will do.

 Re-reading the goals is like mental practice. By repeatedly reminding ourselves of what our aims are, we begin to bend our minds in that direction. The goals begin to become part of our thinking. 

And one of the abiding tenets of psychology is that we tend to become what we think about.

So the more specific the goals are, and the more we think about them, the more they begin to influence how we think, how we feel, and what we do.
 
And when they conform to our sense of purpose they become a resource in our lives, a plentiful resource and a powerfully driving force.

So, take the time, invest it in yourself and your potential. The return will repay you out of all proportion to your investment.

​More quality.
Not so much quantity.

People are becoming more aware of this in their exercise activities now.

A few of years ago, I was training a couple of hurlers, county players, who were spending one and a half, to two and a half hours in the gym. 
They were tired. 
They weren't just physically tired, they were mentally tired from the boredom of pressing a weight in a desultory manner through the movements they were doing. They'd been taught that to get benefit from weight training, you had to 'spend time in the gym'.
To a point, that was true.

But the problem was that they weren't training.  They pushed a few weights, took a break, chatted, talked about the weight they were using and added another bit, or did another couple of repetitions in the hope that they'd get stronger, faster, bigger, more muscular, more powerful, and achieve indomitable strength on the hurling pitch.

Now, in one regard they were on the right track. If they kept on doing that, there would likely be an increase in muscle strength, size, and eventually, efficiency.

However, physical training is a skill. And to exert an effective result on the body, the skill needs to be learned, practised and developed. So it isn't so much what you're doing, as it is how you're doing it.

What's important when training is what goes on underneath the skin. it doesn't matter what you've got in your hand.
You can get as much from a concrete brick as you can from a Solid Gold, Designer Dumb-Bell.
So, every now and again, it's vital to go back to basics, ask yourself what you're seeking as you train, and tailor your programme accordingly.
But whatever you do, you need to learn the skill of thoughtful training.

That's learning to focus on the movement you're performing. You need to think about the stance, the positioning of feet and hands, the element of balance, the tempo, the style of action, that suits you. You're the one doing the exercise and when you take these things into account you can alter the effects of the movement dramatically.

And it doesn't mean that you have to become encyclopedic about physiology or anatomy. It means that you try small adjustments as you train. You can shift a foot forward, or alter the angle of your body, or grip a bar or rope a bit tighter, or looser, or alter the tempo, or experiment with your breathing, shorten or lengthen the range of movement, or any number of other small changes that can make a big difference.

I've seen this hundreds of times over the years; where a body has made some small change in technique that doubles the value of a movement.
Never forget, training is a skill. It has fundamentals. They can be learned, and then adapted, modified to suit the style or the shape or the temperament of the person doing it. 
This is what turns the activity into a developed skill, sometimes even to reach the level of artistry.
I often describe physical training as a type of muscular choreography. It can be a form of dance, with the same thought, focus and rhythm brought into it that blends the mind and the body and the spirit into a movement in which the entire 

Being becomes the doer of the act, and the recipient of the benefits.

It makes for efficiency, for effectiveness and a developed interest in application and progress.

Try this on your next exercise session. Think of it as an exercise in Concentration and Personal Development.

“This will transform your life.“

Practically every advertisement, we see today promises personal, mystical, financial, even spiritual, transformation.

I don't deny them.
 What we have to bear in mind though,  is that the knowledge  that  is going to transform us, is only as good as the use to which it is put. 

You hear it, said all the time that knowledge is Power.
It isn’t. 
Knowledge is potential power.

It’s by bringing our potential to what we know, or to what we have, that allows us discover and exert the power.

Breathing can be transformational. Over 55 years, I’ve seen people actively put it to practice and reap great benefits. 

I’ve also seen people learn about it, read about it, write about it, talk about it, plan it, with beautifully drawn maps and preparations, and then relegate them to the drawer.

Again, it’s the use to which the knowledge, the writings, the plannings, and the preparations are put, that brings about the transformation.

The transformational power that regulated breathing brings to the nervous system alone, makes it an unrivalled practice to study and to do.

Whatever you do to bring your fitness and wellness and your life, do it frequently.

However great, or however small, the result may be, bear in mind that it will be inevitable.
Inevitable. No exaggeration.

Start with your breathing exercises.
Bring them into your life as part of who you are, not just something you do.

Many people look on fundamental health and wellness as something that is “nice to have“.
It is more, much more, than that. 

If we are unfit, out of shape, even moderately unwell, life is hard, hard going.

When we are fundamentally fit, healthy, and well, we will do things, try things, and achieve things that would otherwise be outside the realm of possibility. 

So whatever your preferred activity is, do it.


 ​

​Do you trust your gut feeling?
What is it anyway? This gut feeling?
It’s far more powerful than logic, isn’t it?
I've seen this over the years, when people have taken decisions that flew in the face of all the logic, all the advice thrown at them, and found that they'd taken the right decision.
For them.

Gut feeling is a peculiar thing. It's so strong that it often trumps considered reason. And we do well to listen to it. There are times, aren't there, when everything points to a particular decision, and yet, and yet, there's a voice in the back of the head that speaks to us with such conviction that we feel compelled to follow it.

This is a thought pattern that comes of  experience.
Experience can suggest a move that seems illogical.
Experience often sees what inexperience doesn't. 

Life skills and ‘know how’ account for a lot. Most life skills are born of experience. They're the result of personal decisions that have taught us something. But only when we're watching and listening.
It's not always the case, but it's frequent.

Experience, the 'doing' of something, gives insights that no amount of theory can begin to give. We can experience in a second what takes minutes, sometimes hours, to read and understand. Even then we've only got a theoretical take on it.

The doing of something gives a living sensation of acting, facing challenges, using our resources, that imprints itself on the mind, the body, the nervous system, that cannot be got otherwise. And there is the added power of the emotion felt in the encounter. This is what imprints it decidedly in our minds.

A lot of the learning in experience is so fast it hardly registers consciously. We don't sit and analyze move by move, thought by flashing thought, what happened. Or what we did.
It's as much a reaction as an action.
We're reacting to our own split second perceptions and responses.
This is what gives experience. It gives the confidence of having faced the unknown and responded to it. And found that we're still here.

Some people learn instinctively. They can see a situation, and in the beat of the heart, see what it's about and decide which way to go with it. This is what 'awareness' is about; a conscious thoughtfulness of the circumstances in which we find ourselves, and searching for a way to deal with them.
This has been one of the discoveries of the past decade, where people have found the time and discipline to meditate, calm the mind, to just 'be', and quietened the mind of the bustling noise that assails us. When we let it.

Mindfulness, Meditation, Quietening, have brought a level of observant thought to very many people. As activities, they overlap and bring a balance into our lives. They give us time to reflect, stand back and observe ourselves in the act of living. 
At a recent workshop, there was very strong evidence of individuals who had gained benefit from this practice. The benefit was real, not some woolly wishful thinking conjured up to coincide with their intentions. 

It's a skill. It can be learned. And then needs to be practiced. 

Take the time.

​
Indecision is a huge factor in stress, worry, fear and doubt.
Friend, good morning.

Persistence is a fine quality. But so is knowing when to quit.
The truth is that most of us are never really sure , are we?

When we're pursuing an elusive end, we tell ourselves to persist and stick at it, that we're almost there. That another step, maybe two, will bring us home and it'll all have been worth it.

Or we may see in our hearts that 'this isn't working', that it's like throwing money at something that is not going to respond. And we quit.

There are questions here which can be useful to ask. The first is to take the nature of the project on which we're working into account.
Is it something dependent on our application?
Or is it something dependent on some outside factor over which we've little or no control?

If it's the former, and we're experiencing no progress, the fault is no one else's but our own. We either need to change our practice, or modify our goal to be more compatible with our life, and present style of life.
But either way, even asking this question has often reinforced the goal in the mind of the questioner, and inspired Herculean effort, or made the goal more realistic in terms of achievement.

When we're dependent on outside factors, we need to be able to influence them to our aims, or continue banging heads on stone walls. 

But there's a third question here. So often, we attribute control or influence to a circumstance that really has none.
An instance of this could be , 'I'll start the diet on Monday. My son is having a party on Saturday, and the grandchildren are coming to the house on Sunday.'
Or 'The holiday season is starting now, I'll begin the course studies in September.'

We all know that there's no good or bad time to start something about which we feel strongly and intend to bring into our lives. Weekend parties and holiday seasons do not deserve the honour of being elements of influence. Not if we're in earnest.

So have a look at your current decision-making. Spend some time considering whether you're genuinely looking at an influence about which you can do nothing, or whether you're elevating an excuse to the level of a reason.

We all tend to do it at times. It's good to be aware of it. Then we can reconsider our decisions and bring a much more favourable influence into our lives.

​A truly refreshing interview from Brendan O'Connor a couple of days ago.
Listen to this 

https://www.rte.ie/radio/radio1/clips/22244340/
Have a Great Day and Do Well...

​It's everywhere.
'The next level'.
You can't open any of the Social Platforms without being exhorted to bring whatever it is you do to the 'next level'.

While it's tiresome to read the same old scripts masquerading as copywrite, there are times when the phrase is apt.
Never more so than in the area of Personal Development.

Recent experience has reiterated the importance of learning basics. Just like the alphabet, or basic chords on a guitar, or basic scales on a piano, or being in contact with people if you expect to do a business, there are fundamental to every skill. Without the fundamentals, the more sophisticated moves, systems, procedures, have no substance.
In any activity.

Which brings us back to the 'next level'. 
On a programme about six months ago, in which I was teaching the value of Human Contact and Customer Care to a gym' team, the emphasis was on communication skills. Most of the team had NEVER been taught the basics of communication, the core of Customer Care. The retention rate of members in the premises was very low, which was why the Management had asked me to deliver the programme.
Now, the boys and girls on the team were more than adequately qualified to instruct their charges in safety and procedures. But, as in everything, it isn't so much what you do, as it is how you do it.

The premises had outsourced courses previously, but the delivery either assumed a knowledge of the basics, or wasn't aware of them. 
Over the following immediate months of completing the programme, there was a marked increase in Renewals of membership.
Fundamentals work. 

The same goes for being Fit, Healthy and Well. The 'next level' is usually reached by a diligent application of the principles that apply at EVERY level, for the accomplished athlete or the complete beginner.
It's not in the 'Magic Bullet', the 'Silver Sword', or the 'Gound breaking Discovery' of the latest Guru on the scene.

It's usually by the painstaking, attentive, intelligent application of personal resources.

That's where we tend to discover, with the benefit of practice and experience, other values and aspects to what we've already learned. We see things that could not have been seen before because we didn't know what they were. We weren't aware of them. And you can't learn what you don't know exists.

But once we understand the potential that is within the realm of possibility, then our horizons broaden, our minds open and we can truly, take ourselves and our lives, to the next level.

Keep it simple. 
Do it well.
Have a Great Day and Do Well...

Life seems to be a series of decisions, doesn’t it?
Some of them are conscious.
They are the ones we contemplate before we decide.

“Will I stay at what I’m doing? All I change direction in life? Will I keep this friendship? It’s a time to get this person out of, or into, my life? Well I challenge that statement? Will I change the car? Shall I do that course? Is it time to end this relationship? Should I be wary of what I see happening here? Should I report what I’ve just witnessed? Would it be hard on the person I am reporting? Does he deserve it? Should I let it go? Should I get involved?

And there are any number of questions which need conscious, considered answers.
But, they are a very small part of our daily lives. Ninety five percent, (95%) of our decisions, and subsequent actions, are unconscious.

They come about as a result of habitual, conditioned thinking.

Driving to work, eating breakfast, greeting our colleagues in the morning, how we think on Monday morning, how we think on Friday morning, these are conditioned habitual ways of thinking. The save us time and trouble. As we drive to work, we can consider the day ahead and what we have to do, instead of having to think our way through every gear change and every clutch depression.

Some conditioned thinking, serves us very well, some not so well.
Checking, the bank balance regularly, planning the week ahead, checking tyres and other systems on the car, ringing mum, dad, granny, grandad, children, are all good habits and serve us well.

Dropping in for a quick one on the way home on Friday night, knowing that one will become two or three, and then continuing the half mile drive to our home in the belief that we are “home and dry“ is an example that doesn’t serve us well.
We’ve turned ourselves and our car into a lethal weapon. 

Running the credit card limit as if it’s a target, and using another card to pay it off, isn’t a good habit, as we are creating our own potentially bottomless pit of developing debt.

Cutting corners on safety procedures and vital policies, in daily living or the work environment is not a great idea.
We are making ourselves vulnerable with all the possible consequences, not to mention what we’re doing to our self confidence.

Many of the unconscious, habitual decisions, if not all, can be changed. Some of them can be small decisions.
But with huge effects.

Next post, we’ll show how to examine these decisions and get them working for us; how small changes can ring big differences into our lives.
Have a Great Day and Do Well...

​Every Friday evening without fail, Maurice called in to Larry Murphy's.
Remember Larry Murphy’s?

His intention was to have one gin.
It usually went to two, or three, sometimes four.

Whenever Maura thought about going for a glass of wine, or a coffee, she saw a very clear picture of herself, with the glass, or the coffee, invariably smoking a cigarette.

Though these habits are physical, they’re generated by mental images. 

These images are so strong that when Maurice arrived at Baggot St., even if he was late leaving the office, he parked, without thinking, at the nearest spot he could find to Larry‘s.

As Maura journeyed to her place for the glass of wine, or the coffee, she unconsciously searched her bag for cigarettes. If she didn’t have them, she went and bought some, in order to complete the picture in her mind. 

These images are so entrenched that they determine our actions and behaviours without our even realising it.

Once aware of this, Maurice bypassed, Baggot St., and within a month had changed his route, his drive home on a Friday night, and kicked what he saw, was becoming an insidious habit.

Maura practised seeing a different image when she thought of her glass of wine and coffee. She made an outrageously different picture in her mind of herself taking long deep breaths as she sat in the wine bar and sipped from her glass. 
In her underwear.
This gave her a different picture and a different feel about the whole event.
And of course, a new perspective.

That’s a way to change a mental habit.

 Alter the pattern of the habitual image and see what happens.
Maura taught herself to see the cigarette she was smoking was a soggy butt, taken from the street. Her reaction to this idea was disgust. The association of ideas with smoking grew more revolting by the day. Now even the thought of cigarettes is nearly enough to make Maura nauseous.
A whole new range of projected activity comes into view. The picture changes, the thought pattern changes and the response to it changes.
Then persist with the change. 

That can take a bit of time, determination, and the power of decision.
The real change is in the thinking about it. Constantly. Think about the new image, one that you can clearly imagine and that you can develop till it becomes the dominant force.

As in ALL skills, it’s the attention to the process that makes the change; the daily indomitable determination to use each day to apply the thinking that revises the viewpoint.

It may take time; a day, a year, a minute.
But once the picture clears and settles in the framework of the imagination, the course is certain, the destination assured.
 
Have a Great Day and Do Well...

What do you feel is the most important thing to you in your life?

Why is that?

The significant words in the first question are “you“, feel', and the final two words “your life“.

I recently did a project with seven people, and that first question was the project.
For each individual in the project, there were a myriad of answers.

Not one of the answers was conclusive in the early stages, that is, the first couple of weeks.

 Few of us take the time to ask ourselves this question, and then even less time to consider the answer. 

There is no one answer.

So many things in life are interdependent that to single out one thing as the most important, can be futile.
That said, look for what you feel is the most important thing to you at this moment anyway. This exercise has the effect of settling priorities.

Decided priorities give meaning and direction to our lives. So, take some time, five, maybe 10, minutes, and scribble down, as fast as you can, as many things as you can, that you feel are important to your life.

Set a clock, an alarm. When your allocated time is up, stop writing. 

Then spend some time looking over what you've written, and considering what you flushed out.
Do this exercise for seven consecutive days.

See which element repeats itself and becomes the dominant force.o edit.

​Performance in any field is down to the individual. We can make all the excuses we like, even call them reasons, but when it comes to getting it done, the only thing to do is to do it.
Very basic. Even simplistic.

Yet, it's amazing how many of us
Do.
Not.
Do.
What.
We.
Know.
We.
Should.
Be.
Doing.

It's addictive. We castigate ourselves for being remiss in our duties and then dive wholeheartedly into it on the following occasion, when faced with a routine but necessary duty, the kind of activity that doesn't excite us, isn't colourful or highly profitable, and yet if it isn't done and in place, the rest of our efforts are rendered useless.

This kind of repetitive procrastination can become compulsive. Like most humans in the world, I've done it myself. For instance, when it's time to prepare some figures at that time of the year, we can get out the books, gather receipts and invoices and other relevant documents and just as we're about to start, find the really important things to do, like give the dog a bone, check that there's water in the kettle in case someone calls, run out and check the car's tyre pressures, sweep the front hall, straighten all the pictures, don't want to appear sloppy in the Art Department of meticulously hung pictures, count the pens we have in the office and start rummaging for a long-lost fountain pen that could be anywhere between here and the last three houses through which we've moved.
But look anyway.
Just in case.
And you never know.

Finally, having run out of desperately important jobs to do, we reluctantly shuffle into our core chore. To our relief we find it isn't as bad as we thought it'd be, and we get through it uninjured and in one piece.

Now, what I've found over the years, and so have many with whom I've shared this, is that when we sketch out our agenda for the following day on the  night before,  commit to a Morning Ritual of Stretch 'n' Tone, Breathing, and reinforced with a Statement of Intent, things get done like clockwork.

Even the constant activity of performing the Ritual creates it's own direction and sense of purpose. It gives us the impetus to search for worthwhile directed attention. Over time, a deep sense of that purpose begins to pervade our language and our thoughts, and becomes part of who we are. Those thoughts and words begin to seep into that mysterious mind that we call the subconscious. At which point they begin to guide behaviours and actions; which are now chosen as supports to our aims and aspirations. 
It may take a little bit of time, and a lot of persistence and patience. 
But when it happens, it hits the life of the individual like a benevolent tornado.

And that's when true transformation can be said to have taken place.

​
Quick tips to make the most of your practice sessions:

i) If you want to get rid of body fat cut out alcohol for four weeks. If that's a problem, address it.
 
 ii) The majority of your nutrition should come from real food. Supplements are very useful, but the bulk and vitality of live food is what we were designed to digest..
  
iii) Endless crunches don't shred your abs––you need a good, honest diet and frequent activity.
  
iv) 2-3 tough, rigorous workouts will net you better results, and more lasting results, than hours of desultory visits to the gym'. Intensity is important. It's not meant to be easy.
  
v) Always have a plan when you go to train.