The Recalibration Technique

Habits control every aspect of our entire lives. What time we wake up in the morning to what we consume daily to whether or not we binge eat those cookies are all governed by habits.

What is a habit?

A habit is a settled or regular tendency or practice, especially one that is hard to give up.

As we continually do the same activities every day, our brain becomes accustomed to the same stimulation. It forms strong neural connections, which makes the activity easier and easier to occur.

Eventually, our brain conducts itself automatically. It chooses to take the shortest, simplest path to immediate gratification.

Binge eating cookies is just an automatic habit because our brain knows we love cookies. Smoking cigarettes when we’re stressed are automatic patterns that our brains use because at one time we used cigarettes to cope with stress.

Building strong effective habits are the foundation for a stable healthy lifestyle. But today, we’re not going to focus on my unhealthy addiction to cookies or someone’s unhealthy coping mechanisms.

Instead, let’s talk about the Recalibration Technique

Everyone has goals and aspirations that they want to achieve. We have dreams that garner all our attention and energy but over time we dwindle, until our dream is left stranded.

But when was the last time we sat down and consciously thought and put purposeful energy towards our purpose?

From time to time it’s worthwhile to stop and take stock of our lives. But it seems we only do this practice towards the beginning or end of a year.

To deepen our understanding of our purpose we must first learn lessons from the past and move with purposeful action towards the future. We must continue to refocus our lives and slowly build clarity of our purpose.

The Recalibration Technique provides a framework to build focus and clarity. Through these two simple questions that we developed, we are able to recalibrate our minds when we falter.

1) Am I purposefully using my time and energy towards my dream?

With the constant hustle of life, it can be hard to focus on our purpose and ourselves. We get lost in the fast lane, as life passes us by.

We should ask ourselves this question to refocus our life and make small steps towards our passions. Aim to move towards your goal by just 1% each week.

If you want to write a book, write just one paragraph (or page) a day. If you want to paint a masterpiece, just do a few strokes a day. If you want to learn, sing, or act, just make some small moves by reading, humming or roleplaying every day.

Every day is a new day to move closer to your dreams. Use it appropriately.

Without a clear understanding of where our lives are heading and when we will achieve it, we are just wasting our most precious resource – energy.

2) Where can I expend less energy to spend more on my dream?

Everyday we are constantly bombarded with mind-numbing tasks. People want our energy and time and we allow them to steal it without batting an eyelash.

Refocus your spare time and energy towards your goal. Ask yourself where you frequently compromise your time. Where do you frequently consume negativity because you feel like you are stuck in a situation?

We are never stuck in any situation. We choose to be in the current situation through our mindsets and perceptions.

Which situation or action can we desist to pursue more purposeful actions towards our happiness and dream? When can we say a resounding ‘No’ to the negative energy, people and situations in our lives to pursue the positive counterparts?

Your choices and decisions make up whom you are. Chose them wisely.

Here is your mission if you choose to accept it:

Ask yourself these two simple questions once a week and slowly move towards once a day. Take some time, find a quiet spot and write or type your way through the answers.

The Recalibration Technique is intended to help you live with greater purpose and more passion. As the habit is solidified, your brain will constantly refocus your life and will take the shortest, easiest path towards it.

Until next time, my beautiful readers,

Be bold, be free and love on.

A Problem Person or A Solution Person?

Everyday we’re confronted by problems and challenges in varying degrees. They are seemingly endless. “My boss hates me! I can’t deal with Sally. I have no friends.”

With each passing day, more seem to arise, till they consume us. The only thing you crave is a breath of fresh air, as you desperately gasp.

Running away isn’t a permanent solution. You have to deal with them head on. You have the option between two different types of people.

Are You a Problem Person?

Unfortunately, the majority is this person. Sometimes, I’m this person. I focus on the problems and wallow in them, letting them consume me, till they affect everything.

Thoughts, feelings, and habits all go down the tubes, as I internally scream, ‘why me!’

This type of person is only concerned with one thing – when is the next problem going to arise? They expect more problems, and it’s almost like, they need the problems.

They need them to self-identify with a helpless self, with a vulnerable and weak self. Recently, I allowed my problems free reign over my thoughts. They ran like a broken record, over and over.

But I came out of it. How? I self-identified with a different kind of person.

Be a Solution Person

I sat down with my good friend, old-fashioned pen and paper. I jotted down my problems with little dashes beside them. I tried to come up with as many solutions as possible.

It took a very, very long time and most of them were unusable, far-fetched even. But there they were, on paper. After two hours and thirty-six ideas, one was decent enough to implement.

Be the person to seek actionable steps to your problems. Figure out a way to get yourself through your struggles. Internal and external problems can all be solved with conscious realization.

Confront your boss and ask what you can do better. If he still hates you, quit, find another job. Trying to satisfy someone who cannot be satisfied isn’t worth your sanity.

Is Sally really worth all the trouble she’s giving you? Maybe she’s a complaining acquaintance. Walk away. Maybe she’s a close friend or family. Walking away isn’t realistic. Limit contact. You don’t need the added negativity.

You don’t need friends to be happy. Find happiness in yourself. When you fix yourself, you can show everyone how amazing you are. Approach strangers, listen openly, ask questions, and be present in their lives. Help them first, and they will help you. Be their friend first, and they will be yours.

It is significantly harder to figure out solutions, than it is to wallow in your problems. But, with the prospect of retrieving control of your feelings and habits, it’s well worth the extra struggle.

Start the habit of creating solutions. It will be hard. It will take a very long time. But the more you do it, the easier it becomes. Eventually, you will be able to solve all your problems without struggling. You’ll be able to solve other peoples’ problems.

I’m not at that level yet. I still have to figure out all my problems. But I know if I practice enough, I can be a true solution person.

Be bold, be free, and love on.

DAILY AUTOMATIC PROGRESS

I’m not going to lie…

I’m lazy by nature. Left unchecked, I would never get anything done. I always had trouble handing in assignments at school, and I always look for corners to cut.

In recent years I have become very ambitious, which mixes with my lazy attitude like oil and water. I’ve learned that most people are lazy to some extent. It is human nature to want to experience the most amount of pleasure with the least amount of pain.

I have often created vast plans for achieving my goals, but they would only work in a fantasy reality. I imagine myself turning into some sort of robot overnight that can work twenty-four hours a day without eating, sleeping, or needing to relax.
But these plans never stand the test of time.

Eventually I give up, and feel ashamed.

Does the progression towards your goals have to be this hard all the time?
No, and I think I’ve figured it out.

Daily Automatic Developmental Habits

This is something that fellow HelpfulGuy Leroy Milton and I discuss quite a lot with each other and with the new year starting, we want to really delve into how to internalize these habits and which habits to pursue.

A daily automatic developmental habit is something you do every day that guarantees you will get closer to your dreams.

Unlike baseline habits—sleep, diet and exercise—these automatic developmental habits focus more on accomplishing repetitive tasks that support you in accomplishing your goals.

I’ll use myself as an example.

My dream is to become an expert in the field of personal development. I want to write books, engage in the self help community, coach people one-on-one, give speeches and learn as much as I can in my field.

The daily automatic developmental habits that I enact to support this vision are:

• Writing one page of content
• Reading for a minimum of thirty minutes while taking notes
• Engaging with someone in the community
• Sharing a 2HelpfulGuys article
• Coming up with ten ideas

Now, unless you have the memory of a goldfish you will be thinking to yourself “Wait, I thought he said he was lazy and took the easy way. That doesn’t sound easy to me.”

Well it can be, if you have the right approach.

Making Your Habits Automatic

In recent years the scientific community has discovered that your willpower is like a muscle, and you can only exert it so much before it needs time to recover.

When you first start trying to incorporate a new habit into your routine, it takes up a lot of your willpower.

After daily practice of your new habit for a period of time—some say twenty-one days, but I’ve also heard up to forty-five—your habit will cease to take up nearly as much willpower. This means that you won’t have to convince yourself to do it, it will just be natural.

This is where I always went wrong. This is why I found it so hard to get anything done.

I tried to incorporate too many habits at a time and didn’t internalize any of them.

Setting up your daily automatic developmental habits will be a long process, but I prefer long and stable over frustrating and short-lived.

No matter what you want to do with your life pick three daily habits that would guarantee you’d inch closer to your goals, and give yourself a month and a half to internalize each individually before incorporating the next.

After internalizing each habit they will become second nature to you, and you will be automatically progressing towards your goal every single day.

Live Like The Tortoise, Not The Hare

It is important that you become completely content with the idea of the long term, and taking it one step at a time. This is the only way to end up with automatic habits that transform your productivity.

Remember, I promised you automatic, not quick.

I love experimenting with different daily habits and seeing how they can improve my life.

It has taken me almost two years to get my habits in place and I’m still working on them, which is fine. Maybe I wouldn’t become a robot even if I could, because then I would cease to improve.

I’d rather be slow and stable, than to go Gung-ho and burn out before I get anywhere.

But this could all just be an excuse to take the long way around because, well…

I am lazy.

4 Steps For A Successful ‘New Year, New Me’ Mentality

Tomorrow is my birthday. I’ll be hitting twenty-four. Coincidentally, it’s also the New-Year. So today, I will be reflecting on my year of life. It has been an interesting journey.

A year ago, I didn’t have anything. This blog, the YouTube channel, all the lovely readers, the confidence, the support and love, were all missing from my life. I was a wandering soul, trying to figure out my purpose.

My conscious goal was to figure out my life and in March 2014, I found solace in helping people. With each article, I felt a sense of satisfaction. My purpose became clearer, more refined.

Starting a New Year is interesting for many reasons. Among the sea of ‘New Year, New Me’ people there are a few that prosper. My goal is to increase that few from a hypothetical 10 out of 100, to a hypothetical 90 out of 100. Reaching everyone is foolhardy, but I can definitely increase that number a little bit.

Here’s what I’m going to do tomorrow.

Scratch that. I’m starting today.

1) A New Habit

Aside from the core habits – sleep, diet and exercise – there are many others you can implement. I’m solidifying an older routine into my daily practice: 10-minute meditations.

We’ve talked about meditations in the past, but humor me for a second. Your brain is the central entity responsible for all your thoughts, feelings and actions. It is responsible for everything; consciously and unconsciously in your body, yet we allow no rest.

When was the last time you did nothing – no thinking, worrying, fiddling? Your answer, like mine, is probably never. You have 10 minutes a day to dedicate to nothing.

Set a timer and focus on breathing. The hardest thing isn’t finding the time, but sitting still for 10 long minutes. It will be hard, but the more you do, the more benefits you reap and the practice becomes easier.

2) Determining Your Landmarks

I’m already one semester closer to graduating. What seemed like an eternity in September has passed and April is on the horizon. Time has a way of rapidly passing if you don’t monitor it.

Today, consciously think about where you want to be in 1 month, 3 months, 6 months and 1 year. How do you want to feel physically, mentally, spiritually, and emotionally at those landmarks?

Decide the method you’re going to implement to feel that particular way. Write them down; post them somewhere visible, somewhere significant to you, as a reminder.

3) Live Fully Through Your Landmarks

Aim to improve insignificantly each day with your landmarks in the forefront of my mind. Improving yourself by 1% each day is insignificant, but that’s all you need.

Don’t try and climb your mountains everyday. Instead, take three steps and rest. At the end of year, you’ve improved 365% and you’re at the top of the mountain, well rested, stress free, and happy.

4) Reevaluate

Businesses release their results quarterly to show their progress, strengths and weaknesses and general hiccups. Become a major business. Every three months, revaluate your life.

The questions I ask myself:

• Have I been living congruently through my landmarks?
• Am I fulfilled with all aspects of my life? If yes, continue on your path. If no:
• What can I do to reevaluate and reinvigorate to achieve my next landmark?

Take time each quarter to assess your progress, your strengths and weaknesses and your hiccups. “Where am I faltering? Where can I improve? What is the biggest thing holding me back from achieving my goals?” are all questions you can ask yourself multiple times a year.

This year, like last year, will be tremendously different, if I allow it to be. If I implement this four-step method, I know I won’t be one of the ‘new year, new me’ people that fail and ponder what went wrong at the end of 2015. I hope you implement these methods and questions. If you do, 2015 will be your year.

Be bold, be free, and love on.

HOW TO MASTER JEDI MIND CONTROL

Over the last couple of years I have become fascinated with the idea that everything in your life is a result of what goes on in your mind.

If there are two twins that are the exact same in every way, except that one is relentlessly positive and the other is endlessly negative, their lives would be completely different.

They could encounter the exact same scenarios and obstacles but they would perceive them in different ways. The positive person would see them as a chance to grow, and the negative person would see them as evidence that you can never succeed.

With this in mind I am convinced that learning to skew your mind towards the positive and the useful is the best way to completely transform your life.

Here are the three steps to learning to control your mind like a Jedi.

1) Observe your thoughts.

In order to start controlling the endless chatter in your mind you first have to get rid of the idea that you are your thoughts.

We tend to think that the chatter in our mind is who we are and that is it, but that is just a part of who you are. You are your whole body from top to bottom and your entire subconscious, not just your conscious thoughts.

Now what you need to do is to step back from your thoughts and observe them. Start keeping track of when you are thinking negatively. The next time you find yourself upset, step back for a second and think “Wow, I have a lot of negative thoughts right now.”

Doing this will help you catch yourself in these useless reflexive thought cycles. Nothing good comes from beating yourself up or feeling sorry for yourself so the more you start to catch yourself, the quicker you can implement my next step.

2) Cancel your negative thoughts.

Now that you are starting to keep an eye on what you are thinking instead of just letting the chatter go on, you can start to pull yourself out of these habitual thought patterns.

Your brain doesn’t like using a lot of energy, so if you are a person who naturally reacts negatively, your mind will jump to that first because it is easy. Doing something outside of the norm requires conscious effort, something your brain would rather avoid.
Yeah, thanks evolution, we really appreciate that…

My favourite way to pull myself out of my bad habitual thought cycles is to use an “interrupt mantra.”

An interrupt mantra is something that you start repeating over and over once you realize that you are in one of these cycles. It will replace your useless thoughts with the exact opposite and more useful thoughts.

If you are someone who has problems with procrastination, once you realize that you are thinking “Man, I hate doing this work, I just want to relax and watch some Netflix” you have to switch to your interrupt mantra. It could be something like “I am energized and ready to take on anything. I’ll conquer this project with ease and energy to spare.”

Repeat that as many times in a row as you have to and after a while of canceling your negative thoughts, your mind will start to reflexively jump to the positive and more useful thoughts.

It only makes sense that your procrastination will naturally shrink when your reflexive thoughts are that of being energized and ready to conquer the obstacles ahead of you.

Interrupt mantras can work for any negative thoughts. If you have negative thoughts about your confidence interrupt them with “I am an amazing and confident person. I am going to start giving myself the credit I deserve.”

If you have problems with willpower interrupt those thoughts by saying “I have tons of willpower to spare. I am a strong person who can beat any temptation with ease.”

Rinse and repeat as many times as needed whether it be ten, twenty, or thirty times in a row.

3) Meditation.

This step isn’t required, but it will make the whole process ten times easier. When I started meditating I didn’t realize just how impactful it would be. I also didn’t realize how many of my favourite celebrities and great thinkers meditated.

Everyone from Arnold Schwarzenegger, to Katy Perry, to Oprah Winfrey and more credit meditation as a key part of their success and ability to stay balanced.

We could discuss meditation for hours, the spiritual aspects, the physical effects it has on the brain over time or even just the calming effect it can create instantly. But for now there is one plus side to meditation that I want to share with you.

It allows you to step back from your thoughts.

With the type of meditation I do the point is to focus on your breath so intensely that your thoughts cease. Now, during meditation you are sure to have thoughts pop into your head. In this case you just allow them to surface without analyzing them, and then get back to focusing on your breathing. If you get an itch on your leg, you feel it, but then immediately bring your attention back to your breath.

This will train you to be able to have a thought or emotion surface without allowing it to pull you into its rabbit hole. This way when something happens in your daily life that aggravates you, instead of stewing over it for hours and ruining your whole day you can step back and say “is this really a useful thing to focus on? Do these thought patterns improve my life in any way shape or form, or do they just serve to steal energy and happiness from me?”

Armed with this ability to step back and question these reflexive thoughts, you can truly start to control your mind and use it for your own self improvement.

A quote that has been repeated by many of the great minds of the world, and is very close to my heart is: “The mind is a wonderful servant, but a terrible master.”

This quote perfectly explains the two different relationships you can have with your mind.

Either you control it, or it controls you. The decision is yours.

With love
Steven Farquharson, 2HelpfulGuys