Create New Standards For Yourself

Dated: date October 19, 2010 – 2:57 pm

Are you creating standards that make you feel bad about yourself, about your personality, about your situation? Are you holding yourself accountable to standards that don’t even exist? I’d be willing to bet that you are.

Take my client for example, she sets a goal every single month to bring in $30,000.00 in revenue. Every single month she brings in about $12,000 to $15,000 in revenue. I keep saying to her, “Why don’t we set a goal to bring in $15,000 because that is a stretch month for you?” And she keeps saying, “No, no, I can do $30,000. Whatever you put your mind on, you can get” blah blah blah!!

Well, this, my friend, is a structure for feeling like crap, and she feels like crap all the time. Now when you feel like crap, you don’t expand and you don’t get better. You’re not more effective. So when you hold yourself accountable to standards that make you feel bad, you actually diminish or create a worse result and experience for yourself in life.

So many people are holding themselves accountable to standards that don’t exist for their body. They’re making their body wrong. You may thing “my body shouldn’t look like that, my butt is too big” blah blah blah! Well, in the end, the drunk monkey in your head is literally trying to protect you from you, and protect you from the circumstances in your life. That just shows you how safe your life is. Your life is so perfect, wonderful, delicious, easygoing, and effortless that your mind now is bored and is now spending its time trying to keep you safe from you.

It’s insanity. Start to call BS on the mind. Start to know that life is perfect and the only thing that makes it unperfect is your opinion. And I’d like you to just notice that you don’t even generate your own opinions. Your opinions just bubble up, blub, blub, blub, blub. They’re not even yours. They’re automatic.

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Why Life is Hard and How to Make it Easy

Dated: date June 21, 2010 – 8:00 am

I’m coaching two Realtors.  One does 100 transactions a year with ease and the other does 30 a year with hard work and stress.

Forceful Action Makes Life Hard

The agent who does 30 deals a year works 7 days a week, 15 hours a day.  When I ask her why, she says, “Matthew, I have to push so hard to get anything to happen!”  Basically she is telling me that she has to force and manipulate people and situations to get things to happen.  So I ask her, “Why do you have to push so hard?” Her answer is telling. “Because I’m afraid that the deals won’t close unless I do everything in my power to make them go!”

Her perspective is that the future won’t work itself out and she won’t be okay.  Therefore she must push, force, and make it happen.  She is constantly using the energy of fear to drive her behavior.  She is bombarding her body with adrenaline which has a very destructive effect.  She’s tired, grumpy, has a short fuse and frequently feels hopeless.  These feelings perpetuate the vicious cycle and she doubles her resolve to MAKE THESE DEALS HAPPEN!!!

Inspired Action Makes Life Easy

Now let’s talk about the agent doing 100 deals.  She works a normal five days a week.  Takes an extended weekend holiday every month.  She takes a week off every other month.  When I ask her why it is so easy for her, she shrugs her shoulders and says, “It all works itself out in the end.  There’s no need for me to stress it.”

Her language shows us that she feels certain that the future will be positive.  When something starts to go wrong for this agent, she simply surrenders and lets it go.  She has trained herself to know that it will all work itself out.

This perspective is very attractive and allows her to give her clients the room they need to complete the transaction the way that feels most comfortable.  In other words, her confidence that it will all turn out fine makes her more flexible.  Flexibility gives her more options which empowers her in the situations she finds herself in.

When you are empowered you think more effectively, you are more creative and you are more resourceful.  You are Inspired and In Action!

Coaching Exercise

If you have to force something to happen, then you are probably resisting or feeling afraid that it won’t turn out.  When you predict that it won’t turn out, you attempt differently.  For some people this is effective and causes them to be more precise.  I’ve noticed that for most people the added pressure and fear cause dysfunction.

If you find yourself forcing something to happen, then stop, take a deep breath and ask yourself, “What am I afraid of?”  Just that question will clear your head and reveal the truth.  And the truth is, most situations are not life or death.

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…and then you die!

Dated: date June 28, 2009 – 10:54 am

Nervous WreckIt’s hard to be happy when you forget that your life is temporary, transient and basically meaningless.  Profound happiness can not be achieved by speculating about the future or contemplating the past.  Yet The Drunk Monkey spends endless time on the past and future.

Your life you will go up, down, all around and then you die.  When you die the people in your life will throw dirt on your face and have a party.  In 100 years, it’s likely your life will be completely forgotten and irrelevant.

“Seriousness is a disease of the ego.”

That’s what my mentor, Stewart Wilde, told me in my 20’s.  I didn’t understand what he meant until my late 30’s.  I was so rapped up in succeeding, getting ahead and showing the world that I am valuable.  Sometimes it worked, other times it didn’t.  My emotions were yanked from positive to negative based on the external events.  My experience of life was messed up by my expectations.

Today I see my clients making their lives miserable by judging and comparing this moment to the elusive “Should Be”.  By focusing on what should have been or what might be they make themselves miserable.  It took me a long time to realize that breakdowns lead to breakthroughs and therefore worrying about it is irrelevant.  To worry, stress and freak out messes with the point of this life.  The Now.  That is where the profound sense of happiness and fulfillment lies.

No matter how much you try, you will die.  Life is not serious or important.  To believe that this life is important leads to all sorts of negative experiences.  Rest assured, life will contradict your opinion and if you think it should be other then it is… you will be unhappy.  Life is doing what ever it is doing regardless of your opinion.  Let it go and enjoy today, okay?

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Is your mindset killing you softly with its song?

Dated: date March 16, 2009 – 2:52 pm
The Drunk Monkey

The Drunk Monkey

The Drunk Monkey in your head is trying to keep you safe from a world that isn’t dangerous. Over and over again, The Drunk Monkey chants affirmations about how this person is a jerk, the economy is going to get us all and if you don’t be careful, you are going down.

If you really listen to the talking in your head, then you will see that it is not on your side. The Drunk Monkey doesn’t want you to be happy and stress free. The Drunk Monkey want to keep you safe. Anger, doubt, fear, stress, anxiety, frustration and all the other negative emotions are the tools The Drunk Monkey uses to move your body and get you in action.

Today, just notice it and don’t react.

Today, notice how the chatter and images in your head are not real.

My philosophy has developed over the last 20 years and in that time I’ve seen that awareness gives you flexibility. When you see The Drunk Monkey for what it is, you are more flexible in situations that you would normally be stuck in. That flexibility gives you more options. The person who has the most options has the most power.

Today just be aware of The Drunk Monkey. That alone is the cure to all negativity.

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