In life sometimes you find yourself facing failure. You may have tried your hand at something, had really high expectations and it just didn’t work out. It may be a marriage, a job, a business venture a partnership … you just never know what life can throw you sometimes. You can however begin to move forward out of the darkness by making some tough choices.

If nobody cares about you… care about yourself

Hating yourself for your mistakes is not helpful. As a matter of fact it’s dangerous. When you decide to take responsibility for your failure and own up to it… then yes it’s a time for understanding the failure and dealing with it. However, you don’t dwell on it and remind yourself of it. When through poor decisions or just bad circumstances you wind up in a ditch the first thing you must do is recognise that you may have been a dumbass but that does not exclude you from the race. It doesn’t mean you will win next time either. What it does mean is that you have to accept the fact that you tried. As I have said before… the problem with society is that we place such a high premium on success that we deride people who fail. As I have heard Edward Debono say, “There is no word in the English language which says perfectly acceptable venture that for reasons outside of the control of the individual went poorly!” Accept that you made a mistake but don’t hate yourself for it. Learn the day to day activity of forgiving yourself by remembering all the good things you have.

Look for the good in your situation

I know of people who have had kidney failure and lost everything during the recovery process. People have lost children and spouses. Is there any good to be gained out of that horrible situation? No there isn’t. What you can do over time however is begin to build an inner picture of your life that is worth something. When that cloud begins to settle in, why not think about the wonderful times you had with this person. When people die we miss them terribly and this is good because we should. However, as our heart begins to heal we need to fill our lives once again with positives and focus on what’s good. You may be having problems with money… you may not have a home. Are you breathing with the aid of a machine? How about your legs… do they still work? When you begin to focus on what you have instead of what you have lost… the good things you carry around with you that you take for granted have a new weight of importance.

Darkness breeds even more darkness

When the cloud settles in you begin to think a certain way. After a little while you begin to act that way. Soon, you are saying and doing things you didn’t think you would ever do. Darkness comes to all of us in one way or another. If we allow it to settle in our soul it will make a castle that fortifies and begins to rule our lives. We cannot be like that can we? Dark thoughts are the root system of the tree that poisons your soul. You must take those thoughts captive and replace them with more positive intentions. Easier said than done? Yes in the beginning. However, as you begin to practice you will find it easier. It’s so easy to be a critic. To pick on the efforts of others and drag them down. The internet is rife with examples of people picking on others from the safe proximity of the screenface (Thanks Alison ). What’s hard is to encourage people, to set them on their way and be a light to them.

Tragedy comes to all of us at some point. We should feel the pain of it and yes it should effect us. If it doesn’t then we are not humans. It’s what we do about that pain over time that counts. It’s the day to day thinking and acting that helps us to be what we eventually become. Remember, dark clouds are for a season, yet when the rain passes they disappear. Don’t let the dark clouds hang around you … for too long.

There is a saying from the bible, ‘Iron sharpens iron.’ What happens though when friends are holding you back? People often build perceptions of you that are based on previous experiences of what you are like. Such perceptions are sometimes impossible to shift because people build ideas about who you are and what you represent to them. If you are growing you don’t need that kind of box to live in. There is really one thing to do… ditch your friends.

You don’t need to be held back

If people are holding you back you need to slowly build your life in such a way that you move away from them a bit at a time. Sure, having friends is cool but not if they stop you from growing. It’s not always good to have people in your life just because of history. Neither is it helpful if you are growing and they are not. You need to work on a strategy to remove them from your life. You are no longer helping yourself you are just acting like a prostitute for attention. Move away if you have to.  If they are dragging you back or not helping then it’s time to move on.

How to do it

The key thing is that you don’t really want to hurt someone’s feelings by saying, ‘Yo numbnuts… beat it.’  The best approach is to be honest but gentle.  If they get upset and want to know why let them know.  Honesty is always the best way to deal with these things.  If it’s not appropriate to say things directly or you don’t think it’s helpful then I recommend the following three things:

1. Don’t hang around them anymore: Make plans to do other things and stop calling them.

2. Don’t return their calls: If they ring and ask what’s going on tell them.  But, if you stop making plans to hang around them you have to be ready with a defense of why.  I have found by not talking to people you can often break relationships because the feeling was mutual.  In situations where this doesn’t work… A Dr. Phil style approach is needed.

3. Relay the information through a third party: This is the most effective strategy I know of.  Find someone who you know will tell them (prefacing your statements with ,’now don’t tell them this…’) .  I have used this many times when direct contact wasn’t possible.

Whatever you do you must realise that all people are not your friends.  Some people need the boot because they are soul stealer’s.  They will use you or make fun of you to make themselves feel superior.  Don’t put up with it… get rid of them.

The paralysis of analysis is when we get stuck looking at problems and not actually doing anything.  It’s the endless cycles of what if’s or shoulda woulda couldas that get us stuck.  So how to we break out when we get stuck?

Start trying stuff

The key way we break out of the paralysis of analysis is to actually do something.  You don’t move forward unless you are moving forward.  Wow… and yes that’s from a PhD scholar.  Building your way takes a step.  One at a time.  See, while you are cooking up ways of doing nothing your problem is gaining the upper hand on you.  Oh yes, problems are like weeds.  Leave them alone for long enough and you will be overgrown.  Think about it.

Trade stuff off OR Maslow’s hierarchy of needs is a load of BS

Since I can remember I have been FORCED to sit through people explaining Maslow’s hierarchy of needs.   Can I say that’s it’s a load of old BS:

You will never be totally complete.  There will always be something you could trade in order to secure something else.   For example, people I know will trade experience and fun for safety of employment.  Stability is the  furtherest thing from their minds.  All they want to do is travel, have fun and trade a regular secure environment for a unstable one.  Facts are so easily recreated and changed for a more ‘convenient’ truth.  When you are stuck in the paralysis of analysis you often find yourself trying to create something to believe in that will stop you from taking action.  Instead of trying to meet the need trade something for it.   What do I mean?  If you want to be an entrepreneur you have trade stability for periods of instability.  You want to be a teacher or an academic you have to trade ’spare time’ for lesson preparation and so on.   Think what will I have to trade off in order to break this analytical cycle?  It could be a belief about the plan that is nestled on your fears about personal security.  Let me put you at ease.  There is no such thing as personal security.  You could lose it all anyway without even trying.  That said, don’t be stupid.

A trick I have learned that stops the paralysis of analysis

Take out a piece of paper and write down the thing you would do if you could do it.  What?  Scenario:

You are a bartender.  A man who is extremely drunk comes up to the bar and orders another drink.  Do you:

A) throw him out

B) think about what to do and stare blankly at the drunk man

C) serve him the drink

D) Say nothing and run away.

Answer?  What’s the first thing that pops into your head?  Don’t give him any more to drink.  Why?  It’s common sense.  Note, he’s a liability to himself, you and the other patrons.  You serve him and it may not cost you this time but next time it could very well cost you.  To get that answer I just wrote down the first thing that came to me without really thinking about it.  I was reminded of the law in Australia which says as much and thought it reasonable.   You can do this as well.   Of course this is a simple answer.  If you are on the end of a gun aiming at someone you may have different things to trade off!

Finally, if you are stuck in the paralysis of analysis it’s simply because you have too many answers floating around in your head.  There are too many ‘what if’s’ or ‘coulda beens’ or ‘this should happen’ or ‘that should happen’.  I think John Lennon said it best, ‘Life is what happens when your busy making plans’.

The life you now have is one that you built over a period of time.  It’s true that goal setting, having a good set of values and being compassionate and so on is useful.  We reap what we sow so therefore what you have today is the result of what was sown prior.  A wise man once told me, ‘You want to harvest something?  Plant a bunch of seeds!’  The same goes for personal development.

What we sow is what we grow

The problem with the future is that it doesn’t stop turning into today.  By the time I finish this sentence it will already be in the past.  So what can be do presently to shape our lives for the future?  I believe there are several things:

1. Begin to question the way you frame things

Is there some area of your life that you wish you could change.  Chances are it relates to how you think.  If you are like me you get hurt when abusive vacuum salesmen knock down your door.   How do you react to that?  Initially by punching his lights out!  No, you offer the man a coffee or a glass of water and they pray for God to bless his work.  Why?  You stop the cycle when you learn to frame things from another point of view.  Look at the situation from his perspective.  Why does he get upset when we say we can’t afford it?  What’s he going through?

2. Stretch yourself on a daily basis. 

Recently I was reading through this interesting debate at  John Cricket’s Business Ideas and Opportunities website and it struck me how much of a stretch doing more study is for some people.   It is truly hard for some and a breeze for others.  One old guy called Joe that I used to teach really struggled with the way academics think and act.  Especially when it came to demonstrating his knowledge.  He often used to tell me what his experience was and never relate it to theory.  He didn’t seem able to do it.  But, he really stretched himself and went there without sacrificing his pragmatic edge.   You want something from your future, why not begin to stretch out and do something that challenges you on a daily basis.  I have found blogging to challenge me.  It has really given me something to think about and made me work on how to explain academic ideas in a way that normal non-eggheads can understand them.  That’s been a stretch but given that I like blogging… it’s been well worth it.  As you stretch yourself on a daily basis you begin to expand your own capabilities inch by inch.  You are sowing towards a great harvest in the future.

3. Challenge old mindsets

When I started blogging I hit a wall.  Literally I was like , ‘wow how does this work… I am not sure I can actually make this work’.  Now I am no Problogger or anything like that so I had to learn it all from scratch.  I learned what people think and (as imagine we all are) began coming to terms with how google finds me.  I had no idea that people would search they way they do.   Why wouldn’t you want to look for ‘epistemology’ instead of ‘how do I know things?’  I had to shift my thinking to suit the blogging world if I had any hope of finding an audience.

4. Set big goals with small targets

This was a huge revelation to me this year.  Say you are like me… you have a BIG goal of owning a house.  Well that’s great.   So how are you going to get there?  Fishing?  What I learned this year was this: set a big goal and then visualise and speak out small targets.  It has worked wonders in my personal life and professional life as well.  You know a mountain can be moved one piece at a time?  Try it, it works very well.

As you begin to look towards the future in your life, you will begin to see that the things you have now are the sum total of what you did in the past.  In order to have a great life you have to set meaningful goals of course but more than that you have to do things regularly to cultivate those seeds of greatness.  You have to build it, care for it, set small progressive targets on the way to the top.   Sure, some people are born into wealth or just get lucky (like Justin Timberlake) but my guess is that to maintain there is a lot going on in the background that would astonish you.   I am not really talking about those people though am I?  I am talking about people like me who aren’t mega-wealthy.   As they say in Pirate movies… steady as she goes Captain… steady as she goes.

This video shows us the art of great timing? Why? A plan was built to attack and on a whim Leeroy Jenkins storms into the battle ready for action. This got me thinking about the art of timing.

Knowing when to act versus thinking when you should act

The art of timing relates to the act of knowing. Knowing is when you have an inward sense of when it’s right to act. If you think you have to act. Then in reality you are probably not ready to act. If you know then you should take the step boldly for the timing is right. There is an art form involved here that revolves around the idea of you knowing what’s right and doing (intuitively/artform) and analysis of the idea (science/logical processing) and waiting. If you have to think about it and you aren’t sure then hold back for now. Wait, the right time will come.

What did Leeroy do wrong?

Leeroy ran into battle because of impatience. He was sick of waiting for action and made the snap decision to act. The art of timing says, ‘the time is right you know it, go for it.’ The science says, ‘analyse the probabilities and see what happens.’ In some cases the science is the winner but more often than not the art form is what needs to be followed. This is simply because we have an intuitive side which I think is largely undeveloped in western society. We need to pay careful attention to it to get the balance right.

Proper timing should be made on gut feel and not on emotions of the time

A lot of the time we get the ‘Leeroy Jenkins’, rush of blood and think we need to act because we feel it. There are two types of feeling at work in these situations. The first is ‘gut’ instinct and the second is a reactionary emotion. This reactionary emotion is how we are feeling in the our environment at the time. Go back to your home town and see what I mean. Emotions are stirred up as a reaction. If you boss yells at you. You feel something at that time. You feel it. Gut instinct is a deep down feeling that drives you to think, act and feel. It’s totally different.

How not to be like Leeroy

When making a decision of magnitude think for a minute. Don’t do whatever feels right. Investigate your options, look for pathways and move between the art and the science of timing to see what you feel. To know what’s right and do it is one thing. But to make sure is quite another. Sometimes you just have to do it to stop the endless reasoning. Which is really what Leeroy was aiming at here.

What Leeroy did right

Leeroy seized the moment which, by the accounts of the players, was a 33% shot anyway. In times like this perhaps Leeroy’s approach was the best one to take?  It’s hard to say whether it was or not.  But in my opinion, sometimes you need to just do something and see what happens.  With a 33% chance of victory I think it wasn’t such a bad approach.

Like most things timing is more an art than a science.  It’s hard to know for certain when it’s right to act and when it’s not.  The important thing to remember is you can learn from your mistakes but you will learn nothing by doing nothing!

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Ever been so tired that you just couldn’t stay awake?  This study shows that sleep deprivation effects our decision making.  How?

When you are sleep deprived your perception of reward versus risk changes

This study shows that our perception of reward changes under sleep deprived conditions.  What does this mean? It means that when you operating under sleep deprivation you are likely to make decisions that have a higher risk value because you think there will be a bigger payoff.  In times of extreme stress we often make decisions that are poorly constructed and use all kinds of beliefs to justify them.   The same goes when you are sleep deprived.  You will see things that aren’t necessarily so.

Sleep deprivation changes your emotional state

I found this out when I became burned out on my last business.  My emotions became clouded and confused to the point where I began making decisions that were clearly not in the best interest of my family or in my best interest.  I remember spending $1000 on email marketing.  I rest my case!  Your underlying emotions will betray you when you are tired and make you feel and think stuff that just isn’t the case.  You will perceive people doing things that they aren’t and make false assumptions.  These assumptions will force you to think and make stupid decisions.

Sleep deprivation gives you afternoon naps

Have you ever eaten a really big meal at lunch only to get tired after lunch and drift off?  Some people I know get away with taking naps at work but I would hazard a guess that bosses don’t like sleeping on the job.  There are those like Ricardo Semler who urge the practice but overall I think it’s frowned upon in work circles.

Sleep deprivation turns you into a clumsy git

Your ability to process information and make good sense of it under sleep deprived conditions is drastically reduced.  Here is Australia we seem to take this as a challenge! Once you get behind the wheel you are no longer responsible for just yourselves but those you may hurt as well.  If you are overly tire, catch the bus or take the day off.  Is it worth having an accident?  I think not.

Sleep deprivation makes you feel lethargic 

A lack of sleep will leave you with a feeling of lethargy.  At work this would make people think you are lazy, a loafer or something worse.  Not only will you feel lethargic but you will look it.  Your non sleep deprived colleagues will say to you, ‘Hey Bob, you look like crap’.  I guarantee that will make you want to get them fired or at the very least spread nasty rumours about them!

Sleep deprivation changes your perceptions of reality

When you are sleep deprived you perception of reality shifts.  I remember one time after a few days of not very much sleep, I began to hallucinate.  When you don’t sleep very well your brain begins to form things in life that may or may not actually be there.  This is a real problem because trying to wave away invisible spiders (as in my case) will not help you make friends or influence people.

Sleep deprivation can cause dizziness 

Being sleep deprived can cause extreme dizziness in some cases.   I remember once after another long week of not very much sleep I began to get so dizzy I could not stand.  I felt sick, lethargic and not to mention confused.

What can I do about it?

So what can we do if we are sleep deprived?  The key thing to remember is that this is in most cases curable by a trip to the doctor or an increase in the amount of physical activity you are undertaking at any given time.   Increasing your physical exercise will help you sleep better and if that’s not your style you can try some visualisation techniques or some of this helpful suggestions in this article.  Some people I know imagine themselves on an island doing something relaxing and bang they are asleep.  There is an emerging debate around If the condition is more serious or perhaps related to post traumatic stress disorder you will need medication to overcome it.  Polyphasic sleep (taking sleep in shorter cycles over an extended period) has helped some people overcome this kind of problem.  This isn’t for everyone either and it may not be for you.

What you need to do is be aware of the fact that you are sleep deprived.  We all have had those experiences in our decision making when we look at something through our weary eyes only to realise a day later that it wasn’t as big a deal as we thought.  What you need to take from this article is an awareness of sleep deprivation and how it effects you.  Make sure you don’t do what I did and waste your money on email marketing… what was I thinking?

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Recently my supervisor told me that I didn’t make the Research Quality Framework (I spent too much time blogging? WHOOPS!) list distributed throughout this nation. This means that for the next few years I will be considered a “teaching scholar”. This was a tremendous disappointment to me because I set high goals for myself. That said, when this happened it occurred to me that we often put stuff off in our lives so we can reach some goal in the future without realising that the future is actually now.  In my case I had hopes but I never converted the substance of hope into something real.

Now is really all we can say we have? If say I will do it tomorrow… yes that’s true I probably will. However, in the scheme of things I really don’t think tomorrow will ever be upon me. By the time I get to tomorrow it’s already gone. I can’t go back in time because essentially time is a concept. Remove that barrier and all that you have left is the idea of now… the ever present NOW.  Realising that all we have is now makes you wonder doesn’t it. When I got that bad report from my supervisor I thought to myself: but I worked so hard. The reality is I am in this position because in the past I made decisions that negatively impacted the present.  To change I need to have a dream or vision in mind and make daily steps toward it.  Some might be impossible… that’s no problem… that’s why God gave us faith.

What is the future … really?

Like time, the future is also a concept. It is really part of our language. When we say the future we are really expressing some kind of expectation or hope that things will be that way at a distant point in our horizon. A goal is another way of expressing a hope. Hope is a great goal setter because it expresses the future arrival point of something that we want to exist. But it’s not really tangible is it?  The future does not really exist like the present does it?  Think about that.

What is tangible… really?

What is tangible is this moment. What just happened when I typed that line was real. What happens after I finish this sentence I really have no idea. I could get hit by airplane parts. What is actual is that I have moments in my life that culminate up to a lived experience that I can hopefully share with someone at some point. There will come a time when the present becomes the past and the future becomes now… but in reality all there ever is and there ever will be is now. The problem is our linear concepts of time and the future.  These are helpful ways of organising things and structuring the nature of our lives (i.e. getting to work on time) but you could take away that concept and work would still exist.  I think that work will always exist so long as the earth remains.

What can I do about the future?

In short, nothing. What you can do is starting realising that now is what you have and live like you mean it.  Hope at some stage has to become tangible like everything else if you are going to experience it.  Kenny Rogers warned the ladies not to fall in love with a dreamer but I would urge you to become a dreamer but don’t leave your projects out there is space. Make them real.  Experience them in the imagination of your heart.

I can hear you thinking, ‘oh that’s great Mr. Houghton… but how do I make the unreal real.  Do I look like a worker of miracles to you?  In a later post I will discuss this in more detail.  It sounds spooky and downright difficult to understand but the bottom line is you must realise (as in bring into the present tense) what you hope for otherwise it will remain in the future, which really is just a concept we use to make sense of what is yet to happen.  Who knows what the future holds?

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