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What You Study Is What You Get
If you like this article:
Are you so busy maintaining the status quo that you never get to the "real projects"?
Do you feel disconnected from yourself – like the real you is not on the scene?
Are your moods out of control?
Is your energy dragging?
Would you like something different to be happening in your life but don’t know where to begin?
If you answered "yes" to any of the above this article is for you.
"The great end of life is not
knowledge, but action."
- Aldous Huxley
Change. Can’t live with it. Can’t live without it. Change is not a haphazard process. It has a reliable structure with predictable stages and phases.
But many of us approach change as if it were some mysterious process imposed on us by unknown outside forces. We struggle, resist, and fortify our arsenal against the inevitable changes all around us.
Others of us brush up lightly against change hoping that mere wishful thinking will grant us a reprieve from the change process and gently set us down amidst our desired results.
Change is neither mysterious nor fickel. One truth stands out amongst all of the gossip about change – Where you put your attention is where the change process takes you.
What you study is what you get.
Most of us have had the experience of wanting to obtain a desired result and seeing it slip repeatedly through our fingers.
The most frustrating part of change is watching good intentions fade away and old habits win the day. Perhaps you want to give up junk food and eat a better diet. So you buy nutrition books, restock your pantries with real food but 2 weeks later you are at McDonald’s one last time - again.
There is a simple process that is well documented to bring about your desired change results – Keep a Daily Update of the change efforts you make to bring about your desired results.
It is well known that people who keep a food dairy – writing down what they eat every day - are far more successful in making dietary changes than people who do not keep a food dairy.
Write down every day what you do, analyze it and see how closely it matches up with your intentions. Reflect on it and begin to understand your process. Set and reset your strategies, goals, plans and actions.
This is the stuff of self-mastery. This is the stuff of successfully obtaining your desired results. What you study is what you get.
Sometimes when people are asked to do this, it is as if they have been asked to turn into a zebra. The most common excuse for not writing a Daily Update is that there is no time. Lives are already overfull. The plea is put forth for understanding their life – just no time for writing a Daily Update. Isn’t there something better suited for their busy lifestyle?
True, writing the Daily Update takes time and attention, but that is not the problem. The problem is that there is not 20-60 minutes in the day to devote to the study of the results that are wanted. No time to slow down and look at what we are really doing to see if it actually has any connection to what we want to have happen in our lives. Writing the Daily Update becomes the vehicle for revealing this.
Engage in review, study, contemplation, reflection, and analysis. Avoid being whipped around by whatever demands and circumstances come up. Take back a bit of your time and get in control of your own change process. Writing Daily Updates is a proven method to help you reach self-mastery regarding the changes you wish to make in your life.
"Many people make a career
out of having the same insights over and over again but not really acting
on them. Once you have emotional clarity, you are responsible for taking
action. Following your heart is a two-part process. Part one is getting
the insight or intelligence. Part two is anchoring and doing."
-Doc Childre, Transforming Stress
Daily Updates Primer
Here is a step by step guideline for using Daily Updates to support your change efforts:
1. Choose an intention – something you really want to bring into your life.
2. Develop a strategy or a plan for doing this – Do this on your own or get help from a coach, friend, therapist, or health care provider.
3. Break the plan down into simple, doable goals and steps.
4. Start a Daily Update that tracks your actions and choices based on your plan for change.
Be truthful and honest with yourself about what you did and what you did not do. Let the update be a reflection of the facts – not what you wished would have happened or all the things that got in your way.
Just state the facts.
You will soon notice that the Daily Update is more than an accountability system. It becomes a means of support as it keeps your focus on your intention. Plus, it highlights your accomplishments.
The real power of the Daily Update lies in its ability to act as a vechicle to help you get to know yourself and your own change process.
Daily Updates are not about doing everything right. Writing a daily update is about understanding yourself better and gaining insight into how you are taking the journey to self-mastery. Writing a Daily update helps you to understand your personal process day by day as reflected in your daily agenda – your daily actions and choices.
You may get discouraged because you just never get out that door to exercise. That is part of the change process. But one day you REALIZE that the only thing to do is to take corrective action. That insight highlights the action that will bring you so much closer to being where you want to be and having the kind of experience you want to have day by day.
Insight becomes merged with action and action then fosters more insight.
Here are some questions that you can use as a guideline for better understanding of what is being reflected in your Daily Update. Never use a Daily update to beat yourself up. Always use it to leverage your self-mastery.
- How aligned are my actions and choices with my intentions?
- Is this what I really want?
- What is working?
- What is not working?
- What are my weaknesses and how can I develop a support or compensatory system to buffer any negative effects of my weakness?
- Am I doing anything to sabotage my change efforts?
- Do I want to keep doing this or do I want to go for something different?
- What are my strengths?
- How can I use my strenghts more fully and more to my advantage?
- Where am I in the process?
- What kind of support do I need?
- Am I keeping pace with the natural rhythms?
- What is the appropriate action to take now?
'The secret of a person's success
is discovered in their daily agenda"
-John C Maxwell
Easier to be a Zebra?
Ask me about how coaching can help you leverage the power of Daily Updates to foster significant and meaningful change. Contact me and let’s talk about your situation and what you need. Call 434-263-4669 or e-mail,
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Related Information: Discovering and Nourishing Your Personal Strengths
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© Copyright 1997 - 2008 by Mary Ann Copson and Evenstar. All rights reserved.
About the Author:
Mary Ann Copson is the founder of the Evenstar Mood & Energy Wellness Center for Women. With Master's Degrees in Human Development and Psychology and Counseling, Mary Ann is a Certified Licensed Nutritionist; Certified Holistic Health Practitioner; Brain Chemistry Profile Clinician; and a Health, Wellness and Lifestyle Coach. Reconnect to your physical, emotional, mental, psychological and spiritual natural rhythms at
http://evenstaronline.com
