Dec 21

Living Skillfully Best of 2010, Part 2

Posted in Reviews

(This and yesterday’s post were going to be one big post, but there were technical issues I messed it up. I won’t usually post this often, or this briefly for that matter.)

Continuing our Best of 2010 from yesterday, here are what I consider my 5 best posts on this blog (that is, not guest posts) this year, and the 5 resources I discovered in 2010 that I most recommend.

Favourite Posts

Not in order of favourite-ness, since that would change depending when you asked me. In reverse chronological order.

  1. How to Make Hard Things Easier (part of Stop Procrastinating, Start Succeeding). There’s the fluffy pink unicorns approach – and then there’s the approach that will actually get you somewhere and turn your unclimbable mountains into sand dunes.
  2. The Paramount Pictures Technique for Crushing Fear Like a Beer Can (also part of Stop Procrastinating, Start Succeeding). Blow it up big, then crush it down small.
  3. How to Get Unstuck, my interview with my wonderful client Sarah about how stopping smoking became a personal development journey for her.
  4. 10 Ways to Cultivate a Positive Habit, based on the book by Robert Emmons that I’ll talk about in a minute.
  5. Getting Things Undone, my Lent post about starting by removing stuff.

They’re all achievement-oriented, aren’t they? Hmmm.

Favourite Resources

You can see all my recommended resources at my resources page, but here are 5 that I particularly like and that I discovered in 2010. (Affiliate links.)

  1. Spark: The Revolutionary New Science of Exercise and the Brain, by John J. Ratey. I just finished this book, which is about one of the most powerful practices for improving our lives – exercise. It improves your mood and your brain function, not just your heart and lungs.
  2. How to Become an Advanced Early Riser, by Steven Aitchison. If there’s one resource I credit with preparing me for a great 2011, it’s this guide to getting up early in order to do practices that give you more time and energy.
  3. The World’s Healthiest Foods, an Essential Guide to the Healthiest Way of Eating, by George Mateljan. I can’t praise this book highly enough – 800 pages of well-researched advice on the 100 most nutritious foods in the world, including how to choose them in the shop, how to store them, how to cook them, quick-t0-prepare recipes, and what health benefits they’re likely to have. And it’s $25 on Amazon. Everyone who’s got it on my recommendation has thanked me, often several times.
  4. Thanks! How the new science of gratitude can make you happier, by Robert Emmons. The basis for the post I mentioned above on ways to cultivate a positive habit, but there’s far more than that in this little book. Gratitude is another one of the most powerful practices for improving our lives, and a little goes a long way.
  5. A Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction Workbook, by Bob Stahl and Elisha Goldstein. A good, useful, practical summary of one of the most effective mind-body techniques there is for stress reduction and consequent health improvement.

So there’s some stuff you can read today and some resources for the New Year. Next week, all going well, I’ll be talking about New Year challenges, so stay tuned.

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Oct 21

Review: Steven Aitchison’s Advanced Early Riser program

Posted in Reviews

This is the first of what I hope will be many reviews of personal development products (if you have one you want me to review, here are the guidelines). I’ve added it to my newly improved resources page, which now has many more links and is categorised for easy reference.

To get the disclaimers over with immediately, I have written for Steven Aitchison’s blog (and will again), and the links to his product in this review are affiliate links (meaning that if you follow the link and buy this or one of his other products, he gives me a commission). I got the product at a discount because I’m on his mailing list and bought early, but I did pay for it.

Why I Bought It

The idea behind How to Become an Advanced Early Riser: Getting 5 Hours of Sleep and Feeling Fantastic is that you can learn to get better-quality sleep, which means you can get up earlier, have energy throughout the day and achieve more in life.

I could definitely do with all of that. I’ve also been looking for a personal development challenge that I can write about on the blog, as I think that makes interesting reading. This is a challenge that’s relevant to me, that I believe I can do, and that falls into my interest area of using your thinking and behaviour changes to change your life for the better.

I’ve started waking up slightly earlier the last couple of months (at 5:45 instead of 6:00), and I have found that I feel less sleepy during the day when I do that rather than sleeping in (at the weekends, too). So I was already predisposed to take Steven Aitchison’s approach seriously, though I was somewhat skeptical about the idea that people in general can reduce down to 6 hours or less of sleep and that this is more healthy than sleeping for longer. His marketing materials cite research that people who sleep less than 6 hours a night tend to live longer, but (as he does point out inside the course), this doesn’t establish a cause-and-effect relationship.

The course is very reasonably priced, though, at $25 USD (and I got it at a 40% discount because I’m on his mailing list and bought before it was released to the general public). That falls well into the “Why not?” zone for me, provided that I have a specific need or use for the product, and as I already mentioned, I do.

If I were creating this product, incidentally, I probably would have titled it “How to sleep better and have more time and energy to do the things you value”. Getting 5 hours of sleep is a feature. Getting up early is a feature. Feeling fantastic is a benefit, but a vague one. The benefits I was interested in was having more energy and time, and that’s important because there are things I want to achieve with that time and energy.

What’s In the Box

There are two parts to the program, both downloaded from the Internet (in case you thought I was being literal about the box).

First, there are three PDF files, Ditch The Alarm Clock (a 19-page ebook Steven wrote earlier, about how to train yourself to wake up without using an alarm), the Early Riser file itself (66 pages), and a Success Log (basically an 8-page workbook). These come to 10 megabytes. There’s also a link to another download of 100 megabytes of audio.

There are four audio tracks: A guided relaxation meditation with a musical backing, the music track by itself, a second inspirational guided meditation to music by Brian Eno, and a high-energy track for exercising to.

The Forest Walk guided meditation uses a lot of visual imagery, and because I’m not a very visual person I don’t find that as useful as other people may. I was pleasantly relaxed by the end of the 23 minutes, but personally, I found myself much more relaxed after the 15-minute track with the Eno music. That track (Intention Manifestation) is a tiny bit New-Agey in its wording, which I’m OK with but it isn’t my preference. It incorporates a progressive relaxation script, which is probably why I found it more relaxing than the other.

I haven’t used the Warm Heart piano music track by itself (Steven suggests using it to fall asleep to) because it doesn’t really grab me that much musically and I don’t feel the need of music to help me fall asleep.

The high-energy track uses binaural beats, which I am personally a bit skeptical about. The theory is that by putting different sounds into your two ears using stereo headphones, it’s possible to actually shift the brain’s rhythms, and from all I’ve read that can be done, but it’s an area that’s rife with overstated claims of effectiveness with minimal scientific backing. It shouldn’t do any harm, though, and it’s a bouncy track which should be good for exercise (I haven’t actually exercised to it yet).

So, as you can tell, I’m not wildly enthusiastic about the audio component, but it’s not the heart of the material anyway. It’s OK, and other people may well like it more than I do. As someone who makes audio tracks myself, I’m unusually critical.

The PDF files do have some typographical errors (my former-book-editor reflex cut in and I sent a list of them to Steven, so by the time you read this there will probably be fewer). The writing style is simple and accessible, though he does tend to run his sentences on and leave the reader mentally breathless, and the design is clean and attractive.
Advanced Early Riser

What I Learned

I already know a reasonable amount about sleep. In fact, my own Sleeper’s Checklist contains a lot of the same items that Steven mentions, so most of the actual information was not new to me – which is about what I expected. The value of something like this, though, is the implementation, not the information. Steven makes it easy to absorb, explains it well, and accompanies it with specific, achievable exercises.

He emphasises taking a gradual approach, since this is a program of lifestyle change. If you do it well, he says, you’ll use it for the rest of your life, whereas if you try to implement it all at once you’ll get discouraged and lose the benefit. That’s good advice.

Speaking of benefits, Steven has a good exercise to go through to think about what you’ll do with the extra time you get by sleeping less. It’s well integrated into the program and he returns to it later, with good advice on how to use the time effectively to work towards your goals. This makes excellent sense as an approach to behaviour change and motivation.

For myself, I’ve been trying to think of a way to fit exercise into my daily routine, but just haven’t come up with one. In the evenings just doesn’t seem to work for me. One of Steven’s suggestions is to do exercise in the morning, so I my first step has been shifting my waking time back by another 15 or 20 minutes and using that time to exercise. By using some of the other tips (which I’m not going to reveal here – you’ll have to buy the product), I should be able to lift my energy and make more use of the time I already have to work on things that are important to me.

Since I bought the program last week, I’ve been applying this. I have woken up early (before the alarm) every day but one, and I’m confident I can do it daily with some more practice. I have been using the extra time to exercise and feel very much better for it. (I’ve restarted my stalled attempt to do the 100 Pushups challenge.) My mind is clearer and I haven’t noticed being more tired – in fact, I feel less tired.

Even if getting a sounder sleep, waking 20 minutes earlier and adding some exercise (and energy) to my day was all I achieved, I would feel well satisfied with myself and consider it excellent value for money. Steven certainly indicates – from his own experience over 15 years – that more is possible, though, and it will be interesting to see how far I can get.

I’m actually more interested in being able to stay awake later than I am in getting up very much earlier, since I already get up earlier than most people but go to bed very early as well. So far, I’m still getting tired very early at night, but we’ll see what happens with more practice. I’m falling asleep more quickly, though, so that’s good.

I’ll report back later in the year on how the challenge is going. In the meantime, I recommend you get your own copy of the Advanced Early Riser program ($25 USD).

Summary: What I think of the Advanced Early Riser

Key: 1 Terrible 2 Poor 3 Average 4 Good 5 Couldn’t be better
Audio component:
Music 3
Spoken word (audio quality) 3
Script 3
Overall 3

PDFs:
Editing 2
Design 4
Content 4
Implementability 4.5

Overall Usefulness 4.5
Overall Value 4.5

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Jun 22

Survey Results, Follow-Up Questions and a Mystery Prize

Posted in Announcements

Last week I surveyed selected members of my mailing list about what they wanted to see in the Emotional Circuit-Breaker Toolkit, because I want to make it really useful. (It’s already been useful for me – and I’ll talk about that some more soon – but I want it to be useful for you.)

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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