Blaming Others

How often do you look to blame others for something that has gone wrong in your life?

Perhaps it was someone elses fault that you dropped your bag, that you had an argument, that you forgot your keys. Whatever it is, by blaming others you put yourself in a weak position. You ignore the part you play and you give other people control of your life. By blaming others you put them in a position where their emotions or actions are more important than yours, because you let them influence you.

Why would you do this?

In NLP this is often referred to as being on the effect side of life, which is where things happen to us and they are out of our control. But why would you choose to live your life like this? Why would you want to not have control over your emotions, over your actions and over your responses?

It is important to remember that we always have choices, we can always act differently, we can always do something in another manner or way, we can always take responsibility for the way we assess a situation and adjust our behaviour to put us more in control.

By taking charge of our life in this manner we are putting ourself in the cause side of life and by being on this side we recognise that by being flexible in our behaviour we can achieve more of what we want. We don’t overreact, we assess a situation fully, accept other peoples behaviour as being an accumulation of events that are happening in their lives and we become more flexible.

At the end of the day the people that are the most adaptive or flexible will always win out. They will recognise that they can achieve more by reading a situation better, not flying off the handle, not blaming others. They can learn from each situation they find themselves in and they can adapt their behaviour accordingly.

So next time you find yourself in a position where you start to blame others, think how you could do that response differently. Think about WHY the other person could be being annoying, have compassion, put yourself in control of your emotions and take responsibility for the situation. By doing this, you will achieve more and achieve higher levels of happiness.

Change

Change

To some this word can paralyze them to the spot. It can turn their blood cold with fear, lead them to have panic attacks, perhaps even cause depression.

But what is there in this word. It is merely a label for something that we all experience day in, day out, without ever really thinking about it.

We change all of the time, without exception, we move, we breathe, we change constantly.

But what is there to fear?

Is everything that change brings always going to be bad?

Part of the problem is that we move towards negative interpretations more quickly that towards the positive ones in life. We see change as a change in the status quo. We live as creatures of habit that grow comfortable in our surroundings and our lives. But yet harbor frustrations that we want more and search for new meaning. We resist change, yet grow frustrated by our lack of it.

We see new products placed in front of us that we believe will alter our lives for the better, then leave them in the cupboard for months on end. We join gyms in order to get fit, but never go. We desire improvement, but yet take no steps further than planning what we could do. We feel better after we have got something off our chest but then do not do anything about it. The problem is not the product not doing its job, the gym not making you fit, it is the psychology of change that limits us. We actively decide not to do the things we want!

We limit ourselves, our capabilities and our futures in a world of infinite possibility this seems remarkable. We can shape our future, we can move towards the things we want. But only if we allow ourselves the opportunity to enter into the flow of change, to be in the moment, to recognize our potential, to embrace it and to accept our possibilities.

This is an incredibly powerful thought.

But we have to be clear about what we want and we have to be clearer about how we move towards it.

Spring is about making positive change and positive change can happen quickly, if you want it to.

If we take the time to stop and look around us things change, things grow, things die, there is inevitability in life and the universe that surrounds us. There is also inevitability about what we choose, if we embrace it in our lives.