The Space Between

No this post isn't about Dave Matthews, sorry if that's what you were expecting. The "space between" that I'm talking about is the space between stimulus and response, and how you can use it in the best possible way. Let me explain...

Human beings have the unique ability to choose their response to any given stimulus,...but few people choose to actually use it. For most people, something happens either to them directly or through something in their environment and they immediately react to it in the way they have become accustomed to reacting to that type of stimulus. For instance, if a person is driving down a road and someone from the next lane over pulls in front of them quickly, close to their bumper, cutting them off...they immediately get really angry and flip them the bird, tailgate, honk their horn, or do something else that won't help the situation at all but will make them feel better because they did something about it even though what they did most likely didn't affect the other person in any significant way at all. But someone who is aware of the space between stimulus and response would behave differently. When someone cuts them off (the stimulus), they stop and think about how they want to react to the situation (their response). If they are in a good mood (which is also something you have control over...and I'll write about this in a future post), then they could try to find a good reason for the person cutting them off. Maybe they changed lanes so quickly because there was something in the road in their lane, or because someone who was in front of them stopped quickly, or they saw an animal on the side of the road that looked like it was about to dart into the road in their lane and they didn't want to hit it, or they needed to get into the turning lane quickly because they were about to miss their turn, or the person in front of them was going slowly and they were in a hurry because they just got a call that a loved one is in the emergency room. So then they could rationalize that one of those reasons is probably why the person cut them off rather than because they were just being rude, and wouldn't get mad about it but instead feel sorry for that person or nothing at all.

That was just one example, but there are countless more. You have always known that you can choose how you are going to respond to any stimulus that comes your way, but until now you may not have been consciously aware of it. So now that you are, pay attention, and use the space between stimulus and response to make decisions about how you are going to respond to a situation that will be beneficial for you and others rather than destructive. Don't let your environment and other people control how you act and react. Choose for yourself instead. If you do, it will be much easier for you to keep yourself on the road of success.

Make Good Use of Your Time

One of the things that successful people do is make better use of their time than others. There is a lot I could write about regarding this subject (and I'm sure I will in the future), but this particular post will be about one aspect of making better use of your time that you can start doing immediately and best of all, it's easy! Start using your downtime more productively.

For instance, you probably drive to work each day and listen to the radio or a music cd on the way. This is a major source of downtime. Instead of listening to the radio or a music cd, you could listen to a book on cd instead and be learning or at least expanding the list of books you've read and your vocabulary at the same time. So go to the library, check out a book on cd that seems interesting to you, and listen to that on your way to work and your way home from work each day. If you do this, you'll probably be able to go through a book each week and will have read (listened to) 52 more books than you normally would have read in the next year. This will make you one of the most well-read people in the world in just a few years.

Another source of downtime is your lunchbreak at work. You could spend that time with friends who are co-workers or reading a magazine or newspaper or something of course, but you could also spend that time with someone that you don't yet know very well at your workplace. By inviting someone you don't yet know to lunch, you will get to know more people at your workplace, increasing your network. It would be especially beneficial to invite an influential person to lunch, that may be able to help you in the future. They will be much more likely to help you in the future if they know who you are and have a relationship with you, even if it's just from having had lunch with you once in a while. By expanding your network in this way, you will be setting yourself up for greater success in your job and your future ambitions concerning your career.

Another area in which you have downtime is when ou are waiting in line or waiting in general for some other reason. If you always carry a book with you, then you could read during the time you're waiting so you would be making much better use of your time than if you were just sitting or standing there, not doing anything. You could even go so far as to get a palm pilot or other handheld device that you can keep in your pocket to keep electronic copies of books on to read anywhere, anytime.

There are countless examples of downtime most people have that could be used in a better way. Pay attention to the downtime you have in your life, and start making better use of it. It's one of the many simple little things that you can do that will make a big difference in helping you achieve the level of success in your life more quickly and easily.

Find Some Mentors

My sister recently told me that she wanted to start doing something to change herself in a positive way, and asked me what I thought she should do as a first step. This was something I had to think about for a couple of days, but when I came up with an answer, I decided that it would be a good thing to write a blog about since it's one of the most important things you can doto aid your trip called life on the road of success. What I told her (in many more words), was to find a mentor.

A mentor is a person who you trust, respect, admire, and that has a good set of morals and values. This person must also be someone who will look out for your best interests and genuinly care about your well being, and of course they also have to agree to being your mentor. This will be the driver's training instructor sitting in the passenger seat while you start your journey on the road of success.

When you are beginning to travel on this road for the first time, you will need someone to guide you and tell you where to go, how to get there, how fast to go, and generally help you out as you begin driving on this sometimes treacherous road. As time passses and you are getting the hang of it, you won't need a driving instructor to sit in your pasenger side seat anymore. But you will still need someone to call on for advice when you aren't sure about the next turn to make, or what the speed limit is, and someone to tell you where you should be going next and how to get there as quickly as possible. This is when your mentor will transition from the driver's training instructor to the person on the other end of the line when you push the Onstar button in your car. You won't need them as often as you did when you first began your trip, but when you do need them they will be available to help you get to where you want to go and avoid the dead ends, construction delays, and traffic jams that you don't know about.

You don't have to limit yourslef to only one mentor either. You can and should find a mentor for each area of your life that you want to be successful in (which should be every area that you think is important - marriage, parenting, career, spirituality, etc.). Find people who are already successful in these areas and ask them to mentor you, or just copy what they do/have done. Why re-invent the wheel if the drawings and materials are already available for you and all you have to do is ask for the directions. If it's already been done and it works well, use it! That way you can save time and work on improving it instead!

So find a mentor, or a bunch of mentors! Meet with them often and regularly at first for a while to develop a good relationship with them. Then you can start to ease off on the frequency but definitely make sure to stay in regular contact with them because they are sources of knowledge about how to make the wheels, install them on you car, and get you where you need and want to go.

Start with just one mentor at first. You'll soon see how valuable this type of relationship can be and I won't need to try to convince you to find more for other areas of your life because you'll want to yourself! Try it, you'll see...

Self-Talk

This is not going to be a blog about positive affirmations and how you should say something like "I'm good enough, I'm smart enough, and gosh darn-it people like me," so relax. This is about something much more subtle and practical than that. What I'm going to talk about is that little voice in your head that comes from your thoughts.

All day, every day, you talk to yourself. Now obviously I don't mean that you talk to yourself aloud all day, I mean your thoughts and what you "say" to yourself in your thoughts. Think about it, what do you say to yourself throughout the day on a normal day? What do you say when you first wake up? Is it something like "I really don't want to go to work today," or something like "I can't wait to get started on ____ today," or something else? What do you say to yourself when your plans get ruined and there's nothing you can do about it? Do you get frustrated and mad at the world? Or do you see it as an opportunity to come up with a better plan? What do you say to yourself when you make a mistake? Do you call yourself stupid, or tell yourself that now you know what not to do in that situation in the future and now you're smarter than before?

How you talk to yourself has a large impact on your self-esteem, especially since the person you communicate with the most every single day is yourself. Since that's the case, shouldn't you make sure you are having good conversations with yourself? Start paying attention to how you talk to yourself every day... If you notice that you talk to yourself in a negative way, STOP IT! Make an effort to talk to yourself in a more positive, optimistic, productive way - it makes a huge difference in how you feel about yourself regarding your confidence, self-worth, and overall self-esteem.

The Importance of Exercise

That's right,...exercise. I know, I know you don't want to hear it. Well keep reading anyway!

If you are like most people, you don't like to exercise. WRONG! You do too like to exercise, you just don't know it yet! You just think you don't like to exercise because you've never done it consistently enough to see the benefits that come with it. Yeah sure, you may have done some exercise while dieting or something like that so you could lose those last 5 or 10 lbs before your first trip to the beach, or some other similar reason. But I bet after you lost that weight (or for many of you, before you even reached your goal) you stopped exercising. That's unfortunate...

There are so many benefits you get from exercising, that it's amazing that so many people don't do it! Of course you all know that when you exercise, you will probably lose weight too and that's the only reason most people do it. But there are so many other benefits to exercising that you might not be aware of, so I'll fill you in real quick. Here are some of the other benefits to exercising that most people don't usually think about:

• It makes you breathe harder than normal, which makes you breathe from your core by using your diaphram, which get the lymph fluid in your body moving, which helps remove toxins from your body, which improves your immune system and how you feel in general.


• Breathing harder also increases the amount of oxygen in your blood, which allows more oxygen to get to not only your muscles but you brain too, which helps your brain work better.


• It improves the efficiency of your lungs to be able to extract oxygen from the air you breathe. This is called your VO2 level. As this increases (your lungs become more efficient), your normal breathing patterns slow since you don't need to take in as much air to get the same amount of oxygen into your blood. This also makes your heart not have to work as hard so your heartrate will slow down.


• Increased oxygen in your bloodstream happens because when you are exercising and your muscles are demanding more oxygen than normal, your body responds by creating more red blood cells that can carry more oxygen through your body. This then improves your blood pressure as well as your body's ability to deliver oxygen to your muscles and your brain.


• Exercise makes your muscles work harder than they normally do, which breaks them down. This makes your muscles rebuild themselves to be stronger and more powerful than before.


• It puts a larger strain on your bones than normal, which makes them become more dense and therefore stronger, preventing osteoperosis, improving posture and strength.

Those are just the reasons that I know of myself with no medical education (besides a few books I've rented and read from the library in the past). But even these reasons should be enough to convince you that exercising is well worth the effort. Not only will you improve your health, but you'll feel better, have more energy, and your brain will work better too!

It may be difficult at first to make yourself start exercising on a regular basis. So what? Do it anway! After you have exrecised regularly a few times, it'll get easier. As you continue to exercise on a regular basis, you will notice that you feel better, have more energy, and it won't be as difficult to "make yourself" go exercise as it was in the beginning. Eventually, you will begin to look forward to exercising! I'm sure you know of at least one person who runs on a regular basis and says it's because they like it. This is a common phenominon. When you exercise regularly for a while, you get addicted to it. But that's okay because this is a good addiction (as long as you don't go overboard of course...as they say too much of any good thing can still be bad for you).

So go start exercising on a regular basis. If it's tough at first, stick to it anyway! You're worth it, and you will be very happy you did! And if you already exercise on a regular basis, then let me congratulate you for being awesome! Keep it up!!! =)

Goals

Almost every self improvement book, book on management or leadership, or other type of inspirational book talks about the importance of setting goals. If you don't set goals, you have nothing to shoot for and you won't know how you are doing in your progress to become the person you want to be and have the things you want to have. You won't know how much you have achieved already because you don't have the knowledge of having set and achieved a specific goal. And you won't know what you should be working toward because you don't have a clear picture of what you want to accomplish or obtain. So obviously setting goals is important and everyone knows it, but how many people actually do it? Do you? If not, start now! Grab a few pieces of paper and write down headings of 1 month, 1 year, 3 years, 5 years, 10 years, and 25 years. Then start with the 1 month section and set some goals for yourself for the next month. When you have a few of those, move on to the 1 year, 3 year, and so on. After you get all the way through the 25 year goals, read the 25 year goals again and figure out how you could break them down into smaller goals and put those down in the 10 year, 5 year, etc. sections. Then you will have a great set of goals to start focusing on. They don't have to be perfect, just do it - you can always refine them later.

Now if you do already have some goals written down, do you actually pay attention to them? Can you name them off the top of your head? How many of them are you close to achieving? What are you planning on doing next week to bring you closer to achieving some of them? You have to keep your goals (especially your short-term goals) in front of you constantly. If you do this, you will read them so many times, and think about them so much that you will think of new and better ways to reach them, and they will become more and more real to you which will help you achieve them faster!

There is a danger to living your life in a way that focuses too much on the achievement of goals though. If you only do things in order to achieve goals, you will miss out on all of the fun and opportunities for growth along the way. You will be a human doing instead of a human being.

It's important to set clear, measurable goals with deadlines for their realization so you know what to focus on, but you must always keep everything in perspective as well. Don't get caught up in doing only things that will help you achieve your goals, but definitely pay attention to your goals and plan on doing things each day or week that will bring you closer to achieving them. It's like everything else in life, you have to have a balance between living your life and enjoying it and setting, working towards, and achieving goals in order to become more successful. Enjoy the ride as you work toward your goals and it won't seem like work. If you always focus on what the next thing you need to do in order to achieve a particular goals is, then you will get stressed out, you won't enjoy the journey, and then when you reach that goal you won't be happy because after the initial sense of achievement wears off "you'll think is this all there is?"

So once again, set goals and make them goals that will help you become who you want to be, but don't live for your goals. Keep them in front of you so you read them at least once a day and work toward attaining them, but not to the point that you exclude other things (like spending time with your family, friends, or yourself). Goals are important, they can help you achieve amazing things and become a great person who is successful and happy as long as you use them as tools to help you focus on what's next instead of focusing on them as if they are all that matter. Don't make the goals your whole focus, just include them in your plans and use them to help you focus more specifically on what you need to do to grow and become more and more successful. If you make sure to enjoy the time and experiences you go through while working toward attaining your goals, then you will be a happy, successful person while you work towards achieving those goals, and even more so afterwords. Don't be a human doing,...be a human being. Be a success while working to become even more successful.