Comments (12)

By Phil, June 1, 2010 12:05 pm

Why be happy? Why not?

Be Happy!

Why today? Life’s too short to wait for tomorrow.

Why 25 ways? That was how many I could think of.

How? – pick any idea from the list and do it today.  Feel happier.  If you feel bold, pick more than one!

1. Take care of yourself – savour your shower, shave (if appropriate), moisturise, deoderize, wear that perfume or cologne (don’t overdo it unless you want space on the Tube).  Take care of yourself – because you’re worth it.

2. Dress the part – spruce yourself up and choose an outfit that makes you look and feel great.  When you look your best, you’ll feel your best.

3. Choose your head for the day – which head will you choose?  The happy one, the grumpy one, the angry one, the peaceful one?  Your choice will determine your day.

4. Smile – smile and the whole world smiles back – grimace and you’ll end up stepping in dog poo.

5. Take 10 minutes to do nothing – go on, it feels great – just space out and enjoy yourself.

6. Do one thing from your sh!t list – you know those little things that are driving you nuts – do just one of them.  Feel the weight come off.

7. Commit a random act of kindness – whether someone needs help or not

8. Give yourself a break – at some point today you’ll probably start giving yourself a hard time.  Stop and apologize.

9. Slow down – try being the tortoise for a change.  Try walking half a pace slower, stopping to smell the flowers, looking more closely at the world around you.

10. Turn off email and your mobile for an hour – the world might collapse into a fiery ball… or nothing will happen.  Let them wait.

11. Organise some “spontaneous planned fun” – treat yourself or somebody you know to dinner, a massage, a walk in the park, some quality time.

12. Call someone you haven’t spoken to for a while – preferably someone you like

13. Buy treats for your office / team / colleagues – you have to live with them every day so bribe them to be nice with cake.

14. Stick your favourite up-tempo tune on the stereo at high volume – dance around the living room like a nutter (note to emos – feel free to sway instead)

15. Spend a little time outside – sit in the park at lunchtime, have a picnic, take a walk

16. Stretch yourself – try something new, take on that scary dream you’ve been meaning to start, face up to a fear

17. Make time for someone special – let them know how much you care

18. Take a TV sabbatical – it will forgive you and still be there for you tomorrow (this one goes for video games and the internet too)

19. Daydream – if you’re so inclined, let your mind wander for a while and enjoy it.

20. Set a new goal – it’s exciting to start something new – use 43 things to tell the world about it.

21. Plan a vacation – what kind of break are you craving and where would you like to go?  Make it happen.

22. Exercise – we have endorphins for a reason, so appreciate them

23. Get creative - Draw / Paint / Sculpt / Write / Photograph / Dance / Express yourself

24. Count your blessings – take a minute to be grateful for your life

25. Come up with your own plan – this is the best rule of all.  What is the thing you’d most like to do today?

It’s not too much to ask and you owe it to yourself.  Have a great day.

Penny for your thoughts

How did you make today a happier day?  Please leave a comment or pass this along to your friends.

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Photo credit : Lel4nd (Flickr Creative Commons)

Comments (13)

By Phil, April 30, 2010 11:53 am

Reading time: 1 minute 47 seconds

Don’t be a chicken – subscribe to Less Ordinary Living to get fresh inspiration delivered to you twice a week.

How did I become the man in the chicken suit?

Chicken

It all started eighteen months ago.  My client Terri was struggling to find the motivation to study for a particularly dry module in her upcoming HR exams.

We’d explored some of the more conventional motivational techniques – understanding how the exams fitted into the big picture for her career, getting someone to hold her accountable, setting rewards for success.

No dice.  This stuff was truly dull.

Suddenly a flash of inspiration – a little wager. Another client had purchased a chicken suit as part of her campaign to lead a less ordinary life (don’t ask!).

The deal was set – if Terri studied for and passed her exam successfully, I would walk down a busy shopping street in broad daylight… in a chicken suit.

Miraculously, Terri’s attitude to study transformed. Suddenly she was whizzing through the modules like a superhero on a mission.

Exam day came and the inevitable result.  Passed with flying colours.  Terri even got a lapel badge to proudly tell the world she is a qualified HR practitioner!

Fast forward to April 2010

The venue: the bustling Santana Row bar scene, San Jose, California.

The time: Friday evening at Happy Hour.

A 6 foot five chicken emerges sheepishly from a side alley.

A group of men in suits stop drinking their beers mid sip to stare.

A passing couple do a double take.

A security guard looks a little nervous and considers reaching for his radio.

The world starts to warm up to the idea of a giant chicken in their midst.

Chicken in action

Suddenly people start approaching.  “Could I have a photo? – My dad would love it” asks a passer by.

Children are waving and smiling, coming up to say hello.

In the frozen yoghurt place, everyone loves the chicken.  The guy behind the counter has never seen anything like it.  The chicken has made his day – “this one’s on the house”!

Deep down I wasn’t looking forward to wearing the chicken suit.  In the end I could hardly take it off.  I loved every minute of being a chicken.

Lessons learned from being a chicken

What do I take away from dressing up in a giant chicken suit?

• Sometimes finding motivation requires something a little beyond the ordinary.
• Doing something different is fun and inspiring.
• Wearing a chicken suit showed me that there is no need to be afraid.  I normally loathe being the centre of attention, yet with the suit it was great.  Now I can imagine wearing a chicken suit to stir myself on to greater things.
• I have a renewed respect for anyone who has ever been a mascot – giant yellow chicken suits are hot and cumbersome!

Over to you

• What do you do to be a little bit extraordinary?
• How do you motivate yourself when the going gets tough?
• Have you ever dressed up in public and what happened?

More Inspiration

Evelyn Lim on how to get creative and map your mind

Jeffrey Tan at Art of Great Things on Being who you want to become

Comments (16)

By Phil, April 27, 2010 11:38 am

Reading time: 2 minutes and 23 seconds (finishing time 4 hours and 40 minutes)

Imagine being surrounded by 36,000 superheroes….

On Sunday I had the honour of running the London Marathon.  I was humbled by the whole day.  Everywhere I looked I saw ordinary people doing quite extraordinary things.

Another everyday superhero...

Each and every runner had spent the bitter winter months fitting a gruelling training programme around their busy lives.

These heroes had been pounding the pavement at every hour of  the day and night – building up, preparing for the challenge ahead. Logging those miles and hours, tending those blisters and chafed nipples, stretching those aching limbs one more time.

Every hero  had their own motivation to be there.  The vast majority were raising money for charity – fighting disease, helping vulnerable children, getting clean water to Africa, finding a cure for cancer.

Reading their shirts told a story – “In memory of Lily”, “Running for Mum”, “Doing it for Derrick”.  They felt compelled to make a difference for others, to bring a little light in the darkness, to remember those less fortunate.  Proper heroes.

Some of these everyday heroes had taken it one step further.  The pantomime camel manned by two people, the human caterpillar of 34 people tied together, the two men carrying a small boat, the heroes dragging a brick wall on a sledge.

Everywhere I looked was an endless stream of costumes (countless superheroes, Rocky, endless Elvises, some serious cross-dressing).

This was going above and showing superhuman support for something they believed in.

The spirit of the day was unbelievable.  Huge crowds lined the streets from start to finish.  They offered support to each and every runner.

They banged drums, played music, offered their hands, gave out sweets, drinks, fruit.  They cheered endlessly “Come on Steve”, “Keep going Batman, you can do it”, “Nice work, Jean”. Without this support, I’m sure quite a few runners would never have made it to the end.

For one day, communities came together.  Strangers joined for a common purpose.  The atmosphere was electric and dripping positivity.  In their own way, every supporter is a hero too.  They played their unique part in a day that made a serious difference.

So how did my race go?

I loved each and every of the 30,000 strides.

Still smiling at 18 miles

I was running for the NSPCC (a charity aiming to stamp out cruelty to children).  I got amazing support from friends and family and have so far managed to raise over £2,000.  I want to publically thank each and every donor for their extraordinary generosity.

I got fantastic support all along the course from the amazing crowds, and particularly from my support crew (thanks Em, Celene and Andy).

I felt well prepared and stuck to my game plan, finishing in 4 hours 40 minutes and 10 seconds. At the end, I felt elated, overwhelmed and a little wobbly.  It was such a buzz to be surrounded by so many Everyday Superheroes.

Being an Everyday Superhero

Reflecting on this experience it made me realize that we all have the potential to be everyday superheroes.

Every day, people go out of their way to help others. They volunteer, spend time with someone lonely, help out with the shopping,  give up their seat on the bus. These acts make a huge difference and make the world a better place for all of us.

We’re surrounded by these wonderful people.  Just walking down the street, you’re in the presence of someone with super powers.

You too have the power at your fingertips – every time you put someone else first you’re an everyday superhero.  You have the power to make the world a little better every day.

Over to you

• What do you do to be an Everyday Superhero?
• Who do you admire who puts others first?
• What will be your next Everyday Superhero act?

Other resources

Arvind Devalia on how to change the world in less than 27 miles

Amit Sodha on how anyone can run the marathon

Photo credit: Julian Mason (Flickr Creative Commons), Celene

Comments (17)

By Phil, March 23, 2010 10:47 am

Reading time: 2 minutes and 49 seconds

Spring Clean your Mind

A five part series to find clarity, focus and the energy to be your extraordinary.  Click here to subscribe and have every post delivered fresh to your inbox!

Spring is in the air!  Nature is waking up.  The earth is blooming with fresh buds, blossom on the trees, a whiff of hope in the air.

Spring is a time of renewal, new life, new possibilities, new hope, new beginnings, fresh thinking.  It’s a time to emerge from the shadows of hibernation, shake off the lethargy and face the future with joy.

An important tradition at this time of year is spring cleaning.  This is the ritual of cleaning house, sprucing up our dwelling, clearing away the clutter.  We cast off the baggage we’ve picked up over the winter.

This year, I’m planning to take the opportunity to spring clean my mind.  I want to sort through some of the dusty old boxes I’ve been storing in my mental attic.  I’m pretty sure that there are some hidden treasures I can polish up and enjoy.  I also know that there is a lot of junk up there that I no longer want to hump around with me.

My Mental Spring Clean will cover four areas:

Stories

We all spend a huge amount of time and energy creating stories about our identity.  We tell the outside world all about ourselves – what we do, our social status, how we interact with others, our expectations from the world around us.

We also tell ourselves stories about who we think we are.  I know that one story I was telling myself was that I had to do everything myself because there is no-one out there who would want to collaborate with me.  Since I recognized this story and started to change it, I’ve found that suddenly people are starting to want to get involved with my projects.  A simple change of story and led to a big difference.

Our stories are usually based on some simple facts, however we choose how to weave these facts together.  We also have the choice of which facts to select in creating the story.  Understanding the power of our personal narrative and how we communicate it can hugely change our lives for the better.  Change our story and we change our life.

Games

The psychiatrist Eric Byrne wrote the seminal book Games People Play in 1964.  He identified the human need for attention and the need to fill the unstructured void of time.  Byrne identified that human interaction is based on conversations and analyzed these transactions in more detail.

He found that almost everyone plays games to get attention from others.  Often we don’t realize what we are doing.  Some of the games Byrne talks about include “See what you made me do”, “Ain’t it awful”, “If it weren’t for them” and “Stupid”.  Any of these sound familiar to you?

I know that I’ve spent most of my life playing “Just good enough”.  In this game, I try just hard enough to get the result I want without standing out from the crowd by being the best.  It is a game to keep me safe from unwanted attention, yet it also stops me from taking risks, really going for it, or feeling fulfilled.

In this mental spring clean, we can assess the games we are playing, figure out which ones are helpful and which ones are holding us back.

Gremlins / The voice in my head

This one is an old chestnut.  I have that horrible voice in my head that tells me;  “you’re not good enough, you can’t do that”, “who would listen to someone like you anyway”, “get over yourself, you’re no-one”.

These gremlins are powerful forces.  Typically we created them in our childhood to protect us from a situation that would have been detrimental.  Perhaps to overcome a fear of being embarrassed, we created a gremlin that stopped us answering questions in class.  The gremlin was there to keep us safe.

Often, this voice in our head has long since stopped being useful.  It stops us from taking action and being our best self with the old warnings.  In this mental spring clean, we’ll look at how to gracefully retire some of these gremlins and free ourselves to be whatever we want to be.

Habits

As children, we sponge up huge amounts from the world around us.  We learn routines about how to live our lives.  We pick up habits about how to behave from our parents, peers and everyone we meet.

Habits can be extremely positive, like a regular exercise routine, the process we use to keep ourselves organised or taking 10 minutes each morning to plan our day.  They can also be unconstructive – procrastinating, avoiding using the telephone when we know we should, drinking to relieve stress.

To some extent, we are what we do, and these habits become a large part of our identity.  We can understand more about how habits form, identify which habits to change and apply some of the rules of change to create positive new habits.

Get Cleaning

This Mental Spring Clean will look at each area in more detail and give practical advice on how to change for the better.  I’m planning to use the journey to create a mind that feels shiny, fresh and new  – ready to face the renewal of spring.  Please join me and enjoy some mental sorting, dusting, cleaning and polishing.  Let the Mental Spring Clean begin.

Comments (14)

By Phil, March 19, 2010 5:12 pm

“You can learn many things from children. How much patience you have, for instance.” Franklin P Jones

Big fun!

If you enjoyed this article, click here to subscribe and never miss a post. Reading time for this article: 2 minutes 48 seconds.

Children – our future and our past.  We’ve all been a child, and many of us will also raise one.

As an adult, it’s easy to assume that this grown up, rational state we inhabit now is superior.  Yet, spend any time with children and you remember that kids have a lot to teach us.

1. Have more fun

Spend any time hanging out with a 2 year old and you’ll realist that they like to have fun.

It’s joyful to paint all over the kitchen table, roll around laughing at the funny cow in a can noise thing, climb through a play tunnel for hours, hide behind the door and play peek-a-boo.  In fact it’s a laugh riot.

Somewhere in the Laws of Adult, most of these games become verboten. We have to suppress our emotions, act stiff and try to protect our dignity.  Sure we can laugh at other people, preferably behind their backs.  However, good old fashioned innocent fun and play is banned.

I’ve spent a lot more time playing recently – just throwing out dumb word association games, dancing around singing into a hairbrush, a spot of tickling here and there.  Try it out for yourself – fight back against the fun ban!

2. You are allowed to daydream

Grown ups rarely daydream. The adult world considers them to be naively hilarious and a sign of weakness.  Here is what often happens when an adult shares their burning dream:

Person A: I’ve always dreamt of being a polar explorer and I think I’m going to go after it

Person B: Snigger.  Good luck with that – send my love to the polar bears.  See you back in the cube farm next week.

Dreaming is seen as childish and foolish.  Wasting time going after doing what you really want when you could be getting on with your serious, boring adult life.

Children love to dream.  They use their imagination and create amazing possibilities.

Dreaming is a healthy way of stretching ourselves.  It gives us a roadmap for making the life we want.  Reconnect to what makes you excited.

3. The world is infinitely fascinating

I was probably the world’s most annoying child.  I fired out questions like a machine gun to anyone in range.  “What’s that called?”, “How does that work?”, “Why did that person say that?”, “Where are my Christmas presents hidden?” etc.   Children stare in wild-eyed wonder at the world and want to know all about it.

As adults we are told that we should be very clever and already understand everything. There is a stigma about asking too many questions – we might show our weakness, reveal some ignorance, people might think less of us.  Horrors.

As we stop asking questions and getting stuck on the hamster wheel of life, the world around us can lose its sparkle and appear mundane.  We take the amazing people and things around us for granted.

See what happens when you start to be more interested in the world around you and engage with it.

4. You can express your emotions

When a child is upset, you know about it.  No wait, you KNOW about it. Same when they are happy, joyful, bored, angry, afraid.  Bottling up emotions is simply not an option.  When a child feels something, they tell the world.

The adult world teaches us that suppressing our emotions is important.  We shouldn’t inflict our feelings on others. Better to keep them locked up and spend time brooding over them.  Or suppress our natural joy over something in case we make a fool of ourselves.  Frankly a lot of the time, this leads to unnecessary suffering when simply expressing ourselves would be the better option.

Learning to express our emotions effectively is important.  I’ve really worked on understanding my feelings and being able to put them into words and actions.  Letting them out into the world as they arise has taken a huge amount of weight off me and I feel lighter for it.

5. You should live in the moment

Children are born with very little conception of time.  When you’re young, your only concern is what is happening right now at this very moment.  The past is quickly forgotten, and the future is of no importance.

When children play, they are absolutely absorbed in the game.  Just watch for a minute or two  – eyes wide open, face alert and active, attention unwavering on what is unfolding.  Kids are mini Zen-masters.

We are taught to analyze everything, to pore over the past for what we did wrong, and to constantly be setting out a better future for ourselves.  How often do you really live in the moment as an adult?  Try it and see how different the world looks.

Release your inner child

I know that I learn a huge amount when I let my inner child out to play.and try these things  It keeps me open to learning, joy, curiosity, authenticity.  I get back into living in the moment.

Over to you

How do you connect to you inner child?  What do you learn from doing so?  If you have children, what have they taught you?  What would happen if you spent the day living like a child?

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Further reading

Patty at Why Not Start Now on how to play more

Arvind Devalia on why we should laugh more

Photo credit : Ernst Moeksis on Flickr