Caring and Worrying December 25, 2006
Posted by The Probabilist in : [Articles], Consciousness, Communication, Emotions, Health, Personal Growth, Psychology, Relationships, Beliefs, Responsibility, Wealth, Words, Abilities , 73 comments
Depending on your emotional balance you may often find yourself caring or worrying about things that you feel are beyond your influence. By this I mean other people, their thoughts about you, personal possession that are of value to you or even your own personal growth in various areas. What other people think of you is something that so many people today have a problem finding an inner balance to. How do you advance your personal growth without having to face the resistance of what others think of you and your pursuits?
The first step in this process is to clearly separate caring and worrying from each other. Worrying is in the negative spectrum of thoughts/emotions while caring is in the positive spectrum of thoughts/emotions. The path to easier personal growth depends on understanding this vital first step. You should not stop caring about what others think of you! You should stop worrying about it. The difference in nuance is of importance since all personal growth involves gradually shifting your reality towards the positive polarity of things, whatever area it is you’re focusing on.
This is why it’s so important that you first reach the awareness of what the words you are using really mean. Otherwise your conscious mind and your subconscious mind may build up conflicts that cause you to crash (getting ill, procrastinating, experiencing fear). So acknowledge first that all worry is of negative impact to you and all caring is of positive impact to your life.
Why is this separation crucial? It’s because of the law of attraction. You create the reality you think of. You will end up manifesting that which you worry of happening. If you worry that others think negative thoughts about you, then in reality it is already true that they do. The only way you can measure this notion is in your own mind and with this scenario in action, worrying truly creates what you worry about. That’s why the second step is eliminating all worry from your reality.
Stop worrying about your home when you’re on vacation, your child when (s)he is taken care of by others and what other people think of you. You can’t influence these matters directly, only indirectly. And at this point we’re starting to borderline with the caring instead of the worrying aspect of things.
The third step is to add more care into your reality. As I mentioned earlier you should care about your possessions, the people around you and what they are thinking of you. It is important since because it is in the positive spectrum, it improves your life and reality. Here’s how to do it.
Ask around what people think of you and your endeavours. Ask what they think of your new business idea, about trying to quit smoking, about setting goals for the coming year, about your current relationships or about your financial situation. Listen to their input and care about their thoughts, insights and perspectives over an issue. Make a mental note about their level of success and awareness within it. You might come to the conclusion that person A is good in raising your compassion toward helping people, but lowering your courage to start a business. And then person B might raise your will to start exercising and eating healthy but lower your interest in spiritual and intuitive guidance and methods. Then all you need to do is turn to the right people for the right thoughts that are in your interest. How can people think negative thoughts about you if you respect them, value their knowledge and want to learn from them? You’ve shown for yourself and others that you care about their thoughts as well as your own growth. It’s your task to figure out whose advice to follow and whose advice not to follow. It will be easier and easier the more you raise your own understanding and awareness of living a prosperous life.
The fourth step is grasping the link between care and worry. The less you care, the more you worry. And the more you care, the less you worry. Those who worry the most seem to care the least, while those who care the most seem to worry the least. This is the step of taking action. If you worry about your personal finances, it’s time to start caring about them. If you worry about your health, it’s time to start caring about it. If you worry what others think of you, start caring about their thoughts. And behold, your worries vanish into thin air once you’ve taken care of these issues.
I care about my own personal development in health, relationships, success, wealth, inner balance and purpose just as I care for your personal development in these areas. With so much caring, how can there be room for worry about what others think of me? If you worry that others think of you in a negative way it quite simply means that you don’t care enough about yourself. Let that sentence sink into you with an open mind. Happiness and caring dissipates worry. Caring is being proactive while worrying is a feeling of guilt for not caring enough in the first place.
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Procrastinator November 22, 2006
Posted by The Probabilist in : [Articles], Creativity, Goals, Music, Personal Growth, Productivity, Quotes, Beliefs, Responsibility, Words, Work , add a comment
I’ve labeled procrastinator as the ugliest word in English I know. It not only sounds very repulsive when it is said out loud, but its meaning also resonates downright negativity when I think about it. In case this word is still unfamiliar to you, it simply describes a person who postpones taking action or depending on the task might never go for it. Procrastination as a noun therefore describes the state of mind that can lure you into not doing something that you might later regret.
The way I see procrastination is that it can be separated in two ways. One way is to distinguish between ordinary tasks that you know you should be doing and choices that involve taking risks where the outcome of your final choice is uncertain at the moment. The other way is to separate tasks into short-term and long-term choices. When combined, most often the mundane routine tasks are there for your short-term relief and require physical effort on your part. Accordingly, the risk taking choices require much more time and mental effort on your part while these choices address your long-term needs. So let’s focus on the level of importance regarding both of these and how you can weaken your tendency to procrastinate.
The short-term tasks involve things like raking the leaves off your lawn before it gets covered with snow, cleaning your home or office space or fixing something that has broken. These three examples share different characteristics and therefore certain approaches work better than others.
One way to get you started is to make the task itself more enjoyable. In all of these cases I’d get my mp3-player and listen to music or personal development audio to multi-task and get more out of the otherwise dull task. Alternatively give yourself a treat when you’ve (partially) completed a specific task as a reward and look forward to it while you labor. You might for instance decide to deny yourself from listening to music while idling or doing something you like in order to look forward to any given must-do task. This approach works extremely well when the task is without a known deadline, as in the case of raking leaves.
When it comes to tasks like cleaning you need to be more systematic. Decide upon a frequency of how often you should be cleaning your apartment and schedule it. Use the advices above also in this case and remind yourself about the benefits of doing what you do. If the task is a very large project then only schedule 30 minutes to do things you can do right now. The hard part is always to get started, but once you get going you’ll see the effort getting easier and easier.
In the case of fixing something that needs repair focus on the downside you experience now that you can’t use it. Maybe it’s something you can live perfectly without. Sometimes a good approach to overcome procrastination is to simply lessen the amount of tasks that you need to do. Evaluate if you really need that car or if it’s better for your wallet and health to do without it in the long run while eliminating the tasks it requires. If you really do need something in your everyday life, then procrastination simply won’t stand in your way. But if you do procrastinate about something, then maybe your subconscious is trying to tell you something.
Then there’s the question of long-term choices that require deeper thinking. This is where most people procrastinate the most. However, I personally hold tasks in this category in much higher respect than the routine tasks. There’s a simple reason to it. These choices have the power to completely eliminate most of the short-term tasks in everyday life. Read this book and you will see how.
The biggest reason one might procrastinate in this field is the fear of making mistakes. Starting a company or investing in something are great examples. Most people are so deeply rooted with the “play it safe” mentality that their minds simply can’t see another choice in their life than being average and living the standard American dream. As a great quote by Henry Ford goes “Thinking is the hardest work there is, which is the probable reason why so few engage in it.”
For me making these long-term, big picture choices have always been easy and most of all, downright fun to be part of. It’s my procrastination on small tasks that have occasionally driven my parents crazy. That’s why this article also focused more on how to overcome procrastination in such tasks. The object is to find a natural and working balance in time management between small, immediate tasks and big, long-term tasks for optimal personal growth.
My point here is not to successfully overcome procrastination to 100 % as this would lead to recklessness. The point is that when you feel you’re putting something off, listen and think to yourself why exactly you’re feeling this way. Maybe there’s a reason why a certain task feels insurmountable. It’s telling you that you need to grow. You need to either face the task or re-evaluate its significance for you in a long or short-term perspective. Other great sources in combination with overcoming procrastination are the past four articles I’ve written. What is it that really matters to you and to what degree? A garden and house that looks perfect or your personal growth in health, wealth, happiness and passion in the long run?
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