Learning to walk?

Talking with a friend the other day I mentioned that I had tried "this" and it had not worked, so I changed and tried "that". He said, "Oh yes, but remind me about your daughter falling down over and over as she learnt to walk".

Hum, persistence is necessary to get to your goal, but to recreate the same undesirable outcomes over and over is foolish. It is not always so clear whether we are repeating the same actions or when we are going through a learning experience.

Call the mechanic, or live with the rattle?

Are you going through your life - your work, knowing that something is not "right". If it was not about you, but instead a noise or a rattle in your car, would you have it fixed immediately?

When something is not right with us, we tend to say it is OK, it will go away. A lot of us do the same thing when something is not right with our bodies: we postpone and postpone going to see the mechanic (aka the doctor) until it becomes unbearable or a loved one (or boss) tells us that we are complaining too much, or even that we are not being productive in that state.

How deep are your programmes installed?

One of the things that makes the human being so fascinating is that it cannot be read like a book and known. Some parts are hidden, and we have to dig to uncover/discover what makes us function the way we do. Maybe because of this we also have different levels of understanding/knowing.

We can know how to drive a car by someone explaining to us the mechanics: press this pedal, push this stick, turn this wheel etc.. This would give us mental understanding. But it is quite another thing to have learnt how to drive so that we no longer consciously think about what to do, only where we are going and, maybe, how to say, "Please tell me where I can go to eat paella" in Spanish as we navigate the highway.

Many programmes that we live by are installed and we are not aware that they are there.

Try writing down, without stopping to think about it, how you would finish the following sentences (not more than four words):

Life is ______________________

My work is __________________

Money is ____________________

My health is __________________

Make sure that you have written down your answers, because we will come back to them next week. You will see then why we had the pause.

Can you change/improve any aspect of your life? Yes, of course: you have learnt to do many things like drive a car, that you do not even need to think about how to do it anymore, you just launch the programme.

What are the limits you are creating for yourself as to what you can learn to be or to do?

I work with people in business who want to do more with less - to make a greater contribution with less effort - to be more themselves with less holding them back.

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