PUT YOUR SELF ON NOTICE

PUT YOUR SELF ON NOTICE

"If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?"

Attention is crucial.

Attention/Awareness is the basis – the only basis of existence. Attention is being a-live. Do you remember “alive” ? That was the bit you experienced before “deadening” set in.

Attention is even more proactive than that. When you notice something, you enliven it. When you ignore something, you separate and deaden yourself to it. When you just plain “don't notice”, it doesn't exist.

We even have agreement now from the metaphysicists: without Attention, nothing exists. A thing only becomes “real” for you when and while you give it your attention. In that instant, No-thing becomes Some-thing. Awareness is creative. Creation is the art of bringing something forth from nothing, by giving it your attention, by noticing it.

Both the quality and the direction of your attention deserve examination, because whatever you pay attention to – grows; wherever you choose to head, you will get to. If you focus on your job, your relationship, or a favourite hobby, wherever you direct your attention, it is nourished by that feedback loop.

But you need to know exactly what it is that you're homed in upon. Most people display a stunning ignorance of what they really want, and why. They have no idea at all about who they really are. And they haven't the foggiest about where they're going. They think they know these things – or, more accurately, they are being deluded and directed by ideas about who/what they are and why they're here. Most people have led themselves so far up the “think-about” garden path, they have no idea any more which way is up, let alone what happened to the horizon.

But wherever you are, lost or found, you HAVE to take your next step from where you are, not from where you think you might be, or where you'd like to be, or where you'd like others to think you are. For example, Cardinal George Pell, ensconced in his suite at the Vatican, has not the slightest idea how perilously close to hell he is. He has even less idea how he got there. So he clings to Right-ness. As the flames of hell lick around him on his deathbed, he will be heard to protest “But I was right!”

Politicians claim to be doing “what is right for the country”, when what's really going on is they are claiming to do what they think is right for the country. No wonder their efforts end too often in failure – because they are coming from an abysmal disillusionment, and failure to see any difference between “What I think is “right” versus “What is the most appropriate out of all known possibilities.” It's the “thinking about” that is the problem, and most human never examine their thinking. In fact, the surest way to get a stunned look is to ask someone directly “What are you thinking?” They'll tell you their opinions and beliefs, but what they're actually thinking in the moment – they haven't a clue.

What about you? Would you rather be right – or aware? This is where your Choosing comes in: whatever you choose to attend to is strengthened or weakened by the kind of attention you give it. (Your mind reinforces or weakens in specific areas depending on the input you feed it, and paying attention provides concentrated input.)

When you give anything your attention, you give it form, substance and energy, and endow it with the quality of your attention. What you notice – matters – in more ways than one. Whatever you notice – materialises, faster than the speed of light. So fast in fact that not one of us is quick enough to pick the gap between noticing and materialising. But it is there. And the only thing that can get into that gap is another thought. The trick is to make sure you are the author of the thought that breaks the habit and, like pressing F-9, keep at it until the command registers.

It's one of my Ruthless Rules of Reality that you always get more of what you focus on. The corollary is also true – if you want to know what you've been focused upon, look at what you've got.

This is not rocket science but it can be, for some people, incredibly difficult to get. Some habit, some belief, some old opinion, some out-of-date viewpoint has to be surrendered before you will see it. But once you've seen it, you'll wonder how in hell you could have missed it!

Here's the bottom line – If you focus on what you want, you'll get more of it, in one form or another, from one direction or another. If, on the other hand, you focus on what you DON”T want, you'll be rewarded for your efforts with more of what you don't want. Hadn't you noticed? You hadn't? Then you might benefit from paying attention to the next few minutes.....

Do you give your attention away to whatever or whoever grabs it? Of course you do – we all do. Something happens, and the next thing is that we have been suckered into “thinking about” what just happened, or what might happen next, while what IS happening is slipping past – unnoticed. If you're wise and committed to outgrowing your shell, you'll have a constant reminder (F-9) habit going for you that gently notices “Oh, I just left the room!” and draws you back to the here-and-now.

Or do you invest your Attention in something worth the while you put in?

And include your Self in that “Things Worth My While Being Aware of” tray..... Get to know this non-thing you call your Self. It will help to assume that you do not have a single valid notion of “who” you are. When I ask most people “Who are you?” they tell me their christian name????? That's a joke. Your name is just an ID tag. Your name is no more who you are or what you are than the word”rose” has colour, softness or perfume. Even the name you call yourself was given to you before you had any say in it. Wake up – whatever you think you are started as an impractical joke, remains a joke and the joke's on you. Now, are you going to laugh at the joke, or be off-ended?

Don't be offended –we all fell for the same joke. It's how this particular “reality” show that we call “Life” was set up. It is a setup, you know.

Now, what about the activities this “you” is putting its time into while you're acting out this oddball pastime? Time is energy in potential form. Time is measured in the amount of your Here/Now that you invest with a particular awareness, or focus on a particular activity. That investment involves energy. Notice how much energy you use, and from where you source that energy. Do you create that energy, or do you leach it off others? Are you a creator or a consumer?

People who are self-aware, ie. switched-on to what they notice and dwell upon and whence comes the energy involved, are more generally conscious of and responsive to how they affect the world and others around them. Aware people are alive to much more of what is going on around them. People who intent-fully develop their awareness become conscious of shifts, forces and presences that elude most others. They miss less. They “pick up on” stuff. They're harder to catch “left-footed”. Not because they're “on guard” (a state of tension), but because they're sensate (a state of equanimity).

Aware-full people express their selves kindly and appropriately. They tend to be relatively free of self-importance. They are subtly, effortlessly, guilelessly notice-able in any company.

But before you go running off at the ego at this heady thought, please spend some time differentiating between self-awareness (healthy), and way-off deviations like self-absorption, self-centredness, selfishness, and self interested, self-seeking self-indulgence (unhealthy).

How do you become aware of the difference between self-awareness and its synthetic pretensions? One way is to deliberately do something self-absorbed, then try doing something self-centred....and so on. With each act, remain aware of what happens inside you. Notice the subtler internal changes. It you feel any tightening, hardening or stultifying anywhere in your body or being, then that was not in self-awareness. When you are self aware, you become more relaxed, allowing, relieved, grateful and generous of spirit – quite the opposite effect.

Don't expect awareness to suddenly become a permanent feature of your mien. We slip quickly back into the habit of distracting ourselves from the here and now. I'm doing it now as I write this – there's a whole world just slipped by, unnoticed. It's gone now – let it go. And you're doing the same now while you're reading this. Look up. Notice? Oops! 

Noticing is a way of being in the world. A sometimes lonely way - being in a world in which most other humans-being do not notice what is happening within and around them. How else do you think accidents happen?? Why is it, do you think, that a lot of what passes for “entertainment” these days is actually distraction? How futile. Something to take your mind off what your mind is bugging you about like a swarm of mosquitoes on a hot night. That “something to take my mind off” is just one more thing for the mind to claim as its own, and further load you down.

Know this: your mind does not want you to get this. Have you noticed what it's been saying to you over the last few minutes? Mind “minds” very much if you look like becoming aware. The more you notice, the less your mind can dominate and hold you down. The more you notice, the free-er you will become. And your mind, like all other authorities, does not want you to be free.

If you want something to change, you have to change something. I'm suggesting that one of the things you might consider changing could be the kinds of things you give your attention away to.

Attention cannot be be faked or forced for very long. When a frustrated schoolteacher scolds an unruly class with, “Pay attention, people!” he may get results for a few minutes, but the demand loses its effect very quickly. Asking a restless mind to settle down and pay attention is even more futile. It's a bit like asking a firefly to stop being a firefly and take a holiday.

The secret to directing attention is to know how attention really works.

Attention is Awareness that is focused. There are some basic requirements to be met. The first requirement is to be centred – balanced between opposing and buffeting forces. A mind full of fluff'n'stuff is no way to be Mindful. I will deal with the current “Minfulness” fad in a few minutes. For the meantime, it's important to know that there is no such thing as single-mindedness, and any distractions are self-defeating.

Secondly, your awareness focuses more naturally and easily when you have a Desire and a conscious, clearly communicated Intention. We focus on what we want at the deepest core of our being – always. When we don't get what we want, that may be because we have not yet told our selves the truth about what it is we're pining for. Or it may be that we have to deal first with what's in front of our nose before we can get a clearway to work on the main game. Rule of thumb = deal first with what's on your plate – until it is no longer a hindrance. Life has this (annoying) habit of knowing what you need, when you need it, and in what time frame. But you do have to clearly signal to life what you want to take away with you when your time here is done. And you need to be unambiguous about that. Vague intentions deliver vague results. Life will simply notice where you spend most of your attention, and gie you more of that.

Thirdly, attention works best when combined with intention – envisioning a way to fulfil your desire. I often ask people when they engage with me “What is your intention in talking with me now?” I'm still amazed how few people have a cogent answer to that. Here's a question for you now – What outcome are you expecting to derive from reading this now? If your answer is ready and firm, you'll get it from me. If your answer is hesitant, confused or pointless – that's what you'll get from me. I'm that flexible! Ain't I marvellous!? You get back what you put out for - AND - you're putting out whatever it is you're getting back.

When these three ingredients come together – you are centred, you have a consciously chosen desire, you willingly intend to fulfil your desire – your attention becomes extremely powerful. Anyone who has fallen in love at first sight knows the definition of laser focus. The air cracks with it! For some people the same focused attention applies to ambition, money, and power. For others it's survival, safety and control. Whichever way, Willing Attention is like the advent of the rainy season in the the tropics. Ka-boom! Fireworks!

The resonant frequency of your Attention tends to match the vibration frequency of what it is you're wanting. Low-frequency addictions like security, ambition, power, or jealousy produce a heavy, elephantine aura around you. Some people's bodies even bloat up in sympathy with the heaviness of their “vibes”. Higher-frequency desires like wonder and curiosity emanate a lighter radiance.

Almost everyone has wondered “Who am I?” but the people who actually find out are driven by a burning curiosity to know. This desire is just as strong as other people’s desire for more money, status, and power but a helluva lot more enlightening.

If you ask spiritual questions casually, they amount to very little. But if you ask a question like “Why me?” with some emotional kick behind it – God sends you a flood of emails and home-delivered answers -- and you don't get it? Nothing changes in your life because you're not paying attention, either to the question or to the answering mail (No, that's not meant for me.) Colin Hayes used to say – and probably still does – “If it's in your face, it's your case.”

Your path must be driven by Open Willingness to follow through on possibilities. Since you've probably already tried the more likely possibilities, why not try out some that look least likely?

Let’s say, for example, that you experience one of those moments of inner peace that has crept up upon you without expectation. Suddenly you realise it’s just there, appearing in the midst of an otherwise ordinary day. You might casually notice it, or a train of thought could begin, as follows:

I’m at peace. How unusual. I like this.

(I wonder where it came from?) The very act of “wondering” will hoik you out of the experience in less than the blink of an eye. Let the urge to analyse go through to the keeper.

I want to have this experience for as long as it's available, because it would be good to be at peace for longer and more often. I'm going to stop what I'm doing and have a soak in this for as long as it lasts. When it passes, I’ll follow through on it. It’s too valuable to forget.

This is a natural train of thinking, and every self-aware person I know has followed it, from moments of inner peace, sudden joy or similar special unifying moments that left you feeling protected and looked after, or sensing a spiritual presence that caught them totally by surprise. The same applies to separating feelings – have them while they're on offer. What self-aware people have in common is that they really pay attention to whatever experience they are having, while they're having it.

NOTICING #101

The process of Noticing can be simplified into three steps. The next time you have an inner experience of peace, joy, love, inspiration, upset or insight, pause for a moment and become the observer of the experience.

Step 1: Notice what is happening. Sit quietly without distraction. Soak up the experience without commenting or interrupting it by thinking about it. Thinking about any experience takes you out of the actual experience. Save that for later. While the experience is there, have it. You don't know how long it will last. You can be assured, though, it won't be forever.

Step 2: As the moment fades, don’t rush away from it. Allow it be potentially significant; to be worth noticing still, even in its twilight. You may not find out its true significance for some time to come. That doesn't matter. Enjoy what is happening for its own sake. Put it into context, noticing how different you feel from your ordinary self. When I was supervising the tavern at the Cable Beach Club in Broome, I was amazed and disappointed that most of the tourists who came in their hundreds every afternoon to watch the sunset, shot through as soon as the sun dipped below the horizon. They missed the best part – the 90 minutes of ever-changing pastelled afterglow that always followed. To me, that's a bit like dashing off after sex – you're missing something wonderful.

Step 3: Give the experience value. Consider how transformed your life would be if you could have the experience again, maybe in another colour. Ask how might that feel? Even more, think about a life filled with joy, peace, and love. See it in your mind’s eye; feel how beautiful your life could become.

Notice what's happening, stay with it, and give it value == in these three steps you are activating the emotional area of your brain, and the cortex, or higher brain; the emotional area by fully feeling your experience, the higher brain by applying thought and reflection. Involving these two areas together is how dreams come true. You combine a vision of possibilities with the kind of focused intention that creates new pathways in the brain, and related pathways begin to show up in the outer world. The world “in here” is connected always to the world “out there” -- I don't know how, but it is, probably because there's really no difference. The laws of creating do not recognise conceptual niceties of “one” and “other”, or “inner” and “outer”. In practice it follows that you can’t seize an opportunity without being aware of it as a possibility,and you can’t nourish any possibility without wanting to.

When Awareness, Willing Desire, and Intention come together, you are mastering the skill of paying Attention

THE MINDFULNESS MOVEMENT

FASHIONABLE FAD OR FAIR DINKUM?

One of the founders of Mindful Therapy describes it as “a simple yet effective form of meditation that enables you to gain control of unruly thoughts and behaviours.”

So, as far as this definition takes it, I'm all for it. The definition itself healthily assumes that “you” are not the thoughts you harbour or the behaviours you indulge in. “You” is that which can become aware of them and do something about them. Yippee! If you only get that separation – that you are not your stuff – you have taken your first step to freedom. If your worries and woes are something you have, like your favourite teddy bear, then you are free to do something with them, without fear of losing anything of your Self. And there is no need for awesome temples or months of chanting to accomplish that, unless you want that experience, too. In which case, go for it.

I'm a huge fan of meditating and of doing day-to-day things meditatively (aware-fully). Huge. In fact, I wish there was more of awareness going about – especially on the roads!

But I have two carping problems with their definition of “Mindfulness”, and it's more than mere semantics. My first twinge is with the term “Mindfulness Meditation”. My problem, and I suspect I'm not alone here, is that my mind is already full – full to bursting with what professor Higgins derisively described as “cotton, hay and rags”!

I'm more attracted to some Space – mind-emptiness would be preferable. Perhaps what these people have to offer will give me that, instead. I think it will, but first I have to deal with the second “spoiler” in their definition – “meditation that enables you to gain control over unruly thoughts or behaviours.”

I agree that thoughts and the feelings that accompany them are unruly – I've tried controlling them, and that's akin to trying to herd thousands of cats into a holding pen.

I also allow that thought control can be done, but not by anybody I know. The level of required discipline and training (sometimes brutal) is such that I suspect it's beyond me when I have to also support myself and converse occasionally and normally with other mere mortals. I rather feel that the number of people who should attempt to rein in thoughts and feelings by sheer discipline is probably about the same as the number of people who should try to cross Antarctica alone and without woolly underwear and footwear of some sort.

For most of us, I hope there's another way. And there is. And the Mindfulness people are so close! My take on what they're doing is that it's very close to a process that has been around in the consciousness growth movement for at least the last 60 years. When I first came across it in Inward Adventure, Colin Hayes called it “Thought Awareness”. In short, we eventually got to act out “our” thoughts as they popped up. In a group it was chaotically hilarious. I really got how insane head-fucking really is.

Let me lead into this now by proposing that the goal of meditation could be, not to control thoughts and thinking etc., but to stop thoughts, thinking, etc. controlling you. How does that appeal to you?

This is where Noticing comes in. Noticing requires no temples or cathedrals, no robes, no chanting, no monks, nuns or priests to interpret or interfere (sorry, intercede) for anything. No flagellation or contorting of the body is needed. The only discipline required is a gentle bringing-back of your awareness when it wanders off from what's going on in front of your nose and around you, seduced by your ever-demanding mind and its shenanigans.

People who practice Noting naturally become more focused, even when they are not “meditating”. I've found Noticing to be an excellent, pleasing habit that reduces stress because it stops me from feeling totally helpless and completely useless. Noticing stops me from jumping from one trailer-thought to the next in the endless road-train of thinking – 50,000 of them every day, give or take a few. And we've gotten into the habit of trying to ride them all in turn in the name of “keeping control” and “this is living!” Noticing what thoughts, beliefs, ideas and behaviours distract and bring you down helps you to get to know this “persona” you've created, and helps you cover the day's doings in a more calm, alert and productive manner.

Harvard University psychologist, Ellen Langer, herself a student of this Mindfulness phenomenon, described it in this way: Mindfulness is the process of actively Noticing new things. Now I'm getting more relaxed and comfortable with this. Pure Noticing happens in the here and now. There is no “minding” in it. It just notices this, then this, then this, then this...... like a wide-eyed toddler. Bloody annoying when you've got five minutes to pick up the dry cleaning before getting the older kids from school. But that's not a toddlers “concern”, is it? Why is it SO important to you that you miss something really cool like a caterpillar undulating across the footpath?

Noticing stops when Mind kicks in and starts making commentary on what you've just noticed. That's it. You're out of the here-and-now, and sucked into the past. Yet again, life (always in the here/now) passes you by – un-noticed, while you get towed around by your unkind mind. Then you remember and, shocked awake, you start noticing again: back in the Present. Noticing makes you more sensitive to lost elements of Context and Perspective. Noticing re-minds you.

The mistake most people make is to assume that Noticing is stressful and exhausting – noticing all this thinking. Wrong! Noticing the thinking is nowhere nearly as exhausting as doing all that needless thinking. Sure, changing any habit requires some willingness, application and perseverance, but it is possible to persevere with or without stress – that's your choice. And the more practised you get at Noting, the more you'll quickly see how stressful once were all the mindful negative evaluations and commentary, and the worrying about problems that you might encounter and not be able to solve. Now no longer. You simply notice, and let be.

Noticing in the workplace

There's good reason for high-performance companies like Google to embrace Noticing into its performance training regimes – it's effective. Ellen Langer's studies indicate that the habit of Noting improves your performance levels in all manner of activities.

But there are other more important reason why I recommend you start making the Habit of Paying Attention a personal priority. Here are five of them:-

1. Noticing puts you slap-bang in the only happening place – here and now
2. Noticing improves your ability to focus your awareness.
3. Noticing pollinates creativity
4. Noticing improves your emotional intelligence.
5. Noticing makes you more aware, alert and alive.

1. Note that all through this article I've used the active verb “notice” rather than the passive “be noticed” or the imperative “notice me!”, progenitor of the selfie craze. Noticing what's going on in and around you is not stressful. Stress comes into it through our reactions to what we notice, when we stop just noticing thoughts and feelings, and instead go chasing after them like clowns at a rodeo.

If we don't react – no stress. No stress = reduced chances of cancer, high blood pressure, autoimmune diseases, heart conditions, insomnia, depression, anxiety. That seems to me to be enough good reasons to at least try it. What have you got to lose by being more “with-it”? What is the payoff supposed to be for being a dopey-dick? In your book who gets to be deservedly punished if you remain a dysfunctional zombie? Who gets let off your emotional hooks if you get relaxed, clear and calm?

2. The human mind can not dwell upon more than one thing at a time but it can, and does, flit from one dwelling to another with a speed that even light cannot catch. Noticing gives you real, gentle practice at shepherding and focusing your awareness on the task at hand. Your increasing ability to apply your awareness with consistency naturally carries over into everything you turn your intention towards. Noticing helps you identify internal and external distractions, and get a profile on what distraction pattens you've developed – patterns that surreptitiously sabotage your sincerest endeavours. While you may have fallen prey to multi-tasking in the past, noticing what is easier, and what makes things difficult will help you kick this nasty, productivity-destroying delusion/habit.

Time is energy. Time is the quantity of here/now that you invest in a particular pointing of awareness and apply to a particular activity. Wasted time wastes energy. A focused awareness is a more productive awareness.

3. Noticing is creative. Your level of ability to create affects the quality of the here/now you are investing. Creativity hinges on your mental and emotional state. A mind in turmoil creates confusion, misunderstandings, and mistakes. An awareful mind dissolves the limiting thoughts, opinions, feelings and beliefs that stifle groundbreaking creativity and self-expression. Just the fact that “noticing” puts you in the Now helps new ideas to flow naturally to and through you. An unaware mind repels creativity and freshness.

4. Emotional Intelligence (EQ) is that intangible “something” within us that affects our ability to manage our behaviour, to navigate complex social interactions, and to make personal choices and decisions that achieve results that work. Your EQ is a measure of your ability to recognise and read emotions within your self and other selves, and to use this awareness to manage your own behaviour and relationships.

It seems from research in the USA that 90% of top performers in all types of jobs also have a higher-than-normal Emotional Intelligence score. While I would not recommend that statistic as any kind of definitive proof, it seems obvious anecdotally that those people who can clearly identify, feel, understand and manage all of their emotions are far more likely to be effective as colleagues, friends, parents, managers and leaders. Similarly, those who have made insufficient effort to develop their EQ are far more likely to have a destructive influence on the environments they blunder through.

5. Noticing enables you to attract healthy supporters and mentors, organise yourself and create and communicate plans, self-heal old parent thoughts, limiting feelings and habits that brought you undone, assume responsibility for your own growth and evolution, and become a healthy mentor to others.

Self-healing is a trait of people who Notice. This applies specially to those who are practiced enough to catch thoughts we all entertain about our selves, uncritically look at each one, then quietly stand in the question about each thought – “Is this true about me?”

People who take moments to uncritically observe tend to show 50% more genuine kindness and compassion than those who don't. There is something in feeling present, available and interested that brings out the best in people who have a “best” that they'd like to improve upon.

Putting your self on Noticewatch improves your wisdom and insight, your performance now, and your capacity to perform in the future.

Do what I did – give it a try. You'll be surprised at what you've been missing, and you might just find out where it will take you.

GOVERNMENT NEEDS INNOVATION; INNOVATION NEEDS DIVERSITY

Canberra Gets On The Same Bus Every Day —

At all levels of government in Australia, leadership in sourcing innovative ideas has slid right off the radar and their feeble, phony pretense of pursuing diversity and equality isn't helping.  

Original ideas come from the original experiences of original people, supported by an environment that brims with a diversity of useful, relevant skills, backed in by diversity of genders, national cultures, economic backgrounds, skin colours, ages, and artistic expression. Perversely, the party/oppositional system of governing we've assumed as our model has proved to engender a push to Sameness in the name of “solidarity” The survival of the “government clique” has taken moral and political supremacy over the well-being of the individuals whom those governments have been elected to promote and protect.

I love energy centres like Bellingen and the Denmark and Mullumbimby areas. They are full of small artist spaces, tiny but great restaurants, small but affordable houses, some in the bush on the slopes of the giant volcano crater, and great access to an astonishing number of events ranging from music to film to workshops, celebrations, social, political and self-improvement lectures and workshops. It seems your can take in as much as you want any day of the week. There's palpable atmosphere of “can-do”, “have-a-go” and freedom from status quo.

And there's a tremendous amount of creativity everywhere from the graffiti on the walls, the quirky names on quirky stores, to the individual self-expression on the streets. That includes an un-enforced politeness and consideration between all users of the roads and pathways. Mullum, Brunswick and Byron are universities without limits. They teem with young people mixing and talking with each other. They're a massive incubator of ideas. And they offer a stark contrast to Capital Hill's homogeneous monoculture.

Frictionless living...

Australia is a vast, varied landscape with big problems and complex challenges. But where there is pain there are opportunities to find solutions that solve and salve. Successful start-ups solve tough problems. And that's where organic spaces like Mullum have every advantage over Canberra, which is designed within an inch of its life.

Politicians and their armies of minions get on the same bus every day. Each morning they stand silently on the same doorsteps waiting to be driven to their predigested campus of personal entitlement.

Every day is predictable and indistinguishable...

Every day, State and Federal jocks and their staves are insulated from the everyday experience of everyone else. Their incomes are lavish, their food is free, their haircuts are free, their snacks are free, their apartments are cleaned, their laundry is folded, and their commutes are always on time and the wifi is always fast. Life is made frictionless and painless – in a word – un-human.

Politicians create plans, gather support, solve problems and enable progress  -- well, I think that was the original idea. But if they don't see any pain in anyone who supports their privileged life, there is nothing to solve, is there? No housing for those who desperately need it, no hospital beds, no farming or fishing if a miner wants to prod, poke & dig, nothing beyond sit-down money and instant mashed potato for the original inhabitants of this land. “Fuck 'em. Get me a helicopter will you for the matchplay golf tournament this weekend on Hammy Island. Oh, and organise a pretend meeting so I an charge it to Expenses.” This is why Government at any level is running out of original ideas. All the low-hanging fruit is long gone, the obvious ideas are already done and then done again, and “bugger reaching higher – me and my dicky back. Let the crossbenchers knock themselves out; we've got the opposition onside – No change – no probs.”

How many ranks of email organisers, Cheives of Stuff, political advisers, writers, researchers, knockshop apps (in case that cute intern with the nice rack won't do what's good for her career while she's tagging along with me in Honkers this weekend) How many to-do list PA's, media coaches, spin doctors and called-in-favour hangers-on do we need? To run a country effectively, I mean? What proportion of their everyday busy-ness is spent at actually doing the job, as compared to protecting their tenure in the job and looking as if they're accomplishing something?

Original ideas require original experiences yet, following their election and the obligatory “I'm humbled” speech, pollies do their best to segregate and insulate themselves and their privately contracted creatives from the diversity found in life's daily struggles. The closest they get to real feedback is some pimply intern's report about a tick-one-of-three-boxes focus group. In the meantime, just keep the mantra going - “This is the greatest time to be an (Australian,/South Australian/foreign investor/alive”)...please tick just one, and stand in front of at least 3 Australian flags and two nodding sycophants while you say it.

In contrast, the hinterlands, away from the glossy “Home Beautiful” marinas, overflow with real people creating original experiences, experiments of every type and kind, and with a culture of diversity far more advanced than any PM's simplistic accounting of gender numbers and skin colours.

Urban centres have an advantage...

All cities have similarities to each other. In some general areas it's possible to solve a problem in one and you've solved it in every city -- that's a massive potential for progress. But no, that kind of possibility gets killed before birth by flick-passing such possibilities to isolationist State governments – the dregs of those who know they're not good enough even for Federal parliament.

Constitutional government won't go away -- it'll be there to shield from view hidden business agendas and give the players some position to fiddle with, probably at taxpayers' expense, after they “retire” on obscenely privileged superannuation. But don't expect many original start-up ideas from this self-segregated monoculture of government. And any pollie stupid enough to try it will be crucified. Remember Gough; remember Brian Burke? Remember Don Dunstan?

Innovation is born amidst adversity and is driven by diversity. Governments lack both.

TROUBLING HABITS OF DEVOUTLY UNHAPPY PEOPLE

Happiness comes in so many different forms that it can be hard to define. Unhappiness, on the other hand, is easy to identify; you know it when you're in its presence, and you definitely know when it’s taken a hold of you.

Unhappiness is lethal to everyone around you, just like second-hand smoke. The famous Terman Study from Stanford followed subjects for eight decades and found that being around unhappy people is linked to poorer health and a shorter life span.

Happiness has much less to do with life circumstances than you might think. A University of Illinois study found that people who earn the most (more than $10 million annually) are only a smidgen happier than the average Joes and Janes who work for them.

While you may blame your past for your unhappiness, that doesn't make it responsible for how you feel. Shit happens, and often there's bugger-all you can do about that. But how you choose to feel about that shit happening is ultimately up to you.

Life circumstances have little to do with happiness because happiness – like sunlight -- is available to you – unconditionally. Reaching for Happiness is as futile as trying to reach the horizon –it will always remain out of your reach. Happiness is not a destination; it's your environment. You're standing it it, arms folded, protesting “This ain't it.” Have you ever seen a fish swimming to reach water? Me either, which leads me to suspect that the dumbest fish is more “with it” than most supposedly intelligent humans.

The problem, at least in part, is that in line with your conditioning, your habits, your growth in Awareness and your outlook on life, you pre-conceive what happiness will look and feel like, and you make your acceptance of Happiness conditional – “When I get such and such, or when xyz happens – then I'll be happy.” It's our ideas about happiness that prevent us from ever be-ing happy. And we use our Un-happiness as a weapon. We deliberately, purposefully and habitually withhold our well-being for the purposes of manipulation, domination, or control of someone or something else. We abuse our natural happiness to get – happy.

Here's a theory to test for yourself – “We are all happy – until we think about it.” We are happy, until we ask ourselves, “Am I happy?” Then Mind comes into it. Mind is never happy. Happiness is not something you can mind. Even memories of happiness are sense-memories, not re-minders. The Happiness/Unhappiness continuum contextualises Mind and all of its machinations.

There are psychologists from the University of California who get paid to study happiness. (There's no evidence, by the way, that their peculiar pursuit makes them any more or less happy than their campus counterparts, but I digress). These academics found that genetics and life circumstances only account for about 50% of a person’s happiness. The rest, they say, is up to you. Wow! It has only taken several millennia for them to catch up with the ancient mystics. Well, it's my contention that genetics and life circumstances may be affective for a while, but after age 30, the responsibility for both your level of happiness and the ”face” you put on it, is 100% yours.

“The American Constitution only gives people the right to pursue happiness. You have to catch it yourself.” – Benjamin Franklin

Jefferson in the US Constitution spoke of happiness as some kind of “thing” that is capable of being chased or prised out of a hiding place, surrounded and captured. Happiness is no more concrete than any concept about it. I found happiness to be just as fluid and elusive as water in a stream. When I open my hand, it flows in. When I close my hand to grasp it, I lose it. J.S.Mill concluded that making happiness a goal for your life is a bit like luring a cat to sit on your knee; you get better results from ignoring it, rather than by wheedling “Here, puss, puss,puss.” Mill saw happiness as “a shy sort of sensation, sneaking up on you when you least expect it” and sometimes even when you don't want it. Not want happiness? Sure! When you're trying to bawl someone out for one of their sins, “happiness” is the last thing you want to come flooding over you! Without unhappiness, where would your motivation for righteous anger be?

I get better results returning to happiness by offering my unhappinesses to my best version of myself, and inhaling happiness with the air into the resulting space and allowing it to infuse me. Most importantly, I suggest that when you catch yourself in a burst of happiness, leave it be. Don't meddle with it. Don't try to lasso it. Don't try to replicate an old version, nor scare this moment off by courting it. Happiness can be like a flower – pluck it, try to dissect and analyse it, you'll kill it. Let it be. And simply enjoy the beauty and the fragrance.

A certain recipe for dissatisfaction and anxiety is to buy into any ideas that Happiness looks a certain way, is obligatory, or that we are entitled to it, or that we've failed if we can't be happy on demand.

Unhappy Habits. When people are unhappy, it’s much more difficult to be around them, let alone work or play with them. Unhappiness sucks big-time. It drives people away, creating a vicious cycle that holds you back from achieving everything that you’re capable of.

Unhappiness can catch you by surprise. So much of your happiness is put off by your habits (in thought and deed) that you might do well to monitor them and their consequences closely, firstly to get to know more realistically this wonderful “self” you have created and, secondly, to make certain that they don’t drag you down into an abyss that you'll not crawl out of this side of death.

Some habits lead to unhappiness more than others do. You should be especially wary of the habits that follow as they are the worst offenders. Watch yourself carefully to make certain that these habits are not your own. If they are, find a more effective replacement and practice it until it becomes your new habit.

• Waiting for the future. Telling yourself, “I’ll be happy when …” is one of the easiest unhappy habits to fall into. How you end the statement doesn’t really matter (it might be a promotion, more pay, or a particular relationship) because it puts too much emphasis on expectations and circumstances. There's a double trap here; expectations are the seed pods for disappointment and circumstances are often the hand that is dealt to you before you start playing. The other side of the whammy is one of life's greatest pratfalls -- neither improved circumstances nor met expectations produce happiness. Guess what? Those who offer you a better life and/or satisfaction if you buy what they're selling are either appallingly naïve or downright crooks. If this is the road you're exploring, you're setting yourself up for one of life's greatest troublemakers – Disappointment, the parent of Sadness and Bewilderment. Don’t spend your time waiting for something that’s more than likely to have little or no effect on your mood.
  Instead focus on being happy right now, in the present moment, because there’s no guarantee of the future. There's a Law of Reality that goes something like this – Where you're headed is where you come from. If you live in Life's Waiting Room, you're headed for............a Waiting Room of one sort or another.

• Spending too much time and effort acquiring “things.” There is not a single “thing” on this earth that has happiness built into its DNA. I was reminded of this one day when I was driving a taxi cab. A woman got in and asked me to take her to the Retirement Home. Making conversation, I asked, “What's on your agenda this afternoon?” Sourly she replied “Lunch. It'll be roast beef and vegies today!!” At the time I was grabbing a burger whenever I could between jobs; I'd have sold one of my offspring for the same baked dinner!
  People living in extreme poverty experience a significant increase in happiness when their financial circumstances improve, but it drops off quickly above $20,000 in annual income. There’s an ocean of research that shows that material things don’t make you happy. When you make a habit of chasing things, you are likely to become unhappy because, beyond the disappointing lack of bliss you experience once you get them, you discover that even if you’ve gained them, they don't deliver the qualities that they were a code for -- the real things that can make you happy, such as friendship, intimacy, and renewal.

• Staying home. When you feel unhappy, it’s very tempting to avoid other people. This is a huge mistake as socialising, like exercising, even when you're not enjoying it in the moment, is great for your mood. We all have those days when we just want to pull the covers over our heads and refuse to talk to anybody, but understand that the moment this becomes a tendency, it destroys your mood. Recognise when unhappiness is making you antisocial, do whatever it takes to coax yourself to get out there, mingle, and become interesting by being curiously interested. You’ll notice the difference right away.

• Seeing yourself as a victim. Unhappy people tend to operate from the default position that life is both oppressive and out of their control. Well, you're right. Life is hard in places, and it is not under your control; these are facts are on purpose. So what do you do about this?
  The problem with a philosophy that “Life is out to get me, and there’s nothing I can do about it,” is that it fosters a attitude (an angle of perceiving) of Help-lessness. People who feel helpless are less than likely to take creative action to make things better. While everyone is certainly entitled to feel down every once in a while, it’s important to recognise when you’re letting this affect your outlook on life. You’re not the only person that bad things happen to, so you can give up that line of thinking you are in this way “special”; this is a very twisted form of Self-Importance – (“I'm far too important to be made to feel this way”). And you have no more control over life than a surfer has control over the wave but, by the way you surf the present creates influence over your future as long as you’re willing to take action and be a little inventive, daring and playful.

• Pessimism. Nothing fuels unhappiness quite like a pall of pessimism – that habit of taking the gloomiest possible view, and that for instances of evil and pain there are no balancing instances of good and happiness. Pessimism, just like its half-sibling, Optimism, is a loopy, one-eyed way of being in the world that ignores the duality of all things.

One big problem with a pessimistic attitude, beyond it being hard on your mood and everyone else's nerves, is that it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy: if you expect bad things, you’re more likely to get bad things. Pessimistic thoughts are hard to shake off until you firstly recognise how illogical they are. That recognition on its own, however, is not going to dissolve most pessimism. In my experience, only a very small percentage of people can be reasoned out of any condition that was not reasoned into in the first place. In the face of logic and reason, pessimism says “So f----ing what?” Feelings of pessimism were not logically reasoned into in the first place; they were driven home emotionally, and emotionally is usually how you're going to have to extract yourself. By all means explore how illogical, false and damaging your pessimism is, but be prepared for something more than an intellectual discussion to permanently transmute pessimism into a voice of sensible, stabilising Caution.

• Complaining. Complaining itself is troubling as well as the “victim” attitude that precedes it. Complaining includes Anger – Anger is actually nothing more or less than Complaint with the volume turned up. Complaining is a self-reinforcing behaviour. By constantly voicing persistent thoughts about how bad things are, you reaffirm your negative beliefs, opinions and assumptions - (“This is so wrong. See how right I am?”) While talking about what bothers you can help you feel better, there’s a fine line between complaining being therapeutic (exploring and realising) and it fuelling unhappiness (dumping). Beyond making you unhappy, complaining drives other people away.

• Blowing things out of proportion. Bad things happen to everybody. The difference is that happy people see them for what they are—a temporary bummer—whereas unhappy people see anything negative as further evidence that life is out to “get” them. A happy person is upset if they have a fender bender on the way to work, but they keep things in perspective: “What a hassle, but at least it wasn’t more serious.” An unhappy person, on the other hand, uses it as proof that the day, the week, the month, maybe even their whole life, is doomed to be permanently bent out of shape.

• Sweeping problems under the rug. Happy people are accountable for their actions. When they make a mistake, they cop to it, make amends where possible, and prepare to deal with the fallouts and consequences. Unhappy people, on the other hand, find problems and mistakes to be threatening, so they try to hide them, deny them, project them onto someone else, ignore them, or minimise them. Problems tend to get bigger when they’re not dealt with. The more you don’t do anything about a problem, the more it starts to feel as though you can’t do anything about it, and then you’re right back to feeling like a victim.

• Not improving. Because unhappy people are pessimists and feel a lack of control over their lives, they tend to sit back and wait for life to happen to them – “What next?” - to which God usually replies, “Well I was about to ask you the same question.” Instead of setting goals, risking, digging, questing, learning, and improving themselves, they just keep plodding along. They resist change and then they wonder why things never change.

• Trying to keep up with the Joneses. Jealousy and envy are incompatible with happiness, so if you’re constantly comparing yourself with others, it’s time to stop. In one study, most subjects said that they’d be okay with making less money, but only if everybody else did too. Be wary of this kind of thinking as it won’t make you happy and, more often than not, has the opposite effect. As an old friend of mine used to say – “If someone else has to change for you to be happy, you're fucked.”

Bringing It All Together. In order for anything in your life to change, you have to change something. Changing your habits in the name of greater happiness and well-being is one of the best things that you can do for yourself. But it’s also important for another reason—taking control of your happiness makes everyone around you happier too.

What do you do to make yourself happy?

For my own wellbeing I've quit the pursuit of Happiness. Somehow the idea of a Flourishing Life appeals to me more. Flourishment challenges me to welcome difficult situations where I can practice Courage, become aware of others in such a way that Celebration and Compassion lead me to empathise (feel with, not for others), and defer gratification (which takes me to a birth thing of frustration and panic at having to wait). Every possibility that comes up now goes into a “Maybe” file, just to see what pops up next. Hey, a flourishing life isn't all lollipops and roses. In that respect, nothing changes. But flourishing is way more satisfying than anything else I've tried so far.

And here's the rub.......... even when I'm “unhappy” nowadays, I'm happy and grateful about it. As long as I'm happy about it, being Unhappy beats the hell out of being dead. And “unhappy” passes. Death is a wee bit more permanent.

This is when I discovered that Happiness was no longer a state of being for me; it returned to the status of an Emotion. What a relief! Happiness is at last allowed to be what it was when I was a child – a transient feeling that may be present, and sometimes not. After all, Happiness is not always appropriate or desirable. At my daughter's funeral, for example, I found a helluva lot to celebrate and be grateful about, but I didn't feel like acting up like Ronald McDonald. Expressing 'happiness' is also a cultural thing – when in Rome........

Once I reclaim Happiness as a feeling, I am enriched by surprise, complexity, shades and contradictions. Happiness now ceases to be a bland state of featureless bliss, and becomes, sometimes a contented groan of relief, sometimes a flutter of excitement and fear, sometimes an eerie sense of everything being just-so, and sometimes something that feels like a daring, audacious, scary bridge over troubled crocodiles.

Ah! That's better! 

A HABIT WORTH BREAKING IN 2016!

A new-Year's NOT Resolution.

Broadcast on January 6^th, 2016 on Radio KSA's “Cool & Comforting”.

I'm not a fan of New Year's resolutions, and here's why:

Firstly, the well-meaning, caring, inner do-gooder who made those resolutions didn't consult with the rest of the Board of “You Inc.”, and that person's microphone has been turned off, possibly until you get sentimentally pissed again next year.

Secondly, nearly all of us beat up on ourselves too much as it is, to no real effect other than creating dis-satisfaction and dis-ease. Yet we still expect seeds of dis-satisfaction to yield satisfaction, and seeds of dis-ease to produce ease and contentment. That is insane. Unless you really want to die dissatisfied and disappointed, stop living dissatisfied. Can I make it any simpler for us (me too)?

When the new year rolls around, it's easy to say "This year I'm going to fix my deficiencies! I'm going to get to the gym at least three times a week, I'm going to save more money and I'm going to read more books."

Yes, well we treat our bodies as the donkeys for our minds. We treat our bodies like beasts of burden. We say "Body, work harder! Body, get to the gym! Body, keep my house looking sharp so I don't have to worry about what the neighbours think of me!"

Our fully-compliant bodies know a lot more about us than our unkind minds do. Each of our bodies knows how hard we work and how much we worry. In our minds we pretend that our frenetic pace is fine, sustainable and even virtuous, but our bodies know better. Unfortunately, though, we leave our ego-minds in charge.

Every resolution, regardless of when it is made, is a Position taken up by the mind: it is a Ruthless Rule of Reality that every position creates, in moment it is created, an equal and opposite Op-position. Without unanimous resolve, resolutions will never work. And the human mind is incapable of unanimity.

Skip the Resolutions. But all is not lost if you can gently, gradually and intentionally create a new habit of behaviour by breaking just one old habit.

If you can do that, you'll help yourself much more than you would by flogging the donkey to get to the gym more often, save more money, eat better foods, work harder at the job and keep up with all the other demands you put on the poor beast.

What is the habit you will break in 2016?

The habit to make is to trust your gut. The habit to break is the habit of criticising yourself. Give your Inner Critic a new job description.

You know intimately the habit of criticising I'm referring to. Out of new-born innocence we bought the lie that we are inherently”sinful”, and that we will keep doing “wrong”, unles we “wake up to ourselves”. We do that by inventing an Inner Critic, a watchful, tyrannical “border force” that will get to us before the authorities do, and save us from dire consequences. The socially and religiously sanctioned tool for this kind of abuse is a totally synthetic emotion called Guilt – and over time we have become junkies for it. And it is demanded by society. Just try turning up to court for some misdemeanour and not showing “remorse” for what you've done. Watch the judge give you a loaded sentence and the media scream for your blood.

The Old English word “gylt” derives from an older German word “geld” which meant “to pay”. Guilt demands that we pay for our sins here and now. Bugger waiting for God to do the job, bugger waiting for karma. They're too slow. “I want the shit kicked out of this – NOW!”

In the past, guilt was not a feeling – it was a fact of responsibility. But guilt has now taken over the role of Remorse, and now labels “a ghoulish sort of stagnant feeling and a queasy sensation that keeps reappearing whenever our minds become undistracted or slow down. Feelings of guilt can be hard to work off because we have no bloody idea how they got there in the first place. We were “guilt-tripped” before we had any say in the matter. We were guilt-tripped by parents and teachers who themselves had been guilt-tripped into behaving compliantly. The currency of Guilt is Fear and Dread Guilt is a particular favourite of those who take too little responsibility, and those who take on too much. The familiar face of Guilt is that of your Inner Critic.

The Inner Critic is the one who says things like these to yourself in your head:

Shit! I missed my exit. Now I have to drive an extra five k's to get home. I'm so stupid!

Why did I eat that cannoli? I was already having trouble getting into my jeans.

Why is this credit card statement so confusing? What's wrong with me? I suck! 

It's all my fault mother died. I should have........

It's my fault Mum and Dad separated. I was such a bad child!

I should never have quit my job last year. I'm such an idiot.

Hey! When you spend so much of your time and emotional energy trying to atone for something that was none of your business, you won't get much joy out of life. Jesus the Christ came offering release from Guilt in the most spectacular way. But sometime later the King got the Bishop onside and said - “We can't have this! Freedom is not good for the hoi-polloi. You keep them guilty, I'll keep them poor; that way we've always got them under control.” (Colin Hayes). The deal was done. Church and State secured the compliance of the other institution for domination – Family, and the prison was complete. Guilt is good business for Bishops, Kings and other Control Freaks, but those people leave a trail of suffering behind them that has carpeted the world, wall-to-wall, a thousand times over. They make mining magnates look like sandbox cuties.

You don't have a bobcat big enough to clean up the global mess. Personally I think it's too late for anything but Mother Nature herself to restore balance.

But you can go to work on your own house. If you can catch yourself threatening yourself in your head, you can quiet the nasty little voice you hear by saying "It's fine. There's nothing wrong. This was supposed to happen. Can't tell you why yet – I don't yet have that level of insight. But after this, we will know. Just be patient, OK?"

It's true that it was all supposed to happen, but it's only true when you realise that every cannoli, missed exit and quirk and facet of yours is exactly the way it is for a reason, and for no reason.

Everything that has happened in your life brought you to this exact place to hear these words. None of it was a mistake, and nothing was wasted (except time, which doesn't exist)

Unless there is no reason for this moment, in which case there's been no reason for any of this. But did you have anything better to do at the time? Do you have anything better to do now than read and contemplate this? Yes, you do? Then don't stand here bitching any longer: bugger off and do it. This will be here waiting for you when all else has subsided.

You can shift your perspective right now, and say "I just realised that I have no faults. I have no weaknesses. If , in my mistaken identity, I have done anything harmful, I surrender it now to the Great Silence. What I do have is a trusting, open space in my heart to fill with a new vision for myself, just to see how it works out. If, in the future, I find an even better vision or a better way, then I'll clear my space and set up for a better adventure-experiment.

"Once I see clearly what I want for myself, I can step out of this past and step into the new. All the critical chatter was - and is - just background noise to suck my mojo away and keep me off my path."

You are perfect now and you have always been that way, but a lot of influences going back to childhood have told you that there's something wrong with you. Telling people what's wrong with them is baked into our culture. We picked up on that before we were born, because our mother lived and breathed “There's something wrong with me.” Even when they cut that umbilical cord, they started pummelling and poking you, cleaning you up – and looking for something wrong.

We get what we expect. We expect to get messages about how we fail to measure up -- at work, at home and everywhere we go. And if other people let us down in the race to criticise, we get in first and tell ourselves our faults, too. And we're devastatingly good at that – much better than anyone else – because our Inner Critic has access to all the secret files and knows exactly what our problems are. That's how our minds think, and we're so sure we're right about that!

Then we realise that we chose our “faults” -- that is, we chose to think of them as faults. But what if we were wrong? Maybe they are gifts. Maybe there's nothing about yourself that you need to change -- not your financial status, your looks or any of the other stuff you worry about.

When you notice the critical voice in your brain and take a second to hush it up when you hear it, you will quickly realise that the critical voice in your brain is not you. It's a distant echo from all the people who have criticised and limited you since you were a tiny pumpkin.

Now most of those folks aren't around to keep you feeling bad about yourself anymore, so your ego has taken over the job. Your ego. Yes, that dick whom you promoted to run your life while you went and hid in the basement.

You will never get closer to your goals by flogging the donkey (yourself) forward. That's a bit like strapping yourself into an aircraft seat, then hauling upwards with all your might to help the 'plane get off the ground.

Sometimes we set New Year's resolutions from a place of "Now hear this!!" Your topdog critical brain is in charge at that moment and your underdog, compliant brain is glowering from behind the couch, thinking “Oh, yeah?! I'll get you for this.” This is the reality of Duality. And Duality doesn't give a shit whether you know about it, believe it , or not. Every Position you take, you also hold in Opposition. And you wonder why you keep getting sabotaged?

The problem with a compulsive, law-and-order approach to New Year's resolutions is that there is no one but your Opposite Self to listen to you when you're talking to yourself. And your Opposite Self will resist and resent the shit out of what you're saying and the way you're saying it. And later protestations of “I'm only doing this for your own good” just do not cut the mustard with any downtrodden entity who has a milligram of desire to make their own decisions about what works and does not work for themselves.

You can set resolutions from a place of authority,  like "Now, I'm serious! This year, I'm getting my life together!" as long as you don't expect that approach to work. That's just your “I” and your “Me” doing the parent/child thing, and that stopped working for you decades ago. Real resolution comes from a space of calm and co-operastive willingness, a statement (without John Williams music) of conscious intent, followed by a surrendered “So be it”. Then simply observe what happens next. Allow habits to take their time to overcome the forces of inertia. Be patient, and keep your endgame in view.

Your body will take you to the gym or not. Your body might decide to spend the evening sitting in front of the TV rather than working out. Could it be that your body knows best? If you can accept the decision to watch TV as the right decision in that moment, you can relax. You can stop beating up on yourself. Then your mojo will rise, and the next day you might say "I feel good today," and go to the gym after all.

Be good to yourself in 2016. That's the most important thing you can do. The beaten donkey can't get excited about anything other than a good night's sleep!

You hesitate. Now what's stopping you? Whose permission are you waiting for here? Who are you looking to for The Nod? You're not going to get it. Who/Whatever it is you've sold out to will never say “Yes” in the present circumstances; too much has already been invested in holding you back from yourself. The Big “Yes” for change has to come from You.

You have a lot to get excited about, if you can only take the yoke off the poor donkey and say "I trust you, my friend - we are in this together.

"My unkind mind doesn't always know best. I let my ego run this operation for too long. I'm shutting off the faucet of self-criticism and putting me back in charge this year."

When you shut off the flood of self-critical remarks, something incredible will happen. Your vision for yourself will begin to take shape. And it won't matter so much whether you pay off the mortgage as quickly as you planned to or whether you read enough business magazines in 2016. When you give yourself permission to imagine the life and career you want, your daily to-do list won't go away. It will still be there, but it will take a back seat to your creative process.

As you create a vision for your life and career, many details will fall out of the picture. That's okay -- your vision will inspire you and call you forward much more than your critical brain ever could.

Your job is to stop paying heed to the old recordings and give yourself permission to think about your life from a higher altitude, a vantage point from which anything is possible.

But your fearful brain may try to tell you to stop dreaming so big. Your brain may say "Who do you think you are to imagine yourself with a different life? I'm opposing you on this for your own good?" You can tell the critical voice exactly who you are, and keep saying it over and over. You are mightier than you can even imagine, and your power will grow with every step forward you take.

Here's a good question that requires a pen-and-paper answer. Who, exactly did you ever give permission to put limits on your dreams? Make a list. Allow time for memory to deliver your answers. If you have less than 20 people on your list, you're not fair dinkum; this is a waste of time. Go and do something else.

You have no reason to limit your possibilities for anyone - especially an old, dusty tape playing in your head! The tape may play on, but why would you listen to that annoying voice now? You are flying at a higher altitude, and you are on a mission.

Your time here is limited. Don't waste it; you cannot get it back. Refuse to throw away any more of your time to naysayers and haters – particularly the ones inside your head. Re-programme the inner wasters and the outer ones will miraculously take care of themselves.