Thursday, March 29, 2012

Challenge For Today

Just for today, why don’t you conduct the following experiment; do not mind how you feel.
By all means feel what you feel. Just don’t give importance or preference to any particular feeling.
Simply let every feeling appear, do its dance, and move on without choosing to identify with any one of them.
Do not mind how you feel. Simply refuse to label yourself as happy, sad, anxious, excited, etc.
Experiment with this. Let me know what you discover.
Life and Business Coach Steve Mitten

Tuesday, March 27, 2012

Observing Your Thoughts

Have you ever taken the time to truly observe your thoughts?
You have thousands a day. Many are trivial. Many are ridicules. Some are emotionally charged and can hijack your attention for hours. A few may be sublime.
Have you ever gone through the exercise of simply choosing not to engage or entertain any of the thoughts that are auditioning for your attention?  If not, I encourage you to try it sometime.  Simply sit down in some quiet place and remove your attention from any thought that presents itself to your awareness.
Some thoughts will be easy to ignore. Others will keep coming back.  However if you keep letting them go, keep shifting your attention to anything else  - your breath, an inner feeling of affection, simply experiencing the nuances of a current sense perception; sight, sound, feeling, etc. – what do you notice?  After even 10 minutes of such an exercise, what do you feel?
As Pascal once said, “All of humanity's problems stem from man's inability to sit quietly in a room alone.” 
If you spend even 10 minutes a day with the intention of thinking less, and experiencing more, it can bring great gifts into your life.  (I have seen this very experiment create a lot of value to hundreds of life and business coaching clients over the years.)  Gradually you can begin to use the mind for practical issues, but not refer to it constantly for a sense of identity.

Thursday, March 22, 2012

Coaching And Enlightenment.

Recently someone asked if I thought that coaching could help a client achieve enlightenment.

The short answer is no.
In my experience, a genuine seeker with a longing for “Enlightenment”  (such an overused word) is not going to get what they want through conventional coaching.   They might become more spiritually aware. They might become more aligned with their higher values. They may benefit in a dozen other valuable ways.  But true awakening involves the actual falling away of the part of us that is seeking to get better, or attain some object called “enlightenment”. 

This is not something that you can even speak of effectively, because any concepts simply create more fuel for the part of us that is trying to figure it all out.

In my opinion, 999 out of 1000 people called to this sort of inquiry need to find a teacher and a path that resonates with them.   The right teacher will meet them wherever they are, in their journey to higher awareness, and help them eventually recognize that it is only when the mind stops seeking, that it is one with what is.
For those of you looking a place to start, I suggest you visit http://www.stillnessspeaks.com/ and watch some of the videos of various established teachers.
Good luck,

Steve.  

Wednesday, March 21, 2012

If You Were Told To Change or Die, Could you Do It?

Imagine your doctor sits you down and tells you on no uncertain terms, "If you don't change your lifestyle, you will be dead in a year." What do you think the chances are that you would actually manage to eat a little better, exercise more, etc.?

The answer, and this has been well studied, is 1 in 7.* Shockingly, only 1 out of 7 patients that have the "change or die" conversation with their physician, are able to change their behaviour. And the point is, if 6 out of 7 of us have trouble making changes when our life literally depends on it, is it any surprise we struggle to make so many other changes in our lives, careers and businesses?

As we approach the time of the year when many of us reflect upon our living and consider the changes we want to make in the New Year, it is important to remember there are some changes we can make by ourselves but many more we simply cannot. These latter type of "adaptive" changes are those bigger challenges that require a change in mindset and behaviour. These types of changes take time, reinforcement and the power of relationship to help us revise limiting thoughts and assumptions. In short, there are changes that are very difficult for us human beings to do on our own - even when our life depends on it.

So if you are contemplating making some important changes this year, remember that your best intentions and willpower may simply not be enough to guarantee you the results you seek.

Thus, to better increase your odds of success, here are a few tips:

- Make sure that whatever you are trying to do, really does line up with what is truly important to you. (What you genuinely value.) Many changes fail simply because they conflict with a deeply held belief or value.

- Make sure you have a high level of commitment. A good rule of thumb is that you should have a 4 out of 5 level of commitment if you are going to be able to hang in there long enough to see through an important change. Anything less and you could easily be distracted or discouraged when things get tough or busy.

- Anticipate resistance. Anytime we attempt to move out of our comfort zone we run into resistance. Some of these thoughts/feelings/habits can completely sideline us if we are not ready for them. When the resistance shows up, get curious about any assumptions or assertions that undermine your change initiative. Chances are they are based on faulty or out of date information that no longer serves you.

- Design your support team. Big changes can be scary. Call in backup. Make sure you have a few key people you can share your goal with and turn to when things get tough. We really benefit from relationships that can remind us why we are doing something, help us examine our limiting beliefs and help us see where growth is waiting to happen. (We are all blind to some of the biggest changes we really need to make - to get the results we want.)

Good luck with all your goals, dreams and aspirations for the upcoming year. If you can dream it, and it makes your heart sing, if you take care of yourself day to day so you don't get exhausted, if you build on your strengths, if you can take it a step at a time and reach out for help when, or before, you need it, and if you can be open to the journey taking you in a different direction than you initially planned - then I believe you are going to have a fabulous adventure in the New Year.

Good luck,

Life and Business Coach Steve

Tuning Your Instrument

In your life, career or business, you are your biggest asset,
your own instrument of success. You are also your biggest liability. And how you
show up every day, with your colleagues, friends, family or clients, is a huge
factor in determining your overall level of happiness and success.
So tell me, how much attention do you put into tuning your
instrument?

If you were a world-class musician you would never think of
performing without tuning your violin, guitar or what have you. The sour notes
would be noticed immediately and detract from your performance. Thus musicians
always take the time to tune their own instrument and then tune to the orchestra
prior to a performance. How about you?

In your life, career and businesses, I am sure you have had a
few experiences where you felt in tune with yourself, your surroundings, the
task at hand, and things flowed almost effortlessly.

And I am pretty sure there have been many other times when the
sense of struggle was so palpable, you may have felt you were playing off the
wrong sheet music.

If you do nothing to proactively prepare for each day or tune
your instrument, it will not take too much (stress, conflict, unexpected
developments, etc.) to tip you into a far more reactive mode. And feeling a
little off-key or behind the rhythm, you are more likely to appear impatient,
intolerant, unsympathetic, distracted and generally self-focused. This of course
is going to be noticed and have an impact.

Taking the time to tune your instrument, to get more present,
in-sync, will not immunize you from life's challenges. But it will ensure you
meet them with the greater creativity, trust and the resourcefulness needed to
be your best, under any circumstance. And this will also have an impact. (A very
positive one.)