evergreen Archives - Page 5 of 5 - Color Your Life Happy

How to Get Unstuck Instantly by Doing One Simple Thing

standingonhead How would you like to get unstuck instantly in your life, mood, career, writing or other endeavor using one simple human behavior?

What if I told you that successful people use this behavior all the time to get unstuck and accomplish their goals? You would want to know about it, wouldn’t you?

Of course you would.

I share this with my coaching clients and use it myself.

Alright already, Flora! What is this one simple thing that will get me unstuck?!

Happiness researchers have discovered the one simple thing that gets us unstuck is intentional activity.

The Intentional Activity Theory

Humans are active creatures, spending energy on many projects and goals. When we get stuck such as in writer’s block or indecision about what direction to take in our lives, we stop taking action. The blocked writer sits there staring at the blank page. The career person in transition mulls over and over in his mind how indecisive he is. The entrepreneur freezes while creating her information product.

Simply explained, intentional activity is taking action on purpose, doing something, putting forth effort, doing something different.

Have you ever misplaced your keys and built up stress as you frantically wondered where you put them?
Then, you decided to give up the search and do something else, maybe go to the kitchen to make a sandwich or gather the books you’ll take with you when you find the keys.

Voila! When you returned to the room where you started, there the keys were, exactly where they were all along.

Another example. After working on my book for hours, I would occasionally get stuck. The next word would not come forth. The points I wanted to make were hiding out. When I recognized I was at an impasse, I would get up, leave the house and take a walk.

Why Intentional Activity Gets You Unstuck

Intentional activity works instantly because when you take action you put yourself in a different location, frame of mind and perspective. You interrupt the obsession, the mulling, the inner conflict, the fear.

All the world’s problems are not solved in this instant, but I assure you that you are no longer stuck at the same place where you were before.

What action is right to take to get you unstuck?

Almost anything that suits you that is different from what has you stuck.

Sometimes we are stuck waiting to have all the answers or while nursing the delusion of perfection.

To get team members past the fear that delays and kills projects, Seth Godin, master marketer created The Shipit Workbook. Seth believes that projects don’t fail because of lack of knowledge or concern, but because in teams everyone waits for instructions. No one wants to be the blame if things go wrong. Designed to be completed by a team, The Shipit Workbook enables a team to either complete a successful project, or realize the project is doomed and should be abandoned. Either way, it was taking action that got the team to the right conclusion.

Intentional Activity Gives You Valuable Information

Fail fast, fail cheap, and fail often is a common mantra of successful entrepreneurs.

When you have an idea for a product, service or business it’s important to do some planning, of course, but the sooner you can test your idea in the marketplace the faster you’ll know if there is a market and if your idea is viable. The early users of your idea can give you priceless feedback that enables you to make adjustments before you dump a huge sum of money taking an untested idea to completion.

When Walt Disney proposed the idea of Disneyland to bankers, he was already a successful graphic artist and movie maker, and yet he was turned away by bankers over 300 times before he finally found one willing to take a chance. After all, who could believe that such a preposterous idea would be work, much less be profitable. But Walt, familiar with rejection and failure, was undaunted.

Each fertile idea Disney proposed seemed to be met with skepticism. Naysayers saw Mickey Mouse as just another cartoon. His detractors predicted that movie goers would not sit through a full-length animated movie. And yet, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs became one of the biggest grossing movies in movie history.

So, when you’re stuck, do something.

Take action.

Take a new action.

Go to another banker.

Take a new route.

Make some noise.

Call a potential client.

Take a nap.

Help somebody else for a while.

Stop tweaking with that proposal and mail it.

Get up on the other side of the bed.

What do you think?

Have you discovered that taking action got you unstuck and helped you successfully reach your goal?

5 Reasons Some People Don’t Like The Secret

By Flora 4 Comments

Kitchen near completion 8-10-06 Mention the movie, “The Secret,” and you get one of three responses:

“Oh, that was the most powerful movie I’ve ever seen. It changed my life.”
“That was a lot of malarkey. The law of attraction doesn’t work.”
What’s “The Secret?”

When the movie “The Secret” first appeared, everyone urged me to see it. I already believed in the Law of Attraction and the power of believing is the key to getting what you want. So I enjoyed the movie as a reminder of what I already knew to be true.

But while there were many who were inspired by it, a lot of people believe “The Secret” is bogus, drivel, and downright useless.

Rhonda Byrne, the television producer who is the author of the book and creator of the DVD, must surely have cried all the way to the bank over all the negative responses.

After all, this 90-minute movie was a huge success not just because millions of people viewed it, but because it took the nontraditional route. It was never shown in movie theaters, but it was so popularized by word of mouth (better known as viral marketing) that it caught Oprah’s attention.

Why are some folks unimpressed with “The Secret?”

1. Makes manifesting good sound magical and doesn’t admit that success takes hard work

I don’t recall that the movie indicated that there would be no work involved in going after your dreams, but that’s the message some received. This view is likely that of a very literal person who prefers step-by-step directions.

I certainly had much research to do and had to pay the contractor to do the kitchen remodel I had done a few years ago. But before any of that started, I visualized and deeply felt how my new kitchen would look and how wonderful it would feel cooking and entertaining there. I especially had to believe I would get the loan to pay for it or perhaps I wouldn’t have even applied for it.

2. Promotes idea that success means accumulating wealth and things

It certainly may seem that way since the examples focused a lot on material possessions. But in our world the only way some people can visualize success is through possessions.

The truth is that we want what possessions provide, not the possessions themselves.

Owning a car enables me to get where I’m going faster than walking, and at times that is important to keeping appointments. It’s the convenience that the car provides that’s important.

While I’m attracting that car, however, why not make it a model and color I like?

3. Doesn’t go far enough to explain feelings and emotions that are behind our thoughts

I agree that the movie didn’t tell us about the energy that we create when we dwell on something in our minds and how our feelings and emotions generate that energy.

But every movie or piece of literature can be found guilty of assuming certain knowledge.

4. Disregards the random events, disasters and other things outside of us that affect our lives

My take on this was that the movie stressed that it is our reactions to the outside events that determines our reality. I don’t think it was disregarding that these things occur.

5. What was so secret about that movie? It was just rehashed stuff we’ve heard before.

Every movie, song, or story is based on something that went before. It’s the particular mix or extension of what already exists that makes the difference. Besides, we need to hear things many times before we get it.

There are many paths to getting the life you want. For some this movie tapped into one of them. How about you? What’s your take on “The Secret.”

Filed Under: "The Secret", Happiness, Law of attraction Tagged With: "The Secret", evergreen, Law of attraction, manifesting, power of believing, Rhonda Byrne

Enjoy Your Climb or What’s a Journey For

By Flora 2 Comments

no roses-resized

“It makes no difference how many peaks you reach if there was no pleasure in the climb.”
—Oprah

We’ve heard this expressed many ways. Some say stop and smell and roses or the best part of the journey is what you see along the way. But why are these things true?

1. By observing the things along the way we appreciate the destination so much more. Have you ever heard someone recount the fun they had camping, for example? The best part is their account of getting lost, finding their way, choosing the best resting spot or encountering critters who decided to enjoy the campsite as well. If you don’t enjoy the things that lead up to your destination, you’re likely to be singing “Is that all there is?” because you missed the juicy part.

2. By feeling the exhiliration of a journey, our joy at the end is intensified. When I was returning from visiting my oldest daughter I had planned to read a book on my flight. It was a great book, but because I chose a window seat I decided to enjoy the view instead. When we left San Jose the sky was overcast, but as soon as the plane reached its altitude we were floating on meringue clouds. I was in awe thinking about what an amazing creation our planet is with its many features depending on the perspective from which you view it. Wow!

Later as I waited for my luggage at the turnstile, I felt so peaceful and thankful to have absorbed nature’s beauty.

3. By observing and making note of our activities along the way, we build skills for future events and journeys. Take going to school, for example. The classes that challenge you to stretch your mind and learn new techniques are the ones that best prepare you for not only future classes, but other life tasks and challenges as well.

Each time I must stretch my abilities to learn how to master even a small task with my websites and blogs, for example, I’m better prepared for the next challenge. While I sometimes get frustrated and even break into tears over garbled code that stands between me and a new blog theme, I have learnedthat I won’t die from it. Once when moving to a new host, I lost a blog with years of rich content. (That felt like a death for a few minutes.) I lived to meet another challenge and accepted it as a part of the process.

What about you? Have you tried one of these ways to cnjoy your climb and your trip to your goal? Tell us about how you overcame a fear or met a challenge.

Filed Under: achieve goals, beauty around us, Life choices Tagged With: evergreen