It’s been running since January, which is longer than I’ve ever run a series here before. I’ll probably do something similar again, though, because it’s been good to focus on one topic over a long period.

I didn’t want the original post to just be another list post. List posts are popular with blog readers because they’re easy to skim, but they can easily be shallow and lazy ways of blogging about a topic without engaging with it in any depth. Instead, I expanded each point in the list into its own post, averaging around a thousand words or more.

That’s 26,000 words, which is almost enough for a small book. And that’s exactly what I’m going to turn the series into.

I’m going to go through all the posts, of course, and revise and expand them, add in material that I deliberately left out for space reasons (or that I’ve thought of since), and write a few completely new chapters – I’m thinking seven for some reason. I might include some other relevant material from guest posts I’ve written, my other blog at How to Be Amazing, or my archives here. The whole thing will likely be 35,000 to 40,000 words by the time I finish.

A book? When?

I’m planning for that finish date to be early January 2012 – just in time for New Year’s resolutions, and a year after the series began. But if you want to be kept in touch (and get a discount on the book when it’s available, and some pre-release material that I won’t be sharing anywhere else), sign up down the bottom of this post to my “early notification” mailing list. I won’t flood you with a lot of email, just relevant updates about the book’s progress and how you can get some extras and special deals.

I’m self-publishing, of course. Not because I don’t think I could get a publisher, but because I can’t see the point in putting all that work into finding one in order to have less creative control and still do most of the marketing. (I used to work in traditional publishing, and I’ve self-published before. I know the ins and outs.)

That means, by the way, that if you’re a graphic designer and you fancy doing a book cover, you should email me a proposal (mikerm at hypno co nz). I’m offering to pay, of course, though if you wanted to swap some of your work for some of mine I’d be happy to discuss it. I got my last book cover that way.

If you, or someone you know, reviews books or personal development resources, get in touch with me as well. I’d like to have lots of reviews in hand by the time I launch in January. You’ll get an electronic copy for review, and if your review is published or I use a quote from you I’ll send you a physical book when they’re available. Sales of the book may also be part of my affiliate program.

I want to find a way to offer everyone who buys a print book an ebook version as well. That’s surprisingly difficult to achieve, technically, with the major print-on-demand services, but I want to make it work.

photo credit: ElvertBarnes

What this means for the blog

Obviously, some of the time I’ve been spending blogging is going to need to be spent on the book.

I’m also working on a cunning scheme which I hope will make my online personal development courses much more effective and engaging. And I’ve just joined Toastmasters, as I mentioned last week, and some of my blogging time needs to be diverted to preparing speeches. (Some of them may end up here as video posts.)

Also, as I hope you know, I’m posting weekly at How to Be Amazing. And I want to do some guest posting on other blogs, too.

All this, and a few other things I won’t bore you with, means that I won’t be posting as often here over the next few months. I’ve been posting regularly every week for, I think, a couple of years now. During that time, my average post length has roughly tripled, I’ve started another blog, and… well, see above. To be honest, the only reason I could keep up a weekly schedule for so long this year is that I was writing to an outline – the outline provided by the original 25 Ways Not to Change Your Life post.

My philosophy of blogging is that I’d rather post less regularly and more usefully than knock out a filler post each week for the sake of it. So you will hear from me when I have something substantial to say that fits here rather than at How to Be Amazing or on someone else’s blog as a guest post.

I’m going to aim for a post every two to three weeks, but it may be less. I’ll have to see how things go.

Action Now

If you’ve enjoyed the How Not to Change Your Life series, if you’re serious about changing your life for the better, if you want more and better, and if having a print book that you can read (or an ebook) rather than a series of blog posts appeals to you, I can’t think of a reason why you wouldn’t sign up for my pre-release email list below. There’s no obligation, it costs nothing, and I’ll offer a substantial discount and preview material to whoever signs up. Do it now!

And if you still want to get weekly blog posts from me, there’s now only one way. Head over to How to Be Amazing and subscribe. You get immediate free access to some great resources, too.

No related posts.

That’s what I asked some of my personal development mailing list members last week.

Some, I know, are still thinking about it (if that’s you, here’s your reminder to email me with your answer). But here are some answers I received:

To be more comfortable around people. I’m always worried about what I’m saying or doing, if it’s the right thing or not, second-guessing what people think of me. It makes being round people tiring and stressful and, guessing again, makes me tiring and stressful to be around. It would be nice to be relaxed around people, rather than putting on a detached and rather fraught performance.

To get the best of here and now, to do things here and now, rather than live in daydreams. My mind is always at least half way somewhere else. Imaginary people and conversations. Dreams of schemes and projects I’ll do ‘one day’.

Better focus and concentration. My mind’s so used to the entertainment and ease of my dream world I find it hard to put the work in to achieve things in reality.

I would like to organise events and activities for my friends and the wider community that are popular and successful.

I’d like to be able to get up earlier in the morning and be decisive enough to get on and do all the things I want to fit in to my day.

I’d love to be able to inspire people to take action on the issues that I feel are important (like environmental sustainability and conservation) both at work and in my social life.

I’d like to be more popular and have more friends.

Among the many things I find interesting about these answers, three in particular stand out.

Common Themes

Firstly, there are some clear common themes between them. I’m sure others will come out as I receive more responses, but being more comfortable when interacting with other people, and being able to take action and achieve the things that are important to you, both recur.

If you think about it for a moment, these are connected goals. To be able to achieve anything significant, you need to impact other people, and you almost certainly need the help, support and involvement of other people (which is why I do things like asking questions of my mailing list – in fact, why I have a mailing list at all). You need to be able to come out of your head and bring your thoughts, dreams, ideals and plans into contact with real life (where they will inevitably be modified). It takes energy, commitment and focus.

photo credit: paul (dex)

Familiar Themes

For a while now, I’ve been asking people who join my mailing list, “What can I do for you?” I would send an email out the day after you joined, asking for your pain points, the issues that you’d love to get solved, and how that would make your life better.

I’ve had a wide variety of responses, but they seem to be converging lately on wanting to be more confident and at ease in the world, and wanting to be able to focus, pull things together and achieve more in life.

My email last week was a straw in the wind to see if changing the emphasis of that first email would work. Rather than focussing on “what problem do you have that you want solved so you can be ‘normal’?”, I’d like to reframe it as, “what change in your life would enable you to be much more than you are now?”.

One thing I’ve learned in my working life is that I’d much rather be involved in creating things than in fixing them. There’s a place for fixing, of course, for helping people who are in pain and in trouble. That will always be needed, and I love to see the difference it makes. But my ambition for the people I work with is higher than just restoring them to being “OK”. I’ve seen some of my clients go on to be amazing, and I want to see that happen more and more.

So here’s the official announcement: I’m changing the welcoming email. Instead of “What can I do to help you fix your pain?” it’s now “What can I do to help you transcend your limitations and be more than you ever thought you could be?”

Themes I Relate To

We humans are odd. We communicate, it seems, at a level that goes far beyond words. We walk around with signs on our foreheads telling other people about ourselves and how we expect to be treated and how we’re likely to react. And we read other people’s signs without even being consciously aware of it.

Without being at all mystical about it, I believe that if you communicate enough, people will be drawn to you who have a good fit with what you’re about, even if neither they nor you could fully explain what that is.

Which is my preface to saying, those responses that I got are about exactly the issues that I’ve been working on myself over the last few years. And I’m sure that’s got across to those lovely people who responded (who have been reading my stuff for a while now).

For most of my life I’ve been shy and socially awkward. Doing improv (which involves a lot of eye contact and connection with your fellow players) has recently helped me become more comfortable with making eye contact with people – which in turn has highlighted to me how much I avoided doing that.

And I’ve always been a dreamer (typing that inevitably starts the Eagles song “Take It to the Limit” playing in my head). Up until the past few years, I’ve seldom followed a project right through to completion or achieved much of anything, because, as one of my respondents put it, my mind was “so used to the entertainment and ease of my dream world I found it hard to put the work in to achieve things in reality”.

Because I’m working on those issues myself, and because I’m a couple of years ahead on them, and because I’ve developed a knack of coming up with practical approaches to help people shift their thoughts, feelings and behaviours, I feel confident that I can provide some useful stuff for other people who are still being held back from their best life by a lack of connection, confidence and sustained action-taking.

So, alongside my series on How Not to Change Your Life, which deals with things that hold you back, I’m going to start running a How to Be Amazing series, on things that will move you forward. They’ll more or less alternate.

We can become amazing together.

And if you haven’t told me yet what would help you to be amazing, email me (mikerm at hypno dot co dot nz) and tell me. The questions I asked were:

• What would make your life amazing? What  do you secretly wish you could do, but you’re not sure you can?
• Why is that important to you?
• And what’s stopping you?

UPDATE: This series will continue on my new website, How to Be Amazing.

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I wanted to get it out now, though, because cigarette tax is going up again in New Zealand on 1 January, and people will be looking around for advice on how to stop smoking.

I’m not setting out to make my fortune from those unfortunates. In fact, I’ve decided that the ebook part of the course, How to Stop Smoking, will not only be free but Creative Commons-licensed (that means I’m encouraging you to share it with as many people as possible). Whether you buy the course or not, the ebook gives plenty of good advice on how to stop smoking, regardless of which of the many smoking cessation methods you use. It covers the health effects of smoking, benefits of giving up smoking (with a timeline), how to deal with quit smoking withdrawal symptoms, how to quit smoking without gaining weight, motivation to quit smoking and a few other popular topics.

What’s in the Smokefree Life course

If you do buy the course, you’ll naturally get extras over and above the ebook: half a dozen of my professional hypnotherapy MP3s to help you shift your thoughts, feelings and behaviours. They cover motivation, dealing with inner resistance, taking care of your body, and of course the process of quitting smoking.

For that I’m charging $19 (NZD). I settled on that number as roughly the price of a couple of packs of cigarettes, or less, in most countries. (Actually I think the NZ price will be not much less than that for one pack, in just a few days’ time.) It’s not the full worth of the course, but I wanted to strike a balance between being affordable and costing just enough that people would take it seriously.

I’ve developed these stop-smoking hypnosis tracks, and the ebook, from several years of working with clients face-to-face to help them stop smoking. You may remember my interview with Sarah James on how giving up smoking was a significant personal development move for her.

In that time I’ve learned a lot – I’ll do a more in-depth post in the New Year, pointing back to some of my previous posts on smoking as well. Smoking is a very complex behaviour, and the more resources you have when you’re giving up smoking, the better the outcome – so I’ve set out to give you as many resources as possible while still keeping it simple and clear.

So if you are thinking of giving up smoking, or know someone else who is, here’s the ebook: How to Stop Smoking.

And please share this post on Facebook and Twitter, or by email with anyone who would benefit from it.

Thanks. And Merry Christmas, if you celebrate it – my wife and I are going up to see my mother and sister at their new place and have a nice relaxed Christmas day.

Technorati Tags: smoking, cigarette smoking, stop smoking, quit smoking, how to stop smoking, stop smoking resources

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I’m whatever the opposite is of the people who are into S&M.

I don’t go as far as my sister, who refers to any place that doesn’t have room service as “camping”. But my definition of “extreme sports” is, let’s just say, larger than most people’s (and includes actual camping).

I’m hardly unusual in this. Modern Western society is built increasingly around convenience. It seems we have only two speeds: Stressed and slumped. And the stress is used to justify the slump.

The problem is that between the health effects of the stress and the fact that we don’t walk any more (because cars are so convenient), we’ve created a whole new set of illnesses for ourselves that were almost unknown to our ancestors. Our ancestors had their own problems, but diabetes, for example, was rarely one of them. Between convenience foods and the convenience of not having to actually move very much, we’re creating the conditions of our own demise.

Challenge: the third way

I’m reading a book at the moment called Spark: The Revolutionary New Science of Exercise and the Brain. It’s fascinating stuff, and I’ll probably talk about it more later, but the key point I want to mention here is what the author (scientist John J. Ratey) has to say about challenge.

Muscles only grow when you exercise them to the point of challenge. And, it turns out, the same is true of brains. We make new brain cells all the time, but they only become permanent parts of our brains if there’s a use for them – if we’re challenging ourselves with new experiences that need to be remembered and learned from.

So there’s a third gear, if you like, a middle path, a third possible way of approaching life.

• We can be in stress mode and wearing out our resources faster than we can restore them, and that’s not ultimately sustainable (for an individual any more than for a world).
• We can be in comfort-and-convenience mode, making so little use of our natural abilities to move and create and problem-solve that they wither up and die.
• Or we can find appropriate challenges, which keep us stretching and growing and improving at a pace we can sustain and in a way that helps us feel in control.

And when we do that, it feels fantastic.

Stress is a leaking away of life. Too much comfort and convenience is an avoidance of life. Challenge is bringing ourselves to life. (Sid Savara recently talked about it as “choosing your own adventure“.)

I’m in challenge mode at the moment. For example, I’m doing the 100 Pushups program. I first started it in February, when I could do about 7 or 8 pushups in one go. I restarted in April, and again in October, when I could do 13 pushups. At my last test, I could do 38. I’m going to keep doing it until I reach at least the hundred.

Now, I’m not a muscular guy – very far from it indeed. But with the right structure and with perseverance, I’m going to be able to do 100 pushups. How cool is that?

I recently bought a kayak, too, and I’m enjoying that no end. It uses a lot of the same muscles as the pushups, happily.

The challenge of 2011

I’ve got big plans for 2011. At the moment I’m blogging twice a week, on average (once here and one guest post somewhere else). Next year I’d like to ramp that up so that I’m eventually blogging five times a week. I’ve started a new blog on how to publish your own book, and I’ll be creating a book out of that blog as a demonstration of what I teach there. I’d also like to get back to my fiction writing.

I’m planning to start a podcast, as well, interviewing experts on personal development and health about what they do.

I’m planning to continue implementing the advice in Steven Aitchison’s excellent How to Become an Advanced Early Riser program, which has already created space in my life for exercise (meaning that I feel more energetic even though I’m now getting less sleep). That should create the time and energy for the blogging and my other plans. I haven’t even mentioned the biggest one yet, because I’m not sure what words to use to talk about it at this stage.

I’m doing an improv class in 2011, which is as scary as anything I’ve ever done but feels completely like the right thing to do. I’m probably going to join Toastmasters and do their public speaking program (my wife wants to do that with me), and I already have a speaking gig booked at the 2011 conference of the hypnotherapists’ association I belong to.

It’s going to be an interesting year.

Action Now

So now it’s over to you.

Are you in stress mode? (If so, I recommend my free Simple Stress Management Techniques course to help get you out of it, so you can shift into challenge mode instead.)

Are you in comfort-and-convenience mode? Bored with it yet? (You might try my short, free 7 Steps to Effective Personal Change course to get you out of your rut. Because, frankly, when you’re in a rut, you need to change something – anything – to get you moving again.)

Are you wanting a challenge but feeling nervous, unresourceful, resistant, unmotivated, not sure how to start? (Check out Stop Procrastinating, Start Succeeding to build the strengths you need to succeed at starting – and finishing – your challenge.)

Or are you rocking your own challenges already?

I’d love to hear what challenge you already have or want to start in 2011. Leave a comment and share it with us. And please share this post with others through email, Twitter or Facebook, so they can also start moving towards challenging themselves to life.

Technorati Tags: challenge, stress, convenience, goals, motivation, personal change

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Today I launched it – which argues that I’ve learned something from it myself, at least.

My approach to the issue of procrastination is this. It’s not about productivity or what you “should” be doing or Getting Things Done for the sake of it. Overcoming procrastination is about getting past what is keeping you from living your best life, from succeeding at things that would really mean a lot to you (and quite likely to the world around you).

It hurts me when I see wonderful people with unfulfilled potential because of fear, helplessness, perfectionism, a failure of imagination or inadequate motivation. I’ve seen what people like that (people like you) can do when they are freed from those things, and I want that for everyone, or at least everyone who wants to go after it.

There are simple techniques and attitude shifts and ways of paying attention that can free you from those struggles and release you into amazing action. I’ve shared some of them here and in my recent guest posts elsewhere. In fact, the ebook which is at the heart of Stop Procrastinating, Start Succeeding is built on those posts, though with more focus, specific exercises and appropriate edits, of course. (It also comes with 20 bonus audio tracks, both “talkthroughs” of a dozen of the techniques and complete hypnotherapy tracks to help make shifting your thoughts, feelings and behaviour easy and natural.)

It’s Action Time

Everything I do here is about personal development, about living a life more glorious, about taking up the challenges of life and enjoying them and emerging stronger and more energised. I’m going to talk more about that next week, and about future directions.

But today I want to say this. When you read advice from people who’ve been successful – and I do that a lot – one theme comes out over and over. The difference between the successful people and the unsuccessful people, the difference between when they were unsuccessful and when they became successful – it’s not luck, or even talent. It’s about taking action. Taking the right action, with the right support, at the right time, but above all, consistently and persistently taking action.

You have more chance of being hit by a meteor than of winning a major lottery prize, and most people who win lottery prizes end up in the same financial situation a few years later anyway. Stop waiting for success to drop on you out of the sky. It won’t happen by accident. It won’t even happen by “attracting” it with your thoughts. It’ll only  be yours when you go out and get it.

I believe my Stop Procrastinating, Start Succeeding course can help you do that. I’m not just talking about financial success here, either – far from it. (Financial success by itself is a disaster, as many celebrities have demonstrated.) I’m talking about the kind of success that comes when you develop courage, resourcefulness, commitment, motivation, a habit of action, creativity, and an attitude of learning and development.

I didn’t pick that list at random – it’s based on the chapter headings in my course. The course starts with a self-test which directs your attention to the ones you need the most, and then a series of emails coaches you, in small, achievable steps, through the parts of the material which help with those things.

If you’re feeling like you’re in a rut and it’s time to get out, but you’re not sure how, pick up Stop Procrastinating, Start Succeeding and start reaching for your dreams again.

Technorati Tags: procrastination, stop procrastinating, procrastination course, success

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It was his response to people who made the accusation, “90% of science fiction is crud”.

Sturgeon’s reply – his Law – was, “90% of everything is crud”.

Nearly 60 years later, 90% is probably an underestimate. The Internet makes it far easier than ever before to publish anything you want – and that means that there’s an awful lot of crud out there.

There is some good stuff too, though – what I’m calling “caviar”, because caviar comes from sturgeons. (I’m here all week, folks.)

photo credit: geishaboy500

Seems to me that there’s a big need to filter the crud from the caviar.

I’m thinking about this because I signed up recently to a mailing list for personal development affiliates. (Affiliate marketing works like this: Alice produces something, and Bob, in return for a cut of the sale, directs people who listen to him – but not yet to Alice – across to Alice’s website to buy it. Alice is happy to share the proceeds, because without Bob she wouldn’t have got those sales. As long as Alice’s thing is good, Bob’s people are grateful to both Alice and Bob, and everyone wins.)

My hope was that I would see some caviar, but I was disappointed. I got what was obviously an old automated email promoting a site that, when I went and looked at it, was clearly not doing much business any more (and I confirmed this with the site owner). After a couple more emails with kindergarten-level material on how to promote things online, I unsubscribed because of lack of caviar.

So I thought, well, it looks like there’s a gap here. I’m pretty aware of what’s going on in the personal development space, and I don’t know where all the caviar is. Why don’t I ask if anyone else knows?

Where’s the caviar?

So I’m asking. Is there an existing site, mailing list, blog or what-have-you that is deliberately and effectively concentrating all the personal development caviar? That is giving honest, unbiased reviews of online personal development products so you can tell which ones are not crud?

If there isn’t such a place, would you like one?

Because I like doing reviews, and I think I’d be good at it. I’m a former book editor and technical writer, so I know good, effective writing from bad (and can give a point-by-point critique that may even help the writers improve their stuff).

I’ve done enough real personal development myself that I can spot truly useful advice when I see it.

And I’d really, really like the people who read my blog and are on my mailing list and follow me on Twitter to know about more personal development material that is worth their while.

So: take action now.

• If you know of someone that’s collecting the caviar already, post a link in the comments to this post, or email it to me, and I’ll check it out. (If you’re reading this by email, that comments link won’t work, but you can reply to the email and I’ll get it.)
• If you want to encourage me to collect the caviar, same story – say so in the comments to this post, by email, or on Twitter.
• If you think you’ve made some caviar or want to point some out, email me about doing a review.

And please retweet this post, email it to a friend or share it on Facebook – I want to hear from as many people as possible.

Thanks!

No related posts.

Many years ago, there was a young Chinese boy who was fortunate enough to be given an apprenticeship to a famous jade master.

On his first morning, as he hurried to the old man’s house, the boy looked forward eagerly to his day. “Today,” he said to himself, “the master will begin to teach me about jade.”

But when he got there, the master handed him a pebble of jade to hold and began to talk about everything under the sun – except jade.

The boy was disappointed, but as he walked home he consoled himself. “The master was just getting to know me today,” he thought. “Surely tomorrow he will begin to teach me about jade.”

But the next day came, and it was just the same as the first. The old man gave the boy a pebble of jade to hold, and began to talk about all of the Ten Thousand Things – except jade.

Day after day this happened. The boy began to despair. “Did I fail some test?” he thought. “Does the master not want me as his apprentice? Will he ever begin to teach me about jade?”

He was a well-brought-up Chinese boy and had been taught not to question his elders, but one day, as he trudged to the master’s house, he had had enough. “Today,” he thought, “I will ask the master when he will begin to teach me about jade.”

But when he arrived at the house, before he could say anything, the master, as his custom was, put a pebble into the boy’s hand. And without thinking, the apprentice cried out, “Master, that’s not jade!”

photo credit: avlxyz

So what did I learn last week? (You may be wondering.)

Well, when I told that story to myself, I always thought I was the master. You see, people come to me for help with very mundane, ordinary things. They eat too much, or they smoke, or bite their nails. They’re not confident, or they’re stressed and worried. And I help them with those things, but at the same time I give them simple tools and resources and techniques that, if they stick with them and use them as I suggest, will help to turn them into stronger, more integrated and happier people over the long-term. For example, I recently posted a video interview with one of my clients who came to me to give up smoking and ended up becoming kinder to herself, a better mother to her boys, and someone who could start to live out her creative dreams with confidence and enthusiasm.

I’m like the master who had begun to teach about jade without the apprentice even realising it.

Or so I thought.

Last week, I realised I’m the apprentice.

You see, I’ve been struggling to figure out how to present what I do so that people will want to buy it from me (so that, in turn, I can do it all the time). I was expecting that the marketing courses I’ve taken would tell me, like the jade master, all about how to do this. I was expecting knowledge at the level of words.

But through a half-hour talk with Catherine Caine, whose ability to ask just the right questions borders on the uncanny, I realised what I’d been feeling all along, what the pebbles were that I’d been given to hold. What I really want to do is help people – ordinary people, people with kids and mortgages and jobs who do the dishes and mow the lawn – to find depth and meaning and resourcefulness in their ordinary lives, to live skillfully, to make the world a noticeably better place for them and those around them to live in. That’s the work I love. That’s jade. It starts with addressing the obvious symptoms: smoking, overeating, various kinds of “bad habits” and self-harming behaviours. But the point is not to stop doing those things, but to become the kind of person who doesn’t need to do those things any more.

So what I’m going to start doing is talking about what I do in those terms. I’m not sure about the exact language yet, and what I’ll end up calling what I do, but I’m going to give up pretending that I’m here to offer the quick fix and then slipping the things that people are really missing, the meaning and the self-belief and the integration of all the parts of themselves, in through the side door.

That’s not jade!

No related posts.

Lately, I’ve been working on what was originally a course on emotions. (It’s now split into a free course on Simple Stress Management Techniques and another, yet-to-be-announced product). Ever since I’ve been working on it, I’ve been dealing with emotional issues in my own life. I thought I’d tell you a little about how that’s been going.

The Case of the Manic Mini

photo credit: christian.senger
I was driving along the road, a little distracted, when a car coming in the other direction cheekily turned across in front of me to go into a side road. Now, I have a bad habit when people do that. I don’t slow down much, so that I can make the point “You really didn’t have room to do that maneuver, hold back a bit in future”. I don’t actually ram into them, of course, or do anything unsafe, but I don’t slow all the way down either.

Next thing I know, out of the same side road, turning across in front of me to go in the other direction, comes a Mini – which definitely shouldn’t have tried that move. I stamped on the brake and swerved and barely missed it.

It shook me up. I’ve been in a few car crashes over the years (most of them not my fault, by the way), and a near miss like that scares me. At one time it would have taken me a good hour or so to calm myself down.

I used a technique that’s in my Simple Stress Management Techniques course – the Welcoming Practice – and by the time I reached my destination a couple of minutes later I was fine.

The Case of the Depressing Day Job

I don’t yet do hypnotherapy full time, though I’m working hard on changing that. I have a day job to help pay the bills. It’s not been going well just lately, and I found for a while that when I was driving to work I’d start feeling down.

When the depressed feeling started, I’d immediately apply a technique of my own invention, which I call the Gut Bump. (It’s in the Simple Stress Management Techniques course.) It’s an immediate mood-lifting technique which involves turning the sinking feeling in your stomach upside-down with a bit of imagination.

It dealt with the sad feelings quite effectively. And I didn’t have to eat, drink or otherwise consume any substances to feel better.

I’ve been using a few other techniques to deal with the stress of the day job, too – the Welcoming Practice and anchoring, for example. They’re in the course too.

The Case of the Youthful Screw-Up

I’ve alluded a few times to a bad experience I had in my early 20s – 20 years ago as I write, in fact. It was largely down to me being clueless, though the fact that the other people around me were also clueless prolonged it and helped it to get worse than it otherwise would have. I won’t go into the grim details, but suffice to say that I became very stressed and very depressed and suffered significant emotional losses. Some things that were very important to me turned out to be impossible, and I took that very hard.

I’ve been aware at various times over the years that some of that hurt had remained with me, and though I’d told myself repeatedly that it was time to get past it, I never completely did.

Until this year. A couple of months back I accidentally came across a way that I could get back in touch with someone peripherally involved in the original mess. At the time, I didn’t feel I could do that, which reminded me that there was still a part of me holding on to the old pain.

One night, I was thinking about the situation and decided to use a trauma-releasing technique which the famous stage hypnotist Andrew Newton recently invented. I learned it from him earlier this year, so it was fresh in my mind. (It’ll be in the advanced version of the course.)

It took two repetitions, maybe 10 minutes or a little more. And after 20 years, the trauma was finally dealt with.

I contacted my old friend.

This Stuff Works

I could say more about how I’ve been dealing with stress, calming myself down, and generally navigating choppy emotional waters lately, but I think three stories are enough to make the point. This stuff works. I don’t just teach it, I use it myself on a near-daily basis.

Now it’s your turn.

Technorati Tags: stress, stress management, personal development, anxiety, depression, emotions, hypnotherapy

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What I actually asked them was:

1. What would you change about your emotional life if you could?
2. What is your ideal outcome if you had a solution for question 1? Put another way: What benefit would you see in your life from being able to make that change?

The results are in (thanks to all who responded), and I’d like to share them with you now. I’ve edited them slightly for spelling and grammar, but otherwise what I quote below are the respondents’ own words.

The responses fell into two clear groups – what I call the “confidence” group and the “stress” group. Let’s look at them separately.

Confidence

Confidence was about, as one person put it, “fear of failure, looking foolish”, or as another said, “reacting to what I perceive to be people’s judgement on me” (his or her emphasis). Another said, “I wish I could always believe in myself, and be strong and true to myself, and not doubt my beliefs, and not succumb to other people’s beliefs and expectations of me.” That’s well put (and a good goal).

The reasons for wanting confidence went like this:

• I could then embark on a new consulting career, present my product, talk confidently and convincingly to an audience.
• I could relax a lot more in other people’s company and stop worrying about going out.
• [I would] feel safe and secure in the knowledge that I am worthy.

The good news: I was already planning to include one of my best hypnotherapy tracks, Confident Person, as a bonus for the first 100 people to sign up for the Emotional Circuit-Breaker Toolkit. I’d been wondering, though, whether it should just be part of the kit. Now I know: It should be, and it shall be, included for everyone.

I’ll think of something else to give as a bonus to the early adopters.

Stress

Stress is obviously a big part of why our emotions get stirred up in the first place, and it’s a fixture of most modern lives. Stress management is a huge part of what I help people with, too. So it’s no surprise to read responses like this:

• I would like to be less stressed, I would like to be able to go to bed at night, wake in the morning NOT having thoughts of work as the last and first things in my head.
• Sometimes when stress and tiredness takes over motivation and good decisions go out the window. Goals suffer, likewise health & relationships.
• I’d be able to let go of things and not have them eat away at me.

People are also pretty clear on the benefits of dealing with stress:

• Much more “ho hum” about work, making it more of ‘working at work time’ – not having it part of my life 24/7
• Less stress, more energy, better balance, structure & organisation, improved health and relationships and goal attainment.
• More present in where I am, better able to relax and to sleep

The good news: Stress management, especially by letting go, has been at the heart of the Toolkit from the start. There’s plenty of material on relaxation, as well. One thing I will consider adding is a specific sleep track, since a couple of people mentioned sleep – I already have one, so I can just include it in the list of bonuses.

I’ve been going back and forth on whether to include a module on stress specifically (what it is and how it works), or whether to make that a separate free course that’s introductory to the Emotional Circuit-Breaker Toolkit. I still haven’t decided, so if you have a strong opinion, let me know in the comments.

What Else?

There was one other response, slightly cryptic: “eating instead of acting”. I take this to mean that this is something the respondent is doing and wants to stop, but I’m going to follow that one up to make sure.

It raises the question: Should I say some things specifically about the means that people often use to manage their emotions – eating, smoking, drinking etc.? I do cover these in my book, Changing Health Behaviours, so I don’t want to just repeat the information there, but I do want to go over them at least briefly. Again, your opinions in the comments, thanks.

And finally, what else am I already planning to include (and should I leave some of it out or make it into separate products? Again, I welcome your opinions in the comments.) In summary, I’m planning:

• Techniques to deal with past emotional hurts and continuing emotional pain
• Quick techniques to break the immediate emotional “circuits” that carry you round and round the same emotional territory
• Deep techniques to change your underlying emotional patterns and build a positive emotional life
• Specific techniques for anger, sadness and fear (including phobias)

I’ve had one comment that the amount of material in the Toolkit is “overwhelming”, and I’m also conscious of the price point – I don’t want to make a Rolls-Royce for a Mazda audience. How would you feel about a series or a set of related products, since I’ll be encouraging you to pick and choose what you need anyway?

Your Mission

Here are my follow-up questions. Answers to any or all of these in the comments, please:

1. If you didn’t answer my survey (or even if you did and have thought of something else), what are your answers to the questions? (Those questions again: What would you change about your emotional life if you could, and what would be your main benefit from doing so?)
2. Would you like a stress module in the Emotional Circuit-Breaker Toolkit, or do you see that as a separate thing? (No extra charge in either case, it will either be a bonus or a freebie.)
3. What about material on the common stress management techniques of eating, drinking and smoking? How much do you want me to say?
4. Anything that I’ve put in that you want me to leave out, or make into a separate product?

The best comment this week will win something. Exactly what will depend on the comment, since I want it to be something you’d like, but it will be something I’ve made.

Have at it!

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My main hesitation has been that it looks like it could easily be a time sink. I know myself; I know that there are times I’ll give in to distraction rather than do things I actually need to do to achieve my goals, and it’s easier just to remove the temptation.

What I’ve done, though, is set up my Twitter account in such a way that it won’t distract me, because it’s all behind the scenes. Let me explain.

I’m not planning to be actually “on” Twitter. I’m not going to be following anyone (so if you follow me and I don’t follow you back, it’s not personal; that’s how it will be with everyone). And I will rarely be tweeting anything directly. Instead, I’ve set up my Twitter feed to be a convenient aggregation, for other people who do use Twitter, of several different things I do.

Firstly, I often bookmark things in the Delicious social bookmarking site, and many of those things would be of interest to the people on my mailing list or who follow my blog. At the same time, I don’t have time to blog about all of them, and, since my blog feeds directly into the mailing list, I don’t want to fill people’s inboxes with too much stuff.

Delicious have a feature that makes it easy to tweet new bookmarks, so I’ve set that up. Now when I bookmark something about health or personal development, I’ll take a couple of extra clicks to send it into my Twitter stream.

Another source of tweets will be my Facebook page for Hypno NZ. I mostly use my Facebook account to stay in touch with friends and family (so if I don’t know you and you send a friend request, I’m likely to ignore it), but for things that are likely to be of interest to my subscribers but are too short to bother with an email to the list or a blog post, I’ll put them on the Hypno NZ page. If you’re on Facebook and become a fan of Hypno NZ, all the status updates there will flow into your update feed.

I’m also feeding my blog posts into both the Hypno NZ Facebook page and Twitter (using Twitterfeed), and to my LinkedIn profile (which I’ve also linked to my Twitter account, so I can do status updates in either LinkedIn or Twitter and have them appear in the other if I choose).

I’ve linked my YouTube account and my Goodreads account to Twitter as well (hey, I’m in the top 50 reviewers on Goodreads for New Zealand, I did not know that). Because I read a lot of genre fiction as well as nonfiction, not all of the reviews that come through from Goodreads are necessarily going to be of interest to the people who follow me, but it’s all or nothing with that particular connection.

Finally, when I send emails out to my list, I can choose to tweet them as well from within MailChimp.

So, if you choose to follow me (@MRMHypno) on Twitter, you’ll get a mashup of at least seven sources: Delicious bookmarks, Hypno NZ on Facebook, my blog, LinkedIn, YouTube, Goodreads and my mailing list. I realize that actually participating in a social network is a key element of the whole “social networking” idea, and maybe when I have more time I’ll do that, but for now, Twitter is a one-way broadcast channel for me.

If you want to talk to me, you can leave a comment on my blog or email me, and if you’re not selling something (or otherwise spamming) and are reasonably coherent, I’ll respond. In fact, I welcome suggestions (from real people, not PR professionals) on topics I might blog about that relate to my core theme: Using your mind to improve your life and health.

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