photo credit: lilit

Have you locked your keys in your car?

Not once but twice?

There are some mistakes that we make in life over and over again, causing us to feel unnecessary grief.

And the cause…?

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Ever got that sense that your job just wasn’t working for you?

Felt like you were working in your job and the return on your time and effort was hardly worth it?

Have you almost got to the point of why do I make the effort other than to scrape in enough cash to sustain my existence?

Last week I was sending myself into this spiraling pit of mental slaughter. However I took hold of it, asked what I could do about it and now I’m a happy chap at work.

Start Enjoying your Job Now

First remember that how you feel at work is determined by what you are focusing on.

I noticed that when I was dead bored, felt like I was just wasting my time, looking at the clock to see when I could leave I was focusing on one particular thought. This is not helping me learn about life coaching and improving peoples lives (What I’m really excited about right now).

With this being my overriding thought it was no wonder that being at work felt like a waste of time, it was to that thought.

So to change how I feel at work I change how I think.

Forget the negative, focus on the positive things that you can take from being at your job.

What if there was something you could enjoy about every situation at work?

Choose some rules based entirely on your internal focus that would allow you to enjoy every situation of work.

I choose two rules. One was that whenever I was communicating with another individual I would take the opportunity to learn as much as I could about human behaviour and practice my coaching skills. This is incredibly aligned with my goal of exploring life coaching so it actually excites me to go to work.

Also this rule is very broad so it allows me to enjoy most of my work situations easily.

The second rule is about handling the times when I’m not interacting with humans, that being when I’m creating software. Here I choose to focus on being incredibly efficient and produce software excellence because I know I enjoy the challenge of holding myself to a high standard.

Now in two rules I knew how I could enjoy each moment at work.

The next day at work was amazing. My experience had totally changed and I would have to say I truly enjoyed it.

This is the power of considering what you focus on.

What you focus on changes your life.

The Structured Approach

1. Make a list of all the situations/activities you experience at work, group similar ones together if you like under category headings.

2. Pick one activity and decide what you can enjoy about it, what you can choose to focus on to enjoy it. Write down what your focus will be when in that activity.

3. See if that focus can be applied to as many of your other activities as possible. You want to have a simple set of focuses so you can easily remember them. I found I could set just two focuses and that would satisfy all my work situations.

4. Repeat until you know a way to enjoy every activity.

Remember your happiness comes entirely from within.

If you have more than 3 focuses you should try to make more general rules to make it easier on yourself. Otherwise try implementing each new focus one day at a time. Whenever you feel bad at work, remember what you could focus on to enjoy it right now.

To make this even more real pick a situation, close your eyes and imagine how you would act in that situation given your enjoyable focus. You should feel a sense of enjoyment and maybe even a smile will crack on your face.

Life can be wonderful, you just have to choose it to be so.

Ever felt stuck when trying to do the right thing? I know I have.

Especially so when trying to do the right thing thing for other people.

In trying to define what the right thing to do is you can end up heading down the dark rabbit hole until you start thinking about the purpose of being alive.

While trying to find answers to these questions that are beyond most of our realms of experience we become paralysed.

After all, if there is only one right thing to do, everything else we do is probably the wrong thing.

Living a life ruled by these thoughts leads to a fear of doing anything.

How could we be so arrogant in assuming we know what is the right thing to do for a person.

So comes the realisation that, how can I know what the right thing to do is even for me?

Freedom comes when you you adopt a different viewpoint, a new set of thoughts.

Rather than assuming you know everything, assume you know very little and are learning about the world.

Instead of freaking out over doing the right thing, you try something and learn about life through it.

No longer are you ruled by the fear of mistakes and life becomes full of opportunities to learn.

Some people may choose to feel hurt by the actions you try, that is their choice.

Trying with the best of intentions is a valid path if it is done with awareness and a focus of experience/learning. In this way you increase your knowledge of life and do not become powerless.

Your ability to live in the world increases. Maybe we will never know what the right thing to do is, but at the least we can begin to learn what the outcomes of our actions are.

photo credit: Tambako the Jaguar

Stand and receive.

Once again my martial art teacher reiterates my inability to perform even the most basic techniques of our art.

An hour has passed and I am still being verbally beaten into the ground, have I been training for 3 years or is this my first day again?

Yet I do not feel hurt, insulted or like I am being ill-treated. Rather I feel happy and grateful that someone is taking the time to enforce discipline and be brutally honest with me.

With no reaction inside me I take everything being said and look to improve my actions.

This is what it is like in a world where the highest emphasis is placed on learning.

Through the love and care of those around us we can work on improving ourselves. But only if we have already dropped any feeling that we are more than the insignificant dirt on the ground.

I look forward to learning from the brutal challenges of tomorrow.

You have no reputation that you own.

“It’s my reputation!”

This exclamation felt really weird when I heard it. A friend had been slandered and was preparing corrective action. Their cry didn’t sound like the real them, more like the words of someone else. Indeed it was probably another of society’s hand me downs.

But this particular statement stuck with me and felt really strange. What was this thing that had been wounded and required retribution?

I started asking myself questions.

I wonder what my reputation is?

Do I have a reputation?

Everybody has a reputation whether good or bad. What defines a reputation?

Well a reputation is a concept we have of ourselves. No wait! Our reputation is what other people think of us.

If this is true then we never own a reputation, we can never go on a holy crusade to reclaim it.

Our reputation is always subject to the whims and fancies of everyone else. In fact, because everyone has a different reputation of us (did you read that as representation…?) there is no coherent definition of our reputation that we can ever know.

If you choose to care about your reputation then you will forever be chasing the people who run off and try to burn the scarecrow you hide behind.

I understand the social/economical/etc. consequences of a bad reputation and as such you can take what action you see fit to make it fit reality.

But as long as any shred of your happiness relies upon a concept held in the minds of other people you will suffer and happiness will escape you.

So if I have your reputation allow me to put it on a piece of paper and give it to you. This way you will know that reputation was never yours to begin with and you are holding onto something outside of yourself.

Without a doubt awareness of my thoughts and emotions has been the fundamental key to improving my life.

To change and improve your life you must be aware of the causes that create your life. These are the thoughts and emotional reactions that spring forth in each moment of your life.

In seeing and ultimately breaking free of your thoughts and emotions you develop the ability to craft your own life in the way you think is best.

The seeing of thoughts and emotions I call awareness.

Developing Your Awareness

To improve your life you must first improve your awareness. Indeed it is a life long effort to consistently sharpen this tool.

The use of this tool is directional focus. While some of your attention is turned to the outside world you must always retain some focus on the regions of the mind and emotions (head and body).

Through continued efforts to keep a focus on these areas, the use of awareness allows you to become conscious of the forces that direct your actions and consequently your life. You will see the thought that makes you defend your pride and feel the emotion that makes you run and hide.

To build your ability to both observe deeply and consistently requires effort to both constantly make use of awareness and to believe that there is always more to see, hence increasing its penetration and intensity.

There are two useful analogies for describing the use and improvement of awareness.

The first is that of a torch. Turning on the torch enables you to see things, focusing it on your thoughts allows you to see yourself. To see more of yourself you have to constantly feed the torch energy to increase its power and keep it pointing inwards. This is through the effort of directing your focus.

The second is that of a knife. When you are not aware there is no separation or intervention possible between your thoughts and your actions. By holding a knife in your consciousness you can steadily develop the separation that allows you to learn and consciously direct your life. Whenever the knife is dropped it becomes dulled as your focus loses its edge. However when you exert effort and direct your focus it is like drawing the kitchen knife from its self-sharpening holster, sharpening it with every use.

With awareness you can see the causes of your life. With this you can consciously change it to create a new life full of greater understanding.